"Father, eh? Well—" His eyes rose from the drawings, ranged along the top of the couch, to the portrait of Ewing's mother, hung between the two windows, and the speech died on his lips. He stepped back, bit into a reserve slice of bread and waved an inquiring chicken bone toward the picture.
"My mother," explained Ewing. "My father painted it."
Sydenham's jaw fell, and looking again at the portrait he muttered some low, swift phrase of bewilderment. Ewing waited for him to speak, but the old man only stared.
"It has good color, don't you think?" he ventured at last, but even the mention of color could not move Sydenham to speech. He absently consumed the remainder of his food and flicked crumbs from his frayed jacket.
"You look like her," he said at last, with so much the air of speaking to himself that Ewing made no answer. He moved toward the door with bowed head. At the threshold he looked back at Ewing a brief moment, then went out, closing the door softly behind him.
Ewing decided that his neighbor was a curious old man. Recalling other curious people he had met in this strange new world, he was reminded of the lady who had urged him to call on her. He was still ready to believe that anyone might wish to talk to him, or to hear him talk. But in spite of this, the old lady had been queer. From the table he picked up the card she had given him, studying the name and wondering what they might talk about.
He was still feeling this mild wonder when he rang the lady's bell at five o'clock.
CHAPTER XV
FLESH OF HER FLESH
TWO persons had waited for Ewing. Mrs. Lowndes was one of them, sitting forward in her chair and braced on its arms, though her head dropped now and then in forgetfulness. The other was a big, shambling old man, a dark man gone gray, his face needing the kindly, yellowish-brown eyes to save it from sternness. His thickets of eyebrows were joined in a half-humorous scowl of perplexity.