Chapter Twenty-sixKatharine was in the hall again. She dropped her fur coat on a black and gold lacquer chair under the portrait of great-great-uncle Ambrose Talbot in the uniform he had worn at Waterloo—tight white breeches, scarlet coat, high stock, and a fair, almost girlish face—not quite eighteen when the picture was painted, after Napoleon had gone to St. Helena and his shadow had passed from the world. The Cedar House had belonged to Talbots ever since William Talbot built it for a country lodging nearly four hundred years ago. It took its name from the great cedar he had planted at the end of the lawn, and from the panelling which kept moth away and to this day diffused its own faint sweetness everywhere.
William’s grandmother was the last of the long Talbot line. He himself had t
