We left him standing with his back to the fire watching us go up the stairs, holding almost tenderly, for one must expend one's sympathy on something, a glass of hot water.
My uncle is very sympathetic. In matters that do not touch his own advancement he is all sympathy. That is why widows like him, I expect. My aunt would have known the reason if she hadn't been his wife.
October 1st.
While I dress it is my habit to read. Some book is propped up open against the looking-glass, and sometimes, for one's eyes can't be everywhere at once, my hooks in consequence don't get quite satisfactorily fastened. Indeed I would be very neat if I could, but there are other things. This morning the book was the Bible, and in it I read, A prudent man—how much more prudently, then, a woman—foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.
This made me late for breakfast. I sat looking out of the window, my hands in my lap, the sensible words of Solomon ringing in my ears, and considered if there was any way of escaping the fate of the simple.
There was no way. It seemed hard that without being exactly of the simple I yet should be doomed to their fate. And outside it was one of those cold windy mornings when male relations insist on taking one for what they call a run—as if one were a dog—in order to go through the bleak process they describe as getting one's cobwebs blown off. I can't bear being parted from my cobwebs. I never want them blown off. Uncle Rudolph is small and active, besides having since my aunt's death considerably dwindled beneath his apron, and I felt sure he intended to run me up the mountain after breakfast, and, having got me breathless and speechless on to some cold rock, sit with me there and say all the things I am dreading having to hear.
It was quite difficult to get myself to go downstairs. I seemed rooted. I knew that, seeing that I am that unfortunately situated person the hostess, my duty lay in morning smiles behind the coffee pot; but the conviction of what was going to happen to me after the coffee pot kept me rooted, even when the bell had rung twice.
When, however, after the second ringing quick footsteps pattered along the passage to my door I did get up,—jumped up, afraid of what might be coming-in. Bedrooms are no real protection from uncles. Those quick footsteps might easily be Uncle Rudolph's. I hurried across to the door and pulled it open, so that at least by coming out I might stop his coming in; and there was Mrs. Antoine, her hand lifted up to knock.
'Ces dames et Monsieur l'Evêque attendent,' she said, with an air of reproachful surprise.
'Il n'est pas un évêque,' I replied a little irritably, for I knew I was in the wrong staying upstairs like that, and naturally resented not being allowed to be in the wrong in peace. 'Il est seulement presque un.'