Mrs. Nailor suddenly changed the conversation to Art.  She was looking at a painting on the wall behind Keith, and after inspecting it a moment through her lorgnon, turned toward the head of the table.

“Where did you get that picture, Mrs. Wickersham?  Have I ever seen it before?”

The hostess’s gaze followed hers.

“That?  Oh, we have had it ever so long.  It is a portrait of an ancestor of mine.  It belonged to a relative, a distant relative—­another branch, you know, in whose family it came down, though we had even more right to it, as we were an older branch,” she said, gaining courage as she went on.

Mrs. Lancaster turned and inspected the picture.

“I, too, almost seem to have seen it before,” she said presently, in a reflective way.

“My dear, you have not seen it before,” declared the hostess, positively.  “Although we have had it for a good while, it was at our place in the country.  Brush, the picture-dealer, says it is one of the finest ‘old masters’ in New York, quite in the best style of Sir Peter—­What’s his name?”

“Then I have seen some one so like it—?  Who can it be?” said Mrs. Lancaster, her mind still working along the lines of reminiscence.

Nearly every one was looking now.

“Why, I know who it is!” said Lois Huntington, who had turned to look at it, to Mrs. Lancaster.  “It is Mr. Keith.”  Her clear voice was heard distinctly.

“Of course, it is,” said Mrs. Lancaster.  Others agreed with her.

Keith, too, had turned and looked over his shoulder at the picture behind him, and for a moment he seemed in a dream.  His father was gazing down at him out of the frame.  The next moment he came to himself.  It was the man-in-armor that used to hang in the library at Elphinstone.  As he turned back, he glanced at Mrs. Lancaster, and her eyes gazed into his.  The next moment he addressed Mrs. Wickersham and started a new subject of conversation.

“That is it,” said Mrs. Lancaster to herself.  Then turning to her hostess, she said:  “No, I never saw it before; I was mistaken.”

But Lois knew that she herself had seen it before, and remembered where it was.

Mrs. Wickersham looked extremely uncomfortable, but Keith’s calm courtesy set her at ease again.

When the gentlemen, after their cigars, followed the ladies into the drawing-room, Keith found Mrs. Lancaster and Lois sitting together, a little apart from the others, talking earnestly.  He walked over and joined them.

They had been talking of the incident of the picture, but stopped as he came up.

“Now, Lois,” said Mrs. Lancaster, gayly, “I have known Mr. Keith a long time, and I give you one standing piece of advice.  Don’t believe one word that he tells you; for he is the most insidious flatterer that lives.”

“On the contrary,” said Keith, bowing and speaking gravely to the younger girl, “I assure you that you may believe implicitly every word that I tell you.  I promise you in the beginning that I shall never tell you anything but the truth as long as I live.  It shall be my claim upon your friendship.”