Presently Beatrice put down the child, and went to join Vera in the
scullery. There came the low sound of women's talking--an angry, ominous
sound. Gwen followed her mother. Her little voice could be heard
cautiously asking: 'Mam, is dad cross--is he? What did he do?' 'Don't bother!' snapped Vera. 'You _are_ a little nuisance! Here, take
this into the dining-room, and don't drop it.' The child did not obey. She stood looking from her mother to her sister.
The latter pushed a dish into her hand.
'Go along,' she said, gently thrusting the child forth.
Gwen departed. She hesitated in the kitchen. Her father still remained
unmoved. The child wished to go to him, to speak to him, but she was
afraid. She crossed the kitchen slowly, hugging the dish; then she came
slowly back, hesitating. She sidled into the kitchen; she crept round
the table inch by inch, drawing nearer her father. At about a yard from
the chair she stopped. He, from under his bent brows, could see her
small feet in brown slippers, nearly kicked through at the toes, waiting
and moving nervously near him. He pulled himself together, as a man does
who watches the surgeon's lancet suspended over his wound. Would the
child speak to him? Would she touch him with her small hands? He held
his breath, and, it seemed, held his heart from beating. What he should
do he did not know.
He waited in a daze of suspense. The child shifted from one foot to
another. He could just see the edge of her white-frilled drawers. He
wanted, above all things, to take her in his arms, to have something
against which to hide his face. Yet he was afraid. Often, when all the
world was hostile, he had found her full of love, he had hidden his face
against her, she had gone to sleep in his arms, she had been like a
piece of apple-blossom in his arms. If she should come to him now--his
heart halted again in suspense--he knew not what he would do. It would
open, perhaps, the tumour of his sickness. He was quivering too fast
with suspense to know what he feared, or wanted, or hoped.
'Gwen!' called Vera, wondering why she did not return. 'Gwen!' 'Yes,' answered the child, and slowly Siegmund saw her feet lifted,
hesitate, move, then turn away.
She had gone. His excitement sank rapidly, and the sickness returned
stronger, more horrible and wearying than ever. For a moment it was so
bad that he was afraid of losing consciousness. He recovered slightly,
pulled himself up, and went upstairs. His fists were tightly clenched,
his fingers closed over his thumbs, which were pressed bloodless. He lay
down on the bed.