'Yes,' she said, 'it is quite gone. It was only the heat and the smell of those horrid geraniums.'
This was rather hard on the Master, as he had gathered them together for her benefit.
There were still traces of tears on her cheeks when she got back to Newnham, and her eyes were red, and everybody could see she had been crying. Maria Stubbs saw her coming up the path with the Master, and she saw in a moment, directly she came into the hall, that there was something amiss. Nothing escaped Maria.
She followed Lucy into her room and shut the door behind her.
'You have heard, then?' she said.
Lucy noticed that she spoke in a more subdued tone than was usual to her, and there was a catch in her voice that jarred upon her ear.
'Heard what?' she said wearily. 'I have only just come back from the lodge. I have heard nothing.'
She was not very anxious to hear Maria's news. She thought it was one of the old things that was always happening: someone had passed an exam., or someone had been plucked, or someone had broken down. She was so used to these things that she did not care a straw which it was, and she began drawing off her gloves, and threw her hat down on a chair. When she had done this she became aware that Maria was looking at her with a strange pity in her eyes.
'And you have not heard?' she said with a little hard break in her voice.
'I have heard nothing,' Lucy said impatiently.