That was the picture, to the footman's eye.

He took a gloomy view of the state of Mr.
Sweetsir's brains on his return to the servants' hall.

"A slate loose, poor devil!" That was the footman's report of the brilliant Felix.
Immediately on the servant's departure, the silence in the picture-gallery was broken by voices penetrating into it from the drawing-room.

Felix rose to a sitting position on the sofa.

He had recognized the voice of Alfred Hardyman saying, "Don't disturb Lady Lydiard," and the voice of Moody answering, "I will just knock at the door of her Ladyship's room, sir; you will find Mr.Sweetsir in the picture-gallery." The curtains over the archway parted, and disclosed the figure of a tall man, with a closely cropped head set a little stiffly on his shoulders.
The immovable gravity of face and manner which every Englishman seems to acquire who lives constantly in the society of horses, was the gravity which this gentleman displayed as he entered the picture-gallery.