Miss Anna came to dinner as usual, leaning on her stick, and she received the girls with stately surprise, as if their presence was quite unlooked for but gradually unbent, and by degrees grew brilliant in her talk, and amused and delighted them. Geoffrey looked on with a mixture of shame, amusement, and contempt, at this pretended thawing and acceptance of what she could not prevent. She acted her part admirably, though now and then he surprised a glance of satisfaction and secret triumph which made him furious. But she kept up her show of reluctance so far that no one was invited into her boudoir that evening. They went back to the drawing-room again after dinner, where Geoffrey found both the girls standing within the half-drawn curtains of the window, looking down upon the London lights. They stood close together, talking low, talking of the great city all muffled and mysterious in mist, and smoke, and darkness, at their feet. When Geoffrey joined them, they stopped their conversation. “I am afraid I have interrupted you,” he said.
“Oh no, no! We can’t help talking of one thing. It is wearisome to other people; but after all it is only a few days. We were wondering where it was that _he_ is lying,” said Milly.
Geoff pointed out to them as well as he could where the spot was.
“We have so often talked of seeing London, and thought what it would be like and what we should like most in it,” said Grace. “We little thought----”
He seemed to be taken into their confidence as they broke off and stood gazing with brimming eyes towards the place where their father lay.
“And now you will have no association with London but that of pain,” he said.
There was a pause, and then it was Milly who replied, “People have been very kind to us. We can never forget the kindness wherever we may be.”
To this Grace assented with a little reservation. “Yes, we shall never forget Grove Road--your mother and you, Mr Geoffrey.”
“What!” said Geoff, “are you drawing back already? I was Cousin Geoffrey this morning; and I do not think I have done anything to forfeit the name.”
There was a little murmur of apology from both; and there is no telling how long they might have lingered there, with the light and warmth behind them, and the wide world of sky and air, and distant mighty multitudinous life before, had not Mrs Underwood come forward anxiously to see what was going on. She had begun to feel herself deserted, and to remember again what she had once felt and said about the old lady. She had not so much as thought of the old lady since she brought them into the house; but now the murmur of voices behind the curtain; the natural, inevitable manner in which Geoff found his way there, the solitude into which she was herself thrown, brought back all her alarm. “Geoff,” she said, “you must not keep them in the cold: there is a great draught from that window: we always have the curtains drawn. Come in, my dears, come in to the light; there has been so much rain that it is quite cold to-night.”