So she smiled pleasantly.
"Don't close the front door, dear," said Mrs. Maldon stiffly. "There's
some one there."
Rachel looked round. She had actually, in sheer absent-mindedness
or negligence or deafness, been shutting the door in the face of the
telegraph-boy!
"Oh, dear! I do hope--!" Mrs. Maldon muttered as she hastily tugged at
the envelope.
Having read the message, she passed it on to Rachel, and at the
same time forgivingly responded to her smile. The excitement of the
telegram had sufficed to dissipate Mrs. Maldon's trifling resentment.
Rachel read--
"Train hour late. Julian."
The telegraph boy was dismissed: "No answer, thank you."
X
During the next half-hour excitement within the dwelling gradually
increased. It grew out of nothing--out of Mrs. Maldon's admirable calm
in receiving the message of the telegram--until it affected like an
atmospheric disturbance the ground floor--the sitting-room where
Mrs. Maldon was spending nervous force in the effort to preserve an
absolutely tranquil mind, the kitchen where Rachel was "putting back"
the supper, the lobby towards which Rachel's eye and Mrs. Maiden's
ear were strained to catch any sign of an arrival, and the unlighted,
unused room behind the sitting-room which seemed to absorb and even
intensify the changing moods of the house.
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