Part 3 (1/2)

At the moment that the polished surface of the table was laid bare, his glance, temporarily distracted from its study of the nearer pictures, was attracted and arrested by one portrait, that hung in partial shadow above the carved chimneypiece. It was the picture of a tall, slight boy of sixteen or seventeen years, dressed in the black satin knee breeches, the diamond shoe buckles, and powdered queue of a past generation.

Something in the pose of this painted figure, something in the youthful face, caught and held his attention. In unconscious scrutiny, he leant forward to study the shadowed features; then a.s.shlin, suddenly aware of his interest, leant across the table.

”That was what I meant, James, by saying one of them should have been a boy,” he said sharply. ”Haven't I justification?”

He nodded half earnestly, half in malicious humour towards the picture above the fire.

For a moment Milbanke was at a loss; then all at once he comprehended his host's meaning. His gaze dropped from the picture to Clodagh, sitting below it. Above the dark riding habit and above the satin coat, it seemed that the same olive skin, the same level eyebrows and clear hazel eyes confronted him.

”I see!” he said quietly. ”I see! A very peculiar case of family likeness.”

He spoke affably, casually, in all innocence; but scarcely had the words left his lips than he precipitately wished them back. With a loud laugh, a.s.shlin struck the table with his hand.

”Ah, good!” he exclaimed. ”Good! Now, Clo, what have you got to say?”

But with a gesture quite as vehement as his own, the girl raised her head.

”I say that it's not true,” she said. ”It isn't true. I'm not like him.”

She glanced from her father to Milbanke with suddenly kindling eyes.

”I'm not like him!” she repeated. ”I won't be like him!”

a.s.shlin leant back quickly in his chair. He was still laughing, but a shade of temper was audible in the laugh.

”Do you hear that, James?” he said. ”We of the present generation are altogether too good for the past. A slip of a girl nowadays thinks herself vastly superior to a great-great-grandfather who was the finest horseman and the most open-handed man in Munster. That's the att.i.tude of to-day.”

He moved aside, as Burke re-entered the room and laid a decanter of port and two gla.s.ses on the s.h.i.+ning mahogany table.

”My great-grandfather, Anthony a.s.shlin,” he went on deliberately, ”was as fine a specimen of the Irish gentleman as ever lived--I don't care who denies it. Have a gla.s.s of port, James? An appreciation of good wine was the one thing he left his descendants.”

There was an awkward silence while he filled the two gla.s.ses and pushed one towards his guest.

But Milbanke's ease of mind had already been upset. He held no key to the disconcerting situation; and it puzzled and perplexed him, as his first impression of his old friend had done. Both possessed elements that he vaguely knew to be hidden from his sight--out of focus from his present point of view. For a s.p.a.ce he sat warily fingering his gla.s.s, but making no attempt to drink. Without openly seeming to observe it, he was conscious of a.s.shlin's half-humorous, half-aggressive mood; of the nervous att.i.tude of the younger girl, and of Clodagh's flushed face.

To a newly arrived guest, the position was strained. With growing embarra.s.sment he glanced from the rich, dark wine in his gla.s.s to its reflection in the polished surface of the table. Finally the awkwardness of the prolonged silence moved him to speech.

”A great-grandfather who was a judge of wine is always worthy of consideration,” he murmured amiably, as he lifted the gla.s.s to his lips. ”I'm afraid mine was a teetotaller.”

But his feeble attempt at humour was not destined to be successful. It drew a laugh from his host, but it was a laugh that found no echo.

”You're right, James!” a.s.shlin cried. ”By Jupiter, you're right!

Anthony a.s.shlin was the finest man in the county--and I'm proud of him.”

”He was the worst man in the county--and the greatest fool!”

The words, so sudden and unexpected, came from Clodagh. For several seconds she had been sitting absolutely still; but now she lifted her head again, her flushed face glowing, her bright eyes alight with the quick enthusiasm, the hot temper that she had inherited from her race.

With a swift movement she turned from her father to Milbanke.