"This isn't the regular drawing-room, you know," his host explained. "I like space, but there is a little too much of it in that great room—you must have a look at it to-morrow. I don't care to sit by my fireside and see Barbara at her piano across an acre or two of carpet. To my mind this is big enough for two or three people."
"Quite," said Reynold.
"The yellow drawing-room they called this," the other continued.
The young man glanced round. The room was lofty and large enough for more than the two or three people of whom Mr. Hayes had spoken. But for the ruddy firelight it might have looked cold, with its cream-white walls, its rather scanty furniture, and the yellow of its curtains and chairs faded to a dim tawny hue. But the liberal warmth and light of the blazing pile on the hearth irradiated it to the furthest corner, and filled it with wavering brightness.
"It's all exactly as it was in your uncle's time," said Mr. Hayes. "When he could not go on any longer, Croft took the whole thing just as it stood, with all the old furniture. But for that I would not have come here."
"All the charm would have been lost, wouldn't it?" said Barbara.
"The charm—yes. Besides, one had need be a millionnaire to do anything with such a great empty shell. I suspect a millionnaire would find plenty to do here as it is."
"I suppose it had been neglected for a long while?" Reynold questioned with his hard utterance.
Mr. Hayes nodded, arching his brows.
"Thirty or forty years. Everything allowed to go to rack and ruin. By Jove, sir, your people must have built well, and furnished well, for things to look as they do. Well, they shall stay as they are while I am here; I'll keep the wind and the rain out of the old house, but I can do no more, and I wouldn't if I could. And when I'm gone, Croft, or whoever is master then, must see to it."