“Where’s the mail for posting?”
“Why, just hand whatever you have to one of the servants. If you need stationery—”
“But isn’t there a particular place—”
“Oh, yes, if it’s more convenient—there’s a rack for outgoing mail under the staircase. It hangs above the end of the settle.”
“Thank you.”
Maryvale was busy fingering the lower part of the wide gilt frame of one of the portraits, a full length representation of a man in cuirass and metal thigh-plates, holding his helmet in one hand, leaning with the other arm upon a convenient pedestal; his narrow face looked like that of a newly-elected thane of Hell.
“That’s Sir Pharamond Kay,” Pendleton remarked, “first builder of the castle this House is remnant of.”
“Yes . . . yes,” Maryvale murmured to himself, concluding his investigation of the frame. “The gilding is valuable at any rate.”
Pendleton and I reciprocated glances of bewilderment, but Maryvale seemed disinclined to explain himself further. He was even unwilling to precede us back into the Hall of the Moth, which he had deserted a little while before, and wherein the entire rest of the company were still listening to Doctor Aire. Alberta Pendleton received us with her charming smile, and we took places beside her at the foot of the room, and that other, smaller, bewitched or accursed portrait of Sir Pharamond glared down on me from the wall.
The rain having ceased long before, and the clouds being a little broken, the sun was, so to speak, red in the face from trying to dry the lawn. The french windows were opened, through the northern one we caught glimpses of the glassman from New Aidenn making whole the damaged conservatory window. But there was no tendency toward seeking the out-of-doors. Most of the party were quite sated with the open-air sports afforded in Aidenn Vale.