“I shouldn’t think about all that now,” Winn replied. “It isn’t suitable.”
Mrs. Bouncing shook her head and sobbed louder; sobbing seemed a refuge from suitability.
“I wouldn’t have minded,” she said brokenly, “if I’d heated his milk. I always thought he was so silly about having skin on it. I didn’t believe when he came up-stairs it was because he was really worse. I wanted the sitting-room to myself. Oh dear! oh dear! I said it was all nonsense! And he said, ‘Never mind, Millie; it won’t be for long,’ and I thought he meant he’d get down-stairs again. And he didn’t; he meant this!”
Winn cleared his throat.
“I don’t think he blamed you,” he said, “as much as I did.”
Mrs. Bouncing was roused by this into a sudden sense of her position.
“Oh,” she said, “what are you going to do to me? You’ve always hated me. I’m sure I don’t know why; I took quite a fancy to you that first evening. I always have liked military men, but you’re so stand-offish; and now, of course, goodness knows what you’ll think! If poor old George were alive he’d stand up for me!”
“I’m not going to do anything to hurt you, Mrs. Bouncing,” said Winn, after a short pause. “You’ll stay on here, of course, till after the funeral. We shall do all we can to help you, and then you’ll go back to England, won’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, shivering, “I suppose so. I shall go back to England. I shall have to see George’s people. They don’t like me. Will — will that be all?”
“As far as I am concerned,” said Winn, more gently, “there is only one thing further I have to suggest. I should like you to promise me, when you leave here, to have nothing more to do with young Rivers. It’s better not; it puts him off his work.”