Then came the doorbell, and the three sisters scuttled out of the hall. Gertrude picked up her skirts and sailed through the parlor toward her own room, with majestic certainty and uncanny speed. Isabel climbed the stairs, pushing Maud before her. Maud, who went up with her face turned backward, reluctant, thoroughly uncoy, per-fecdy wUling to risk an encounter with the man in her life. But she let Isabel hurry her past the table that stood just behind the railing on the edge of the stairwell, and around the comer of an upstairs wall.
They were gone. Alice stood alone, at the foot of the stairs, half exasperated, half relieved.
Dr. Follet was about sixty years old, she guessed, a dignified and rather pordy fellow with a bald head and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. His face was pink and talcumed. His neat tan suit was smooth over his robinlike contours. He sent forth a faint clean aroma, antiseptic and comforting. He acted as if he had resolved to do his duty precisely.
He kept his eyes on her face and his head nodding while he listened to her account of the disaster that had overtaken Innes Whitlock. He said, when she had finished, "Thank you, Miss Brennan, that's very helpful. Now where is the patient?"
Alice knocked on the sliding doors and then began to draw them back. Someone helped from the other side. It was Fred.
Innes was still lying on the sofa, looking very pale, scarcely able to Uft his head. His mother sat in a chair, pulled up close, and she now rose to make room for the doctor.
"Ah," said Dr. Follett, "how are you, Susan?"
"Oh, I'm fine," she said. "Just fine. And you, doctor?"
Again Alice felt imreasonably lonely to be left out of a whole world of people who kept saying, "Fine. Just fine," to each other.
Fred had gone. "Would you rather I went away?'' asked Alice.
"No, no," Innes said. "Doctor, this is Miss Brennan, my fiancee."
"Ah," said Dr. Follett, "she told me she was your secretary." In here, safe from the Whitlock girls, he was less businesslike. He looked benignly at Alice through the upper half of his glasses.
"The thing is that I must get along to my camp, doctor," Innes said fretfully. "The object of this whole trip. I never meant to stop here at all. But now Alice has got it into her head to worry about me." Alice wondered who had told him. "Fred says she won't let me go until you've seen me. She's being very bossy." He used his httle-boy voice and his pout, but she realized that he was much pleased. The role of an anxious sweetheart hadn't occurred to her, but here it was, ready and waiting.
"Naturally," said the doctor. "And quite right, too. Now . . .''
Susan Innes Whitlock drew Alice to a far comer of the room. They sat down with their backs to the men. "Innes has been telling me. I'm so happy about you. I've hoped he would find somebody. And I do think you were very wise to make him see the doctor."
"Thaitk you," said Alice, feeling a little ashamed. "But IVe upset his sisters."
"Oh, dear me, I'd forgotten." Susan looked concerned. "But I'm glad," she said, "and I think you were right" She patted Alice's hand with a kind of indignant support "Why did Fred call you Mrs. Innes?" blurted Alice. "If I shouldn't ask, please just say so. But rU go on making mistakes if I don't ask questions."
"Of course," said Susan sympathetically. "You must be wondering. It's only because they are the Misses Whidock, you see, and after their father died and I moved into the cottage. . . . Well, it seemed better not to confuse everybody."
Alice shook her head as if to convince herself that this explained anything.
"It's hard for you to understand, I know," Susan said. "But they never thought I quite measured up to Sophia, you see."
"Why not?" said Alice bluntly. "Because I was in service here." "Oh."
Susan's eyes, that had been watching, relaxed into thoughtfulness. "Stephen always did exactly as he pleased, but I'm afraid it was pretty hard on the girls. They had just come back from Europe, too." She sighed. "Well, that was long ago."
"I wish Innes had taken me to your house," Alice said impulsively.
"I wish so, too. Perhaps he will, someday. Or, at least you must come."
There it was, something unsure, between Innes and his mother. But Ahce liked her. Her instinct was stubborn about that.
Now the doctor was helping Innes to his feet. "He says," called Innes in a pleased voice, "that I will be just as imcomfortable in the car as anywhere else. So we'll go along."
"Is it really all right?" Alice was anxious. "I think so," the doctor said. "He has gotten rid of whatever poisoned him. He will feel weak, of course. And he had better stick to liquids for a day or so. He tells me
"Tell Fred, will you, dear?" Innes wobbled. "Good-by mother."
Alice watched them. Susan patted his sleeve, reaching out from a little distance, as if she dared not come closer. Innes was uncomfortable. Alice already knew him well enough to be sure of that. He was not at ease with his mother.
Alice went with the doctor out into the hall.
Fred was there. "You can put my bag in the car," she told him. "We're going ahead."
Her bag was already at his feet. Fred picked it up and went out
The doctor said, "Good-by, Miss Brennan."
"I'm grateful to you for coming," Alice said, "and I must apologize if I've embarrassed you. I didn't know. But I'm very glad you came. And I do thank you."
The doctor's eyes showed an imexpected twinkle. "Quite all right, Miss Brennan. Ill send a bill." He looked slyly around the hall. The velvet curtains to the parlor had been drawn, covering the opening and shutting them in. "Where are they?" His lips barely moved.
Alice shrugged and felt her dimpb surge into her cheek as it did when she suppressed a smile.
The doctor said, "Well, this has been an adventure. Now I think I'll just take Susan home."
Susan and Innes came through the sliding doors. He walked without her help, but he looked ghastly. "I think .. ." he said, ". . . excuse me."
He wobbled off down the hall. There was a bathroom back there, across the far end of it, connecting both into the hall and to Gertrude's room, behind the parlor. Innes went in and closed the door.
"Good-by, Alice." Alice kissed her mother-in-law to be. The old lady's cheek was soft and fragrant. Dr. Follett gathered Susan under his wing and left.
Alice looked up the stairs. Beyond the railing up there she could see only the table and the big old-fashioned kerosene lamp with the flower-painted china shade that stood on it. No one was visible. The velvet curtains hung straight at her right. All was quiet. Dignified, haughty, withdrawn, invisible, the three Whitlock girls made no sign.
She picked up her hat from the hall table and turned to the mirror. She heard Fred outside; she heard the bathroom door open, and Innes's footsteps, sounding firmer. Then Fred was in at the front door. Still looking at herself in the glass, Alice knew quite well that Innes was part way down the hall to her left and that Fred was close to her, at the right. That the comings and goings were part of the rhythm of their departure. She felt no alarm, nothing.
But the hall exploded with soimd and movement. She felt Fred move like a streak, heard him cry out, and then crash. She turned to see Innes huddled against the dioing-room wall with Fred's body holding him there, and the ruins of the big kerosene lamp scattered on the floor. A broken piece of the china shade gyrated slowly toward her and settled down at her feet. For what seemed like minutes, they stood as if they were all paralyzed in their places. Then Alice ran, stumbling, toward the men.
"Hang onto him, will you?" Fred took the stairs two at a time. Alice put herself where Fred had been and heard Innes's breathing, loud and gasping and broken in rhythm.
"Are you hurt? Did it hurt you?"
He couldn't answer except by shaking his head ever so slightly.
Fred came pounding down. "Nobody up there. What the hell happened?"