Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“Myra,” said Mr. Whitney, “Knowleton wants to talk to you.”

“Father,” said Knowleton intensely, “I ask you——”

“Silence!” cried his father, his voice ascending testily. “You’ll do your duty—now.”

Knowleton cast one more appealing glance at him, but Mr. Whitney only shook his head excitedly and, turning, disappeared phantomlike up the stairs.

Knowleton stood silent a moment and finally with a look of dogged determination took her hand and led her toward a room that opened off the hall at the back. The yellow light fell through the door after them and she found herself in a dark wide chamber where she could just distinguish on the walls great square shapes which she took to be frames. Knowleton pressed a button, and immediately forty portraits sprang into life—old gallants from colonial days, ladies with floppity Gainsborough hats, fat women with ruffs and placid clasped hands.

She turned to Knowleton inquiringly, but he led her forward to a row of pictures on the side.

“Myra,” he said slowly and painfully, “there’s something I have to tell you. These”—he indicated the pictures with his hand—“are family portraits.”