She slipped out of the room again, and up to the blue boudoir on the first floor. She sat in the window, and saw him go down the drive, with his curious, silent motion, effaced. He had a natural sort of quiet distinction, an aloof pride, and also a certain look of frailty. A hireling! One of Clifford’s hirelings! “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Was he an underling? Was he? What did he think of her ?
It was a sunny day, and Connie was working in the garden, and Mrs. Bolton was helping her. For some reason, the two women had drawn together, in one of the unaccountable flows and ebbs of sympathy that exist between people. They were pegging down carnations, and putting in small plants for the summer. It was work they both liked. Connie especially felt a delight in putting the soft roots of young plants into a soft black puddle, and cradling them down. On this spring morning she felt a quiver in her womb too, as if the sunshine had touched it and made it happy.
“It is many years since you lost your husband?” she said to Mrs. Bolton, as she took up another little plant and laid it in its hole.
“Twenty-three!” said Mrs. Bolton, as she carefully separated the young columbines into single plants. “Twenty-three years since they brought him home.”
Connie’s heart gave a lurch, at the terrible finality of it. “Brought him home!”
“Why did he get killed, do you think?” she asked. “He was happy with you?”
It was a woman’s question to a woman. Mrs. Bolton put aside a strand of hair from her face, with the back of her hand.