Carstairs looked at him closely for some time. "He's handsome too. Not very much like Charlie, and yet—the face seems familiar. I seem somehow to have met that man, sort of family resemblance to Charlie, I suppose. You cannot say that any individual feature is like, and yet—you know. Was he musical?"
"Oh very. He had a music degree, at Oxford, you know."
"Had he really? A sort of brilliant, all round man, like Charlie."
Suddenly the little gong sounded outside in the hall, and Mrs Darwen stood up. "There's dinner. Let's go in," she moved out, and they followed.
Darwen sat down opposite Carstairs, he caught hold of his chin with both hands. "Old Carstairs gave me such a whack on the jaw that I'm afraid he's jammed the hinges, mater. I hope you've got something nice and not tough. How's the new maid? Hullo!"
Carstairs had half risen from his chair and stood staring like a man transfixed. Following the direction of his gaze, Darwen's eyes rested for the first time on his mother's new maid who was bringing in the dinner. She was tall and beautifully proportioned, every movement showed a lissome supple grace, and the features were equal to anything he had ever seen carved in marble; the jet black hair and deep brown eyes gave him the clue. This was Carstairs' gipsy maid.
Her face was the colour of a boiled beet as she bent down and placed a dish in front of Mrs Darwen.
Carstairs watched her for a minute with a sort of amazed frown. Her colour faded to the normal again, and as she raised her head she looked into his eyes for a second without a vestige of recognition.
Darwen observed them both, his eyes were supernaturally bright.
Carstairs subsided into his chair and bent over his soup.