"Why not?"
"Who could?" George protested. "We're all so nervous to-night, aren't we, with this At Home business. And I know I never could concentrate in my best clothes."
For Edwin the boy with his shocking candour had suddenly precipitated out of the atmosphere, as it were, the collective nervousness of the household, made it into a phenomenon visible, tangible, oppressive. And the household was no longer a collection of units, but an entity. A bell rang faintly in the kitchen, and the sound abraded his nerves. The first guests were on the threshold, and Hilda was late. He looked at the clock. Yes, she was late. The hour named in the invitations was already past. All day he had feared lest she should be late, and she was late. He looked at the glass of the front-door; but night had come, and it was opaque. Ada tripped into view and ran upstairs.
"Don't you hear the front-door?" he stopped her flight.
"It was missis's bell, sir."
"Ah!" Respite!
Ada disappeared.
Then another ring! And no parlour-maid to answer the bell! Naturally! Naturally Hilda, forgetting something at the last moment, had taken the parlour-maid away precisely when the girl was needed! Oh! He had foreseen it! He could hear shuffling outside and could even distinguish forms through the glass--many forms. All the people converging from various streets upon the waiting nervousness of the household seemed to have arrived at once.
George moved impulsively towards the front-door.
"Where are you going?" Edwin asked roughly. "Come here. It's not your place to open the door. Come with me in the drawing-room."