That was seven years ago, and Pauline and Rosie were now absolutely alone in the world, and, moreover, age had taught them tolerance, and their curiosity had been extremely excited by the news of their cousin’s partnership with the world-renowned Carpentaria, and the subsequent birth of the City of Pleasure. So that, in spite of anything they might have previously said to each other, they were rather pleased to meet their solemn cousin, who, after all, was a millionaire, and who really seemed less aloof and stiff than he appeared at funerals.
“So you were going to cut me?” said Ilam, trying to smile.
“No, cousin,” said Pauline. “How are you? You don’t look very well.”
“And Mrs. Ilam. She keeps pretty well, I hope,” put in Rosie decorously.
“That’s just it. She doesn’t. She’s---- Won’t you come in?”
“Do you live here?” cried Rosie. “Fancy living in the middle of this place! How jolly! And what a jolly house! Oh! what a delicious notion--living in the show!”
The historic family coolness looked as if it was going to warm itself into a sort of pleasant acquaintanceship.
Yes, Ilam was saying when they came downstairs, “she has been like that since last night, and the doctors--I have had two--assure me that at her age no recovery is possible. She can take liquid food, and she can move her eyes slightly--you noticed how her eyes turn?--but otherwise she is incapable of movement, and, of course, she can’t articulate.”
He had taken his young relatives upstairs to see his mother, and the picture of her, lying almost in the attitude of a corpse on the bed, with a uniformed nurse sitting motionless beside her, had made a deep impression on Pauline and Rosie. In fact, the whole house saddened them. It was spacious and luxurious, but it was far from reaching that standard of splendour which one might reasonably expect from the Ilam wealth. Ilam did not look like a wealthy man. He did not talk like a wealthy man, and both girls began to perceive, dimly, that wealth is useless to those who have not sufficient imagination to employ it. Certainly the City of Pleasure was an expression of the Ilam riches, but they knew, as all the world knew, that the imagination which had brought into being the City of Pleasure was Carpentaria’s. Hence, they felt sorry for Josephus Ilam, partly because of the calamity to his mother, and partly because of his forlorn and anxious air; they thought he wanted looking after, and that this heavy pompous man was greatly to be pitied, despite his opulence.