"We must sell the house, the furniture, and there are some jewels." Susannah looked slowly round the handsome room with its rich appointments. "Until Marius comes will you tell me what to do?"
He bent his head. "I will wait on you later."
"I thank you, sir."
With an instinctive, courteous sweetness she smiled at him and came to the door, and when, with some murmured words, he had gone, she came back into the room and sat down at the table.
So, she would not see him this afternoon. The tremendous fact seemed hidden by the trivial one.
And there was no need now to write to Selina Boyle; she would never know that he could not be faithful.
Susannah looked again round the chamber at the paintings, at the carvings, and every small detail seemed invested with unbearable meaning.
She leant back in her chair; she stared at the sunlight that shone through the crevices of the shutters; she rose and walked up and down the room; she seemed to see everything, to touch everything through a distorting mirror; her own body felt numb and strange.
She repeated his name.