However, his scientist's fondness for getting at the underlying
causes--or as some call it, curiosity--presently obtained control of
him, and he went downstairs.
There is no privacy of grief in the communism of a middle-class
boarding-house. It is ordered that your neighbor shall gaze upon your
woe and you shall stare at his anguish, when both are new and raw. That
cry of pain had been instantly followed by a stir of movement; a little
shiver ran through the house. Doors opened and shut; voices murmured;
quick feet sounded on the stairs. Now the boarders were gathered in the
parlor, very still and solemn, yet not to save their lives unaware that
for them the humdrum round was to go on just the same. And here, of
course, is no matter of a boarding-house: for queens must eat though
kings lie high in state.
To Mrs. Paynter's parlor came a girl, white-faced and shadowy-eyed, but
for those hours at least, calm and tear-less and the mistress of
herself. The boarders rose as she appeared in the door, and she saw that
after all she had no need to tell them anything. They came and took her
hand, one by one, which was the hardest to bear, and even Mr.
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