A moment later the door which led from the studio to the little vestibule opened, and Sally announced:
“Mr. Kirby and Mr. Oldfield.”
Miss Mason’s heart fluttered. It is an odd emotion, and now nearly out of fashion. It belonged to the days of “Cranford,” “Evelina,” and “Sense and Sensibility.” Now all emotions are big and passionate, or calm and well-controlled. There are few gentle excitements left.
In spite of the fluttering, Miss Mason rose to her feet, a quiet dignified old figure.
“I am very pleased to see you,” she said, and she gave them each her hand with the air of a queen. “Sally,” she said, “bring tea.”
She sat down again. There was a little pink flush in her cheeks. For forty-three years she had spoken to no man of her own class except the vicar and doctor. The interview with Mr. Davis being purely on business did not count.
Barnabas and Dan put their caps on the oak chest beside the Sèvres bowl which was filled with the pink roses with whose portraiture Miss Mason had so sadly failed. Then they sat down.
There was a moment’s pause. Even Barnabas’ mental picture of Miss Mason—a picture supplied by Sally’s unconscious imitation of her—had not quite come up to the quaintness of the reality. He felt that he had suddenly stepped back at least a century. There was about the atmosphere a hint of potpourri and long ago half-forgotten days that are laid up in lavender. There was a completeness about the whole thing—from the oak dresser with its blue plates, the Sèvres bowl and the pink roses, to the woman in her voluminous black dress, wide white collar, and abundant grey hair covered with the finest of old lace caps—a completeness that only an artist could fully realize, though most people would have felt.
She was so extraordinarily ugly too. No ordinary commonplace plainness of feature, but downright ugliness, yet without the smallest trace of repulsiveness in it. It was a fascinating kind of ugliness, and the eyes in the ugly face—they alone were really beautiful—shone like bits of red-brown amber. It is a colour rarely seen.
Barnabas broke the silence.