The black-coated people in the dining-room did not hear him: they were far too busy being serious: and behind them, from time to time, Edwin could see the grey face of his father, with curiously tired and puzzled eyes. Puzzled . . . that was the only word for them. It was just as if the man were protesting, in all simplicity, against the unreason and injustice of the blow which had fallen on him. Edwin, savagely hating the presence of all these hushed, uninterested people, found in his father’s suffering face a sudden reinforcement to his anger. It was a shame, a damned, ghastly shame, that a simple man like that should be hit in the dark; and even more pathetic that he should be simple enough to take the sympathy of his neighbours at its face value. Edwin glowed with a new and protective love for his father. It was as well that some generous emotion should be born to take the place of his numb grief. Above all, the sight of his Aunt Laura, who was conscientiously doing the honours of the house, maddened him. He could not look at her without remembering that she had been selfish and unkind to his mother; that, on the very last day, she had robbed him of the privilege of seeing his darling alive. Even now, he believed that she was enjoying herself. Her eyes occasionally brimmed with tears, but that meant nothing. They were such easy tears . . . so different from the terrible tears that had shaken his father’s body on the day of desolation. If only she were dead, he thought, there would be no great loss. And yet, while he thought of this, he suddenly caught sight of her husband, the little manufacturer whom he had lately begun to know as Uncle Albert, a small man with a shiny bald head and a diffident manner: and in the eyes of Uncle Albert, which were fixed upon his wife, he saw an extraordinary mixture of love and admiration for this shallow, diffuse creature whom he had found himself hating. “If Aunt Laura were to die,” he thought, “Uncle Albert might very well be like father is to-day. That’s a queer idea. . . .” He was amazed at the complications of human relationships and the potential pain that love brings with it. He thought, “It’s no good thinking about it. . . . I give it up. I don’t really wish she were dead. I only wish . . . that there were no such thing as death. Why does God allow it?” No answer came to him: but in place of an answer another angry impulse. “Curse God,” he thought, meaning the God of Mr. Leeming, the God to whom this queer collection of people were to dedicate his mother’s soul. Another thought followed quickly: “What’s the good of cursing him? He doesn’t exist. If he existed this sort of thing couldn’t happen. . . .”