"One of us must go down to him!" said Hilda at last in a nervous gasp.
"I'll go down as soon as I can," Bee answered.
[CHAPTER XXIV]
He waited restlessly. The suspense that had shivered in him on the journey—that sickened him as the fly rattled through the town—had culminated with the sight of the house in which she lived. He was in her home. There was nothing gracious in the shabby, formal room where the music and the elocution lessons were given. No flowers lent a touch of nature to the early Victorian vases on the mantelpiece; no piece of fancy-work had been forgotten, to humanise the asperity of the clumsy furniture with the hint of a woman's presence. But he was in her home —and everything in the room spoke to him. Things quite trivial, quite trite, woke emotion in him because they were familiar to her; they took unto their inanimate ugliness some of the fascination of her life.
He stood on the faded hearthrug, watching the door. After the servant's feet had clattered to the basement all was quiet except the clock, which ticked behind him sadly. He became acutely conscious of its tick in the long waiting; it stole into his nerves, and heightened his misgiving. At last he caught a sound outside the door; the handle stirred. For an instant it was as if Hilda were before him; he knew that upheaval of the chest with which a man sees the woman of whom he is despairing turn the corner. He moved a step towards the door breathlessly—and then blankness fell and Bee came slowly in.
"How do you do, Mr. Lee?" she murmured.
"How do you do, Miss Sorrenford?"
She did not offer him her hand—she felt that it would be unfair to make him take her hand before he knew what she had to say; she did not ask him to sit—she did not think of it. In the pause, the significant tick of the clock vibrated in him.
"You expected to see my sister," she began monotonously, reciting the sentence she had prepared; "I have come instead, because I have something to tell you."