"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.