Bettina shivered. "It's so big and dark."
"When it's furnished and the lights are on it will seem different."
Delia, arriving at that moment, added her contribution to the conversation.
"Miss Diana came over yesterday. Them's her white lilacs on the shelf."
The doctor held his candle higher. The flowers, in a great bowl of gray pottery, showed ghostly outlines beneath the flickering flame. To Anthony the air seemed thick and faint with their perfume.
"Let us go," he said to Bettina, quickly, and with his hand on her arm he led her away and shut the door.
Diana and Sophie, coming home at half-past ten, found the lovers on the porch, and the four talked together until Anthony said "Good-bye."
He made a professional call in a side street and found himself, afterward, turning toward the big empty house on the rocks. In that south room Diana's lilacs were wasting their sweetness, and he coveted the subtle suggestion they gave of her presence there.
Diana, helping Delia to lock up, asked, "Where's Peter?"