“I'll ring up his home and ask whether he’s back.” Mary crossed to the telephone and, after a series of brief remarks, announced:
“No. His sister says he hasn’t come back yet.”
“Ah!” She applied her ear to the telephone once more. “They’ve had a message. He won’t be back to dinner.”
“Then what is he going to do?”
Very pale, and with her large eyes fixed not so much upon Mary as upon vistas of unresponding blankness, Katharine addressed herself also not so much to Mary as to the unrelenting spirit which now appeared to mock her from every quarter of her survey.
After waiting a little time Mary remarked indifferently:
“I really don’t know.” Slackly lying back in her armchair, she watched the little flames beginning to creep among the coals indifferently, as if they, too, were very distant and indifferent.
Katharine looked at her indignantly and rose.
“Possibly he may come here,” Mary continued, without altering the abstract tone of her voice. “It would be worth your while to wait if you want to see him to-night.” She bent forward and touched the wood, so that the flames slipped in between the interstices of the coal.
Katharine reflected. “I'll wait half an hour,” she said.
Mary rose, went to the table, spread out her papers under the green-shaded lamp and, with an action that was becoming a habit, twisted a lock of hair round and round in her fingers. Once she looked unperceived at her visitor, who never moved, who sat so still, with eyes so intent, that you could almost fancy that she was watching something, some face that never looked up at her. Mary found herself unable to go on writing. She turned her eyes away, but only to be aware of the presence of what
