Angry with herself she turned for distraction to the portraits on the walls--they at least would offer no disturbing problem. But her determination to keep her thoughts from her guardian met with a check at the outset for she found herself staring at Barry Craven as she had visualised him in that first moment of meeting--steel-clad. It was the picture of a young man, dressed in the style of the Elizabethan period, wearing a light inlaid cuirass and leaning negligently against a stone balustrade, a hooded falcon on his wrist. The resemblance to the owner of Craven Towers was remarkable--the same build, the same haughty carriage of the head, the same features and colouring; the mouth only of the painted gallant differed, for the lips were not set sternly but curved in a singularly winning smile. The portrait had recently been cleaned and the colours stood out freshly. The pose of the figure was curiously unrestrained for the period, a suggestion of energy--barely concealed by the indolent attitude--broke through the conventional treatment of the time, as if the painter had responded to an influence that had overcome tradition. The whole body seemed to pulsate with life. Gillian looked at it entranced; instinctively her eyes sought the pictured hands. The one that held the falcon was covered with an embroidered leather glove, but the other was bare, holding a set of jesses. And even the hands were similar, the characteristics faithfully transmitted. Peters' voice startled her. "You are looking at the first Barry Craven, Miss Locke. It is a wonderful picture. The resemblance is extraordinary, is it not?"

She looked up and met the agent's magnetic smile across the table.

"It is--extraordinary," she said slowly; "it might be a costume portrait of Mr. Craven, except that in treatment the picture is so different from a modern painting."

Peters laughed.

"The professional eye, Miss Locke! But I am glad that you admit the likeness. I should have quarrelled horribly with you if you had failed to see it. The young man in the picture," he went on, warming to the subject as he saw the girl's interest, "was one of the most romantic personages of his time. He lived in the reign of Elizabeth and was poet, sculptor, and musician--there are two volumes of his verse in the library and the marble Hermes in the hall is his work. When he was seventeen he left the Towers to go to court. He seems to have been universally beloved, judging from various letters that have come down to us. He was a close friend of Sir Philip Sidney and one of Spenser's numerous patrons. A special favourite with Elizabeth--in fact her partiality seems to have been a source of some embarrassment, according to entries in his private journal. She knighted him for no particular reason that has ever transpired, indeed it seems to have been a matter of surprise to himself, for he records it in his journal thus: "'--dubbed knight this day by Gloriana. God He knoweth why, but not I.'




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