Mr. Lanley had been told, and his attitude was just the opposite.  To him it seemed absolutely certain that Farron would die,—­every one did,—­but he had for some time been aware of a growing hardness on his part toward the death of other people, as if he were thus preparing himself for his own.

“Poor Vincent!” he said to himself.  “Hard luck at his age, when an old man like me is left.”  But this was not quite honest.  In his heart he felt there was nothing unnatural in Vincent’s being taken or in his being left.

As usual in a crisis, Adelaide’s behavior was perfect.  She contrived to make her husband feel every instant the depth, the strength, the passion of her love for him without allowing it to add to the weight he was already carrying.  Alone together, he and she had flashes of real gaiety, sometimes not very far from tears.

To Mathilde the brisk naturalness of her mother’s manner was a source of comfort.  All the day the girl suffered from a sense of strangeness and isolation, and a fear of doing or saying something unsuitable—­something either too special or too every-day.  She longed to evince sympathy for Mr. Farron, but was afraid that, if she did, it would be like intimating that he was as good as dead.  She was caught between the negative danger of seeming indifferent and the positive one of being tactless.

As soon as Vincent had left the house, Adelaide’s thought turned to her daughter.  He had gone about six o’clock.  He and she had been sitting by his study fire when Pringle announced that the motor was waiting.  Vincent got up quietly, and so did she.  They stood with their arms about each other, as if they meant never to forget the sense of that contact; and then without any protest they went down-stairs together.

In the hall he had shaken hands with Mr. Lanley and had kissed Mathilde, who, do what she would, couldn’t help choking a little.  All this time Adelaide stood on the stairs, very erect, with one hand on the stair-rail and one on the wall, not only her eyes, but her whole face, radiating an uplifted peace.  So angelic and majestic did she seem that Mathilde, looking up at her, would hardly have been surprised if she had floated out into space from her vantage-ground on the staircase.

Then Farron lit a last cigar, gave a quick, steady glance at his wife, and went out.  The front door ended the incident as sharply as a shot would have done.

It was then that Mathilde expected to see her mother break down.  Under all her sympathy there was a faint human curiosity as to how people contrived to live through such crises.  If Pete were on the brink of death, she thought that she would go mad:  but, then, she and Pete were not a middle-aged married couple; they were young, and new to love.

They all went into the drawing-room, Adelaide the calmest of the three.

“I wonder,” she said, “if you two would mind dining a little earlier than usual.  I might sleep if I could get to bed early, and I must be at the hospital before eight.”