The door in the partition rattled, but stayed shut, and on the inner side was silence. Nobody lifted the latch, though the bursts of noise shook it from time to time. A selfish panic had left no room for any other feeling. Probably they had all forgotten that one of the Tragedy Company who could not escape out of Paradise; and it was all in vain that the crazy bedstead was turned in its corner to face the door.
She lay without moving. It seemed as if there were nothing of her but the long black hair covering the pillow. In their hurry those who had carried her in had not taken out all the pins, and a few glistened in it still. Looking closer, one saw that her hands were clenched tight against her breast, as if to keep her heart quiet.
How fast the minutes went! It must be nearly train time. And surely there was a vast thing, pulsing, pulsing, like an engine, far away in the night? She could bear the hubbub of voices, but not the dread of silence. Was it quite impossible to rise up and struggle to them, and reach a human face? ... Suddenly she took a panting breath, short like a sob, still gazing.
The door had opened at last, and a woman looked in hastily, and, flinging a word over her shoulder to the rest, stepped forward, shutting out the streak of light and the voices in the bar. Then she paused, irresolute. It was so dim in here, the atmosphere was so anxious.... And nothing stirring ... just a glimmer of wild black hair.
"You poor little thing!" she said.
Her voice was warm with the cheap kindness of a nature tuned to play with emotion, but incapable of feeling it from within. Her sympathy smacked of the stage, but as far as it went was ready to proffer easy help.
"Like the Flight out of Egypt, isn't it?" she said. "It's a shame to leave you behind. If M'Kune would hear reason, and any of us had a cent to spare, I'd make a bundle of you, and carry you on to the train myself. But it won't run to it. I asked him. We're nothing but ranting beggars.... You'd better write to your friends."
The girl on the bed laughed.
So much of despair betrayed itself in that tragic note that the woman was startled. She came a little nearer.
"You don't mean it's as bad as that?" she said, lower. "All dead?—I might have known it. They wouldn't have let a thing like you fling about with us. But you'll be all right; you'll rub along somehow. We all do.... And that man who was once a doctor—"