She turned toward Daphne. "I'm afraid that's your case too." She smiled, and the smile lit up a face full of delicate lines and wrinkles, which no effort had been made to disguise; a tired face, where the eyes spoke from caverns of shade, yet with the most appealing and persuasive beauty. "Do you mean about pictures?" said Daphne, a little coldly. "I don't know as much as Dr. Lelius." Humour leaped into the eyes fixed upon her; but Mrs. Fairmile only said: "That's not given to the rest of us mortals. But after all, _having's_ better than knowing. Don't--_don't_ you possess the Vitali Signorelli?" Her voice was most musical and flattering. Daphne smiled in spite of herself. "Yes, we do. It's in London now--waiting till we can find a place for it." "You must let me make a pilgrimage--when it comes. But you know you'd find a number of things at Upcott--where I'm staying now--that would interest you. I forget whether you've met the Duchess?" "This is our first week here," said Roger, interposing. "The house has been let till now. We came down to see what could be made of it." His tone was only just civil. His mother, looking on, said to herself that he was angry--and with good reason. But Mrs. Fairmile still smiled. "Ah! the Lelys!" she cried, raising her hand slightly toward the row of portraits on the wall. "The dear impossible things! Are you still discussing them--as we used to do?" Daphne started. "You know this house, then?" The smile broadened into a laugh of amusement, as Mrs. Fairmile turned to Roger's mother. "Don't I, dear Lady Barnes--don't I know this house?" Lady Barnes seemed to straighten in her chair. "Well, you were here often enough to know it," she said abruptly. "Daphne, Mrs. Fairmile is a distant cousin of ours." "Distant, but quite enough to swear by!" said the visitor, gaily. "Yes, Mrs. Barnes, I knew this house very well in old days. It has many charming points." She looked round with a face that had suddenly become coolly critical, an embodied intelligence.