She was the slenderest thing, with about her the pliant, delicate grace of a harebell. Ash-blonde hair, so fair that in some lights it looked silver rather than gold, framed the charming Greuze face. Only it was not quite a Greuze, Jean reflected. There was too much character in it—a certain gentle firmness, something curiously still and patient in the closing of the curved lips, and a deeper appeal than that of mere wondering youth in the gentian-blue eyes. They were woman’s eyes, eyes out of which no weeping could quite wash the wistfulness of some past or present sorrow.
“So you are one of the Charnwood Petersons?” said Lady Latimer in her soft, pretty voice. “You won’t like me, I’m afraid”—smiling—“I’m living in your old home.”
“Oh, Jean won’t quarrel with you over that,” put in Nick. “She’s got a splendacious castle all her own somewhere in the wilds of Europe.”
“Yes. Beirnfels is really my home. I’ve never even seen Charnwood,” smiled Jean. “But I should like to—some day, if you will ask me over.”
“Oh, yes, certainly you must come,” replied Lady Latimer a little breathlessly. But she seemed unaccountably flurried, as though Jean’s suggestion in some way disquieted her. “But of course, Charnwood—now—isn’t a bit like what it must have been when the Petersons had it. I think a place changes with the people who inhabit it, don’t you? I mean, their influence impresses itself on it. If they are good and happy people, you can feel it in the atmosphere of the place, and if they are people with bad and wicked thoughts, you feel that, too. I know I do.” And there was no doubt in the mind of either of her hearers that she was referring to the last-named set of influences.
“But I think Charnwood must be lovely, since it’s your home now,” said Jean sincerely.
“Oh, yes—of course—it is my home now.” Lady Latimer looked troubled. “But other people live—have lived there. It’s changed hands several times, hasn’t it, Nick?”—turning to him for confirmation.
Nick was frowning. He, too, appeared troubled.
“Of course it’s changed hands—heaps of times,” he replied gruffly. “But I should think your influence would be enough to counteract that of—of everybody else. Look here, chuck discussing rotten, psychic influences, Claire, and come on the ice.”
“No, I can’t,” she replied hastily. “I haven’t my skates here.”