Isn't it touching to see how he has her there above his desk as
if he wanted to know her? How many books! I didn't know he cared for
books, did you? Perhaps they were his father's; though his father was a
business man. Yet I don't know why we never credit business men with any
interest in books. Perhaps they study them more than we imagine; they
must study something. Rob, did you see the picture in the other room
that looks so like Gordon? It seems almost as if it must have been
painted from him."
She flitted back into the outer room. Roberta stood still before the
desk, above which hung the portrait of the lovely young woman who had
been Richard's mother. Younger than Roberta herself she looked; such a
girl to pass away and leave her baby, her first-born! And he had her
here in the place of honour above his desk, where he sat to write and
read. For he did read, she grew sure of it as she looked about her.
Though the room was obviously looked after by a servant, it was probable
that there were orders not to touch the contents of the desk-top itself,
for this was as if it had been lately used. Books, a foreign review or
two, a pile of letters, various desk furnishings in a curious design of
wrought copper, and--what was this?--a little photograph in a frame!
Horses, three of them, saddled and tied to a fence; at one side, in an
attitude of arrested attention, a girl's figure in riding dress.
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