Susan, alone, dropped listless hands into her lap. How long she sat there motionless and with mind a blank she did not know. She was aroused by a sound in the hall—in the direction of the outer door of their apartment. She started up, instantly all alive and alert, and glided swiftly in the direction of the sound. A servant met her at the threshold. He had a cablegram on a tray.
"For Mr. Palmer," said he.
But she, not hearing, took the envelope and tore it open. At a sweep her eyes took in the unevenly typewritten words:
Brent died at half past two this afternoon.
GARVEY.
She gazed wonderingly at the servant, reread the cablegram.
The servant said: "Shall I take it to Mr. Palmer, ma'am?"
"No. That is all, thanks," replied she.
And she walked slowly across the room to the fire. She shivered, adjusted one of the shoulder straps of her low-cut pale green dress. She read the cablegram a third time, laid it gently, thoughtfully, upon the mantel. "Brent died at half past two this afternoon." Died. Yes, there was no mistaking the meaning of those words. She knew that the message was true. But she did not feel it. She was seeing Brent as he had been when they said good-by. And it would take something more than a mere message to make her feel that the Brent so vividly alive, so redolent of life, of activity, of energy, of plans and projects, the Brent of health and strength, had ceased to be. "Brent died at half past two this afternoon." Except in the great crises we all act with a certain theatricalism, do the thing books and plays and the example of others have taught us to do. But in the great crises we do as we feel. Susan knew that Brent was dead. If he had meant less to her, she would have shrieked or fainted or burst into wild sobs. But not when he was her whole future. She knew he was dead, but she did not believe it. So she stood staring at the flames, and wondering why, when she knew such a frightful thing, she should remain calm. When she had heard that he was injured, she had felt, now she did not feel at all. Her body, her brain, went serenely on in their routine. The part of her that was her very self—had it died, and not Brent?
She turned her back to the fire, gazed toward the opposite wall. In a mirror there she saw the reflection of Palmer, at table in the adjoining room. A servant was holding a dish at his left and he was helping himself. She observed his every motion, observed his fattened body, his round and large face, the forming roll of fat at the back of his neck. All at once she grew cold—cold as she had not been since the night she and Etta Brashear walked the streets of Cincinnati. The ache of this cold, like the cold of death, was an agony. She shook from head to foot. She turned toward the mantel again, looked at the cablegram. But she did not take it in her hands. She could see—in the air, before her eyes—in clear, sharp lettering—"Brent died at half past two this afternoon. Garvey."
The sensation of cold faded into a sensation of approaching numbness. She went into the hall—to her own rooms. In the dressing-room her maid, Clemence, was putting away the afternoon things she had taken off. She stood at the dressing table, unclasping the string of pearls. She said to Clemence tranquilly:
"Please pack in the small trunk with the broad stripes three of my plainest street dresses—some underclothes—the things for a journey—only necessaries. Some very warm things, please, Clemence, I've suffered from cold, and I can't bear the idea of it. And please telephone to the—to the Cecil for a room and bath. When you have finished I shall pay you what I owe and a month's wages extra. I cannot afford to keep you any longer."