"But, unfortunately, large plans want large means," he added, with a smile, "and I fear it will come to it—has Augustina said anything to you about it?—I fear there is nothing for it, but that our beauteous lady there must provide them."
He nodded towards the picture that gleamed from the opposite wall. Then he added gravely, and with a perfect simplicity:
"It is my last possession of any value."
Several times during the fortnight that she had known him, Laura had heard him speak with a similar simplicity about his personal and pecuniary affairs. That anyone so stately should treat himself and his own worldly concerns with so much naïveté had been a source of frequent surprise to her. To what, then, did his dignity, his reserve apply?
Nevertheless, because, childishly, she had already taken a side, as it were, about the picture, his manner, with its apparent indifference, annoyed her. She drew back.
"Yes, Augustina told me. But isn't it cruel? isn't it unkind? A picture like that is alive. It has been here so long—one could hardly feel it belonged only to oneself. It is part of the house, isn't it?—part of the family? Won't other people—people who come after—reproach you?"
Helbeck lifted his shoulders, his dark face half amused, half sad.
"She died a hundred years ago, pretty creature! She has had her turn; so have we—in the pleasure of looking at her."
"But she belongs to you," said the girl insistently. "She is your own kith and kin."
He hesitated, then said, with a new emphasis that answered her own: