She was going to stay with them. Robin had written the letter. He said Prissie wanted her. When she met him on the platform she had a little shock at seeing him changed. Changed. His face was fuller, and a dark moustache hid the sensitive, uneven, pulsing lip. His mouth was dragged down further at the corners. But he was the same Robin. In the cab, going to the house, he sat silent, breathing hard; she felt the tremor of his consciousness and knew that he still loved her; more than he loved Priscilla. Poor little Prissie. How terrible!
Priscilla sat by the fireplace in a wheel chair. She became agitated when she saw Harriett; her arms shook as she lifted them for the embrace.
“Hatty—you’ve hardly changed a bit.” Her voice shook.
Poor little Prissie. She was thin, thinner than ever, and stiff as if she had withered. Her face was sallow and dry, and the luster had gone from her black hair. Her wide mouth twitched and wavered, wavered and twitched. Though it was warm summer she sat by a blazing fire with the windows behind her shut.
Through dinner Harriett and Robin were silent and constrained. She tried not to see Prissie shaking and jerking and spilling soup down the front of her gown. Robin’s face was smooth and blank; he pretended to be absorbed in his food, so as not to look at Prissie. It was as if Prissie’s old restlessness had grown into that ceaseless jerking and twitching. And her eyes fastened on Robin; they clung to him and wouldn’t let him go. She kept on asking him to do things for her. “Robin, you might get me my shawl;” and Robin would go and get the shawl and put it round her. Whenever he did anything for her Prissie’s face would settle down into a quivering, deep content.
At nine o’clock he lifted her out of her wheel chair. Harriett saw his stoop, and the taut, braced power of his back as he lifted. Prissie lay in his arms with rigid limbs hanging from loose attachments, inert, like a doll. As he carried her upstairs to bed her face had a queer, exalted look of pleasure and of triumph.
Harriett and Robin sat alone together in his study.
“How long is it since we’ve seen each other?”
“Five years, Robin.”
“It isn’t. It can’t be.”