Can it be possible that you have lived
so long and so fully and are yet capable of pitying the dead? Have you
not learnt that it is only _they_ who are happy?' He vaguely indicated
the corpse. 'If you will be so good as to assist me--'
'Willingly,' said Hugo, who could find nothing else to say. 'I suppose
we must call the servants?'
'Why call the servants? To begin with, there is only one here, a
somewhat antique housekeeper. Let her sleep. She has been through
sufficient to-day. Morning will be time enough for the futile
formalities which civilization has invented to protect itself. Night,
which is the season of death, should not be disturbed by them.'
'As you think best,' Hugo concurred.
'And now,' Darcy began, in a somewhat relieved tone, when he had
finished his task, and the remains of Francis Tudor lay decently covered
on a sofa in the drawing-room, that mortuary chamber, 'will you oblige
me by coming into the study for a while? I am not in the mood for sleep,
and perhaps you are not. And I will admit frankly that I should prefer
not to be alone at present. Yes,' he added, with a faint deprecatory
smile, 'my theories about death are thoroughly philosophical, but one
cannot always act up to one's theories.'
And in the study, at the other end of the flat, far from the relics of
humanity, he began to roll cigarettes with marvellous swiftness in his
long thin fingers.
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