"No, it's vile."
"Oh - vile!" The thin shoulders jerked up in a characteristic shrug. "If you like! But, psychologically speaking, isn't there a fascination? Watching our behaviour, listening for the scared note - voices lift: have you noticed it? People are such fools, they give things away, lose grip, say too much!"
"The trouble with you, my girl, is that you have a morbid mind," said Mathilda. "What's that?"
The sound of chains clanking round car-wheels had provoked this exclamation. Paula got up, and moved to the window. It had stopped snowing some hours earlier, but only a single pair of wheel-tracks disturbed the smooth whiteness of the drive and the deep lawn beyond it. A large limousine had drawn up before the front-door, and as Paula reached the window a figure in a Persian lamb coat and a skittish hat, perched over elaborately curled golden hair, alighted.
"I think," said Paula, "I think it's Mrs. Dean."
"Good God, already?" exclaimed Mathilda, getting up. "What's she like?"
Just what you might have expected. Joe has tripped out to meet her."
"He would!" said Mathilda.
Not only Joseph had gone out to meet this new guest, but Valerie also. Before Joseph could utter his little speech of welcome, she had cast herself upon her parent's awe-inspiring bosom, crying: "Oh, Mummy, thank goodness you've come! It's all too frightful for words!"
"My pet, of course Mummy has come!" said Mrs. Dean, in accents quite as thrilling as Paula's. "Mummy had to be with her little girl at such a time." She extended a tightly gloved hand to Joseph, saying with an arch smile: