“Yes, now, I’ve been thinking,” he began persuasively, “there’s a first class gag with a large mirror—thank you, I would like another, if you don’t mind—they put up a large mirror, y’know, facing the entrance of the drive from across the road—”

CHAPTER TWELVE

SABRINA, flung face down across Hilary’s bed, drained dry of tears and spent with sobbing, heard them — too late — coming up the stairs. Hilary, who was hanging over her in an agony of helplessness — “But I’m here, my darling — I’m quite safe, I’ve come back to you, can’t you understand?”— retreated to the far corner by the chest of drawers to watch whatever form of desecration George would choose to visit upon his brother’s property.

He had been sitting by the window when George drove up, and so had witnessed the brief tableau under the tree, and Sabrina’s stumbling escape to the house. Her first headlong dash for sanctuary had carried her blindly past her own bedroom door and up the second flight of stairs to him. But so far it was beyond his power to penetrate her grief with any sense of his usual invisible presence. Just as she was quieting, limp and receptive, just as he hoped to reach her once more with some form of comfort, George and Aunt Effie entered, followed by Mrs. Pilton carrying a pile of folded dust-sheets.

Sabrina sat up on the bed and looked at them bleakly, making no move to go.

“Oh, there you are, darling,” Aunt Effie began, too brightly. “We were just saying downstairs, you mustn’t take this too hard. Because after all, as Mr. Shenstone has very sensibly pointed out, it isn’t as though you had ever actually met his brother, is it!”

“No, Auntie,” said Sabrina, sitting still, her eyes on the floor.

“Mr. Shenstone’s mother feels that if we don’t need the room, which of course we don’t, she would like to keep it closed for a while. I was just saying to Mr. Shenstone that I was sure you would agree out of respect for his mother’s sorrow, not to come here any more.”

“Yes, Auntie.”

“So Mrs. Pilton is going to put out the dust-sheets, just as they always used to do when he was coming back, you know, and draw the curtains, just to keep the sun from the carpet, and—”