Ethan drank the last drop of excellent black coffee in the tiny cup and swung his chair about so that he faced the cheerfully crackling logs in the library fire-place. He had enjoyed his dinner, and he began to feel delightfully restful and drowsy. The day spent in the open air, with the wind rushing past him, the hearty repast and now the dancing flames were all having their natural effect. He reached lazily for his cigarette case, his gaze travelling idly over the high mantel above him. Then his hand had dropped from his pocket and he was on his feet, peering intently at a small photograph tucked half out of sight behind one of the old Liverpool[176] pitchers which flanked the clock. A moment after he had it in his hands and was bending over it in the glare of the light from the chandelier. brass candlestick
It was evidently an amateur production, but it was good for all that. And Ethan was troubling his head not at all as to its origin or its merits or defects. It was sufficient for him that it showed a small, graceful figure in white against a background of foliage, and that the eyes which looked straight into his from under the waving hair with its golden fillet were Hers. It was Clytie. One hand rested softly on a flower-clustered spray of azalea, one bare sandaled foot gleamed forth from under the straight white folds of the peplum and the lips were parted in a little startled smile. Ethan devoured it eagerly while his heart glowed and ached at[177] once. He remembered telling her that he would like to see those pictures, and remembered her laughing response: “I’m afraid you never will!” And now he was looking at one of them after all! And he was still looking when the gardener entered with the replenished wood-basket.
“Where did this come from, Billings?” Ethan asked carelessly.
Billings set down his burden and crossed to the table. He was a small man, well toward sixty, with his weather-beaten face shrivelled into innumerable tiny, kindly wrinkles. In spite of his years, however, he showed no signs of the mental degeneration which his wife had feared. He came and looked near-sightedly at the card which Ethan held out.
“Why, sir, Lizzie came across that in one of the upstair rooms when she[178] was cleaning up after the folks went away and she put it on the mantel here, thinking maybe it was valuable and they’d send back for it.”
“I see.” Ethan laid it on the table, his eyes still upon it. “I don’t think they’ll want it. Doubtless Miss Devereux has plenty more.”
“Yes, sir; they took a good many, sir, between them.”
“They? Oh, she had a friend with her?”
“Yes, sir. Miss Hoyt. I remember when they was taking those, sir. It was early in the summer, soon after they came. The young ladies they dressed themselves up in those queer things—sort o’ like sheets, they was, sir—” the gardener’s voice became faintly apologetic, as though he had not quite approved of such doings—“and went out on the lawn one forenoon.[179] They got me to cut away a bit of the branches, sir, right here.” Billings indicated the upper left-hand corner of the picture. “She said she had to have more light. It wasn’t much, sir; just a few old twigs; no harm done, sir.”
“Of course not. It was—Miss Devereux asked you?”
“Yes, sir; Miss Laura they called her. A very pleasant young lady, sir.”
“Very pleasant, Billings,” assented Ethan with a sigh.
“You know her, then, sir?”
“I—hardly that; I’ve met her.”
“Yes, sir.” Billings turned toward the fire. “Shall I drop another log on, sir?”
“No, I shall be going to bed very shortly.”
“Very well, sir.” Billings mended[180] the fire, replaced the tongs and stood carefully erect again, chuckling reminiscently. Then finding Ethan’s eyes on him questioningly he said: “she took me, sir, too, with her camery.”
“Really? I should like to see the picture.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s in the kitchen. Shall I fetch it? Lizzie says it’s a very speakin’ likeness, sir, excepting that I was sort o’ took by surprise, so to say, and had no time to spruce up.”
“Yes, bring it in by all means.”
The gardener hurried away and Ethan turned again to the picture. When Billings returned Ethan said carelessly:
“By the way, if your wife asks about this you can tell her I have—er—taken charge of it. Ah, this is the picture, eh? Why, I’d call that excellent,[181] Billings, excellent! Truly, a very speaking likeness. You say Miss Devereux took this?”
Billings
“Yes, sir, the same day they was taking the others, sir. I had lopped off the branches and was standin’ by watching, sir, and after she had taken that one there, sir, she said to me: ‘Billings, would you mind if I took’——”
“Not after she’d taken this, Billings,” interrupted Ethan, in the interests of accuracy. “She didn’t take this one, of course.”
“I beg pardon, Mr. Ethan?”
“Never mind. I only said you didn’t mean that it was after she had taken this one; it was another one you meant.”
“Oh, no, sir, it was that very one, sir. I had just lopped off the branches——”
[182]
“You don’t mean that she took her own picture, surely?” asked Ethan with a smile.
“No, sir.”
“Exactly.”
“It was that one you have there, sir, she took.”
“This one? Now, look here, Billings, let’s get this straightened out while we’re at it. Do you mean that Miss Devereux—mind, I’m talking of Miss Devereux—do you mean that Miss Devereux took this photograph I have in my hands?”
“Yes, sir, that’s the one. I had just lopped——”
“Never mind the lopping,” interrupted Ethan with smiling impatience. “But tell me how she did it.”
“Why, sir, she stood her camery up a little ways off, sir; it had three little legs onto it, sir; and she pressed[183] a little ............