Rachel nodded and disappeared before he could ask another question. With heart beating he ascended the stairs by twos. Through the half-open door of the faintly lit room which he himself would occupy he could hear Rachel active. And then he was at the closed door of his aunt's room. "I must be jolly careful how I do it!" he thought as he knocked.
II
He was surprised, and impressed, to see Mrs. Maldon in bed. She lay on her back, with her striking head raised high on several pillows. Nothing else of her was visible; the purple eider-down covered the whole bed without a crease.
"Hello, auntie!" he greeted her, instinctively modifying his voice to the soft gentleness proper to the ordered and solemn chamber.
Mrs. Maldon, moving her head, looked at him in silence. He tiptoed to the foot of the bed and leaned on it gracefully. And as in the parlour his shadow had fallen on the table, so now, with the gas just behind him, it fell on the bed. The room was chilly and had a slight pharmaceutical odour.
Mrs. Maldon said, with a weak effort—
"I was feeling faint, and Rachel thought I'd better get straight to bed. I'm an old woman, Louis."
"She hasn't missed them!" he thought in a flash, and said, aloud—
"Nothing of the sort, auntie."
He was aware of the dim reflection of himself in the mirror of the immense Victorian mahogany wardrobe to his left.