“Yes,” she said loftily, “you can show us.”
Mr. Hapgood was a person of wide experience; however, he merely bowed and led the way. Serena followed him, and Captain Dan followed Serena.
A large drawing-room, a library, a very large dining-room, five large bedrooms—“owners' and guest rooms,” Mr. Hapgood grandly termed them, to distinguish from the servants' quarters at the rear—billiard room, bathroom, and back to the hall again.
“You would wish to see the kitchens, I suppose, ma'am,” said Mr. Hapgood. “Doubtless Mr. Dott wouldn't care for those, sir. Most gentlemen don't. Perhaps, sir, you'd sit 'ere while the lady and I go through the service portion of the 'ouse, sir.”
Daniel, who was rather curious to see the “service portion,” partly because he had never heard of one before, hesitated. His wife, however, settled the question. She was conscious of a certain condescension in the Hapgood tone.
“Of course,” she said lightly, “Cap'n Dott will not go to the—er—service portion. Such things never interest him. Sit here, Daniel, and wait. Now—” cutting off just in time the “Mister” that was on the tip of her tongue and remembering how butlers in novels were invariably addressed—“Now—er—Hapgood, you can take me to the—ahem—kitchens.”
It was somewhat disappointing to find that the plural was merely a bit of verbal embroidery on the caretaking butler's part, and that there was but one kitchen, situated in the basement. However, it was of good size and well furnished with closets, the contents of which stirred Serena's housekeeping curiosity. The inspection of the kitchen and laundry took some time.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the dim front hall, Captain Dan sat upon a most uncomfortable carved teak-wood chair and looked about him. Through the doorway leading to the drawing-room—“front parlor,” he would have called it—he could see the ebony grand piano, the ormolu clock, and the bronze statuettes on the marble mantel, the buhl cabinet filled with bric-a-brac, the heavy mahogany-framed and silk-covered sofa. There were oil paintings on the walls, paintings which foreign dealers, recognizing Aunt Lavinia's art craving as a gift of Providence—to them—had sold her at high prices. They were, for the most part, landscapes, inclining strongly to snow-covered mountains, babbling brooks, and cows; or marines in which one-third of vivid sunset illumined two-thirds of placid sea. Of portraits there were two, Uncle Jim Dott in black broadcloth and dignity and Aunt Lavinia Dott in dignity and black satin.
Captain Dan felt strangely out of place alone amid this oppressive grandeur. Again, as on the memorable occasion of his first visit to the house, he was conscious of his hands and feet. Aunt Lavinia's likeness, staring stonily and paintily from the wall, seemed to regard him with disapproval, almost as if she were reading his thoughts. If the portrait could have spoken he might have expected it to say: “Here is the person upon whom all these, my worldly possessions, have been bestowed, and he does not appreciate them. There he sits, upon the teakwood chair which I myself bought in Cairo, and, so far from being grateful for the gifts which my generosity has poured into his lap, he is wondering what in the world to do with them, and wishing himself back in Trumet.”
Mrs. Dott and the caretaker reentered the hall.