Dinner was a constrained meal, well over in everybody's opinion. A note from Dr. Bryant was given to Felix, which he read and pocketed without remark. Then followed the last sad office for "Sissie," and Felix comported himself as chief mourner, with a composure which might easily have been mistaken for lack of feeling.
When they returned to the house, Prue asked, "Will you not see Lettice now?" and Felix acquiesced. He followed Prue upstairs, and found himself alone with a quiet pallid girl in deep mourning, who met and kissed him, then sat down, visibly trembling.
"So you haven't been well either, Lettice?"
"No—" she said faintly.
"Nothing much wrong?"
"I don't know. I thought you would come—before—"
"Before lunch. I couldn't. There were all those people to see. And I—well, I felt I'd better not."
There was a sound of something like heartlessness in the tone: but Lettice would not hear it, would not believe it. She knew the reality of his affection, and the assumed manner did not take her in. Indeed her mind was so full of other thoughts, and so bent upon the present fight for self-command, that she noticed it less than might have been expected. Only, the absence of expressed sympathy brought a chill.
"You see, Lettice, it's no good to talk," he said. "Nothing can change—that! We have to keep up and go on. Things are as they are, and nobody can make them different. And you've got to be brave."
Her lips quivered. "Yes, I will," she said. "I do mean to be good, indeed, and not to give trouble. And I'll do—anything you tell me."