“Some very disagreeable experiences,” he evaded, consoled by the consciousness that his enemy was in some mysterious way on the defensive. “But if it’s your business,” she went on, with the austere old eyes fixed on his face, “you must understand about their value; you must have a reasonable idea of what they are worth.” “Madam, nobody understands that nowadays.” “Apparently not,” she admitted. “But it’s at least possible to estimate the market value of such things, is it not? The value which the dealers in a big city such as yours would set on a collection of canvases?” There was a note of concession, of unlooked-for hesitation, in her voice as she spoke. It caused Conkling to become serious again. “It’s possible in a way,” he explained to her. “But there are cases, of course, where even experts differ.” “But when it’s a matter of old masters?” she pursued, with her pale eyes fixed on his face. “Oh, they’re all pretty much evaluated,” he told her, “provided they are old masters.” She was about to speak again, but an interruption came in the form of a slow and distant clangor. It was a dinner gong, Conkling suspected. There was, however, no note of blitheness in its summons. It fell on his ears as depressingly mournful as a bell-buoy tolling over a fog-bound reef. It made him think of bells that he had heard in the second act of _Macbeth_. “We are about to take tea,” announced Georgina Keswick with the utmost solemnity, “and I trust you will give us the honor of your company.” Conkling was tempted to smile at this ponderous unbending. But he became sober again as he caught sight of a slender young figure in organdie passing from one side of the old manor to the other. “That’s very kind of you,” he said, with his gaze following the girl in organdie as she disappeared through one of the French windows. “I should like to very much.” He saw, as he started toward the house again, the solitary and stately peacock, perched motionless on the moldering upper bar of a grape trellis. He couldn’t help wondering why it had no mate. He couldn’t help wondering how it endured that decrepid grandeur of burnished crest and plume unshared by another. And he couldn’t help wondering, as he meekly followed the gaunt and solemn woman in rusty black across the parched lawn-slopes, just what was ahead of him. CHAPTER THREE