The only scrap of conversation I remember, where all was ordinary and
commonplace, was when Mabel spoke casually to the grenadier asking why
Mrs. Marsh had omitted to do something or other--what it was I forget--
and that the maid replied respectfully that "Mrs. Marsh was very sorry,
but her 'and still pained her." I enquired, though so casually that I
scarcely know what prompted the words, whether she had injured herself
severely, and the reply, "She upset a lamp and burnt herself," was said
in a tone that made me feel my curiosity was indiscreet, "but she always
has an excuse for not doing things she ought to do." The little bit of
conversation remained with me, and I remember particularly the quick way
Frances interrupted and turned the talk upon the delinquencies of
servants in general, telling incidents of her own at our flat with a
volubility that perhaps seemed forced, and that certainly did not
encourage general talk as it may have been intended to do. We lapsed
into silence immediately she finished.
But for all our care and all our calculated silence, each knew that
something had, in these last moments, come very close; it had brushed us
in passing; it had retired; and I am inclined to think now that the
large dark thing I saw, riding the dusk, probably bird of prey, was in
some sense a symbol of it in my mind--that actually there had been no
bird at all, I mean, but that my mood of apprehension and dismay had
formed the vivid picture in my thoughts.
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