"Never--never--never," repeated Angela in a frozen agony, and, rising,
she walked restlessly up and down again until a servant appeared to
inform the visiting sisters that dinner and Miss Wilde awaited them
below.




CHAPTER III

APOLOGISES FOR AN OLD-FASHIONED ATMOSPHERE


As soon as dinner was over Uncle Percival retired with Mr. Bleeker into
the library, from which retreat there issued immediately the shrill
piping of the flute. Mr. Bleeker, with an untouched glass of sherry at
his elbow and an unlighted cigar in his hand, sank back into the placid
after-dinner reverie which is found in the rare cases when old age has
encountered a faultless digestion. The happiest part of his life was
spent in the pleasant state between waking and sleeping, while as yet
the flavour of his favourite dishes still lingered in his mouth--just as
the most blissful moments known to Uncle Percival were those in which he
piped his cherished airs upon his antiquated instrument. The eldest
member of the Wilde family was very old indeed--had in fact successfully
rounded some years ago the critical point of his eightieth birthday, and
there was the zest of a second childhood in the animation with which he
had revived the single accomplishment of his early youth. That youth was
now more vivid to his requickened memory than the present was to his
enfeebled faculties. The past had become a veritable obsession in his
mind, and when he fingered the old flute strength came back to his