He wrote a curt reply, that he was too busy, then, thinking better of
it, tore that up, and wrote another one, accepting.
He was annoyed with her and her persistence, but, after all, she was
Frankie’s sister, and the arbiter of Frankie’s fate.
Punctually at four he presented himself at the front door of the dismal
old house, and was admitted by a lean, elderly maid. She showed him into
the same enormous sitting-room with shrouded furniture.
“Miss Defoe will be down in a minute,” she said, severely.
The place had a sort of chill magnificence which impressed him; he was
fond of magnificence, anyway. Minnie increased in importance through
being able to receive him in such an environment. He had been inclined
to think her very ordinary, an opinion not to be held of the niece of
such a drawing room.
It was the stillest house imaginable. Not a sound of any sort. He sat
uneasily on a mammoth sofa, with nothing to hear, nothing to see but
pictures muffled in netting, nothing that he cared to think about. His
watch had gone long ago, and the marble clock on the marble mantelpiece
had stopped....
At last there was a faint rustle overhead, and then the sound of very
slow steps on the stairs, and in a minute Minnie entered, leading by the
arm a frail little old woman in black silk, a nervous, pampered shadow
of former elegance.
And this old lady remained in the room until Lionel went away. She was
polite enough in her own peculiarly unpleasant way, and she evidently
regarded his visit as a call upon herself, a compliment which she
appreciated. Tea was served, very weak tea, too, with limp little
biscuits; the old lady chattered banal and ill-humoured comments on news
of the day, and at last the room began to grow dark, and Lionel took his
leave.
She rose and held out a feeble old claw.
“Come again!” she said, and meant it, he knew. “We don’t see much
company.”
He went away puzzled and annoyed. Why had Minnie sent for him? She had
scarcely spoken a word to him, hadn’t given him a significant glance. He
couldn’t understand, couldn’t guess at her object, but he felt quite
sure that she had one, and that it was one he didn’t like.