"gp46w10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Gilbert)

The other coolly put up her pince-nez. She caught Gaston's profile and
the turn of his shoulder.

"Yes, like, Sophie; but Robert never had such a back, nor anything like
the face."

She spoke with no attempt to modulate her voice, and it carried
distinctly to Gaston. He turned and glanced at them.

"He's a Belward, certainly, but like what one I don't know; and he's
terribly eccentric, my dear! Did you see the boots and the sash? Why,
bless me, if you are not shaking! Don't be silly--shivering at the
thought of Robert Belward after all these years."

So saying, Mrs. Warren Gasgoyne tapped Lady Dargan on the arm, and then
turned sharply to see if her daughters had been listening. She saw that
they had; and though herself and not her sister was to blame, she said:

"Sophie, you are very indiscreet! If you had daughters of your own, you
would probably be more careful--though Heaven only knows, for you were
always difficult!"

With this they vanished up the staircase, Mrs. Gasgoyne's daughters,
Delia and Agatha, smiling at each other and whispering about Gaston.

Meanwhile the seeker after a kingdom was shown into Sir William Belward's
study. No one was there. He walked to the mantelpiece, and, leaning his
arm on it, looked round. Directly in front of him on the wall was the
picture of a lady in middle-life, sitting in an arbour. A crutch lay
against one arm of her chair, and her left hand leaned on an ebony
silver-topped cane. There was something painful, haunting, in the face
--a weirdness in the whole picture. The face was looking into the
sunlight, but the effect was rather of moonlight--distant, mournful. He
was fascinated; why, he could not tell. Art to him was an unknown book,
but he had the instinct, and he was quick to feel. This picture struck
him as being out of harmony with everything else in the room. Yet it
had, a strange compelling charm.

Presently he started forward with an exclamation. Now he understood the
vague, eerie influence. Looking out from behind the foliage was a face,
so dim that one moment it seemed not to be there, and then suddenly to
flash in--as a picture from beyond sails, lightning-like, across the
filmy eyes of the dying. It was the face of a youth, elf-like, unreal,
yet he saw his father's features in it.

He rubbed his eyes and looked again. It seemed very dim. Indeed, so
delicately, vaguely, had the work been done that only eyes like Gaston's,
trained to observe, with the sight of a hawk and a sense of the
mysterious, could have seen so quickly or so distinctly. He drew slowly
back to the mantel again, and mused. What did it mean? He was sure that