“What time is it now, Henry?”
He held out his watch for her to see.
“Yes, I can make it. I hate the tube, but there isn't time now for the ferry. Come as far as Herald Square with me, Henry.”
There at the stairway under the elevated road she gripped his hand for an instant, then ran lightly down into the underground station. And not until the smoky local train, over in Jersey, was half-way out to the village that she now called home did it come to her that he had spoken not one word after the little episode of the time-table. She could see his face, too, with that look of pain on it.
She rang and rang at the door. Finally she knocked. Aunt Matilda came then, silent, grim, and let her in.
Her room was as she had left it when she rushed out in the afternoon. The dancing clothes lay on the bed. Rather feverishly she threw them on a chair. The Russian costume fell to the floor. She let it lie there.
She slept little; but, wide-eyed, all tight nerves, lay late. She heard them go off to Sunday-school, at quarter past nine. The children would be back at eleven; but Mrs. Wilde and Aunt Matilda, if they followed their custom, would stay on to church. That is, unless Mrs. Wilde should have one of her nervous headaches. Sue hoped they would stay. It seemed to her that by noon she should be able to get herself in hand.
She lay a while longer. Then went down-stairs in her kimono and warmed up the coffee Aunt Matilda had left on the stove. She tried to eat a little bread, but had to give it up. She began to wonder, a thought frightened now, if she could get herself in hand by noon. Aunt Matilda's appearance, when she came in, had been forbidding. This morning no one had come near her, not even the children.
Slowly she mounted the stairs. Aimlessly she began dressing.
The Russian costume on the floor held her eye. She picked it up, lingered it. Then she put it on. One of the red boots was on the chair, the other under the bed. She found this and drew them both on. Next she got the gay cap from the closet.