Part 34 (1/2)
She had half expected that Dorothy would be shocked, or at least surprised; but she seemed to take it quite coolly. Dorothy, as a matter of fact, was not surprised in the very least. She too guessed at the futility of looking for a starting-point of things that grow by inevitable and infinitesimal degrees. It was rather sad, but not at all astonis.h.i.+ng. On Amory's own premises, there was simply no reason why she shouldn't. So again she merely said ”Oh?” and added after a moment, ”But you're not?”
”No.”
”How's that? Has what we've heard to-day made you change your mind?”
Again Amory was slightly puzzled; and at Dorothy's question she had, moreover, a sudden little hesitation. _Was_ it after all necessary that Dorothy should know everything? Would it not be sufficient, without going into details, to let Dorothy suppose she had changed her mind? It came to the same thing in the end.... Besides, Edgar Strong had not refused her that night. He had not even known of her presence in the office. Of the rest she would make a clean breast, but it was no good bothering Dorothy with that other.... She was still plunged into a sort of stupor, but these reflections stirred ever so slightly under the surface of it....
Then ”what we've heard to-day” struck her. She repeated the words.
”What we've heard to-day?”
”Oh, if you haven't heard.... I only mean about the murder of my uncle,”
said Dorothy coldly.
This was far more than Amory could take in. She reflected for a moment.
Then, ”What do you say, Dorothy?” she asked slowly.
”At least he wasn't my uncle really. I liked him better than any of my uncles.”
”Do you mean Sir Benjamin Collins?”
It was as if Amory had not imagined that Sir Benjamin could by any possibility have been anybody's uncle.
”I called him uncle,” said Dorothy, in a voice that she tried to keep steady. ”Before I could say the word--I called him----.” But she decided not to risk the baby-word she had used--”Unnoo”----
It seemed to Amory a remarkable little coincidence.
”I--I didn't know,” she said stupidly.
”No.”
”You--you mean you--knew him?----”
”Oh ... oh yes.”
Amory said again that she hadn't known....
”Then why,” Dorothy would have liked to cry aloud, ”_have_ you come, if it isn't to make matters worse by talking about it? That wouldn't have surprised me very much! I should have been quite prepared for you to apologize! It's the kind of thing you would do. I don't think very much of you, you see”... But again that worse than frightened look on her visitor's face struck her sharply, and again a remark of her aunt's returned to her: ”They puzzle their brains till their bodies suffer, and overwork their bodies till they're little better than fools.” Suddenly she gave her sometime friend more careful attention.
”Amory--,” she said all at once.
Amory had her fists between her knees again.--”What?” she said without looking up.
”You just said something about--going away. I want to ask you something.
You haven't ...?”
The meaning was quite plain.