"It was because he didn't see things as he should, didn't do things as he should—in a general way—that he wasn't fit for the job, Mr. Burrus?" Joe went on.
"Exactly."
"And if he had—had been of a piece with yourself—so that you could have jiggled him around in your fingers like a hunk of putty, it would have been all right. It was not his drinking—it was his drinking in spite of your wanting him not to—that got him in bad, wasn't it, Mr. Burrus?"
Mr. Burrus fidgeted and then turned sharply on Joe. "This ain't no third degree."
"And you think he's gone away?" Joe continued as though not hearing him.
"Of course he's gone away. What else was there for him to do?"
There was no obvious alternative.
Joe took his leave and went to see Mrs. Mosby. As he stood waiting in the cool, high-ceilinged hall, he was struck by the quiet of the place. It had an air of waiting. What for? There was a high walnut hat-rack with a mirror and a marble slab with a card tray on it, and two high-backed chairs, likewise black walnut and elaborately carved and atrocious, and in the dim recesses of the stair a horsehair sofa, all just as they had been for years. They were mute but they seemed expectant. What could they be waiting for? They were on the outside edge of things—where life was passing. What could be in store for them? And yet, as he stood in the hall, with the sound of his breathing so fine, so distinct in his ears, they seemed to be part of another presence waiting there with him, a mute presence as to sound, but in some way eloquent voiced, clamorous to be heard.
A faint rustling came to his ears and then steps, and looking up, he saw his aunt Loraine coming down the stairs. Her bangles and her trinkets gave out hushed little clickings and he could hear her breathing as she came across the carpet to meet him.
"Joseph," she said, and he could see beneath her shell that she was agitated. "Joseph! What do you suppose can have happened?" Her toilette, like an ancient ritual observed in every sacred detail, included her manner and deportment. The voice, the inflection, the bearing—all went with the ruching and the bangles. Joe had once wondered if she put them all in the same box when she went to bed.