"You said Miss Pitstone was very good-looking?"
"Oh, very!" He laughed. "She's exactly like Romney's Lady Hamilton. You know the type?"
"Ye-es," said Mrs. Friend. "I think I remember—before the war—at Agnew's? My husband took me there once." The tone was hesitating. The little lady was clearly not learned in English art. But Lord Buntingford liked her the better for not pretending.
"Of course. There's always an Emma, when Old Masters are on show. Romney painted her forty or fifty times. We've got one ourselves—a sketch my grandfather bought. If you'll come into the hall I'll show it you."
She followed obediently and, in a rather dark corner of the hall, Lord Buntingford pointed out an unfinished sketch of Lady Hamilton—one of the many Bacchante variants—the brown head bent a little under the ivy leaves in the hair, the glorious laughing eyes challenging the spectator.
"Is she like that?" asked Mrs. Friend, wondering.
"Who?—my ward?" laughed Lord Buntingford. "Well, you'll see."
He walked away, and Mrs. Friend stayed a few minutes more in front of the picture—thinking—and with half an ear listening for the sound of a motor. She was full of tremors and depression. "I was a fool to come—a fool to accept!" she thought. The astonishing force of the sketch—of the creature sketched—intimidated her. If Helena Pitstone were really like that—"How can she ever put up with me? She'll just despise me. It will be only natural. And then if things go wrong, Lord Buntingford will find out I'm no good—and I shall have to go!"
She gave a long sigh, lifting her eyes a little—against her will—to the reflection of herself in an old mirror hanging beside the Romney. What a poor little insignificant figure—beside the other! No, she had no confidence in herself—none at all—she never had had. The people she had lived with had indeed generally been fond of her. It was because she made herself useful to them. Old Mrs. Browne had professed affection for her,—till she gave notice. She turned with a shiver from the recollection of an odious scene.
She went bade to the drawing-room and thence to the library, looking wistfully, as she passed through it, at the pleasant hall, with its old furniture, and its mellowed comfort. She would like to find a home here, if only they would put up with her. For she was very homeless.