She began to walk about the room, wondering what she should do about the dinner. She must give up the Sampsons, and she was very hungry. She had had no tea at the Flower Show and very little luncheon.
She was about to go and speak to Gladys when she heard the hall door open. It closed. Something--some unexpressed fear or foreboding--kept her where she was. Steps were in the hall, but they were not her father's; he always moved with determined stride to his study or the stairs. These steps hesitated and faltered as though some one were there who did not know the house.
At last she went into the hall and saw that it was indeed her father now going slowly upstairs.
"Father!" she cried; "I'm so glad you're in. Dinner's been waiting for hours. Shall I tell them to send it up?"
He did not answer nor look back. She went to the bottom of the stairs and said again:
"Shall I, father?"
But still he did not answer. She heard him close his door behind him.
She went back into the drawing-room terribly frightened. There was something in the bowed head and slow steps that terrified her, and suddenly she was aware that she had been frightened for many weeks past, but that she had never owned to herself that it was so.
She waited for a long time wondering what she should do. At last, calling her courage, she climbed the stairs, waited, and then, as though compelled by the overhanging silence of the house, knocked on his dressing-room door.
"Father, what shall we do about dinner? Mother hasn't come in yet." There was no answer.