Instead of handing the keys to Lilian, she dropped them by the necktie on the dressing-table, where they made a disturbing noise in collision with the glass-top--as if they had cracked the glass (but they had not).
"I think that's everything."
"But about the business?" Lilian asked weakly.
"Oh yes, of course, I was forgetting. Mr. Farjiac knows all about it. I've left Gertie Jackson in charge. She's very capable and devoted. You needn't go near the place unless you care to. I've told her she should come and see you to-morrow."
"But are you giving it up entirely?" Lilian, who had heard not a word from the lawyer as to this abandonment, was ready to cry.
"How can I give up what doesn't belong to me?" asked Miss Grig, with a revolting sweetness like the taste of horseflesh. "The business is yours, and it was never mine. I merely managed it."
"Won't you take it?" Lilian burst out, losing self-control in the reaction of her natural benevolence against the awful bitterness of the scene. "Take it all for yourself. I would so like you to have it. I know you love it."
Miss Grig's tone in reply recalled the young widow to the dreadful proprieties of the interview.
"No, thank you," said she coldly, with the miraculous duplicity of wounded arrogance, "I'm only too glad to be rid of the responsibility and the hard work--at my age. I only did it all to please Felix. So that now he's dead.... By the way, I think I ought to let you know that my poor brother's grave is sadly neglected. And the headstone has a terribly foreign look. And it's all sunk in sideways, because you didn't give the ground time to settle before you had it fixed."
Miss Grig's "By the way" information absolutely effaced the effect on Lilian of the magnificent lie which preceded it. She was staggered and she was insulted and outraged. Had Miss Grig dared, without warning her, to go down to the Riviera and examine Felix's grave?