I thought that I might venture to mention Hammerton, and did so, a little fearful that she might give me to understand that it was high presumption in me to consider myself in any way interested in the feudal home of the Gascoynes.
She was, on the contrary, frankly interested.
“I have never been there,” she said. “I have only met the present Lord Gascoyne once, when I was a child. My brother and I were invited to his coming-of-age, but my mother had died only very shortly before, and we did not care to go.”
I shrewdly guessed that had the decision been left to her brother he might not have found his sincere grief at his mother’s loss an insuperable bar to his enjoying himself at Hammerton.
I continued, watching her carefully, prepared to beat a hasty retreat should she show the least sign of disapproval at the channel into which I had directed the conversation.
“Directly I saw you to-day I noticed how very like you are to some of the portraits at Hammerton. I was only there once, but I remember one distinctly.”
“I should like to see the family pictures. Do you know Lord Gascoyne?”
“Oh, dear no, not at all. I went there quite as an excursionist. It was rather quaint going round as a tripper. The remarks of the people I was with were most amusing.”
The suspicion of a shadow crossed her face. She was not pleased to think of the mob tramping through those ancestral halls for which she had an almost Chinese reverence. I detected her disapproval, and hastened to add:
“They were in no way irreverent; far from it, I think they were most impressed.”