Scarlet and Hyssop by E.F. Benson — Read

Marie was seated alone next morning on the veranda of her room overlooking the Park. She had breakfasted with Maud, and remembered to have talked sufficiently, at any rate, to avoid any awkward pauses about a thousand indifferent subjects, unable as yet to set her mind to that which inevitably lay in front of her. She had felt it impossible to talk out with a girl what she meant to do; it was impossible with that pale suffering face opposite to her, racked as it was with uncomprehended pain, to speak of that which loomed in both their minds as gigantic as a nightmare. Instead, a commonplace little entity, seated in some remote suburb of her brain, dictated commonplace to her tongue, and round her, for the time being, was the calm which is the result of intense emotion, identical in appearance with apathy, and distinguished also by the same fixity and accuracy of observation of trivialities.

She had consented last night to take Maud with her, and did not for a moment wish to evade the responsibilities which morally attached to her for that. She would have to think and eventually act for both of them, but she could not even think for herself yet. Soon, she knew, this stunned apathy would leave her; her brain was already growing clearer from the effects of that momentary scene in the garden, which, like some drugged draught, had deprived it of the power of thought, almost of consciousness. At present Maud was not with her, for she had gone round to Grosvenor Square to get clothes which she needed, and Marie was alone.