"Dreaming as usual," said his father. "I tell you what it is, Adeline, the boy is studying your face, in order to paint your portrait. I've told you he was the artistic member of the family."
Hal felt the colour mount into his face. It was coming, the conversation he dreaded, baiting him with questions.
"I had a brother who painted as a small boy," said the visitor, "but he forgot all about it when he went to school. You don't have much time for that sort of thing at Eton, do you, Hal?"
"Yes, he does," said Kitty impulsively; "he's done two lovely pictures for Molly and me, and something very special for father."
"Has he, by gosh?" said Henry. "Come on, Hal, what is it?"
"It's nothing," said Hal, "it's not good enough.
I don't think you'd like it."
Nervously he jerked his tea-cup, and the tea spilt over the tablecloth, spreading over the white surface.
"Quick, a plate, Molly," said the visitor, "or it will stain the mahogany. Call one of the servants for a cloth. What a mess! If you want to be an artist, Hal, you'll have to have a steadier hand than that."
Hal stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do, hating her and hating his own clumsiness.
"All right, sit down," said his father impatiently. "Don't stand gaping, like a dazed sheep. Tell me about Eton. Who are your friends?"
"I haven't any," said Hal desperately.
"Oh, come," said Henry, "you must know some of the fellows in the house."
At last Hal admitted that there was someone called Brown he rather liked.
"Brown? What Brown? I don't remember anyone of that name in my time. What does he do?
What are his games?"
"I don't think he does anything."
"Sounds an interesting fellow," said Henry.
"Come on, tell us some more."
The visitor was laughing, and winking at his father across the table. Hal dug his nails into his hands. It was no use. He would not answer any more questions.
"I'm afraid my family are not showing off as well as I hoped," said Henry. "Molly looks sulky, Kitty can't speak a word of French, and my son and heir spills his tea all over the table-cloth and can give no account of his first half at Eton except that he admires a boy named Brown who possesses no accomplishments.
Adeline, I grovel. I take back all I told you in Nice."
The children stared at their plates. This jocular, joking manner of their father's was embarrassing. Why did he have to be so in with this person called Adeline, who stared at each one of them with critical blue eyes, and did not like the Italian pictures on the walls?
Then the door opened, and Lizette came into the room, changed into a white frock for the occasion, her hair tied with two white bows. She was shy. She stood by the door, a finger in her mouth.
"Well, baby, what's wrong? I shan't bite you," said the visitor.
Lizette looked at Kitty. Nobody in the house ever called her baby.
"She generally has a piece of sugar at tea-time," said Molly. "Come here, darling.
Molly will give you one."
The child limped to the table. Hal saw the visitor gaze with curiosity at the heavy foot, in its high boot.
"She ought to do special exercises," she said to Henry. "I knew of someone who was lame from birth, and it worked wonders. But you have to keep at it.
Special exercises, for an hour a day, supervised by a trained expert. I'll find out about it."
Lizette stared at the stranger, as she ate her sugar. She knew her foot was being discussed, and she did not like it.
"Will the lady go soon?" she said to Molly.
Everyone pretended not to hear. Molly bent down and whispered in her ear.
Hal, still staring at his plate, wondered if his father was looking at Lizette in the strange, regretful, half-shamefaced fashion that he sometimes did. Hal knew now that if Lizette had not been born his mother would not have died. But this was something that he did not care to think about. People having children was an uncomfortable subject, especially when it was to do with one's own father, one's own mother…
The visitor was getting up, and pushing back her chair.
"Now what about inspecting the house?" she said briskly.
"Where do you want to start?" smiled Henry.
"The most important place of all, the kitchen," she answered.
Molly hesitated, and glanced at her father.
"I don't think they will have finished tea," she said; "we never do invade the basement at this time of day. I'm afraid Mrs. Lester might not like it."
"Mrs. Lester will have to put up with it," said Henry. "Go ahead, Adeline, you take command from now on. I wash my hands of everything."
He laughed, as though it were a great joke.
"While you are in the kitchen I had better go and pay my respects to Miss Frost and the nurse, and break the news," he added.
He ran up the stairs whistling, and Molly and the visitor disappeared down the hall to the door leading to the basement. Hal and Kitty looked at each other across the dining-room table.
"What does he mean?" said Kitty. "What is he going to tell nurse and Miss Frost?"
"I don't know," said Hal. "It's queer."
"Perhaps we're all going home to Clonmere, and this person is going to take the house from us. That's why she has to be shown all over it, and to see the kitchen. Oh, Hal, how lovely! Do you think it could be so?"
"Perhaps," said Hal, "it might be. Perhaps we're all going back there for Easter, and the Boles are giving it up."
A wild hope surged in the heart of each of them. Kitty ran upstairs after her father. Hal went into the drawing-room. He pulled the miniature out of his pocket and looked at it once again. If they were going home he would be able to compare it with the original at Clonmere. What a fool he must have seemed at tea, jolting the teacup, and talking about that fellow Brown, whom he had gone for a walk with once, on a Sunday. Perhaps if he gave the miniature it would make up for it in some way. His father would know that there was something he could do, and it would show too that he knew his father was often lonely and unhappy without mamma.
He decided to make a secret of it, to put it somewhere where his father would find it at an odd moment.
Hal went over to the desk and wrote on a piece of paper "Father-from his loving son, Hal," and taking the miniature out of his pocket, he wrapped the paper round it, and put it just inside the desk. Then he went and sat down by the fire, and thought about going back home to Clonmere. Kitty must be right. That was the explanation of the whole business and why the Adeline person had brought so many trunks.
Clonmere again, the room in the tower, the horses, the dogs, old Tim, the woods and the creek, Uncle Tom and Aunt Harriet. Life would fall into pattern again, even if mamma could not be with them.
Life would have meaning. He would sail a boat in the creek. He would shoot hares on Doon Island.
He would make a painting of Hungry Hill Kitty came into the room, round-eyed, mysterious.
"Frostie's upset," she said. "What can father have said to her? And she's gone into the spare room to talk to that woman, with her tight-lipped face on, you know, the one she has when she's worried. Surely Frostie would want to go back home."
She broke off, as her father came into the room, followed by Molly, who was white and strained. Henry shut the door. He went and stood over by the fire-place. He too looked anxious.
Perplexed also, as though he did not understand what was the matter with Molly.
"You must be sensible, dear girl," he was saying.
"Why, it's for all your sakes, far more than for my own, that I have done this. Do you think it's been easy for me all these years?"
"We were happy as we were," said Molly, "we don't want anyone else."
She began to cry, like a little girl, not like someone of fifteen. Kitty ran over to her and stood beside her.