On their arrival, they found, to Widdowson's horror, a room full of women.

With the hostess was that younger lady they had seen on the quay, Mrs.Cosgrove's unmarried sister; Miss Knott's health had demanded this retreat from the London winter.

The guests were four--a Mrs.Bevis and her three daughters--all invalidish persons, the mother somewhat lackadaisical, the girls with a look of unwilling spinsterhood.
Monica, noteworthy among the gathering for her sweet, bright prettiness, and the finish of her dress, soon made herself at home; she chatted gaily with the girls--wondering indeed at her own air of maturity, which came to her for the first time.

Mrs.Cosgrove, an easy woman of the world when circumstances required it, did her best to get something out of Widdowson who presently thawed a little.
Then Miss Knott sat down to the piano, and played more than tolerably well; and the youngest Miss Bevis sang a song of Schubert, with passable voice but in very distressing German--the sole person distressed by it being the hostess.
Meanwhile Monica had been captured by Mrs.Bevis, who discoursed to her on a subject painfully familiar to all the old lady's friends.
'Do you know my son, Mrs.Widdowson?
Oh, I thought you had perhaps met him.

You will do so this evening, I hope.