Her eyes were piteous with uncertainty. She said: “I don’t know—I really don’t know. Nothing seems to matter.” “I know, dear, I know.” Mrs. Patterson was kind but firm. She knew exactly how to treat people who had had a bereavement. “Elsie is wonderful in a crisis,” her family said of her. At the present moment she was sitting in her sister Gerda’s bedroom in Harley Street being wonderful. Elsie Patterson was tall and spare with an energetic manner. She was looking now at Gerda with a mixture of irritation and compassion. Poor dear Gerda—tragic for her to lose her husband in such an awful way. And really, even now, she didn’t seem to take in the—well, the implications, properly. Of course, Mrs. Patterson reflected, Gerda always was terribly slow. And there was shock, too, to take into account. She said in a brisk voice: “I think I should decide on that black marocain at twelve guineas.” One always did have to make up Gerda’s mind for her. Gerda stood motionless, her brow puckered.
