Adhering in all things to the rule that Sunday was not as other days, she had her library of sacred music apart from other volumes, and it was sacred music only which she played on Sundays. Her répertoire was large, and she roamed at will among the classic masters of the last two hundred years, but for sacred music Bach and Mozart were her favourites.
She was playing a Gloria by the latter composer when she heard a carriage drive past the windows, and looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of a profile that startled her with a sudden sense of strangeness and familiarity. The carriage was a light T-cart, driven by a groom in the Hillersdon livery.
A visitor from Riverdale was a novelty, for, although George Greswold and Tom Hillersdon were friendly in the hunting-field, Riverdale and the Manor were not on visiting terms. The visit was for her husband, Mildred concluded, and she went on playing.
The door was opened by the new footman, who announced “Mr. Castellani.”
Mrs. Greswold rose from the piano to find herself face to face with the man whose countenance, seen in the distance, in the light of the east window, had reminded her of Judas. Seen as she saw him now, in the softer light of the afternoon, standing before her with a deprecating air in her own drawing-room, the stranger looked altogether different, and she thought he had a pleasing expression.
He was tall and slim, well dressed in a subdued metropolitan style; and he had an air of distinction and elegance which would have marked him anywhere as a creature apart from the common herd. It was not an English manner. There was a supple grace in his movements which suggested a Southern origin. There was a pleading look in the full brown eyes which suggested an emotional temperament.
“An Italian, no doubt,” thought Mildred, taking this Southern gracefulness in conjunction with the Southern name.
She wondered on what pretence this stranger had called, and what could be his motive for coming.
“Mrs. Greswold, I have to apologise humbly for presenting myself without having first sent you my credentials and waited for your permission to call,” he said, in very perfect English, with only the slightest Milanese accent; and then he handed Mrs. Greswold an unsealed letter, which he had taken from his breast-pocket.
She glanced at it hastily, not a little embarrassed by the situation. The letter was from an intimate friend, an amateur littérateur, who wrote graceful sonnets and gave pleasant parties: