“She is gone!” he said slowly, and as if he wanted to impress the fact upon his own mind.
“Yes, she is gone!” he repeated, and he looked at Mrs. Travis’s face. It was twitching nervously, and her eyes were not still for a moment.
“Where?” he said abruptly, and sat stiffly down in a chair. Mrs. Travis’s hand sought her pocket.
“I don’t know,” she said at last, taking out a letter and her handkerchief, “I have had this—a dreadful letter. She says she will write, and that we are not to fuss about her—to fuss,” she sniffed, and went on—
“I came down late to breakfast, and the servant told me she had gone, the naughty girl, and taken her maid and her boxes and dressing-bag, and left me this note. I don’t know what to do—she has her own money. Of course I can’t do anything. It’s not right. What will people say, what will people think?”
Nielsen heard, but he did not answer, he was thinking of other things, and he sat staring at his bouquet with little puckers at the corners of his brown eyes. He drummed with the fingers of one hand upon his knee. The note had fallen out of them, and Jocelyn’s kitten, straying from a corner, patted it furtively with a grey paw. His reverie was painful, and yet it was tinged with a characteristic philosophy. Perhaps it did not hurt him quite so much as he thought. She was lost to him! How beautiful she had been! It was curious, but true, that he already thought of her in the past tense. He smoothed his moustache. Yes! It hurt! The kitten clawed his trousers, and climbed up on to his knee.
“Poor little cat!” he muttered. He felt sorry for the cat. It had a forlorn little face, and it mewed, probably because his trousers were slippery, and because he had no lap.
“Poor little cat!” This was going to be a serious business for them both, eh? He dangled the end of his eyeglass in front of its nose. The kitten cheered up somewhat, and bit it. Nielsen watched it with sympathy. A bad business! He wrinkled his nose thoughtfully, and his face looked older.
A sigh from the other end of the room attracted his attention. It came from Mrs. Travis. She was sitting, tremblingly upright, upon the sofa, constantly smoothing, with a large white hand, the note in her lap. Her face seemed to have become suddenly flabby like a pudding; her cheeks had lost much of their colour; one long end of her fringe dangled into her left eye, and she puffed her lips incessantly. She said nothing; her pride did not allow her to utter any word of complaint, but her green eyes were alive with resentment. The bottom had fallen out of the chair of her comfort, and left her—a large child, pathetic and ridiculous—sitting upon air.
Nielsen put the kitten gently on the floor and got up. He walked across the room, sat squarely down upon the sofa, and took her hand in his.