He examined it with quick interest, recognizing several of the other men before he observed that he, himself, was in the group.
"Some one was always snapping about," he said, in explanation of his forgetfulness of the particular occasion when this picture was taken. "That must have been taken last spring when we were near Amiens. That's Billy Howard and there is Gordon Fould, both from Chicago, I think; or from Illinois, anyway," he pointed to two young men in the picture. "Billy was killed in the Argonne.—I suppose your cousin knew them or some of the others?"
Ethel did not say that she had supposed that cousin Agnes might have known him; for now the probability of that seemed slight indeed. He had not even suggested it, and as she watched him, she could not tell whether the thought of any unusual interest on the part of Mrs. Oliver Cullen was in his mind. He gave back the photograph but remained several moments longer before the portrait, and when he returned with Ethel to the drawing-room, he commented upon her again. "I don't think I ever saw a finer face. So this was her house." And it seemed to Ethel that he gazed about the big room with new appreciation of the taste in its decoration and furnishing.
Ethel offered nothing more about her cousin Agnes when they sat down; she went over with him in detail everything she had done since leaving him, including her call of that afternoon at Mrs. Davol's where, she reported, she had made an appointment for a sitting that evening. She lost all account of time during this talk so that she heard a servant opening the front door and admitting some one before she realized that this was the hour at which Bennet dropped in to scold
