"You will go," said Esther fiercely, half in anger because he had to be cajoled and prompted, "and take me with you."
Reardon, standing there feeling her beating heart against his hand, thought that was how he had known it would be. He had always had a fear, the three-o'clock-waking-in-the-morning fear, that sometime his conventions would fall from him like a garment he had forgotten, and he should do some act that showed him to Addington as he was born. He had too, sometimes, a nightmare, pitifully casual, yet causing him an anguish of shame: murdering his grammar or smoking an old black pipe such as his father smoked and being caught with it, going to the club in overalls. But now he realised what the malicious envy of fortune had in store for him. He was to run off with his neighbour's wife. For an instant he weakly meant to recall her to herself, to remind her that she didn't want to do it. But it seemed shockingly indecorous to assume a higher standard than her own, and all he could do was to assure her, as he had been assuring her while he was swept along that dark underground river of disconcerted thought: "I'll take care of you."
"What do you mean?" she returned, like a wild thing leaping at him. "Do you mean really take care of me? over there?"
"Yes," said Reardon, without a last clutch at his lost vision, "over there. We'll leave here Friday, for New York."
"I shall send my trunks in advance," said Esther. "By express. I shall say I am going for dressmaking and the theatre."
Reardon settled down to bare details. It would be unwise to be seen leaving on the same train, and he would precede her to New York. It would be better also to stay at different hotels. Once landed they would become—he said this in the threadbare pathetic old phrase—man and wife "in the sight of God". He was trying honestly to spare her exquisite sensibilities, and Esther understood that she was to be saved at all points while she reaped the full harvest of her desires. Reardon kissed her solemnly and went away, at the door meeting Madame Beattie, who gave him what he thought an alarming look, at the least a satirical one. Had she listened? had she seen their parting? But if she had, she made no comment. Madame Beattie had her own affairs to manage.
"I have told Sophy to do some pressing for me," she said to Esther. "After that, she will pack."
"Sophy isn't very fond of packing," said Esther weakly. She was quite sure Sophy would refuse and was immediately sorry she had given Madame Beattie even so slight a warning. What did Sophy's tempers matter now? She would be left behind with grandmother and Rhoda Knox. What difference would it make whether in the sulks or out of them?
"Oh, yes," said Madame Beattie quietly. "She'll do it."
Esther plucked up spirit. For weeks she had hardly addressed Madame Beattie at all. She dared not openly show scorn of her, but she could at least live apart from her. Yet it seemed to her now that she might, as a sort of deputy hostess under grandmother, be told whether Madame Beattie actually did mean to go away.