The portrait in itself of no great value.”
“Probably not,” I said, “the Lelys and the Knellers are on the stairs, if you care to look at them.”
“I noticed them as I came down,” he answered.
“The Lely is well placed but not the Kneller.
The latter, I would say, is not in his best style, but executed in one of his more florid moments.
Possibly finished by a pupil.”
I said nothing, I was listening for Rachel’s step upon the stair.
“In Florence, before I came away,” he said, “I was able to sell an early Furini for your cousin, part of the Sangalletti collection, now unfortunately dispersed.
An exquisite thing.
It used to hang upon the stairs at the villa, where the light caught it to its greatest advantage.
You possibly would not have noticed it when you went to the villa.”
“Very possibly not,” I answered him.
Rachel came into the room.
She was wearing the gown she had worn on Christmas Eve, but I saw she had a shawl about her shoulders.
I was glad of it.
She glanced from one to the other of us, as though to glean from our expressions how we were doing in conversation.
“I was just telling your cousin Philip,” said Rainaldi, “how fortunate I was to sell the Furini madonna.
But what a tragedy that it had to go.”
“We are used to that, though, aren’t we?” she answered him.
“So many treasures that could not be saved.”
I found myself resenting the use of the word “we” in such a connection.
“Have you succeeded in selling the villa?” I asked bluntly.
“Not as yet,” answered Rainaldi, “in fact—that is partly why I came here to see your cousin Rachel—we are practically decided upon letting it instead, for a term of some three or four years.
It would be more advantageous, and to let it not so final as to sell.
Your cousin may wish to return to Florence, one of these days. It was her home for so many years.”
“I have no intention of going back as yet,” said Rachel.
“No, possibly not,” he replied, “but we shall see.”
His eyes followed her as she moved about the room, and I wished to heaven she would sit down so that he could not do so.
The chair where she always sat stood back a little distance from the candlelight, leaving her face in shadow.
There was no reason for her to move about the room unless to show her gown.
I pulled a chair forward, but she did not sit.
“Imagine, Rainaldi has been in London for over a week, and did not tell me of it,” she said.
“I have never been more surprised in my life than when Seecombe announced that he was here. I think it was very remiss of him not to give me warning.”
She smiled over her shoulder at him, and he shrugged his shoulders.
“I hoped the surprise of a sudden arrival would give you greater pleasure,” he said; “the unexpected can be delightful or the reverse, it all depends upon the circumstances.
Do you remember that time you were in Rome, and Cosimo and I turned up just as you were dressing for a party at the Casteluccis?
You were distinctly annoyed with both of us.”
“Ah, but I had a reason for that,” she laughed.
“If you have forgotten, I won’t remind you of it.”
“I have not forgotten,” he said.
“I remember too the color of your gown.
It was like amber.
Also Benito Castelucci had presented you with flowers.
I saw his card, and Cosimo did not.”
Seecombe came in to announce dinner, and Rachel led the way across the hall into the dining room, still laughing and reminding Rainaldi of happenings in Rome.
I had never felt more glum or out of place.
They went on talking personalities, and places, and now and again Rachel would put out her hand to me across the table, as she would do to a child, and say,
“You must forgive us, Philip dear.
It is so long since I have seen Rainaldi,” while he watched me with those dark hooded eyes, and slowly smiled.
Once or twice they broke into Italian.