Christine called to him as he passed her door.
"Is that you, Robert? Have you had your breakfast? Wait, dear--I'll get
it for you."
But he crept down the stairs as though he had not heard. Only not so
much caring--if only he could forget that he cared.
"Good-bye, dearest, good-bye!"
Her voice followed him, plaintive and clear. It seemed to lodge itself
in his heart so that ever afterwards he had only to think of her to hear
it like the echo of a small, sad bell. He went on stubbornly, in silence.
He did not try to see Francey. They met inevitably in the wake of the
surgeon on whose post they worked, but they did not speak. Their eyes
avoided one another. Yet he could not forget her. It was not the old
consciousness that had been full of mystery and delight. It hurt. He
felt her unsapped joyous living like a blow on his own aching weariness.
He thought bitterly of her. How easy life had been for her! She played
at living. Her airy fancies, her belief in God, her vagrant tenderness
for the rag and bobtail of the earth were all part of that same thing.
She had never suffered. Her people had died, but they had died in the
odour of sanctity and wealth. She had never had to ask herself: "If I
fall out, what will become of us?" She saw pain and poverty through the
softening veil of her own well-being. Nothing could really hurt her.
(And yet how lovable she was! He watched her covertly as she stood at
the surgeon's elbow--a little graver than usual--a little paler.
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