To Rosamund, Hazel had summed up the situation in that sentence.
They could not do anything at all.
The wedding took place quietly at Porthlew, and they said good-bye to Hazel, radiant-eyed, and clinging in an unwonted embrace to her father at the last moment.
Then she drove away with her husband, and Miss Blandflower, in a piping soprano, remarked to Rosamund:
“It’s like a death in a house, isn’t it? But we must all try and take her place, now.”
The suggestion drove Frederick, snarling disgustedly, into the study.
Frances went quietly to put away some of the litter in Hazel’s room, while Rosamund, feeling herself useless and in the way, yet hung helplessly in the vicinity of Nina Severing, who had remained with Bertha in the drawing-room after the departure of the few guests.
But no word of Morris reached her.
Nina was murmuring consolation to her friend who, for once inactive, sat gazing heavily into the fire.
“After all, dearest, the young birds will fly out of the old nest and leave it desolate. It’s nature.”