"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Lane, that you should have been upset. What has upset you?"
"There's been a man who wanted to see you--leastways, he didn't look as if he was a gentleman, and he didn't behave like one. I told him you weren't in, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He pushed right past me and marched straight into your room, and said he'd wait until you came. He's been there an hour or more; and I just went in to say that I really didn't think it was any use his waiting when I was taken quite aback to find that the room was empty and that he wasn't there."
"That, probably, was because he had gone. Let us trust that the spoons have not gone too!"
"Oh, sir, I do trust they haven't. But what makes it seem so queer to me is that I have been watching all the time, and haven't seen a creature leave the room."
"Possibly, Mrs. Lane, he has vanished into air."
Laughing at her as he passed, Mr. Townsend went into his room.
CHAPTER XLI.
[TAKING LEAVE.]
It was a handsome room, that in which Mr. Townsend, when at home, passed the larger portion of his waking hours--large, lofty, well-proportioned. The walls were wainscoted. Here and there was a piece of tapestry. Curtains suggested, rather than screened, an occasional recess. Veiled, too, were entrances to rooms beyond. A window, running from floor to ceiling, extended on one side of the room, almost from wall to wall. Had it been daytime, one would have seen that it overlooked Hyde Park.
On his entrance Mr. Townsend went immediately to the portrait of the girl which stood up on his mantelboard. He looked at it long and earnestly. He took it out of its frame. He kissed it, not once or twice, but a dozen times at least. He regarded it with something of the veneration which the religious Russian peasant regards his Icon.