They were all extraordinarily wide-awake and feverishly inactive. The women's fancy-work had not been taken out, nor the daily papers opened. The news they desired to learn that morning was not to be found in the Times. They drifted about the drawing-room and library, and held brief, useless conversations with one another. But when Arthur had passed through the suite a little after eleven o'clock looking for Eleanor, they had suddenly found a focus. He had seen the look of expectancy on their faces and had thrown them a crumb of news.
"He is still unconscious," he had said, and had understood that they asked more from him than that. Then, feeling that he could not endure the greediness of their attention, he had beckoned Joe Kenyon to come out with him into the garden.
They had come within sight of the open gates before either of them spoke.
"No hope, I suppose?" his uncle said then, as if released by the sight of the Sussex lane.
"I should say absolutely none," Arthur replied.
"Not likely to recover consciousness before the end?"
"Extremely unlikely," Arthur said. "In fact, scarcely possible, I think."
Joe Kenyon began to whistle softly between his teeth and abruptly checked himself. "If this property comes to me, I shall have that blasted wall taken down," he remarked, and continued, "You know, Arthur, I'm not going to play the hypocrite, especially to you. This isn't an occasion for mourning. It's as if we'd been living in the dark for half a lifetime and some one had taken the roof off and let the air and light in. I—I feel as if I can see the sky again for the first time in thirty years. It'd be loathsome, crawling hypocrisy to pretend that I'm the least sorry."
"Oh, obviously," Arthur agreed.