II
"You look tired—I will take you up to your room. Vicky has so many on her hands."
The American rose slowly, but with a flash of gratitude in her eyes.
"I am tired, and I don't know a soul here. I almost wish Lady Victoria had not asked me down, although I have wanted all my life to visit one of the ancestral homes of England."
"Oh, you'll get over that, and used to us," said Miss Thangue, smiling. "Your staircase is behind this door, and we can slip out without attracting attention. They are all gabbling over Jack's election."
She opened a door in a corner of the hall where the newly arrived guests were gathered about Lady Victoria's tea-table, and led the way up a wide dark and slippery stair. After the first landing the light was stronger, and the walls were, to an inch, covered with portraits and landscapes, the effect almost as careless as if the big open space were a lumber-room.
"Are they all old masters?" asked Miss Isabel Otis, politely, her eyes roving over the dark canvases.
"Oh no; the masters are down-stairs. I'll show them to you to-morrow. These are not bad, though."
"What a lot of ancestors to have!"
"Oh, you'll find them all over the house. These are not Gwynnes. This house came to Lord Strathland through the female line. It will be Jack's eventually—one way or another; and Jack must be more like the Eltons than the Gwynnes—unless, indeed, he is like his American ancestors." She turned her soft non-committal eyes on the stranger. "You are his thirty-first cousin, are you not?"