As for Bice her heart was beating fast, she did not know what she felt. When Jack came in she was standing alone in the middle of the room with all its heavy adornments. Somehow they only seemed to add to her beauty, which struck him as freshly as ever. He greeted her kindly, and exchanged a stiff bow with Trent.
“We have been so shocked and grieved,” she said with eagerness. “I shall always feel as if she were the kindest person I have ever known.”
“Thank you,” Jack replied gravely. “I, for one, have good reason to say so.”
“Did she suffer very much?”
“At first. By the time I saw her it was more weakness than pain.”
“And you were in time? We have heard very few particulars.”
“Yes. I arrived the afternoon before.”
He was sitting next Bice on a sofa. Trent had flung himself on a chair, and taken up a book, but he was keenly on the watch. Bice, whose contemptuous mood had passed, looked at him nervously.
“I thought that when you left Rome you intended to come back again? Why did you stay all that time in England?” she asked in a hesitating voice.
“I did intend to return when I left, but circumstances are sometimes too strong for intentions,” said Jack, feeling a comical conviction that he was growing sententious. Pope’s line flashed through his mind: “And mark the point where sense and dulness meet.”