"It is exquisitely beautiful," he said, with a queer catch in his voice. "How vividly it recalls Tennyson's line--'a haunt of ancient peace.' I am trying to make due allowances for your feelings, Miss Dashwood. If I had been brought up here, my views might be the same as yours. I love old houses."
Mary smiled one of her rare tender smiles. Darnley's eulogy touched her. She led the way through a great flagged hall, the walls of which were a perfect dream of carving; from their frames dead and gone Dashwoods looked down. There was oak carving everywhere, the ceilings were panelled, in the stained glass windows masses of flowers stood. Ralph would have stopped to admire it all, but Mary hurried him on.
"We will go into the breakfast-parlour," she said. "Then I will endeavour to show you that I can be useful as well as ornamental. Excuse me one moment--I must get rid of these torn gloves. Ring the bell, please, for Slight, the butler, and ask him for warm water and towels."
Ralph laid his hand on the bell as Mary flitted away. The old butler came presently, a thin little man, pink and white, the embodiment of what an old servant should be. Ralph gave his directions clearly enough, but the man stood there shaking from head to foot. There was joy and terror and amazement on his face; the tears gathered in his rheumy eyes.
"Mr. Ralph!" he whispered, "Mr. Ralph come back from the grave! Come back after all these years! What will the master say if he knows? I'm dreaming, that's what is the matter; I've gone off my head or I'm dreaming. And after forty years!"
The speaker came forward tremblingly and touched Ralph's hand. Apparently the contact with warm flesh and blood reassured him, for the pink apple bloom came back to his cheek.
"The same and yet not the same," he went on. "Stands to reason as forty years must make a deal of difference. But you are Mr. Ralph over again all the same. I loved him, sir. I mourned for him like a child of my own. I taught him to ride; I taught him to use a gun. I had to stand between him and Sir Ralph when the crash came. And you are his son as sure as there is a Heaven above us."
"Not quite so loud," Ralph said. "Pull yourself together, Slight. I take it you are old Slight about whom my father talked so often. He did not forget you, Slight. On his deathbed he gave me a message for you."
"And so my dear Mr. Ralph is dead. Dear, dear. What shall I call you, sir?"
"You are to call me nothing for the present," Ralph said. "I am Mr. Darnley, Slight, and you are to be discreet and silent. I had quite left you out of my calculation when I came here today; in fact, I had forgotten all about you. It never occurred to me that you would discover the likeness to what my father was forty years ago. I will ask you to meet me this evening, say, at half-past ten at the lodge-gates, for I have much to say to you."