"
A verbal answer? No. That would never do. He could not trust himself
with speech, but in writing he knew he was impeccable.
"Dear Miss Harden. How very kind of you! But I am sorry that you
did not give yourself a complete rest. I should be sorrier, if I
were not so grateful for the trouble you have taken. It will give
me great pleasure to come in this evening at the time you name.
"With many thanks, yours very truly,
"S.K. RICKMAN."
He was not pleased with it; it erred on the side of redundancy; he had
not attained the perfect utterance, the supreme simplicity. But he was
obliged to let it go. Two hours later Robert announced that coffee was
served in the drawing-room.
It seemed that to reach the drawing-room you had to cross the whole
length of the house from west to east. In this passage he realized
(what his mind had not greatly dwelt upon), the antiquity of the
Hardens, and the march of their splendid generations. Going from the
Tudor Library into the grim stone hall of the Court House, he took a
cold plunge backward into time. Thence his progress was
straightforward, bringing him into the Jacobean picture gallery that
cut the house from north to south. Here he paused, perceiving that the
double line of portraits began with a Vandyck and a Lely. Robert stood
with his hand on the brass rose knob of an oak door; in his eternal
attitude of affection, mingled with immobile respect, he waited for
the moment when Mr.
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