The entrance hall where Hubert stood was narrow. It was no more than a passage, and the floor was covered with linoleum. At the end of the hall there were stairs going up to the bedrooms and, farther along, the three steps down to the kitchen. The hall was dim although it was still bright outside. The kitchen had been lighted up, the glimpse he had seen of it before the door closed. There had been only a second of time, and hardly more than a line of light that narrowed to a thread and then vanished. He might as well not have seen Rose at all, but he had seen her, and he wondered if it could possibly have been intentional — to shut the door in his face like that. He considered going down to the kitchen and asking some question, saying something, anything at all, but instead he went along the hall and into the back sitting room and walked over to the window, and turned at once from the window and began to stare at the doorway. But of course it was already too late. By this time Rose should have opened the kitchen door and called up, “Is that you, Hubert?” She must have heard him coming down the hall. You could hear everything in this house. He listened, but he could hear no sound at all. That was strange. He should at least have been able to hear some little noise, teacups and saucers or something, the tea being got ready. He might as well have been alone in the house for all the evidence he had of life near him. He felt that he was alone, and he wished there were someone in the room with him who could give him advice, because he wanted to be told to go straight down to the kitchen, or else not to go down there but to sit down at once and ignore the whole matter.

He wished he had someone to talk to. He wanted the impulse he felt — to go down to the kitchen — to be made impossible by a command that he was bound to obey. But no word came to forbid him and so, although he knew it was impossible for him to go down and speak to Rose, he knew also that it was not forbidden, and he did not know what to do. What he could not do was to sit down. He was too angry to sit down. But he was trembling, and he sat down in his chair, which had its back to the window and was beside the fireplace, where it stayed summer and winter, close to the hearth, with Rose’s low chair across the hearthrug from him. The hearthrug was a dull, warm red, and it was fringed at the ends.