‘Can I not be told, Robert?’
‘Something in the paper,’ the voice whispers.
Mr. Don lifts the paper feebly, and his wife understands. ‘Oh, a newspaper joke! Please, I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Was it my laughing that brought you back, Grace?’
‘No, that would only have made me shut my door. If Dick thought you could laugh!’ She goes to the little table. ‘I came back for these slips of paper.’ She lifts them and presses them to her breast. ‘These precious slips of paper!’
Dick was always a curious boy, and forgetting that she cannot hear him, he blurts out, ‘How do you mean, mother? Why are they precious?’
Mr. Don forgets also and looks to her for an answer.
‘What is it, Robert?’
‘Didn’t you—hear anything, Grace?’
‘No. Perhaps Laura was calling; I left her on the stair.’