“This way, then,” ushered Crofts. He preceded us into the conservatory with its great windows, where the company was sitting in little breathless groups of twos and threes.
Only Maryvale lingered alone, beyond the grand piano, his fingers sometimes very lightly pressing the keys in chords of some neutral mode, neither major nor minor.
Salt explained that he intended to ask but one question just then, alleging anxiety lest anyone should be overwrought in the situation of time, circumstance, and weather. He gave an uneasy look at Maryvale, whose chords seemed to deepen the sombreness of the rain-beleaguered room. The “Lochinvar” letter went the rounds, until it reached Eve Bartholomew beneath a large potted plant whose leaves were like donkeys’ ears. She gave a pleased cry, then a gasp.
“Sir Brooke wrote this! . . . But what does it mean!”
“Never mind what it means, Ma’am,” said Salt. “And who’s Sir Brooke? Not here, is he?”
“Don’t you remember?” Crofts asked. “He’s the missing—”
“Idiot,” murmured Ludlow, and went on to say: “I haven’t known our infirm absentee as long as this good lady, and his writing is unfamiliar to me, but it surprises me greatly that he signs himself ‘Lochinvar.’ Curiously unfit I should say. Madam, was that one of his baptismal names?”
Mrs. Bartholomew bridled. “I have no doubt Sir Brooke had good reason to sign himself any way he thought proper.”
“I have no doubt either,” acquiesced Ludlow, and added the remark, “Don Quixote.”
“Haven’t eaten yet?” Salt asked.