"If it were not for your smoking-room, or drawing-room, or whatever you may be pleased to call it, your house would be obviously Philistine," said Lady Emily; "but that is a really fine room, and there are some pretty things in it."
"Some pretty things? Yes, there are a few," answered Allan, laughing at her tone of patronage. "I was offered five hundred pounds for that piece of tapestry which hangs in front of the conservatory doors by a man who thinks himself a judge of such things. The room is full of treasures from the Summer Palace."
"My brother must have looted in a most audacious manner!"
"No, he bought the things afterwards—mostly from the French sailors, who were licensed to steal or destroy. I believe the bronzes, and porcelain, and ivories, and embroideries that the admiral bought for a few hundreds are worth as many thousands. But there they are, and I must be very hard up before I disturb them."
Allan called upon Mrs. Mornington the day after his mother's departure, and was lucky enough to find that lady at home and alone.
She was sitting in her verandah, sewing, with a large basket of plain work on the ground beside her, and her scissors and other implements on a wicker-table in front of her. She had a trellis covered with climbing roses for a background, and a sunny lawn, a sunk fence, and a paddock dotted with Jersey cows for her outlook.
"I'm at work for the Guild," she said, apologetically, after shaking hands with Allan, and she went on herring-boning a flannel waistcoat; a waistcoat of that stout flannel which is supposed to have a kind of affinity with the skin of the agricultural labourer, although it can be worn comfortably by no other class.
Allan knew nothing about the Guild, but was accustomed to see Mrs. Mornington's superfluous energy expending itself in some kind of needlework. He seated himself in the comfortable armchair to which she invited him, and prepared himself for a long talk.
Of course he could not begin at once upon the subject of Mrs. Wornock. That would have to be introduced casually. He talked about his mother, and her regret at not having been able to stay till the following week, when Mrs. Mornington was to give a small dance, to which Lady Emily and her son had been invited.