The whole situation was an absolute enigma.
CHAPTER XVI.
REVEALS AN ASTOUNDING FACT.
Dinner was announced, and I took Mrs. Mivart into the room on the opposite side of the big old-fashioned hall, a long, low-ceilinged apartment the size of the drawing-room, and hung with some fine old family portraits and miniatures. Old Squire Mivart had been an enthusiastic collector of antique china, and the specimens of old Montelupo and Urbino hanging upon the walls were remarkable as being the finest in any private collection in this country. Many were the visits he had made to Italy to acquire those queer-looking old mediæval plates, with their crude colouring and rude, inartistic drawings, and certainly he was an acknowledged expert in antique porcelain.
The big red-shaded lamp in the centre of the table shed a soft light upon the snowy cloth, the flowers and the glittering silver; and as my hostess took her seat she sighed slightly, and for the first time asked of Ethelwynn.
“I haven’t seen her for a week,” I was compelled to admit. “Patients have been so numerous that I haven’t had time to go out to see her, except at hours when calling at a friend’s house was out of the question.”
“Do you like the Hennikers?” her mother inquired, raising her eyes inquiringly to mine.