CHAPTER XI.
ANOTHER UNEXPECTED VISITOR APPEARS AT BARTON HALL.
The drawing-room, library, and dining-room at Barton Hall were upon the ground-floor, en suite. They had their several and separate entrances from the hall and corridor beyond; and at the same time had communications with each other from within.
The library was the centre apartment, with the dining and drawing-room on either hand; so that, two doors being open, you could walk in a direct line from one end of the suite of rooms to the other; and a delightful walk it was, lit up by seven or eight magnificent bay-windows, from each of which there were glorious views of the Berne Hills.
The little party which entered the house at the close of our last chapter, having lunched, adjourned into the library, where the window opening from the ground was thrown up, in order that Mr. Richard Tallant might sit just within and smoke one more cigar.
Miss Somerton strolled into the next room, and sat down to the piano, letting her fingers wander dreamily over the keys.
Where he sat Mr. Tallant had, through the open doorway, a side-view of her beautiful head; and feelings of disappointment, jealousy, admiration, and annoyance, successively took possession of him as he smoked, and looked, and listened.
Mr. Phillips was absorbed in the examination of some new illustrated books which Mr. Christopher Tallant had sent from town for Phœbe, who must have the artist’s opinion about them.
The artist talked about high art, ideality, and poetic licence. He thought certain Dante pictures too literal in their interpretation of the horrors of the “Inferno,” and he called some of the sketches morbid and sensational. He was in raptures with half-a-dozen pictures in a work of fairy fiction; but he was thinking all the while a great deal more of Phœbe’s beauty than of anything else.
Mr. Richard Tallant could not help noticing the remarkable contrast between the artist and his sister as they stood together looking at the new books.
The fair spirituelle face of the woman set in that sunny halo of soft brown hair; and the sharp and highly intellectual features of the artist intensified by the long black hair which fell upon the somewhat rounded shoulders.