Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/51

 of intoxicating joys and subtle evils which no one had found in her, nor she in life.

'As soon as you came in, I recognized the resemblance. My uncle never married because of that face. He had the miniature in his hand when he died fifty years ago in Canton, and his partner sent it back to us.'

'Is it a picture of a real woman, some one whom he loved?'

'No. Never. No woman. Some idea...a dream vampire...' the old lady's voice sank...'ghoul.'

'But perhaps it was nothing so terrible. Just a girl of flesh and blood, like me. Your uncle...'

'My uncle was no fool. And the men of my family do not commit suicide for an actual woman. This thing drove him crazy.' She turned away from the strewn contents of the chest. 'Keep it, if you want it. I'm through.'

Speechless, Lanice tucked the miniature in her voluminous petticoat pocket, and at a peremptory gesture from the old lady, left the shuttered chamber and its antique, delicately cooky-scented occupant.

Captain Poggy laughed at the idea of suicide. Every one knew, he said, that this uncle had died of dysentery, but the ladies of his family had preferred a more romantic ending, and now Sister Myra actually believed these lies. Lanice surreptitiously showed him the miniature, which he pronounced the finest thing of its kind he had ever seen. If, in some subtle way, it did resemble Lanice, evidently the fact escaped his shrewd eyes.