'It was somehow a comfort,' Rose went on, 'to know that you were fast
asleep, but living. You never moved when I kissed you.'
'Kissed me? What did you do that for?' Henrietta asked in a loud
voice. She had been taken unawares by the woman who had wronged her,
yet she was touched and pleased.
'I couldn't help it. I was so glad to have you there, and you looked
so young. I don't know what we should do without you, poor Sophia and
I. Oh, do put on my dressing-gown!'
'Yes, dear, yes, put on the dressing-gown.' It was Sophia who spoke.
Her face was very calm; she actually looked younger, as though the
greatness of her sorrow had removed all other signs, like a fall of
snow hiding the scars of a hillside.
'Oh, Aunt Sophia!' Henrietta went forward and pressed her cheek
against the other's.
'Yes, dear, but you must go and dress. Breakfast is ready.'
Henrietta was a little shocked that Aunt Sophia, who was naturally
sentimental, should be less emotional on this occasion than Aunt Rose,
but she was also awed by this control. She remembered how, when her
own mother died, Mrs. Banks had refused to take solid food for a whole
day, and the recollection braced her for her cold bath, for fresh
linen, for emulation of Aunt Sophia, for everything unlike the
slovenly weeping of Mrs. Banks, sitting in the neglected kitchen with
a grimy pocket-handkerchief on her lap and the teapot at her elbow;
but she knew that the Banksian manner was really natural to her, and
the Mallett control, the acceptance, the same eating of breakfast,
were a pose, a falseness oddly better than her sincerity.
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