Covertly, with momentary assurances that no one observed him, he studied this face and mused upon it. The white candle-light on the shining wall beyond threw everything into a soft, uniform shadow, this side of the thread of dark tracery which outlined forehead and nose and lips and chin.
It seemed to him that the eyes were closed, as in reverie;he could not be sure.
So she would have been a Duchess if her husband had lived! He said to himself that he had never seen before, or imagined, a face which belonged so indubitably beneath a tiara of strawberry leaves in diamonds.
The pride and grace and composure, yes, and melancholy, of the great lady--they were all there in their supreme expression. And yet--why, she was no great lady at all.
She was the daughter of his old General Kervick--the necessitous and haughtily-humble old military gentleman, with the grey moustache and the premature fur coat, who did what he was told on the Board without a question, for a pitiful three hundred a year. Yes--she was his daughter, and she also was poor. Plowden had said so.
Why had Plowden, by the way, been so keen about relieving her from her father's importunities? He must have had it very much at heart, to have invented the roundabout plan of getting the old gentleman a directorship.
But no--there was nothing in that. Why, Plowden had even forgotten that it was he who suggested Kervick's name.
It would have been his sister, of course, who was evidently such chums with Lady Cressage, who gave him the hint to help the General to something if he could.
And when you came to think of it, these aristocrats and military men and so on, had no other notion of making money save by directorships. Clearly, that was the way of it.
Plowden had remembered Kervick's name, when the chance arose to give the old boy a leg up, and then had clean forgotten the circumstance. The episode rather increased his liking for Plowden.
He glanced briefly, under the impulse of his thought, to where the peer sat, or rather sprawled, in a big low chair before the fire. He was so nearly recumbent in it, indeed, that there was nothing to be seen of him but an elbow, and two very trim legs extended to the brass fender.
Thorpe's gaze reverted automatically to the face of General Kervick's daughter. He wondered if she knew about the Company, and about him, and about his ability to solidify to any extent her father's financial position.
Even more, upon reflection, he wondered whether she was very fond of her father; would she be extremely grateful to one who should render him securely comfortable for life? Miss Madden rose from the piano before Thorpe noted that the music had ceased. There came from the others a soft but fervent chorus of exclamations, the sincerity and enthusiasm of which made him a little ashamed.
He had evidently been deaf to something that deeply moved the rest. Even Balder made remarks which seemed to be regarded as apposite.
"What IS it?" asked Lady Cressage, with obvious feeling.
"I don't know when anything has touched me so much.""Old Danish songs that I picked up on the quai in Paris for a franc or two," replied Miss Madden.
"I arranged and harmonized them--and, oddly enough, the result is rather Keltic, don't you think?""We are all of us Kelts in our welcome to music--and musicians--like this," affirmed Lord Plowden, who had scrambled to his feet.
With sudden resolution, Thorpe moved forward and joined the conversation.
