Part 38 (1/2)
”It depends--” said Cynthia warily.
”Very well then. Tell me another thing. Why does your portrait hang in this house?”
Cynthia's cheeks flamed. She looked swiftly across Devenish at Colonel Challoner. But he was giving no heed to them.
”Do you think it's like me?” she asked.
”It _is_ you,” he replied.
”No one else has noticed the resemblance all this week,” said Cynthia.
Mr. Devenish glanced along the table.
”Well, look at 'em,” he said contemptuously, and they both laughed.
Lady Lorme rose at that moment from the table, and Mr. Devenish, pleading the distance he had to travel, took his departure.
”I have enjoyed myself very much, Challoner,” he said as the colonel came out with him to-the doorway. ”I can't tell you how glad I am that I thought of dropping in upon you for luncheon. I am going back to London now. Good-by.”
He mounted into his car and drove gaily off. In the dining-room behind him, the sandy-haired man was saying over and over again to the dismayed conspirators--
”He'll sell us a pup. He'll sell us a pup. I'll bet you a monkey, he'll sell us a pup.”
That night, when the men went upstairs, Rames pa.s.sing from his dressing-room into his wife's bedroom found her still up and sitting by her fire.
”We go back to-morrow, Cynthia. It has been a long week. I hope you haven't been bored.”
”No,” she said. ”I haven't.”
”What do you think of them? Will they run away when the fight comes?”
”Not all,” said Cynthia. ”But even of those who stay with you, there's not one who is a match for Mr. Devenish.”
She spoke with some warmth in her voice.
”You like him?” said Harry Rames.
”I think he's a big man,” she replied.
Rames, who was standing looking into her mirror, suddenly swung round.
”Shall I tell you why you say that, Cynthia?”
”Yes.”
”Because he's the only man except myself who has noticed your likeness to that very pretty girl on the wall of the dining-room. I heard him mention it to you at luncheon.”
He burst out into a laugh as he spoke; and in a moment or two Cynthia joined in the laugh. So Harry Rames too had noticed the resemblance.
She laughed and her eyes laughed with her lips.