'Miss Vinrace is dead,' he said very distinctly.
Mrs. Paley merely bent a little towards him and asked, 'Eh?'
'Miss Vinrace is dead,' he repeated. It was only by stiffening all the muscles round his mouth that he could prevent himself from bursting into laughter, and forced himself to repeat for the third time, 'Miss Vinrace. . . . She's dead.' Let alone the difficulty of hearing the exact words, facts that were outside her daily experience took some time to reach Mrs. Paley's consciousness. A weight seemed to rest upon her brain, impeding, though not damaging its action. She sat vague-eyed for at least a minute before she realised what Arthur meant.
'Dead?' she said vaguely. 'Miss Vinrace dead? Dear me . . . that's very sad. But I don't at the moment remember which she was. We seem to have made so many new acquaintances here.' She looked at Susan for help. 'A tall dark girl, who just missed being handsome, with a high colour?'
'No,' Susan interposed. 'She was--' then she gave it up in despair. There was no use in explaining that Mrs. Paley was thinking of the wrong person.
'She ought not to have died,' Mrs. Paley continued. 'She looked so strong. But people will drink the water. I can never make out why. It seems such a simple thing to tell them to put a bottle of Seltzer water in your bedroom. That's all the precaution I've ever taken, and I've been in every part of the world, I may say--Italy a dozen times over. . . . But young people always think they know better, and then they pay the penalty. Poor thing--I am very sorry for her.' But the difficulty of peering into a dish of potatoes and helping herself engrossed her attention.
Arthur and Susan both secretly hoped that the subject was now disposed of, for there seemed to them something unpleasant in this discussion. But Evelyn was not ready to let it drop. Why would people never talk about the things that mattered?
'I don't believe you care a bit!' she said, turning savagely upon Mr. Perrott, who had sat all this time in silence.
'I? Oh, yes, I do,' he answered awkwardly, but with obvious sincerity. Evelyn's questions made him too feel uncomfortable.
'It seems so inexplicable,' Evelyn continued. 'Death, I mean. Why should she be dead, and not you or I? It was only a fortnight ago that she was here with the rest of us. What d'you believe?' she demanded of mr. Perrott. 'D'you believe that things go on, that she's still somewhere--or d'you think it's simply a game--we crumble up to nothing when we die? I'm positive Rachel's not dead.'
Mr. Perrott would have said almost anything that Evelyn wanted him to say, but to assert that he believed in the immortality of the soul was not in his power. He sat silent, more deeply wrinkled than usual, crumbling his bread.
Lest Evelyn should next ask him what he believed, Arthur, after making a pause equivalent to a full stop, started a completely different topic.
'Supposing,' he said, 'a man were to write and tell you that he wanted five pounds because he had known your grandfather, what would you do? It was this way. My grandfather--'
'Invented a stove,' said Evelyn. 'I know all about that. We had one in the conservatory to keep the plants warm.'
'Didn't know I was so famous,' said Arthur. 'Well,' he continued, determined at all costs to spin his story out at length, 'the old chap, being about the second best inventor of his day, and a capable lawyer too, died, as they always do, without making a will. Now Fielding, his clerk, with how much justice I don't know, always claimed that he meant to do something for him. The poor old boy's come down in the world through trying inventions on his own account, lives in Penge over a tobacconist's shop. I've been to see him there. The question is--must I stump up or not? What does the abstract spirit of justice require, Perrott? Remember, I didn't benefit under my grandfather's will, and I've no way of testing the truth of the story.'
'I don't know much about the abstract spirit of justice,' said Susan, smiling complacently at the others, 'but I'm certain of one thing--he'll get his five pounds!' As Mr. Perrott proceeded to deliver an opinion, and Evelyn insisted that he was much too stingy, like all lawyers, thinking of the letter and not of the spirit, while Mrs. Paley required to be kept informed between the courses as to what they were all saying, the luncheon passed with no interval of silence, and Arthur congratulated himself upon the tact with which the discussion had been smoothed over.
As they left the room it happened that Mrs. Paley's wheeled chair ran into the Elliots, who were coming through the door, as she was going out. Brought thus to a standstill for a moment, Arthur and Susan congratulated Hughling Elliot upon his convalescence,--he was down, cadaverous enough, for the first time,--and Mr. Perrott took occasion to say a few words in private to Evelyn.
'Would there be any chance of seeing you this afternoon, about three-thirty say? I shall be in the garden, by the fountain.'
The block dissolved before Evelyn answered. But as she left them in the hall, she looked at him brightly and said, 'Half-past three, did you say? That'll suit me.' She ran upstairs with the feeling of spiritual exaltation and quickened life which the prospect of an emotional scene always aroused in her. That Mr. Perrott was again about to propose to her, she had no doubt, and she was aware that on this occasion she ought to be prepared with a definite answer, for she was going away in three days' time. But she could not bring her mind to bear upon the question. To come to a decision was very difficult to her, because she had a natural dislike of anything final and done with; she liked to go
