She wore black for her niece. There were few other guests. It was a family party. There were the two Heseltines, their cousins the Luscombes, the two Fawcetts, Ethel Fawcett (another cousin), a woman in morning dress who had just been speaking at a suffrage meeting, Roger, and one Lionel who was very late. They waited for Lionel. They were sure that Lionel would not be long. The suffrage speaker, Miss Lenning, asked if Lionel were better. Yes. The new treatment was doing him good. They were hoping that he would get over it. Roger started when Mrs. Heseltine's voice grew grave. There were notes in it strangely like Ottalie's voice. The voice reveals character more clearly than the face, more clearly than it reveals character, it reveals spiritual power. Until he heard those grave notes he had not seen much of Ottalie in her, except in the way in which she sat, the head a little drooped, the hands composed, in a pose which no art could quite describe, it was so like her. The words thrilled through him, as though the dead were in the room under a disguise. There was Leslie looking at him, with grave, kindly deliberation, putting up his glasses to Ottalie's eyes with Ottalie's hand. Ottalie's voice spoke to him through Mrs. Heseltine. They were away in one corner of the room now, looking at a drawing.
"I have so often heard of you," she was saying. "Somehow I always missed you when I was at Portobe. But I have heard of you from Leslie, and from poor Ottalie. I wanted to see you. I have been waiting to see you for the last month. I wanted to tell you something which Ottalie said to me, when my boy was killed in the war. She said that when a life ended, like that, suddenly and incomplete, it was our task to complete it, for the world's sake, in our own lives." She paused for an instant, and then added: "I have tried to realise what my boy would have done. I hope that you will come to talk to me whenever you like. Ottalie was very dear to me. She was in this room, looking at this drawing, only seven weeks ago." She faltered for a moment.
"Yes, Mrs. Heseltine?" he said.
"Talking about you," she added gently.
"Mr. Heseltine," said the maid, opening the door. The man with the yellow face and injected eyes entered.
"Ah, Lionel," said Mrs. Heseltine.
"I'm awfully sorry I'm so late," he said. "They've been trying a new cure on me. It's said to be permanent; but they've only tried it on one other fellow so far. I wish you hadn't waited for me." He glanced at Roger with a smile.
"D'you know Mr. Heseltine, Mr. Naldrett?"
"We met each other last night," said Roger. "At the MacElherans'."
"Yes. I think we did," he answered.