She followed them, closed the front door behind them, and bustled off to look after the arrangements for supper.
Frederik yawned, lighted a cigarette, and sauntered out into the office, Peter Grimm watching him with infinitely sad reproach in his luminous eyes.
Then, left alone in the room he had loved, the Dead Man looked about him at the dear old bits of furniture and ornaments that had meant so much to him and whose fate he had just heard weighed between auctioneer's hammer and rubbish heap.
He moved across to the rack, as if by lifelong instinct, and hung his antique hat on its accustomed peg. The simple, everyday action brought him so vividly close to older days that, as Marta pottered in with another newly filled lamp, he accosted her.
"Marta!" he called, as she gave no sign of recognition to his kindly nod and smile.
She set down the lamp in its place on the piano, crossed to the pulley-weight clock, and noisily wound it. As the old woman started back toward her kitchen, the Dead Man put himself once more in her way.
"Marta!" said he, then more loudly and peremptorily, "Marta!"
She passed within an inch of his outstretched hand and entered the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Peter Grimm stared blankly after his housekeeper.
"I seem to be a stranger in my own house," he murmured. "My friends pass me by. Their gross eyes cannot see me. Their gross ears will not hear me. But—Lad knew me. He came to meet me, wagging his tail just as he used to. I—I remember I've more than once noticed his going to meet other people like that. People I couldn't see in those days."
Frederik lounged back from the office, cigarette in mouth. He took out his watch, compared it with the clock on the wall, slipped it back into his pocket, and was crossing to the outer door when the telephone bell on the desk jangled.