“I am all right,” she said heavily. “As a matter of fact I have been looking at my return ticket. It is interchangeable, so I have a much larger choice of boats home than I thought.”
“We can go into that later, can’t we?”
“Ralph and Stella may be wanting to know when I arrive.”
“There is plenty of time for all such plans. How do you think our Adela looks?”
“I am counting on you to help me through; it is such a blessing to be with you again, everyone else is a stranger,” said the girl rapidly.
But Mrs. Moore showed no inclination to be helpful. A sort of resentment emanated from her. She seemed to say: “Am I to be bothered for ever?” Her Christian tenderness had gone, or had developed into a hardness, a just irritation against the human race; she had taken no interest at the arrest, asked scarcely any questions, and had refused to leave her bed on the awful last night of Mohurram, when an attack was expected on the bungalow.
“I know it’s all nothing; I must be sensible, I do try——” Adela continued, working again towards tears.
“I shouldn’t mind if it had happened anywhere else; at least I really don’t know where it did happen.”
Ronny supposed that he understood what she meant: she could not identify or describe the particular cave, indeed almost refused to have her mind cleared up about it, and it was recognized that the defence would try to make capital out of this during the trial. He reassured her: the Marabar caves were notoriously like one another; indeed, in the future they were to be numbered in sequence with white paint.
“Yes, I mean that, at least not exactly; but there is this echo that I keep on hearing.”