“Oh, what of the echo?” asked Mrs. Moore, paying attention to her for the first time.
“I can’t get rid of it.”
“I don’t suppose you ever will.”
Ronny had emphasized to his mother that Adela would arrive in a morbid state, yet she was being positively malicious.
“Mrs. Moore, what is this echo?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No—what is it? oh, do say! I felt you would be able to explain it . . . this will comfort me so. . . .”
“If you don’t know, you don’t know; I can’t tell you.”
“I think you’re rather unkind not to say.”
“Say, say, say,” said the old lady bitterly. “As if anything can be said! I have spent my life in saying or in listening to sayings; I have listened too much. It is time I was left in peace. Not to die,” she added sourly. “No doubt you expect me to die, but when I have seen you and Ronny married, and seen the other two and whether they want to be married—I’ll retire then into a cave of my own.” She smiled, to bring down her remark into ordinary life and thus add to its bitterness. “Somewhere where no young people will come asking questions and expecting answers. Some shelf.”