He laughed:
"So I say it's better to get the stroke of Fate in the neck than to get it in any particular area and live for a while a paralyzed victim for some creature ultimately to eat alive."
There was a silence. Helen broke it with pleasant decision:
"This is not an appetizing conversation. If anybody wishes any the tea is ready."
There was enough daylight left in the studio so the lamps remained unlighted.
"Do you suppose we ought to go out somewhere?" asked Stephanie, "and leave the place to those two poor things in there? You know they may be too unhappy or too embarrassed to come out and run the gauntlet."
But Stephanie was wrong; for, as she ended, Belter appeared at the end of the studio in the fading light. His young wife came slowly forward beside him. The strain, the tension, the effort, all were visible, but the girl held herself erect and the man fairly so.
There was tea for them—no easier way to mitigate their ordeal. Conversation became carelessly general; strawberries and little cakes were tasted; a cigarette or two lighted.
Then, after a while there chanced to fall a silence; and the young wife knew that the moment belonged to her.
"I think," she said in a distinct but still little voice, "that we ought to go home. If you are ready, Harry——"