Arthur Carroll at first looked merely bewildered. "Aren't the ladies
at home?" said he. "Have you seen the ladies?" He glanced at Mrs. Van
Dorn's deflowered bonnet, and extended the bunch of violets. "Yours,
I think," he said. Mrs. Van Dorn took them with an idiotic
expression, and he asked again if they had seen the ladies.

The spectacle of two elderly, well-dressed females of Banbridge
quaking before him in this wise, and of their sudden appearance in
his house, was a mystery too great to be grasped at once even by a
clever man, and he was certainly a clever man. So he stared for a
second, while the two remained standing before him, holding their
card-cases in their shaking, white-gloved fingers, and Mrs. Van Dorn
with the violets; then suddenly an expression of the most delighted
comprehension and amusement overspread his face.

"Oh," he said, politely, with a great flourish, as it were of
deference, "the ladies are not in. They will be exceedingly sorry to
have missed your call. But will you not come in and sit down?"

Mrs. Van Dorn gained voice enough to gasp that she thought they must
go. Captain Carroll stood back, and the two women, pressing closely
together, tottered through the hall towards the front door.

Captain Carroll followed, beaming with delighted malice. "I hope you
will call again, when the ladies are home," he said to Mrs. Van Dorn,
whom he recognized as the leader.

She made an inarticulate attempt at "Thank you." She was making for
the door, like a scared hare to the entrance of its cover.