"No," said Nadine Boynton.
"I am very glad. Very glad indeed.
It is very nice for Carol to have a friend to talk to."
"We - we got on very well together." Sarah tried to choose her words carefully. "In fact we arranged to - to meet again the following night."
"Yes?"
"But Carol didn't come."
"Didn't she?"
Nadine's voice was cool - reflective.
Her face, so quiet and gentle, told Sarah nothing.
"No. Yesterday she was passing through the hall. I spoke to her and she didn't answer. Just looked at me once, and then away again, and hurried on."
"I see."
There was a pause.
Sarah found it difficult to go on.
Nadine Boynton said presently: "I'm - very sorry. Carol is - rather a nervous girl."
Again that pause.
Sarah took her courage in both hands. "You know, Mrs. Boynton, I'm by way of being a doctor.
I think - I think it would be good for your sister-in-law not to - not to shut herself away too much from people."
Nadine Boynton looked thoughtfully at Sarah.
She said: "I see. You're a doctor. That makes a difference."
"You see what I mean?" Sarah urged.
Nadine bent her head.
She was still thoughtful. "You are quite right, of course," she said after a minute or two.
"But there are difficulties.
My mother-in-law is in bad health and she has what I can only describe as a morbid dislike of any outsiders penetrating into her family circle."
Sarah said mutinously: "But Carol is a grown-up woman."
Nadine Boynton shook her head.
"Oh no," she said. "In body, but not in mind.
If you talked to her you must have noticed that.
In an emergency she would always behave like a frightened child."
"Do you think that's what happened? Do you think she became - afraid?"
"I should imagine, Miss King, that my mother-in-law insisted on Carol having nothing more to do with you."
"And Carol gave in?"
Nadine Boynton said quietly: "Can you really imagine her doing anything else?"
The eyes of the two women met.
Sarah felt that behind the mask of conventional words, they understood each other. Nadine, she felt, understood the position. But she was clearly not prepared to discuss it in any way.
Sarah felt discouraged.
The other evening it had seemed to her as though half the battle were won. By means of secret meetings she would imbue Carol with the spirit of revolt - yes, and Raymond, too. (Be honest, now; wasn't it Raymond really she had had in mind all along?) And now, in the very first round of the battle she had been ignominiously defeated by that hulk of shapeless flesh with her evil gloating eyes.
Carol had capitulated without a struggle.
"It's all wrong!" cried Sarah.
Nadine did not answer.
Something in her silence went home to Sarah like a cold hand laid on her heart.
She thought: "This woman knows the hopelessness of it much better than I do. She's lived with it!"
The elevator doors opened. The elder Mrs. Boynton emerged.
She leaned on a stick and Raymond supported her on the other side.
Sarah gave a slight start.
She saw the old woman's eyes sweep from her to Nadine and back again. She had been prepared for dislike in those eyes - for hatred even. She was not prepared for what she saw - a triumphant and malicious enjoyment.
Sarah turned away. Nadine went forward and joined the other two.
"So there you are, Nadine," said Mrs. Boynton. "I'll sit down and rest a little before I go out."
They settled her in a high-backed chair.
Nadine sat down beside her.