Mrs. Folyat covered her face with her handkerchief. Tears she knew were unanswerable, but she did not anticipate that Annette would make no attempt to carry the discussion farther. When she removed her handkerchief Annette was gone and Serge was sitting quietly unwinding her skein of wool.
“Serge! Serge!” she said.
“Yes, mother.”
“Has she gone?”
“Yes, mother.”
He turned and looked at her, and under his steady gaze she was silenced. She brought her spectacles down on to her nose, took up her knitting and went on with it. Every now and then she sniffed.
Serge wound the new skein of wool into a ball and placed it in the basket by her side. He waited for a moment to see if she had anything to say. She only sniffed. Every line in her figure expressed a perfect wallowing in self-pity. He left her to it.
In the street Francis, still clinging to Bennett’s arm, ended his homily thus:
“Marriage, of course, is a blessed condition, and man was not meant to live alone. You will get into difficulties; everybody does. You will look for help; everybody does.—But don’t let it become a habit.”
He had a great deal more to say, but just as, for the fourteenth time, they came opposite the house, the door opened and Serge and Annette came out, he carrying her luggage, a small trunk. In her hands she had two hats of straw, very high in the crown and very small in the brim. Bennett left his father-in-law and rushed over to her.