Raven considered a moment. His face did not lose its mask-like calm.
"No," he said then, "she mustn't. She must come to my house—or yours."
"No," said Nan again, still keeping her hand on his arm, and aching so with pity that she was humbly grateful to him for letting her touch his sleeve, "she mustn't do that either. It would be queer, Rookie. It would 'make talk.' She wouldn't like that. Don't you see?"
He did see. He gave a concurring motion of the head and was turning away from her, but Nan rose and, still with her hand on his arm, detained him.
"We'll leave her here," she said. "That woman—she's darling. We can make up to her afterward. But you mustn't appear in it again, except to tell Tenney, if you'd rather. Though I could do that. Now, let's go."
He was ready. But when he had reached the little entry between this room and the one where Tira's body lay, she ran to him.
"Rookie," she said, "Mrs. Donnyhill's out there with the children. Don't you want to go in and see Tira?"
Raven stood for a minute, considering. Then he crossed the entry and Nan, finding he could not, for some reason, put his hand on the latch, opened the door for him, and he went in. But only a step. He stood there, his eyes on the poor bed where Tira lay, and then, as if he were leaving a presence, he stepped back into the entry, and Nan understood that he was not even carrying with him the memory of her great majesty of beauty. She thought she understood. Even Tira's face was to be left covered. She was to be inviolate from the eyes of men. In a few minutes he had brought round the car, Nan had arranged things with Mrs. Donnyhill, and they drove out into the day—blazing now, like midsummer—and so home. And all the way they did not speak, until, passing Tenney's, the door open and the house with a strange look of being asleep in the sun, Nan said:
"Leave me here. I'll see him and then go on."
Raven did not answer. He drove past, to her own gate, and Nan, understanding she was not to move further in any direction, got out. Raven, perhaps feeling his silence had been unmerciful to her, spoke quietly: