When luncheon was over, Moritz took Mollie to the housekeeper's room and introduced her to Mrs. Wharton. Gwen accompanied them; and then they went back to the picture-gallery, and Mollie and Waveney feasted their eyes on the pictures and sculpture. It was pretty to see the girls when they recognised poor old "King Canute." Mollie actually kissed the canvas. "You dear old thing!" she said, apostrophising it. Wretched daub as it was, crude in colouring and defective in execution, Moritz proudly termed it the gem of the gallery.
"It helped me to win my Mollie," he said to Gwen, who was regarding it dubiously. "I painted many a worse picture when we were at the Tin Shanty, eh, Gwen?" And her assent to this was so emphatic that Moritz felt decidedly snubbed; but he rose to the occasion nobly.
"Mr. Ward has not quite worked out his subject," he went on; "but his idea is good, and I shall always venerate it as the failure of a brave man. 'A gallery of failures.' Would that not be a happy thought, Althea? Suppose you and I start a hospital, refuge, or whatever you like to call it, for diseased works of art? We would buy them cheaply, at half-price, and the poor things should live out their time." And here Moritz looked round the company for approval.
"How about the survival of the fittest?" asked his sister, scornfully.
"Oh, that will be all right," he returned, easily. "Besides, we should have no very fit specimens, in a gallery of failures. They would be in all stages of disease. But just think, my dear, what an encouragement it would be to the artists! 'If my failure is remunerative,' the poor beggars would say to themselves, 'I must just try again, and do better next time.'"
"You are very absurd, Moritz." But Gwen looked decidedly amused. And Mollie, privately, thought it a clever idea.
When they had finished inspecting all the treasures in the gallery, Gwen summoned them to tea. The tea-table was in the prettiest of the alcoves, which was large enough to hold seven or eight people.
After this they went down to the gardens, and through a small fir-wood, to the Silent Pool. Here the carriage was to meet them.
Mollie and Waveney were enchanted with the Silent Pool. The still, green pool, surrounded by the dark firs, the beauty, the stillness, and the solemnity of the spot, inspired them with awe. To Althea it was a favourite and well-remembered place. She had visited it more than once, in the old viscount's time. For it had never been closed to the public. That still pool, with its dark, hidden depths, reminded her of her own life, with its calm surface, and troubled under-current. "There are so many lives like that," she thought, as she looked back at the solemn scene. And then she followed the others, down the winding path, to the little inn, which was known as the Brentwood Arms. Here Gwendoline bade them an affectionate farewell. And then they drove off to the station.
"It has been the most wonderful day that I have ever spent in my life!" exclaimed Molly, a little breathlessly.