He was lying at her feet now on the grass in the far corner of the lawn under the terrace. "Why do you go to them?" he said. "Because they want me." "You mustn't go when they want you. You mustn't let them get hold of you." "They don't get hold of me--nothing gets hold of me. I want to help them. They say it does them good to have me with them." "I should think it did do them good! They feed on you, Ronny. I can see it by the way they look at you. You'll die of them if you don't give it up." "Give what up?" "Your game of keeping them going. That is your game, isn't it? Everybody's saying how wonderful Grannie is. They mean she ought to have been dead years ago. "They were all old, horribly old and done for, ages ago. I can remember them. But they know that if they can get a young virgin sacrificed to them they'll go on. You're the young virgin. You're making them go on." "If I could--it wouldn't hurt me. Nothing hurts you, Michael, when you're happy. It's awful to think how they've lived without being happy, without loving. "They used to hate me because I'm Vera's daughter. They don't hate me now." "You don't hate what you feed on. You love it. They're vampires. They'll suck your life out of you. I wonder you're not afraid of them. "I'm afraid of them. I always was afraid of them; when I was a kid and Mother used to send me with messages to that beastly spooky house they live in. I used to think it was poor old Grandpapa's ghost I funked. But I know now it wasn't. It was those four terrible women. They're ghosts. I thought you were afraid of ghosts." "I'm much more afraid of you, when you're cruel. Can't you see how awful it must be for them to be ghosts? Ghosts among living people. Everybody afraid of them--not wanting them." "Michael--it would be better to be dead!" * * * * * Towards the end of the afternoon Frances's Day changed its appearance and its character. In the tennis courts Michael's friends played singles with an incomparable fury, frankly rejecting the partners offered them and disdaining inferior antagonists; they played, Ellis against Mitchell and Monier-Owen against Nicholas. They had arrived late with Vera and Lawrence Stephen.