The supper ended, and the company trailed into a drawing room at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen wing.  Howat delayed, and Caroline, urged forward by Mr. Winscombe’s sardonically ubiquitous bow, half lingered to cast back a glance of private understanding at her brother.  When he decided reluctantly to follow he was kept back by the sound of a familiar explanation in his father’s decisive, full tones.

“Howat,” he pronounced, obviously addressing the elder Winscombe, “is a black Penny.  That is what we call them in our family.  You see, the Pennys, some hundreds of years back, acquired a strong Welsh strain.  I take it you are familiar with the Welsh—­a solitary-living, dark lot.  Unamenable to influence, reflect their country, I suppose; but lovers of music.  I have a touch of that.  Now any one would think that such a blood, so long ago, would have spread out, been diluted, in a thick English stock like the Pennys; or at least that we would all have had a little, here and there.  But nothing of the sort; it sinks entirely out of sight for two or three and sometimes four generations; and then appears solid, in one individual, as unslacked as the pure, original thing.  The last one was burned as a heretic in Mary’s day; although I believe he would have equally stayed Catholic if the affair had been the other way around.  Opposition’s their breath.  This boy—­”

“You must not figure to yourself, Mr. Winscombe,” Mrs. Penny’s even voice admirably cut in, “that the black is a word of reproach.  I think we are both at times at a loss with Howat, he is so different from us, from the girls; but he is truly remarkable.  I have an unusual affection for him; really, his honesty is extraordinary.”

He ought, he knew, either follow the others into the drawing room or move farther away.  His father’s explanation repelled him; but his mother’s capital defence—­it amounted to that—­made it evident to him that he should, by his presence, give her what support he could.

At the fireplace Gilbert Penny was lost in conversational depths with Mr. Winscombe.  About the opening, now closed for the introduction of a hearth stove, were tiles picturing in gay glazes the pastoral history of Ruth, and above the mantel a long, clear mirror held a similitude of brilliant colour—­the scarlet of Mrs. Winscombe’s gown, Myrtle’s azure lutestring on a petticoat of ruffled citron spreading over her hoops and little white kid slippers with gilt heels, Caroline’s flowered Chinese silk.  The room was large and square, with a Turkey floor carpet, and walls hung with paper printed in lavender and black perspectives from copper plates.  A great many candles had been lighted, on tables and mantel, and in lacquer stands.  One of the latter, at Mrs. Winscombe’s side, showed her features clearly.