In the brick-floored kitchen Derek was striding up and down; while around him, in an equilateral triangle, stood the three women, Sheila at the window, Kirsteen by the open hearth, Nedda against the wall opposite. Derek exclaimed at once:
“Why did you let them, Father? Why didn't you refuse to give him up?”
Felix looked at his brother. In the doorway, where his curly head nearly touched the wood, Tod's face was puzzled, rueful. He did not answer.
“Any one could have said he wasn't here. We could have smuggled him away. Now the brutes have got him! I don't know that, though—” And he made suddenly for the door.
Tod did not budge. “No,” he said.
Derek turned; his mother was at the other door; at the window, the two girls.
The comedy of this scene, if there be comedy in the face of grief, was for the moment lost on Felix.
'It's come,' he thought. 'What now?'
Derek had flung himself down at the table and was burying his head in his hands. Sheila went up to him.
“Don't be a fool, Derek.”