“I’ll just turn off the kettle. I put it on in case we needed to fill up the pot again.”
She bustled out.
Elinor wheeled round from the window.
She said, and her voice was suddenly charged with a desperate appeal:
“Mary…”
Mary Gerrard answered quickly:
“Yes?”
Slowly the light died out of Elinor’s face. The lips closed. The desperate pleading faded and left a mere mask—frozen and still.
She said:
“Nothing.”
The silence came down heavily on the room.
Mary thought:
“How queer everything is today. As though—as though we were waiting for something.”
Elinor moved at last.
She came from the window and picked up the tea tray, placing on it the empty sandwich plate.
Mary jumped up.
“Oh, Miss Elinor, let me.”
Elinor said sharply:
“No, you stay here. I’ll do this.”
She carried the tray out of the room. She looked back, once, over her shoulder at Mary Gerrard by the window, young and alive and beautiful….
IV
Nurse Hopkins was in the pantry. She was wiping her face with a handkerchief. She looked up sharply as Elinor entered. She said:
“My word, it’s hot in here!”
Elinor answered mechanically:
“Yes, the pantry faces south.”
Nurse Hopkins relieved her of the tray.
“You let me wash up, Miss Carlisle. You’re not looking quite the thing.”
Elinor said:
“Oh, I’m all right.”
She picked up a dishcloth.