"Ah! but I told my uncle," said Harry. "He saw about it: you must thank him."
Evie was sitting opposite the fireplace, and her eye had been on the picture of old Francis which hung above it. At these words of Harry's she turned to Mr. Francis with a smile, and her mouth half opened for speech. But something arrested the words, and she was silent; and Harry, who had been following every movement of hers, tracing it with the infallible minute intuition of a lover to its desiring thought, guessed that the curious resemblance between the two had struck with a force that for the moment took away speech. But, before the pause was prolonged, she answered.
"I do thank you very much," she said. "And have you arranged another day like this for to-morrow?"
She looked, as she spoke, out of the open windows and into the glorious sunshine, and Harry rose.
"Shall we not go out?" he said. "Uncle Francis will think we do not appreciate his weather if we stop in."
"Yes, let us go out at once," she said. "But let me first put on another hat. I am not in London, and my present hat simply _is_ London. O Lord Vail, I long to look at that picture again, but I won't; I will be very self-denying, for I am sure--I am sure it is the Luck in the corner of it."
She put up her hand so as to shield the picture from even an accidental glance.
"Will you show me my way?" she asked. "I will be down again in a minute."
Harry took her up the big staircase, lit by a skylight, and lying in many angles.
"Yes, you have guessed," he said. "It is the Luck: you will see the original to-night at dinner. Did anything else strike you in the picture? Oh, I saw it did."
"Yes, a curious false resemblance. I feel sure it is false, for I think that portrait represents not a very pleasant old gentleman. But your uncle, Lord Vail--I never saw such a dear, kind face!"
"So now you understand," he said, "what your coming here must mean to him. Ah! this is your maid, is she not? I will wait in the hall for you."
The two elder folk had already strolled out, when Harry returned to the hall, a privation which he supported with perfect equanimity, and in a few minutes he and his companion followed. As they crossed the lawn, Harry swept the points of the compass slowly with his stick.