Only here and there a matron of years pushed along the tables anxiously and murmured to herself or a friend. “I suppose it’s here. But I haven’t yet seen my silver and tortoise-shell pin tray.”
Then all at once Emmie heard or thought she heard voices saying Anthony’s name. It was like that semi-illusion of the flat—the imagined voices of strangers talking about him. “Dyke—yes, Dyke.” These people just ahead of her were saying the words. She moved towards them, listening.
“Yes, found by the relief party.... Yes, Dyke. Anthony Dyke, the explorer.... Extraordinary. Given up by everybody. Risen from the dead, as it were. If he has a wife and children, what must be their feelings?”
She asked one of them what all this meant.
“That man Dyke has been found—alive, you know.”
“But is it a fact?” she asked quietly. “Who says so?”
They said the news had been cabled; it was in the evening papers, at the clubs, everywhere.
She turned and took Mildred’s arm.
“Mildred, dear, I want to go home. Help me to get away quietly. A taxi-cab.”