Hurriedly depositing his hat, he ran to Cecilia. He still preserved the
habit of knocking on her door before he entered, though she had never,
so far, answered, "Don't come in!" because she knew his knock. The
custom gave, in fact, the measure of his idealism. What he feared, or
what he thought he feared, after nineteen years of unchecked entrance,
could never have been ascertained; but there it was, that flower of
something formal and precise, of something reticent, within his soul.

This time, for once, he did not knock, and found Cecilia hooking up her
tea-gown and looking very sweet. She glanced at him with mild surprise.

"What's this, Cis," he said, "about a baby dead? Thyme's quite upset
about it; and your dad's in the drawing-room!"

With the quick instinct that was woven into all her gentle treading,
Cecilia's thoughts flew--she could not have told why--first to the
little model, then to Mrs. Hughs.

"Dead?" she said. "Oh, poor woman!"

"What woman?" Stephen asked.

"It must be Mrs. Hughs."

The thought passed darkly through Stephen's mind: 'Those people again!
What now?' He did not express it, being neither brutal nor lacking in
good taste.

A short silence followed, then Cecilia said suddenly: "Did you say that