Here Mr. Sneyd paused.
"I weon't be bawthring you," he said. "Just a wad with you, Cantess, and
I'm off."
The intelligent-looking maid drew back some heavy curtains leading to a
salon beyond the hall, and her mistress smiled brightly at Mellin.
"I shall keep him to jus' his one word," she said, as the young man
passed between the curtains.
It was a nobly proportioned room that he entered, so large that, in
spite of the amount of old furniture it contained, the first impression
it gave was one of spaciousness. Panels of carved and blackened wood
lined the walls higher than his head; above them, Spanish leather
gleamed here and there with flickerings of red and gilt, reflecting
dimly a small but brisk wood fire which crackled in a carved stone
fireplace. His feet slipped on the floor of polished tiles and wandered
from silky rugs to lose themselves in great black bear skins as in
unmown sward. He went from the portrait of a "cinquecento" cardinal to
a splendid tryptich set over a Gothic chest, from a cabinet sheltering
a collection of old glass to an Annunciation by an unknown Primitive.
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