Kingcote went from picture to picture, his mind not quite tuned to judge and enjoy their merits. One, however, held him. When lunching here, he had sat with his back to the wall of which this canvas was the central ornament, so had not observed it. It was a portrait of Mrs. Clarendon, painted probably at the time of her marriage, an excellent picture. As he gazed at it, Isabel came forward.
“Do you recognise it?” she asked, tapping on one hand with the letter she held in the other.
“And moralise? But,” she added quickly, “I want you to look at this child’s head. Isn’t it exquisitely sweet?”
His eyes wandered back to the portrait, and, on their way to the door, he again paused before it.
“Did I show you my ferns the last time you were here?” Isabel asked. “Will you walk so far?”
She led to the rear of the hall, thence, by a glass door, into a short glass-roofed passage, the door at the end of which opened into the conservatory. The first section was a small rotunda, twenty feet in diameter and twelve feet high. The floor was of unglazed tiles, the ceiling of ornamental stucco; round the wall was a broad cushioned seat, above which, commencing at a height of some four feet from the ground, were windows of richly coloured glass, pictured with leaves and flowers and fruit. A stand for plants occupied the centre, but at present the shelves were almost bare.
Mrs. Clarendon threw back one of the windows.
“There is a good view from here,” she said. “A tree used to intercept it, but we had it cut down in the spring to clear a piece of ground for tennis.”
From the hill, on which the house was built, a broad stretch of green park led the eye to a considerable distance in the direction of Salcot. The roof of the cottage at Wood End was just visible. Kingcote drew attention to it.
“I don’t see any smoke from the chimney,” Mrs. Clarendon remarked, with a pleasant glance. “It is to be hoped you keep good fires this damp weather. Is the place rainproof? These last two days will have tested it.”
“The cottage? I did not choose it as an ideal abode.”
“But the quietness, the retirement, I mean. In that, at all events, you have not been disappointed.”
“How you live there I can’t understand. But I suppose you find it best for your studies.”