“I like people to like me, too,” Katherine answered, raising her voice and moving now definitely away from him. “Why shouldn’t one?” she ended. “Don’t you be afraid, Mr. Mark. It’s all right.”
He dressed hurriedly and came down to the drawing-room, with some thought in the back of his mind that he would, throughout the evening, be the most charming person possible. He found, however, at once a check....
Under a full blaze of light Grandfather Trenchard and Great Aunt Sarah were sitting, waiting for the others. The old man, his silver buckles and white hair gleaming, sat, perched high in his chair, one hand raised before the fire, behind it the firelight shining as behind a faint screen.
Aunt Sarah, very stiff, upright and slim, was the priestess before the Trenchard temple. They, both of them, gazed into the fire. They did not turn their heads as Mark entered; they had watched his entry in the Mirror.
He shouted Good-evening, but they did not hear him. He sat down, began a sentence.
“Really a sharp touch in the air—” then abandoned it, seizing ‘Blackwood’ as a weapon of defence. Behind his paper, he knew that their eyes were upon him. He felt them peering into ‘Blackwood’s’ cover; they pierced the pages, they struck him in the face.
There was complete silence in the room. The place was thick with burning eyes. They were reflected, he felt, in the Mirror, again and again.
“How they hate me!” he thought.