Lois glanced again at the paper, which with arms outstretched she held in front of her like a man, like the men at Pickering's. Suddenly it fell rustling to the floor, and she burst into tears.
She murmured indistinctly: "
The last thing she did was for my pleasure—sending the car."
George jumped up, animated by an inexpressible tenderness for her. She had weakened. He moved towards her. He did not consider what he was doing; he had naught to say; but his instinctive arms were about to clasp her. He was unimaginably disturbed. She straightened and stiffened in a second.
"But of course you've not got it yet," she said harshly, with apparent irrelevance.
Séraphine entered bouncingly with the tea. Lois regarded the tray, and remarked the absence of the strainer.
" Et la passoire ?" she demanded, with implacable sternness.
Séraphine gave a careless, apologetic gesture.
VII
It was late in September, when most people had returned to London after the holidays. John Orgreave mounted to the upper floor of the house in Russell Square where George had his office. Underneath George's name on the door had been newly painted the word 'Inquiries,' and on another door, opposite, the word 'Private.' John Orgreave knocked with exaggerated noise at this second door and went into what was now George's private room.