She rang again. She could hear the bell tinging shrilly within, but there was no other sound save the tick of the solemn little grandmother on the inner side of the wall.
Suddenly it occurred to her that Clare might be dozing. Clare never slept in the afternoons, but she did occasionally doze in her chair for a few minutes. She denied that she did so as strenuously as people always and unaccountably do; but Alwynne knew better. It always delighted her when Clare succumbed to drowsiness; a good sleeper herself, she had been appalled by Clare's acquiescence in four wakeful nights out of seven, and after a casual description that Clare had once given her of the arid miseries of insomnia, ten minutes' unexpected slumber did not give Clare herself more ease than it gave Alwynne.
The possibility of such an explanation of the silence, therefore, had to be considered respectfully: if Clare slept, far be it from Alwynne to wake her! Yet she could not go away.... Clare, after that unlucky clash of wills, would be doubly hurt if Alwynne left without seeing her first.... But if Clare were asleep....
Resignedly Alwynne sat herself down on Clare's doorstep to wait until a movement within should be the signal to ring again.
She was not annoyed; she always had plenty to think about; and it would be very pleasant, when Clare did at last open the door, to be received with open arms, and pitied, and scolded, and warmed.... It was certainly very cold.... All the draughts of the town seemed to have their home on the staircase, and to come sliding and slithering and undulating past, like a brood of invisible snakes.
She shifted her position. The doorstep was icy. She got up, and placed her muff, her chinchilla muff (shades of Elsbeth! her beautiful, new chinchilla muff) on the whitened doorstep. Then she sat on it.
"Ah! That's better," murmured Alwynne appreciatively. She was grateful to Elsbeth for reminding her to wear her muff.
But it did not get any warmer, and the daylight was beginning to fade. She glanced at her watch—twenty minutes past three. Surely Clare was awake again now. But she would wait another five minutes. She watched the hands—marvelled at the interminable length of a minute, and was drifting off on her favourite speculation as to the essential unreality of time, when simultaneously the grandmother struck the half-hour and she sneezed. She jumped up horrified. A cold would mean a week's absence from Clare, and a restatement of Elsbeth's thesis "of the advisability of wearing flannel petticoats and long-sleeved bodices."
Also, half of her hoarded hour was gone. She rang again impatiently. No answer. Clare must be out.... Gone to the post? No, Alwynne had been waiting half-an-hour, she would have returned by now.... Impossible that Clare should be out on Christmas afternoon, when she had refused an invitation and was expecting Alwynne herself.... She rang; and waited; and rang again and again and yet again.
"If Clare has gone out——" cried Alwynne indignantly; and subjected the handle to a final series of vicious tugs. The bell within pealed and rocked and jarred, gave a last hysterical gurgle and was dumb. She had broken the bell. She had broken Clare Hartill's bell!