“He is not living, is he?” asked Mr. Bonstone in an almost inaudible voice.
“No,” she said with a side glance at him. “He died some years ago. We don’t know whether he left any children.”
“Good-bye,” said Mr. Bonstone, and he held out his hand.
“Good-bye,” she said calmly, but their eyes met, and he grew a furious red.
“My love to Stanna,” she said, following him as he hurried to the door. “Thank you for all your kindness to me. If you had belonged to my own family, you could not have been kinder.”
He made some sort of an inarticulate reply, and she came back to the painting. Then she repeated Mr. Bonstone’s questions. “Your father is not an only son,” and “He is not living, is he?”
“Why negatively,” she said, “unless he knew the answers? He is the son of my uncle who quarrelled with his father, and ran away to America with his barmaid wife. I feel the relationship, and I also recognise family traits.” Her face grew a beautiful pink. “A good man, and my own cousin. Now I am not without relatives in this new country. Thank God! It will be a good thing for my boy. But I must not acknowledge this relationship, until it will be welcome to this odd man.”
All this was intensely interesting to me, and I too turned a fresh attention to the painting. It was not difficult to recognise little Egbert as he had appeared a few years ago. The tall old man was handsome and commanding in appearance, and yet his face was the essence of gentleness as he held the boy’s two small hands. “Won’t Gringo be excited,” I thought, and I was just about to whine for the door to be opened so I could run away to him, when my dear mistress appeared.
“Well, Boy, you too are here,” she said kindly as she came in, then she began talking to Mrs. Waverlee about the latest news, which was something that affected me deeply and painfully.
“There is to be a new kind of a dog-show in New York,” she said, “a dog-hero show. All dogs exhibited must have done something noteworthy, or they cannot be entered. You, Boy, are to go on account of the service you rendered our hostess. Gringo will be there, also King Harry and Walter Scott.”