III

You would have thought that no outsider would find a word to say, and you would have been mistaken.  The fact that Mrs Ebag was two years older than Miss and Miss two years younger than Mrs Ebag; the fact that old Caiaphas was, for strong reasons, always in the house; the fact that the ladies were notorious cat-idolaters; the fact that the reputation of the Ebag family was and had ever been spotless; the fact that the Ebag family had given the apse and practically created the entire church; all these facts added together did not prevent the outsider from finding a word to say.

At first words were not said; but looks were looked, and coughs were coughed.  Then someone, strolling into the church of a morning while Carl Ullman was practising, saw Miss Ebag sitting in silent ecstasy in a corner.  And a few mornings later the same someone, whose curiosity had been excited, veritably saw Mrs Ebag in the organ-loft with Carl Ullman, but no sign of Miss Ebag.  It was at this juncture that words began to be said.

Words!  Not complete sentences!  The sentences were never finished.  “Of course, it’s no affair of mine, but—­” “I wonder that people like the Ebags should—­” “Not that I should ever dream of hinting that—­” “First one and then the other—­well!” “I’m sure that if either Mrs or Miss Ebag had the slightest idea they’d at once—­” And so on.  Intangible gossamer criticism, floating in the air!

IV

One evening—­it was precisely the first of June—­when a thunderstorm was blowing up from the south-west, and scattering the smoke of the Five Towns to the four corners of the world, and making the weathercock of the house of the Ebags creak, the ladies Ebag and Carl Ullman sat together as usual in the drawing-room.  The French window was open, but banged to at intervals.  Carl Ullman had played the piano and the ladies Ebag—­Mrs Ebag, somewhat comfortably stout and Miss Ebag spare—­were talking very well and sensibly about the influence of music on character.  They invariably chose such subjects for conversation.  Carl was chiefly silent, but now and then, after a sip of whisky, he would say “Yes” with impressiveness and stare gloomily out of the darkening window.  The ladies Ebag had a remarkable example of the influence of music on character in the person of Edith Ebag.  It appeared that Edith would never play anything but waltzes—­Waldteufel’s for choice—­and that the foolish frivolity of her flyaway character was a direct consequence of this habit.  Carl felt sadly glad, after hearing the description of Edith’s carryings-on, that Edith had chosen to live far away.

And then the conversation languished and died with the daylight, and a certain self-consciousness obscured the social atmosphere.  For a vague rumour of the chatter of the town had penetrated the house, and the ladies Ebag, though they scorned chatter, were affected by it; Carl Ullman, too.  It had the customary effect of such chatter; it fixed the thoughts of those chatted about on matters which perhaps would not otherwise have occupied their attention.