‘It may have been the passing of the wind,’ suggested Mr Craik, after a pause.
‘Peep between the blinds, Mr Craik; it may be poor Mr Bethany confronting Pneumonia in the porch.’
‘There’s no one there, Mrs Lovat,’ said the curate, returning softly from his errand. ‘Please continue your—your narrative, Mrs Lawford.’
‘We are panting for the “devil,” my dear.’
‘Well, I sat down and, very much against my inclination, turned over the pages. It was full of the most revolting confessions and trials, so far as I could see. In fact, I think the book was merely an amateur collection of—of horrors. And the faces, the portraits! Well, then, can you imagine my feelings when towards the end of the book about thirty pages from the end, I came upon this—gloating up at me from the table in my house before my very eyes?’
She cast a rapid glance over her shoulder, and gathering up her silk skirt, drew out, from the pocket beneath, the few crumpled pages, and passed them without a word to Danton. Lawford kept him plainly in view, as, lowering his great face, he slowly stooped, and holding the loose leaves with both fat hands between his knees, stared into the portrait. Then he truculently lifted his cropped head.
‘What did I say?’ he said. ‘What did I say? What did I tell old Bethany in this very room? What d’ye think of that, Mrs Lovat, for a portrait of Arthur Lawford? What d’ye make of that, Craik—eh? Devil—eh?’
Mrs Lovat glanced with arched eyebrows, and with her finger-tips handed the sheets on to her neighbour, who gazed with a settled and mournful frown and returned them to Sheila.
She took the pages, folded them and replaced them carefully in her pocket. She swept her hands over her skirts, and turned to Danton.
‘You agree,’ she inquired softly, ‘it’s like?’