Page:Following darkness (IA followingdarknes00reid).pdf/39

 tip-toed across the room, but my foot caught the end of a form, and I nearly pitched through the door, head first.

I had intended going home, but with my hand on the latch of the gate I decided to go up to Derryaghy instead. Singularly enough, the thought that I might be sickening for scarlatina never occurred to me. The distance to Derryaghy was not more than a quarter of a mile, yet it seemed to me long, and before I arrived I regretted having started. The hall-door being open when I reached the house, I went in without ringing. I knew they would be at lunch, but I had no appetite, and as I did not want to answer questions or talk, I went straight on up the broad, low stairs, with the intention of going to my own room. At the head of the staircase, full in the light, hangs the celebrated portrait people come from far to admire. I sat down on the wide couch before it, not because I wanted to look at what I had already seen thousands of times, but because my head swam. I leaned against the back of the couch and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the portrait being in front of me, I could not help staring at it, in a dull way. It represents a young man standing bare-headed on a hill-side, holding a gun in his hand, and with an elderly dog seated sedately by him. The curiously long, oval face, with its high forehead and narrow, pointed chin, has much distinction, though little beauty, and its pallor contrasts oddly with the faded red of the full sensuous lips, completely revealed beneath the light, curled moustache. The eyes are dark, the hair light brown. The hands are hidden by brown gauntlet gloves, and over the dark brown doublet falls a lace collar. The trousers would look black but for the darker shade of the long boots, and this darker note is carried through to the trees behind, sombre and heavy against a yellow sky. Both man and dog are obviously posing for their portraits—the whole thing is a work of art, that is to say, it is something utterly beyond nature. The highest light is in the face,