CHAPTER XXIV

Half-past six, and Miss Harden had not yet appeared in the library.  It was the first time that Rickman had passed a whole day without seeing her.  He began to be uneasy, to wonder whether she were really ill.  At seven he was leaving the house as usual for his hotel when Robert brought him a little three-cornered note.

“Dear Mr. Rickman,” it said (Dear Mr. Rickman!) “you see I have taken your advice, and given myself a holiday.  I have spent it very pleasantly—­reading Helen in Leuce.  It would give me much pleasure if you would come in for coffee this evening, about eight o’clock.  We can then talk it over.

     “Very truly yours,

     “LUCIA HARDEN.

“You need only send a verbal answer.”

A verbal answer?  No.  That would never do.  He could not trust himself with speech, but in writing he knew he was impeccable.

“Dear Miss Harden.  How very kind of you!  But I am sorry that you did not give yourself a complete rest.  I should be sorrier, if I were not so grateful for the trouble you have taken.  It will give me great pleasure to come in this evening at the time you name.

     “With many thanks, yours very truly,

     “S.K.  RICKMAN.”

He was not pleased with it; it erred on the side of redundancy; he had not attained the perfect utterance, the supreme simplicity.  But he was obliged to let it go.  Two hours later Robert announced that coffee was served in the drawing-room.

It seemed that to reach the drawing-room you had to cross the whole length of the house from west to east.  In this passage he realized (what his mind had not greatly dwelt upon), the antiquity of the Hardens, and the march of their splendid generations.  Going from the Tudor Library into the grim stone hall of the Court House, he took a cold plunge backward into time.  Thence his progress was straightforward, bringing him into the Jacobean picture gallery that cut the house from north to south.  Here he paused, perceiving that the double line of portraits began with a Vandyck and a Lely.  Robert stood with his hand on the brass rose knob of an oak door; in his eternal attitude of affection, mingled with immobile respect, he waited for the moment when Mr. Rickman should elect to tear himself from the Lely and the Vandyck.  The moment came, and Mr. Rickman heard himself announced in a clear high voice as he passed over the threshold.

He found himself in a long oak-panelled room; that room whose west window looked out across the courtyard to the east window of the library.  It was almost dark except for a small fire-lit, lamp-lit, square at the far end.  Lucia was sitting in a low chair by the fireplace, under the tall shaded lamp, where the light fell full on her shoulders.  She was not alone.  On a settee by the other side of the open hearth sat the young lady who had intruded on his solitude in the library.  The presence of the young lady filled him with anxiety and dismay.