The parting, which had seemed
so far away, must take place on the morrow. It took all Helen's bright
courage to keep up Ronnie's spirits.
After dinner they sat together in a room they still called the studio,
although Helen had given up her painting, soon after their marriage.
It was a large old-fashioned room, oak-panelled and spacious.
A huge mirror, in a massive gilt frame, hung upon the wall opposite door
and fireplace, reaching from the ceiling to the parquet floor.
Ronald, who used the studio as a smoking-room, had introduced three or
four deep wicker chairs, comfortably cushioned, and a couple of oriental
tables.
The fireplace lent itself grandly in winter to great log-fires, when
the crimson curtains were drawn in ample folds over the many windows,
shutting out the dank bleakness of the park without, and imparting a
look of cosiness to the empty room.
A dozen old family portraits--banished from more important places,
because their expressions annoyed Ronnie--were crowded into whatever
space was available, and glowered down, from the bad light to which they
had been relegated, on the very modern young man whose uncomplimentary
remarks had effected their banishment, and who sprawled luxuriously in
the firelight, monarch of all he surveyed, in the domain which for
centuries had been their own.
The only other thing in the room was a piano, on which Ronnie very
effectively and very inaccurately strummed by ear; and on which Helen,
with careful skill, played his accompaniments, when he was seized with a
sudden desire to sing.
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