As he looked forward to the day when he would order his sister and the other woman to leave his house, now he looked forward to the opportunity to slip into the empty room and be alone there, but without anybody knowing he was there. He waited for the chance when they would both be out of the house together. He schemed. He played up to them. He did not sit dreaming in his chair by the fire, but held his book in front of him and read it with attention. He asked them to bring him the evening paper, as though he was interested in what was in it. He did not look out of the back window into her garden. He ate what was put in front of him, and even suggested that if they both thought hard and put all their brains together, they might be able to remember that he liked his eggs just lightly boiled and that he liked them hot, because cold boiled eggs were bad for people, especially first thing in the morning. He grew bolder. He told them that when the conventional period of mourning was past they would all get dressed in their best clothes and go into town in a taxi and see a play or something. At that, they looked at him in astonishment, and then they turned their faces away, like disappointed cats who see that their prey has ceased to move and who hope that by pretending to remove their attention from it they will trick it into life again, and into movement again, and so find it still within their power. Mr. Derdon’s sister and the lady who cleaned looked away, startled, and then they looked back again, but he knew their ways and he was still smiling. “We’re not doing poor Rose any good, sitting around here with long faces,” he said.