"Colonel Hale all right, Mother?" said Luke, looking across at her.
The dowager, under her uplift of white hair, stared back at her son. There was an eye-battle for some moments, during which he maintained his arch, debonair ease, just a bit crazy.
"No," said Lady Lathkill, "he is in great trouble."
"Ah!" replied her son. "Awful pity we can't do anything for him. But if flesh and blood can't help him, I'm afraid I'm a dud. Suppose he didn't mind our dancing? Frightfully good for us! We've been forgetting that we're flesh and blood. Mother."
He took another whisky and soda, and gave me one. And in a paralysing silence Lady Lathkill sipped her hot brew, Luke and I sipped our whiskies, the young woman ate a little sandwich. We all preserved an extraordinary aplomb, and an obstinate silence.
It was Lady Lathkill who broke it. She seemed to be sinking downwards, crouching into herself like a skulking animal.
"I suppose," she said, "we shall all go to bed?"
"You go, Mother. We'll come along in a moment."
She went, and for some time we four sat silent. The room seemed to become pleasanter, the air was more grateful.
"Look here," said Lord Lathkill at last. "What do you think of this ghost business?"