This was stupid of me, for I
knew through experience that we do not begin to suffer immediately
after the accident; everything takes time, grief as well as pain. But
in a moment so awful as the one I am describing one does not reflect;
one falls back on the convention that grief and tears are inseparable
as fire and smoke. If I could not weep it were well that my sister
could, and I accepted her tears as a tribute paid to our mother's
goodness--a goodness which never failed, for it was instinctive. It
even seemed to me a pity that Nina had to dry her eyes so that she
might tell me the sad facts--when mother died, of her illness, and the
specialist that had not arrived in time. I learned that some one had
blundered--not that that mattered much, for mother would not have
submitted to an operation.
While listening to her, I unwittingly remembered how we used to talk
of the dear woman whose funeral I described in the pages entitled "A
Remembrance." We used to talk, her daughters and her son and her
husband and I, of her who was dying upstairs. We were greatly moved--I
at least appreciated my love of her--yet our talk would drift from her
suddenly, and we would speak of indifferent things, or maybe the
butler would arrive to tell us lunch was ready.
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