Sir Philip, who was sitting near the window, looking on rather listlessly, cried—
"What a handsome face!"
It was a handsome face—a bright young face, which smiled haughty defiance at the world—a splendid face, with perhaps a shade of insolence in the curve of the upper lip, sharply defined under a thick auburn moustache, with pointed ends that curled fiercely upwards. It was such a face as might have belonged to the favourite of a powerful king; the face of the Cinq Mars, on the very summit of his giddy eminence, with a hundred pairs of boots in his dressing-room, and quiet Cardinal Richelieu watching silently for the day of his doom. English Buckingham may have worn the same insolent smile upon his lips, the same bright triumph in his glance, when he walked up to the throne of Louis the Just, with the pearls and diamonds dropping from his garments as he went along, and with forbidden love beaming on him out of Austrian Anne's blue eyes. It was such a face as could only belong to some high favourite of fortune, defiant of all mankind in the consciousness of his own supreme advantages.
But Laura Jocelyn shook her head as she looked at the picture.
"I begin to despair of finding my father's portrait," she said; "I have seen nothing at all like it yet."
The old man lifted up his bony hand, and pointed to the picture on the easel.
"That's the best thing I ever did," he said, "the very best thing I ever did. It was exhibited in the Academy six-and-thirty years ago—yes, by gad, sir, six-and-thirty years ago! and the papers mentioned it very favourably, sir; but the man who commissioned it, sent it back to me for alteration. The expression of the face didn't please him; but he paid me two hundred guineas for the picture, so I had no reason to complain; and if I'd remained in England, the connection might have been advantageous to me; for they were rich city people, sir—enormously wealthy—something in the banking-line, and the name, the name—let me see—let me see!"
The old man tapped his forehead thoughtfully.
"I remember," he added presently: "it was a great name in the City—it was a well-known name—Dun—Dunbar—Dunbar."
"Why, father, that was the very name I was asking you about, half an hour ago!"