He nodded.
He remained alone in the morning-room, sat down, amused himself by flinging his cap to the ceiling and catching it each time it fell.... He thought that his mother would not inherit much from Grandmother.... There would be beastly little; and even then it would be divided among many.
He lit a cigarette and, when Lot came back, opened the door to him, which Anna afterwards thought very nice of Hugh.
Lot also went upstairs. In the bedroom—the folding-doors were open, for the sake of the air, making the bedroom of a piece with the drawing-room where the old woman usually sat—dismay hovered, but it was subdued. Only Mamma was unable to restrain her sobs. It was so unexpected, she considered. No, she would never have thought it....
Beside the bed stood Aunt Thérèse. And it seemed to Lot, when he entered, as though he were seeing Grandmother herself, but younger....
Aunt Thérèse's dark creole eyes gave Lot a melancholy greeting. Her hand made a gesture towards the bed, on which the old woman lay, quite conscious.
Death was coming gradually, without a struggle, like a light guttering out. Only the breath came a little faster, panted with a certain difficulty....
She knew that her children were around her, but did not know which of them. They were children: so much she knew. And this one, she knew, was Thérèse, who had come; and she was grateful for that. Her hand moved over the coverlet; she moaned and said:
"Thérèse ... Thérèse ..."
"Yes, Mamma ..."