She rode home on her bicycle, leaving the others to follow. Some ladies who did not know what had happened bowed and smiled as she passed, and she returned their salute.
“Oh, miss, is it true?” cried the cook, her face streaming with tears.
Agnes nodded. Presumably it was true. Letters had just arrived: one was for Gerald from his mother. Life, which had given them no warning, seemed to make no comment now. The incident was outside nature, and would surely pass away like a dream. She felt slightly irritable, and the grief of the servants annoyed her.
They sobbed. “Ah, look at his marks! Ah, little he thought—little he thought!” In the brown holland strip by the front door a heavy football boot had left its impress. They had not liked Gerald, but he was a man, they were women, he had died. Their mistress ordered them to leave her.
For many minutes she sat at the foot of the stairs, rubbing her eyes. An obscure spiritual crisis was going on.
Should she weep like the servants? Or should she bear up and trust in the consoler Time? Was the death of a man so terrible after all? As she invited herself to apathy there were steps on the gravel, and Rickie Elliot burst in. He was splashed with mud, his breath was gone, and his hair fell wildly over his meagre face. She thought, “These are the people who are left alive!” From the bottom of her soul she hated him.
“I came to see what you’re doing,” he cried.
“Resting.”
He knelt beside her, and she said, “Would you please go away?”
“Yes, dear Agnes, of course; but I must see first that you mind.” Her breath caught. Her eves moved to the treads, going outwards, so firmly, so irretrievably.