Part 61 (1/2)

Turning aside, he aimlessly took up a dry brush and drew it across a finished canvas in slow sweeps.

”Wyn,” he asked, ”who _is_ this Mr. Percivale?”

Wyn made a gesture of ignorance with her hands.

”I don't know,” she said. ”n.o.body knows much about him. Mr. Cranmer told me all he knows the other evening.” She related the meagre facts which Claud had given her. ”But everyone seems agreed that he is very much all that can be wished,” said she. ”What made you ask me, dear?”

”I have been talking to Ottilie Orton,” he said; and paused.

”To Mrs. Orton! And what had she to say, if one may ask?”

”You appear,” observed Osmond, ”to have taken a dislike to the lady in question.”

”Well, I cannot say she fascinates me. She is so big and bold, and she looks artificial. She reminds me of that dreadful middle-aged Miss Walters who married the small, shy young curate of St. Mary's.”

”She is a very handsome woman,” said Osmond obstinately.

”Well, never mind her looks. What has she been saying to you?”

”Oh, she merely remarked,” was the reply, as Osmond picked up his palette and charged a clean brush with color. ”She merely made a remark about this Mr. Percivale whom everyone is so ready to take for granted.”

”What was the remark?”

”She said there were several ugly stories afloat about him, and that--”

he paused to put a deliberate touch upon his almost completely finished picture--”that his antecedents were most questionable.”

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

Love is a virtue for heroes--as white as the snow on high hills, And immortal, as every great soul is, that straggles, endures, and fulfils.

_Lord Walter's Wife._

A long, dark, panelled room, with a low flat ceiling carved with coats-of-arms and traversed with fantastic ribs. A room so large and long that a small party could only inhabit one end of it. Its age was demonstrated by the ma.s.sive stone mullions of the small windows ranged along the wall on one side. There were four of these windows, each of them with three lights. Beneath each group of three was a deep, cus.h.i.+oned recess.

Opposite the windows were two fireplaces, the elaborately-carved black oak mantels reaching to the ceiling. In the further of these a great fire burned red and glowing, flinging out weird, suggestive half lights into the dim recesses of the chamber, and flecking with sudden gleams the mult.i.tude of curious things with which every corner was stored.

The room was very still, the air heavy with the scent of flowers; the early January darkness had fallen over the great city, but something very unlike London was in the warm, fragrant silence of this place. One of the diamond-paned cas.e.m.e.nts was open, but through it came no hoa.r.s.e rumble of cart or waggon. An utter peace enfolded everything. Presently the door at the near and most densely dark end of the room opened and closed softly. From behind the great embossed screen which was folded round the entrance a flash of vivid light gleamed. A man-servant emerged, carrying a large silver lamp. He traversed the whole length of the room, and set down the lamp on a black oak table with heavy claw-feet.

The circle of radiance illuminated the scene, rendering visible the mellow oil-paintings on the panelled walls, the rich Oriental rugs which covered the floor of inlaid wood, and the treasures from all parts of the globe, which were ranged in cabinets or on shelves, or lay about on brackets and tables. A grand piano stood open not far from the fire, and beyond the groups of windows, in the corner, a curtain looped back over a small arched entrance looked darkly mysterious, till the servant carried in two small lamps and set them down, revealing a fine conservatory, and accounting for the garden-like fragrance of the place.

Silently the man moved to and fro arranging various lights, daintily shaded according to the present fas.h.i.+on; then, stepping to the windows, he closed them, and noiselessly let fall wide curtains of t.i.tian-like brocades shot with golden threads.

This accomplished, the general aspect of the lighted end of the room was that of sumptuous elegance, warmth, and comfort; while the shadows slowly deepening, as you gazed down towards the door, left the dark limits indefinite, and conveyed an idea of mysterious distance and gloom.

Just as the servant's arrangements were completed, a bell sounded, and he hastily left the room as he had entered it, leaving once more silence behind him. So still was it that, when the shrill notes of the dainty sunflower clock on the Louis Quatorze escritoire rang out the hour in musical chimes, it seemed to startle the Dying Gladiator as his white marble limbs drooped in the rosy radiance of the big standard lamp.

Again that door opened, away there among the shadows; and slowly up the room, in evening dress, with his crush hat, and his inevitable Neapolitan violets, came Claud Cranmer, looking about him, as if he expected to see the master of this romance-like domain. Percivale was not there, however; so, with a sigh of pleasure, Claud sank down in one of the chairs set invitingly near the wide hearth, and leaned back contentedly.

Apparently, however, solitude and firelight suggested serious thoughts, for gradually a far-off look came into the young man's eyes--a tender light which seemed to show that the object of his meditations was some person or thing lying very near his heart. Presently he leaned forward, joining his hands and resting his chin upon them; and was so completely absorbed that he did not hear Percivale, who, advancing through the conservatory, paused on the threshold, gazing at his visitor with a smile.