Betty buried her face upon his shoulder. He could feel the heave of her bosom against his heart.
"It's appalling!" she moaned. "Jean Cladel! ... No one ever had heard of him till this morning ... and now he's swept into this horror—like the rest of us! Oh, where will it end?"
Jim placed her in a chair and dropped on his knees beside her.
She was sobbing now, and he tried to lift her face up to his.
"My dear!" he whispered.
But she would not raise her head.
"No," she said in a stifled voice, "no," and she pressed her face deeper into the crook of his shoulder and clung to him with desperate hands.
"Betty!" he repeated, "I am so sorry.... But it'll all come right. I'm sure it will. Oh, Betty!" And whilst he spoke he cursed himself for the banality of his words. Why couldn't he find some ideas that were really fine with which to comfort her? Something better than these stupid commonplaces of "I am sorry" and "It will all straighten out"? But he couldn't, and it seemed that there was no necessity that he should. For her arms crept round his neck and held him close.