"John—came—said that—to you?"
"Yes. It was a curious coincidence that to-day——"
Her eyes had dropped. She murmured to herself:
"John ... John ... Adela ... behind my back ... Adela ... Vincent——"
They were all silent. She sat there, her head down, leaning on her hands, brooding. Her anger seemed to have departed, her fire, her fury had fled: she was a very old woman—and the room was suddenly chilly. Before her were Rachel and Breton: they faced the ancient enemy. But as Rachel stood there, realizing that there had flashed between them the climax of all their lives together, yes, and a climax of forces greater and more powerful than anything that their own small histories could contain, she had no sense of drama nor of revenge nor of any triumphant victory. A little while before she had been almost insane with anger.... Now something had occurred. Rachel only knew that the three of them—Roddy, Francis and herself—were young and immensely vigorous, with all life before them; but that one day they would be old, as this old woman, and would be deserted and sick and past anyone's need of them.
"Oh! I wish we hadn't! I wish we hadn't!" she thought.
In that moment's silence they all might have heard the sound of the soft, sharp click—the click that marked the supreme moment of their relationship to the situation that had, for all of them, been so long developing—
Breton surrendered Rachel, Roddy received her, and, beyond them all, the Duchess definitely abandoned her world.
For them all, grouped there so closely together, the heart of their relations the one to the other had been revealed to them.
Other dramas, other comedies, other tragedies—This had claimed its moment and had passed....