"Who are you?" I cried out. She laid her book in her lap. "Are you Mrs. Harborough? Then come—come quickly ... I'll tell you on the way——"
The old woman lifted the folds of her double chin and looked at me through spectacles.
"You must come and help me to get Bettina...." I broke into distracted sobbing on the name. "Bettina——! Bettina——!" I seized the lady's hand and tried to draw her out of her chair.
But I was full of trembling. She sat there massive, calm, with a power of inert resistance, that made me feel I could as easily drag her house out of the Square by its knocker, as move the woman planted there in her chair.
Neither haste nor perturbation in the voice that asked me: "What has happened?"
"Not yet!" I cried out. "Nothing has happened yet! But we must be quick. Oh, God, let us be quick——"
The butler had followed me in and was asking something. "Yes," said the quiet voice, "pay the cabman."
"No!" I shrieked. "Keep him! I must go back, instantly...." And through my own strange-sounding voice, hers reached me.
"You must see that you are quite unintelligible. Sit down and collect yourself."
"Sit down! Isn't it enough that one woman sits still, while—while——"