He went out into the hall; the whole place seemed deserted and dead; the hall door was open and from far away came the dim creaking of a cart. A little, chill, autumnal wind blew a thin eddy of leaves a few paces into the hall. Suddenly he heard a sound—some one was crying. Like any boy he hated above everything to hear a grown person cry. His immediate instinct was to run for his life. Then he was drawn against his will but by his natural instincts of tenderness and kindness towards the sound. He pushed back the drawing-room door that was ajar and looked into the room. Lady Bell-Hall was sitting there, crumpled up on the sofa, her head in her arms, crying desperately.
He knew that he should go away; the English instinct deep in him that he must not make a fool of himself warned him that she did not like him, that she had never liked him and that she would hate that he above all people should see her in this fashion. There was nevertheless something so desolate and lonely in her unhappiness that he could not go. He stood there for a moment, then very gently closed the door. She heard the sound and looked up. She saw who it was and hurriedly sat erect, tried to assume dignity, rolling a handkerchief nervously between her hands and frowning. . . .
"Well," she said in a strange little voice with a crack and a sob in it, "what is it?"
"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I wondered—I was thinking—that perhaps there was something——"
"No," she answered hurriedly, not looking at him. "Thank you. There's nothing."
She sniffed, blew her nose, then suddenly began to sob again, turning to the mantelpiece, leaning her head upon her arms.
He waited, seeing such incongruous things as that a grey lock of hair had escaped its pins and was trailing down over the black silk collar of her blouse, that Pretty One was fast asleep, snoring in her basket, undisturbed by her mistress's grief, that last week's Spectator had fallen from the table on to the floor, that the silver calendar on the writing-table asserted that they were still in the month of May whatever the weather might pretend.
He came nearer to her. "I do want you to know," he said, blushing awkwardly, "how I understand what you must be feeling, and that I myself feel some of it too."
She turned round at him, looked at him with her short-sighted eyes as though she were seeing him for the first time, then sat down again on the sofa.
"You do think he's going to get well, don't you?" she said suddenly. "This isn't serious, this operation, is it? Tell me, tell me it isn't."