"I am not!" Eleanor cried furiously. "But, if I should, it's nobody's business but my own!"
For an agonizing moment they faced each other angrily, both of them lost in the labyrinth of their own situation. At the slightest plea for help on her part, Quin would have broken through his own difficulties and rushed to her rescue. He would even have offered to plead her cause again at the family tribunal. But she was like a wilful child who is determined to walk alone on a high and dangerous wall. The very effort to protect her might prove disastrous.
"If that's the case," said Quin, with his jaw thrust out and his nostrils quivering, "what do you want me to do?"
"I don't care what you do!" Eleanor flung back—"just so you leave me alone."
Without a word, he picked up his hat and strode out of the apartment and down the stairs. At every landing he paused, hoping against hope that she might call him back. Even at the door he paused, straining his ears for the faintest whisper from above. But no sound broke the stillness, and with a gesture of despair he flung open the door and passed out into the darkness.
When an extremely energetic person has spent eighteen months making connections with a family, he does not find it easy to sever them in a day. Quin's announcement that he was going to leave the Martels met with a storm of protest. He had the excellent excuse that when Cass married in June there would be no room for him, but it took all his diplomacy to effect the change without giving offense. Rose was tearful, and Cass furious, and a cloud of gloom enveloped the little brown house.
With the Bartletts it was no easier. On his return from New York he had found three notes from them, each of which requested an immediate interview. Madam's stated that she had heard of his dismissal from the factory and that she was ready to do battle for him to the death. "Geoffrey Bangs got rid of Ranny," she wrote, "and now he thinks he can ship you. But I guess I'll show him who is the head of the firm."
The second note was from Miss Isobel and was marked "Confidential." In incoherent sentences it told of a letter just received from Eleanor, in which she announced that she was planning to make her professional début in July, and that as Mr. Phipps was connected with the play in which she was to appear, she felt that she could accept no further favors from her grandmother. Miss Isobel implored Quin to come at once and advise her what to do about telling Madam, especially as they were leaving for Maine within the next ten days.
The third delicately penned epistle was a gentle effusion from Miss Enid, who was home on a visit and eager to see "dear Quin, who had been the innocent means of reuniting her and the dearest man in all the world."