their backs to the door, motionless before the table, one dark head and one light one bent over an object apparently demanding tender, reverent care.
At Fairfax's "Hello you all!" they turned, and the big cousin never forgot it as long as he lived—never forgot the Bella that turned, that called out in what the French call "a torn voice"—une voix dechirée. Afterwards it struck him that she called him "Antony" tout court, like a grown person as she rushed to him. He never forgot how the little thing flung herself at him, threw herself against his breast. For an answer to her appeal with a quick comprehension of grief, Antony bent and took her hand.
"Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony——"
"Why, Bella, Bella, little cousin, what's the matter?"
And above the sobs that he felt tremble through him, he asked of Gardiner—who, young as he was, stifled his tears back and gulped his own grief like a man—
"What's the row, old chap?"
But Bella told him passionately. "Jetty, Jetty's dead!"
Soothed by her cousin's hand on her head, she calmed, buried her face in the cool handkerchief with which he wiped her tears. In the circle of his arms Bella stood, tearful, sobbing, nothing but a child, and yet she appealed to Fairfax in her tears as she had not done before, and her abandon went to the core of his being and smote a bell which from thenceforth rang like her name—"Bella"—and he used to think that it was from that moment.... Well, her tears at any rate stirred him as never did any tears in the world.
She wiped her eyes. "Jetty died last night; he sang himself to death. You should have heard him sing! This morning when they came to give him water and feed him, Jetty was dead."
Gardiner pointed to the table. "See, we've made him a coffin. We're going to his funewal now."