“I scarcely know myself,” said Alan candidly, “but I certainly do.”
By this time—walking demurely apart in case Mr. Sorley should be awake and on the watch—they had entered the house, to find themselves in a large and chilly hall, with a black and white pavement and marble busts of the Cæsars set round about it close to the walls. No rosy glow came from the old-fashioned fireplace, since Mr. Sorley deemed it waste of coal to heat such a mausoleum; so, with a shiver, the two crossed into the library, which was at the end of a lordly corridor to the right.
“There’s a fire here,” said Marie as they entered, “it’s Uncle Ran’s favorite room, and you can trust him to make himself comfortable, even if he has to pay for it.”
“Then he can’t be a genuine miser,” remarked Fuller, walking towards the fire, which was a tolerably good one; “they starve themselves in every way, my dear, and—oh, I beg your pardon.”
This last was addressed to a small elderly woman who suddenly rose from a deep grandfather’s chair which looked like a sentry-box. She had sandy hair smoothly plastered down on either side of a sallow, wrinkled face; also thin, firmly compressed lips and hard blue eyes, staring and unwinking. Her figure was lean, her waist was pinched in, and her shoulders were so sloping that the worn black velvet cloak she wore would have slipped off had it not been firmly fastened down the front with large buttons of cut jet. As the cloak was down to her very heels, the dress she had on could not be seen, but her head was adorned with an early Victorian bonnet and her thin hands were covered with drab thread gloves. She had crape on her bonnet, and crape round her neck, but it did not need this evidence of mourning to assure Fuller that he beheld the sister of the dead man, since he remembered Dick’s description fairly well.
“Miss Grison,” said Marie, coming forward when she heard her lover’s speech and offering her hand. “I heard you were down here.”
Miss Grison took the hand, gave it a limp shake and dropped it. “Thank you, my dear,” she said in a cold, precise voice. “I came down for my brother’s funeral. He always wished to rest in Belstone churchyard and have the service read over his remains by Mr. Fuller, so I felt it was only due to his memory to do what he desired.”
“This is Mr. Fuller’s son,” said Marie, introducing Alan.
“How do you do,” said the visitor, still coldly. “I remember you years ago as a little boy with bare legs and a pinafore. You have grown since then.”
“It is impossible to have bare legs and a pinafore at twenty-seven,” said Alan, not knowing if she was laughing at him.