He had just time to put out his arm to catch her as she fell suddenly forward.
"It is extraordinary how quietly Joan has taken it," Norah said on the evening of the same day. "I often wonder if she does feel things as we do, or whether Mrs. Reginald Routh is not right about her after all. You know, she always did say that Joan's hatred of music meant a lack of heart; of course, that is putting it rather strongly, and I shouldn't call her heartless myself—because nobody is quite that; but still, she has been strangely cool about poor Jack, and she has not even mentioned the mourning. I should not be surprised if she did not wear black at all, she is so inclined to be eccentric. I am glad I wrote to Peter Robinson's in time for the post; I shall get the patterns to-morrow. I don't know when I have felt so upset, though of course it does not do to talk about it. I wish there were a piano here; it would do us both so much good, wouldn't it, dear?"
Digby looked at his wife's gentle face as she bent it over her needlework, and he counted the regular folds of her soft gray gown and the coils of brown hair round her head, and he made a few mental reflections on the marvellous nature of woman.
"I cannot conceive what it must be to live without the love of music," she went on unconsciously in her low tuneful voice. "Music is like religion in that way, I think; we may try to do without it when we are happy, but we want it terribly when the trials come. Now, what has Joan to fall back upon to-night, do you suppose?"
"I don't know, but I will go and see," muttered the musician; he felt he had had as much as he could stand just then, and he took up his straw hat significantly. The old brown felt one had been gently but firmly suppressed soon after his marriage.
"What was that you said, Digby?"
"I will go and make her come down here to be cheered up. You are too tired to come, eh, childie?" said Digby; and he kissed her before he pushed open the creaking door and went out into the moonlight.
The butler said Lady Joan was busy in her boudoir and wished to be left undisturbed. But Digby managed to gain admittance a few minutes later, and he found occasion to add a few more reflections to his mental synopsis of woman.
"How nice of you to come, and what a cold creature you are! Come and sit near the fire; I waged a war with Mrs. Binks and had a wood fire lighted because I felt chilly, which shocked the conventional old thing very much indeed, because there never has been a fire lighted in here between spring-cleaning and Michaelmas, since the memory of man. But why should I listen to Mrs. Binks or any one else if I don't choose? At all events, it is nice and cosey, and I am going to tell you all my ideas. But tell me first why you came. What are you laughing at?"