He looked down the room. Miss Kenyon had come back, and they were all sitting about, reading or working in an uninterested kind of way—doing something or other as if it did not matter whether the thing was done or not. What was it the place and the people reminded him of? Yes! It was that boarding-house he had stayed in at Scarborough one winter. He had been there for a week with his mother. But that was a very different kind of place, and those were very different people. This room was beautifully designed and furnished, and these relations and connections of his were all rich and presumably care-free. Nevertheless there was something that reminded him of that Scarborough boarding-house. Something in the pose of those indifferently diligent women, perhaps?
The voice of Hubert broke in on his meditations.
"I don't know what we're waiting here for?" he said. "Care to come and have a look at the garden?"
"Thanks. Yes, I should," Arthur replied cheerfully.
He had it now. They all had the effect of waiting for something; for some climax, or change, or interruption; of waiting interminably for some known or unknown crisis that might never develop. Mr Turner was politely yawning as he stooped to pick up the Times.
IV