A word that sounded like "Bosh" proceeded from George, who had turned his back and was walking into the house.
"I think they were just dazed," explained Eva. "They look almost as if they were walking in their sleep. I never even noticed until today that they were all so young. Why, the little one is a mere kiddy;" she twisted round on her heel. "I think I shall go back and talk to them," she added.
"No," said her mother. "You will stay here."
That evening when Mr. Whitaker came back from the City his daughter had much to tell him, and even the somewhat supercilious George took an interest and joined in the conversation.
"The ghosts have spoken, papa!" cried Eva, dancing round him in the hall. Then as soon as he was in the drawing-room she made him sit down in his armchair and kissed him on the top of his benevolent bald head. "And—do you know?—they are really not ghosts at all; are they, mother?"
Mrs. Whitaker did not look up from her knitting. But her husband spoke.
"They are the wife, the sister, and the daughter of a doctor," he said. "At the Belgian Consulate I was told they were quite decent people. My dear Theresa," he added, looking at his wife, "I think we ought to have asked them to take their meals with us."
"I did so," said Mrs. Whitaker, with some asperity. "I did so, although they do look like scarecrows. But they say they prefer having their meals by themselves."
"Then you must respect their wishes," said Mr. Whitaker, opening a commercial review.
"Just fancy, Pops," said Eva, perching herself on the arm of her father's chair, "the youngest one—the poor little creature with the uncanny eyes—is deaf and dumb."
"How sad!" said her father, caressing his daughter's soft hair.
"Did her mother tell you so?" asked Mrs. Whitaker, looking up from the grey scarf she was knitting.
"No, not her mother," explained Eva; "the other one told me. The one with the dimples, who speaks English. She is sweet!" cried the impulsive Eva, and her father patted her hair again and smiled.
"Her name is Sherry," remarked George.
"Oh, George, you silly," exclaimed Eva. "You mean Chérie."
"How do you know her name?" snapped Mrs. Whitaker, laying down her knitting in her lap and fixing stern inquisitorial eyes upon her son.
"She told me," said George, with a nonchalant air.
"She told you!" said his mother. "I never knew you had any conversation with those women."
"It wasn't conversation," said George. "I met her in the garden and I stopped her and said, 'What is your name?' and she answered, 'Sherry.' That's all."
"Queer name," said his father.
"My dear Anselm, that is really not the point—" began Mrs. Whitaker, but the dressing-gong sounded and they all promptly dispersed to their rooms, so Anselm never knew what the point really was.
After dinner Eva, as usual, went to the piano, opened it and lit the candles, while her father sat in the dining-room with the folding-doors thrown wide open, as he declared he could not enjoy his port or his pipe without Eva's music.
"What shall it be tonight, Paterkins?" Eva called out in her birdlike voice. "Rachmaninoff?"
"No. The thing you played yesterday," said her father, settling himself comfortably in his armchair, while the neat maid quietly cleared the table.
"Why, that was Rachmaninoff, my angel-dad," laughed Eva, and twisted the music-stool to suit her height.
George came close to her and bending down said something in an undertone.
"Good idea," said Eva. "Ask the mater."
"You ask her," said George, sauntering into the adjoining room, where he sat down beside his father and lit a cigarette.
Eva went to her mother, and coaxed her into consenting to what she asked. Then she ran out of the room and reappeared soon after, bringing with her the three figures in black. As they hesitated on the threshold, she slipped her arm through the arm of the reluctant "Sherry" and drew her forward. "Do come!—Venny!" she said, and the three entered the room.
They were quite like ghosts again, with pale faces and staring eyes and the rigid gait of sleep-walkers.
They sat down silently in a row near the wall, and Eva went to the piano and played. She played the Rachmaninoff "Prelude," and when she had finished they neither moved nor spoke. She wandered off into the gentle sadness of Godard's "Barcarole," and the three ghosts sat motionless. Schumann's "Carnaval" did not cheer them, nor did the "Moonlight Sonata" move them. When Eva at last closed the piano they rose, and the two eldest, having silently bowed their thanks, they left the room, conducting between them the little one, whose pallor seemed more spectral and whose silence seemed even deeper than theirs.
"Poor souls! poor souls!" growled Mr. Whitaker, clearing his throat and knitting his brows. "Theresa, my dear," to his wife, "see that they lack for nothing. And I hope the children are always very kind and considerate in their behaviour to them. George," he added, turning what he believed to be a beetling brow upon his handsome son, "I noticed that you stared at them. Do not do so again. Grief is sensitive and prefers to remain unnoticed."
George mumbled that he hadn't stared and marched out of the room. Eva put her arms round her father's neck and pressed on his cheek the loud, childish kisses that he loved.
"May I go and talk to them a little?" she asked, in a coaxing whisper.
"Of course you may," said her father, and Eva ran out quickly, just as her mother looked up to say, "What is it?"
"I have sent Eva to talk to those unhappy creatures," said Mr. Whitaker. "We must try and cheer them a little. It is nothing less than a duty. Poor souls!" he repeated, "I have never seen anything so dismal."
"I think we fulfil our duty in providing them with shelter and food," said Mrs. Whitaker.
"You think nothing of the kind, Theresa," said Mr. Whitaker.
"I do," asserted his wife. "And as for Eva, she is already inclined to be exaggeratedly sentimental in regard to these people. She is constantly running after them with flowers and cups of tea."
"Nice child," said her father, with a little tightening in his throat.
"She is not a child, Anselm. She is nineteen. And I do not wish her to have anything to do with those women."
"Theresa?" said her husband, in a high questioning voice. "Theresa. Come here."
Mrs. Whitaker did not move. "Come here," he repeated in the threatening and terrible tone that he sometimes used to the children and to his old retriever Raven—a tone which frightened neither child nor beast. "Come here."
Mrs. Whitaker approached. "Sit down," he said, indicating a footstool in front of him; and Mrs. Whitaker obeyed. "Now, wife," he said, "are you growing hard and sour in your old age? Are you?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Whitaker. "I am."
"Ah," said Mr. Whitaker, "that's right. I knew you weren't." And he laughed, and patted her cheek.
This was not the answer Mrs. Whitaker was prepared for and she had nothing ready to say. So the wily Mr. Whitaker went on, "I have noticed lately in you certain assumed asperities, a certain simulated acrimony.... Now, Theresa, tell me; what does this make-believe bad temper mean?"
Mrs. Whitaker felt that she could weep with rage. What is the good of having a bad temper when it is not believed in? Of what use is it to be sore and sour, to feel bitter and hard, in the face of smiling incredulity?
"With other people, my dear," continued Mr. Whitaker, "you may pretend that you are disagreeable and irascible, but not with me. I know better."
This simple strategy had proved perfectly successful for twenty years and it answered today, as it always did.
"I am disagreeable, I am irascible, I am bitter, and hard, and cross," said Mrs. Whitaker, whereupon Mr. Whitaker closed his eyes, smiled and shook his head.
"Don't keep on shaking your head like a Chinese toy," she added. "Anselm, you really are the stupidest man I have ever seen." And then she laughed. "It is dreadful," she added, putting aside the hand he had laid on her shoulder, "not to be believed when one is cross, not to be feared when one is angry. It makes one feel so helpless."