And, in quiet intervals, this still house, and grandfather shut away in his upstairs room, but holding the threads of all their lives as a spider clutches the diverging filaments of its web.
"Get in on this, Lily," said a clear young voice. "We're talking about the most interesting men we met in our war work. You ought to have known a lot of them."
"I knew a lot of men. They were not so very interesting. There was a little nurse--"
"Men, Lily dear."
"There was one awfully nice boy. He wasn't a soldier, but he was very kind to the men. They adored him."
"Did he fall in love with your?"
"Not a particle."
"Why wasn't he a soldier?"
"He is a little bit lame. But he is awfully nice."
"But what is extraordinary about him, then?"
"Not a thing, except his niceness."
But they were surfeited with nice young men. They wanted something dramatic, and Willy Cameron was essentially undramatic. Besides, it was quite plain that, with unconscious cruelty, his physical handicap made him unacceptable to them.
"Don't be ridiculous, Lily. You're hiding some one behind this kind person. You must have met somebody worth while."
"Not in the camp. I know a perfectly nice Socialist, but he was not in the army. Not a Socialist, really. Much worse. He believes in having a revolution."
That stirred them somewhat. She saw their interested faces turned toward her.
"With a bomb under his coat, of course, Lily."
"He didn't bulge."
"Good-looking?"
"Well, rather."
"How old is he, Lily?" one of them asked, suspiciously.
"Almost fifty, I should say."
"Good heavens!"
Their interest died. She could have revived it, she knew, if she mentioned Louis Akers; he would have answered to their prime requisite in an interesting man. He was both handsome and young. But she felt curiously disinclined to mention him.
The party broke up. By ones and twos luxuriously dressed little figures went down the great staircase, where Grayson stood in the hall and the footman on the doorstep signaled to the waiting cars. Mademoiselle, watching from a point of vantage in the upper hall, felt a sense of comfort and well-being after they had all gone. This was as it should be. Lily would take up life again where she had left it off, and all would be well.
It was now the sixth day, and she had not yet carried out that absurd idea of asking Ellen's friend to dinner.