easily by a mind not enslaved by narrow prejudices. I did not
avert my gaze from Alice. I went on talking with ingratiating
softness, the recollection that, most likely, she had never before
been spoken to by a strange man adding to my assurance. I don't
know why an emotional tenseness should have crept into the
situation. But it did. And just as I was becoming aware of it a
slight scream cut short my flow of urbane speech.

The scream did not proceed from the girl. It was emitted behind
me, and caused me to turn my head sharply. I understood at once
that the apparition in the doorway was the elderly relation of
Jacobus, the companion, the gouvernante. While she remained
thunderstruck, I got up and made her a low bow.

The ladies of Jacobus's household evidently spent their days in
light attire. This stumpy old woman with a face like a large
wrinkled lemon, beady eyes, and a shock of iron-grey hair, was
dressed in a garment of some ash-coloured, silky, light stuff. It
fell from her thick neck down to her toes with the simplicity of an
unadorned nightgown. It made her appear truly cylindrical. She
exclaimed: "How did you get here?"

Before I could say a word she vanished and presently I heard a
confusion of shrill protestations in a distant part of the house.
Obviously no one could tell her how I got there. In a moment, with
great outcries from two negro women following her, she waddled back
to the doorway, infuriated.

"What do you want here?"