“Scare me away?” repeated Alice, dazedly.
“Tut, tut,” smiled the fat man. “Melodrama doesn’t become you at all, Thorne. I’m a blunt old codger, Alice, but I mean well. It will really be more comfortable in the White House.” He chuckled suddenly again. “White House. That’s what I named it to preserve a sort of atmospheric balance.”
“There’s something frightfully wrong here,” said Alice in a tight voice. “Mr. Thorne, what is it? There’s been nothing but innuendo and concealed hostility since we met at the pier. And just why did you spend six days in father’s house after the funeral? I think I’ve a right to know.”
Thorne licked his lips. “I shouldn’t—”
“Come, come, my dear,” said the fat man. “Are we to freeze here all day?”
Alice drew her thin coat more closely about her. “You’re all being beastly. Would you mind, Uncle Herbert? I should like to see the inside — where father and mother—”
“I don’t think so, Miss Mayhew,” said Thorne hastily.
“Why not?” said Dr. Reinach tenderly, and he glanced once over his shoulder at the building he had called the White House. “She may as well do it now and get it over with. There’s still light enough to see by. Then we’ll go over, wash up, have a hot dinner, and you’ll feel worlds better.” He seized the girl’s arm and marched her toward the dark building, across the dead, twig-strewn ground. “I believe,” continued the doctor blandly, as they mounted the steps of the stone porch, “that Mr. Thorne has the keys.”
The girl stood quietly waiting, her dark eyes studying the faces of the three men. The attorney was pale, but his lips were set in a stubborn line. He did not reply. Taking a bunch of large rusty keys out of a pocket, he fitted one into the lock of the front door. It turned over with a creak.
Then Thorne pushed open the door and they stepped into the house.