"I don't know," she repeated, returning, suddenly, from that vision of
the past. "It was someone I met, saw, for a short time----"
"But his name?" said the Marquess, with a subdued impatience.
"That I don't know," Celia replied, raising her eyes, in which the
Marquess could not fail to read truth and honesty. "I saw him once only,
and for a short time, and then--then he passed out of my life. I mean,
that I did not see him again; that it is unlikely I shall ever see him
again."
"Where was this--this meeting of which you speak?" inquired the
Marquess, in a conversational tone. "Pardon me if I seem intrusive--it
is your affair and yours only--but you have excited my curiosity. The
portrait is that of my brother."
"I know," said Celia. "I do not mind your asking me; but I cannot tell
you. What passed between me and him----" She stopped; she was on
delicate ground; this man, with his worldly experience, his acute
intelligence, might lead her on to disclose what had happened that
night; she could not cope with him. "I do not know his name."
The Marquess bowed his head, and smiled slightly, as if he scented the
aroma of a commonplace romance.
"Quite so," he said. "A casual meeting. Such occurs occasionally in the
course of one's life, and I dare say the resemblance you noticed was
only a fancied one. It must have been," he added, looking on the ground,
and speaking in an absent way; "for as it happens, my brother"--he
nodded towards the portrait--"was unmarried, had no relations other than
myself and my son." He turned away to the fire again. "Oh, yes; only a
fancied one. Good night."
This was a definite dismissal, and Celia, murmuring, "Good night, my
lord," went up the stairs. At the bend of the corridor she glanced down
involuntarily. The Marquess had turned from the fire again, and was
looking, with bent brows, at the portrait.