‘Why ill-humoured?’
‘I scarcely know—more than that I acquire a general sense of my own family’s want of merit through seeing how meritorious the people are around me. I see them happy and thriving without any necessity for me at all; and then I regard these canvas grandfathers and grandmothers, and ask, “Why was a line so antiquated and out of date prolonged till now?”’
She chid him good-naturedly for such views. ‘They will do you an injury,’ she declared. ‘Do spare yourself, Captain De Stancy!’
De Stancy shook his head as he turned the painting before him a little further to the light.
‘But, do you know,’ said Paula, ‘that notion of yours of being a family out of date is delightful to some people. I talk to Charlotte about it often. I am never weary of examining those canopied effigies in the church, and almost wish they were those of my relations.’
‘I will try to see things in the same light for your sake,’ said De Stancy fervently.
‘Not for my sake; for your own was what I meant, of course,’ she replied with a repressive air.
Captain De Stancy bowed.
‘What are you going to do with your photographs when you have them?’ she asked, as if still anxious to obliterate the previous sentimental lapse.
‘I shall put them into a large album, and carry them with me in my campaigns; and may I ask, now I have an opportunity, that you would extend your permission to copy a little further, and let me photograph one other painting that hangs in the castle, to fittingly complete my set?’