Part 30 (1/2)
”Sit down,” he said, ”I want to talk to you.”
And as she sat down it was with a sudden sense of fatalism. There was something in all this that was predetermined, inevitable. That flame had been set alight in him by love, and nothing else. She felt, sitting there, like that most feeble of all figures, Canute. What was the use in trying to persuade herself that what she dreaded to hear was not going to be said? She was too late. She had let this man go.
He walked up and down for a moment, restless and wound up, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing the white-faced woman who could have told him precisely what he was about to say.
”I want to be set free,” he said, with almost as little emotion as would have been called up by the discussion of a change of butchers. ”I want you to let me arrange to be divorced. Something has happened that has altered my entire scheme of life. I want to begin all over again. I have come back this afternoon to put this to you and to ask you to help me. I think I know that many times since we've been married you would have asked me to do this, if I hadn't been in politics. I'm grateful to you, as I'm sure you know, for having respected what was my career to that extent. I am going out. My resignation is in my pocket. It is to be sent to the P. M. to-night. When I go back to-morrow, it will be as a free man, so far as Westminster is concerned. I want to return to Chilton, having left instructions with your lawyers, with your permission, to proceed with the action. The evidence necessary will be provided and the case will be undefended. I shall try to have it brought forward at the earliest possible moment. May I ask you to be kind enough to meet me in this matter?”
He drew up in front of her and waited, with as little impatience as breeding would permit.
If this question had been put to her a week ago, or yesterday, she would have cried out, ”Yes,” with joy and seen herself able to face a future with Arrowsmith, such as she had pictured in her dreams. It came upon her now, on top of her determination to turn over a new leaf, like a breaker, notwithstanding the fact that she had seen it coming. But she got up, pride and courage and tradition in every line of her eccentrically dressed body, and faced him.
”You may,” she replied. ”And I will help you in every possible way. It's the least that I can do.”
”Thank you,” he said. ”I am deeply grateful. I knew that you would say just that.” And he bowed before turning to go to his desk. ”Who _are_ your lawyers?”
She hadn't any lawyers, but she remembered the name of the firm in which one of the partners was the husband of a woman in the gang, and she gave it to him.
He wrote it down eagerly. ”I'm afraid it will be necessary for you to see these people in the morning. Is that perfectly convenient?”
”Perfectly,” she said. ”I have no engagements, as it happens.”
”Then I will write a statement of the facts,” he said, ”at once. The papers can be served upon me at Chilton.”
It was easy to get out of marriage as it had been to get into it.
”Is that all?” she asked, with a touch of her old lightness.
He rose. ”Yes, thank you,” he said, and went to the door to open it for her. There were youth and elasticity and happiness all about him.
But as she watched him cross the room, something flashed in front of her eyes, a vivid ball of foolish years which broke into a thousand pieces at her feet, among the jagged ends of which she could see the ruins of a great career, the broken figure of a St. Anthony, with roses pinned to the cross upon his chest.
He stopped her as she was going and held out his hand again.
”I am very grateful, Feo.”
And she smiled and returned his grasp. ”The best of luck,” she said. ”I hope you'll be very happy, for a change.”
V
Having now no incentive to go either to her room or anywhere else, her new plan dying at its birth, Feo remained in the corridor, standing with her back against one of the pieces of Flemish tapestry which Simpkins had pointed out to Lola. She folded her arms, crossed one foot over the other, and dipped her chin, not frowning, not with any sort of self-pity, but with elevated eyebrows and her mouth half open, incredulous.
”Of course I'm not surprised at Edmund's being smashed on a girl,” she told herself. ”How the d.i.c.kens he's gone on so long is beyond belief. I hope she's a nice child,-she must be young; he's forty; I hope he's not been bird-limed by one of the afterwar virgins who are prowling the earth for prey. I'm very ready to make way gracefully and have a dash at something else, probably hospital work, sitting on charity boards with the dowagers who wish to goodness they had dared to be as loose as I've been. But-but what I want to know is, who's shuffling the cards? Why the devil am I getting this long run of Yarboroughs? I can't hold anything,-anything at all, except an occasional knave like Macquarie.
Why this run of bad luck now? Why not last year, next year, next week?
Why should Edmund deliberately choose to-day, of all days, to come back, with no warning, and put a heavy foot bang in the middle of my scheme of retribution? Is it-meant? I mean it's too beautifully neat to be an accident. Is it the good old upper cut one always gets for playing the giddy ox, I wonder?-Mf! Interesting. Very. More to come, too, probably, seeing that I'm still on my feet. I've got to get it in the solar plexus and slide under the ropes, I suppose, now they're after me. 'Every guilty deed holds in itself the seed of retribution and undying pain.'
Well, I'm a little nervous, like some poor creature on the way to the operating table; and-and I'll tell you what else I am, by George! I'm eaten up with curiosity to know who the girl is, and how she managed to get into the line of vision of this girl-blind man,-and I don't quite know how I shall be able to contain myself until I satisfy this longing.-Oh, hullo, Lola. This is good. I didn't expect you till the morning. But I don't mind saying that I've never been so pleased to see anybody as you, my dear. Had a good time?”
She went to the top of the stairs and waited for Lola to come up, smiling and very friendly. She was fond of this girl. She had missed her beyond words,-not only for her services, which were so deft, so sure-fingered, but also for her smile, her admiration. Good little Lola; clever little Lola too, by George. That Carlton episode,-most amusing.
And this recent business, which, she remembered, was touched with a sort of-what? Was ecstasy the word? Good fun to know what had happened. Thank the Lord there was going to be a pause between knock-outs, after all.