the door without knocking even...Constantia's eyes were enormous at the
idea; Josephine felt weak in the knees.

"You--you go first," she gasped, pushing Constantia.

But Constantia said, as she always had said on those occasions, "No, Jug,
that's not fair. You're the eldest."

Josephine was just going to say--what at other times she wouldn't have
owned to for the world--what she kept for her very last weapon, "But you're
the tallest," when they noticed that the kitchen door was open, and there
stood Kate...

"Very stiff," said Josephine, grasping the doorhandle and doing her best to
turn it. As if anything ever deceived Kate!

It couldn't be helped. That girl was...Then the door was shut behind them,
but--but they weren't in father's room at all. They might have suddenly
walked through the wall by mistake into a different flat altogether. Was
the door just behind them? They were too frightened to look. Josephine
knew that if it was it was holding itself tight shut; Constantia felt that,
like the doors in dreams, it hadn't any handle at all. It was the coldness
which made it so awful. Or the whiteness--which? Everything was covered.
The blinds were down, a cloth hung over the mirror, a sheet hid the bed; a
huge fan of white paper filled the fireplace. Constantia timidly put out
her hand; she almost expected a snowflake to fall. Josephine felt a queer
tingling in her nose, as if her nose was freezing. Then a cab klop-klopped
over the cobbles below, and the quiet seemed to shake into little pieces.

"I had better pull up a blind," said Josephine bravely.