"And this lady?" asked Hawke, pointing to a large portrait of a slim, dark beauty, dressed in white, and wearing a cluster of yellow roses at her waist line.
"That's my mother." Herb lowered his voice a little as he answered. "She died when I was a little tad, yuh know."
"A very beautiful woman," said Mr. Hawke, quickly passing on to spare Herb's feelings. "And this man looks like your father."
"That was painted a long time ago," said Herb.
"It looks like you now," put in Jerry, who had been inspecting the same painting, while the other boys walked up and down the halls and made an interested examination of the many large oils which lined the walls.
"This is father's sister, who used to keep house for us. She died a few years ago. Then we got Hop Sing."
There was, then, Hawke reflected, no woman in this immaculately-kept house, where there seemed to be so many evidences of the feminine touch. The rough rancher, it seemed, had that strain of tenderness so often found in outwardly brusque men, which expressed itself in his home.
"This is just the way the house down South looked when mother died," said Herb, as if in answer to the visitor's thoughts. "Dad never wants anything changed. Even her room is the same, and no one ever sleeps in it. One night we had so many visitors we thought we'd have to use it or be rude, but father slept in the herder's cottage instead. You'll always find a bunch of yellow tea roses in her room—she was very fond of them, and father grows them himself in the greenhouse."
Herb shook his head back with a sudden jerk, as though shaking off a painful twinge, and passed on to some relics which were hung in the next room.
"This is General Dupont's sword, and a medal which Napoleon gave him for his services."