III
Outside her grandmother's door she paused; so she had always paused, and now, as she waited there, all the procession of other days when she had stood there came before her. Conditions might be changed, but her agitation was the same. Never until she died would she open that door without wondering, in spite of common sense, whether she might not be caught by some disaster before she closed it again.
She went in and found her grandmother sitting back in her stiff chair and looking at some patterns of bright silks that lay on a little table beside her.
A great fire was burning and the room seemed to Rachel intolerably hot; she noticed at once that what Uncle John had said was true. Before she had heard Rachel's entrance the Duchess looked an old, tired woman. Her head was drooping a little over the blue and purple silks; she seemed half asleep.
But at the sound of the door she was alert; when she saw that it was her granddaughter who stood there, tall and stately, her large black hat shadowing her face, she seemed in a moment to be transformed with energy and life—her head went up, her eyes flashed, her hands stiffened on her lap.
"May I come in for a moment, grandmother?" Rachel said.
By the door she had wondered—how could she be afraid of this old sick woman? Now as she crossed over to the fire her sternest self-command was summoned to control her alarm. She was frightened by nothing but this—here it was indeed as though there were some spell that seized her.
"Certainly, my dear—come in." The Duchess gave a last look at the silks and then turned to her granddaughter. "I'm afraid you'll find it very hot—I must have a fire, you know."
She had a trick of drawing in her lower lip as she spoke, so that her words hissed a little over her teeth. She did not do this with everybody and Rachel believed that it was only because she had noticed that Rachel as a little girl had been frightened of it that she did it now.