He put up the receiver and reached for his hat. "I wonder what she wants," he thought, "perhaps she really does love me and my letter's frightened her!" His spirits rose at the thought and he went jauntily to the door and opened it, and as he did so, Ninian, pale and miserable, panted up the steps.
"My God, Quinny!" he exclaimed, almost sobbing, "the Gigantic's gone down!"
"The what?"
"The Gigantic's gone down! It's in the paper. Look, look!" He was unbalanced by grief as he thrust the Westminster Gazette and the Globe into Henry's hands.
"But, damn it, she can't have gone down," Henry said, "she's a Belfast boat ... she can't have gone down!"
"She has, I tell you, and Tom Arthurs ... oh, my God, Quinny, he's gone down too! The decentest chap on earth and ... and he's been drowned!"
Henry led him into the house. "I went out to get the evening papers to see about Gilbert's play," he went on, "and that's what I saw. I saw her at Southampton going off as proud as a queen ... and now she's at the bottom of the Atlantic. And Tom waved his hand to me. He was going to show me over her properly when he came back. Isn't it horrible, Quinny? What's the sense of it ... what the hell's the sense of it?"
"She can't have gone down ..." Henry said, as if that would comfort Ninian.
"She has, I tell you...."
Henry went to the sideboard and took out the whisky.