Amelia hoped George would soon join them there.

She began playing some of his favourite waltzes (then newly imported) at the great carved-legged, leather-cased grand piano in the drawing-room overhead.

This little artifice did not bring him.
He was deaf to the waltzes; they grew fainter and fainter; the discomfited performer left the huge instrument presently; and though her three friends performed some of the loudest and most brilliant new pieces of their repertoire, she did not hear a single note, but sate thinking, and boding evil.

Old Osborne's scowl, terrific always, had never before looked so deadly to her.

His eyes followed her out of the room, as if she had been guilty of something.