They were all alike, with their
supreme interest aroused only by fighting with each other about some man:
a lover, a son, a brother.
"But do you think there's time yet to do anything?" I asked.
She had an impatient movement of her shoulders without detaching herself
from the back of the chair. Time! Of course? It was less than forty-
eight hours since she had followed him to London . . . I am no great
clerk at those matters but I murmured vaguely an allusion to special
licences. We couldn't tell what might have happened to-day already. But
she knew better, scornfully. Nothing had happened.
"Nothing's likely to happen before next Friday week,--if then."
This was wonderfully precise. Then after a pause she added that she
should never forgive herself if some effort were not made, an appeal.
"To your brother?" I asked.
"Yes. John ought to go to-morrow. Nine o'clock train."
"So early as that!" I said. But I could not find it in my heart to
pursue this discussion in a jocular tone. I submitted to her several
obvious arguments, dictated apparently by common sense but in reality by
my secret compassion.
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