IV
Fallaray? This sun-tanned, smiling man with shoulders square, chin high, and a song in his eyes, who came into the room like a southwest gale?
If he felt surprise at the unfamiliar sight of Feo in his den, he allowed nothing of it to show. He held out a cordial hand and went to her eagerly.
“I’ve come up to town to see you,” he said. “You must have got my S. O. S.”
The manner provided the second shock. But Feo returned the pressure of his hand and tried instantly to think of an answer that would be suitable to her new rôle.
“I think I must have done so,” she said quietly, returning his smile. “Your holiday has worked wonders, Edmund.”
“A miracle, an absolute miracle!”
A nearer look proved that his word was the right one. Here was almost the young Fallaray of the tennis courts and the profile that she had set herself impishly to acquire in those old days. Good Heavens, could it be that she was too late, and that another woman had brought about this amazing change? She refused to permit the thought to take root. She told herself that she had had her share of disappointments. He had needed rest and his beloved Chilton, bathed in the most un-English sunlight, had worked its magic. It must be so. Look at this friendliness. That wasn’t consistent with the influence of another woman. And yet, as an expert in love, she recognized the unmistakable look.
“I’m only staying the night here,” he said. “I’m off to Chilton again in the morning. So there’s no time to lose. Can you give me ten minutes?”
“Of course,” she said. “And as many more as you care to ask for. I’m out of the old game.” She hurried to get that in, astonished at her uncharacteristic womanliness.
But he was one-eyed, like a boy. What at any other time would have brought an incredulous exclamation left him now incurious, without surprise. He was driving hard for his own goal. Anything that affected Feo, or any one else, except Lola, didn’t matter. Her revolutionary statement passed almost unheard. He pushed an armchair into place.
“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, passing and repassing 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.”