“It’s not thinking that is cruel; it’s not caring that is cruel,” she repeated, passionately, half muttering the words, and whether with tears of fury he could not say.
He stood still at the doorway. “Good-bye, then,” he said. And not looking behind her, as she went out swiftly into New College Lane, she answered, still on the same note of passionate protest: “Good-bye, Mr. Oldmeadow. Good-bye.” He watched her small, dark figure hurry along in the shadow of the wall until the turning hid it from view.
CHAPTER XXI
PALGRAVE, apparently, had formed no conjectures as to their conversation and was thinking still of Adrienne’s wrongs rather than of his own situation. “Did you take her home?” he said. “I see you’re sorry for her, Roger. It’s really too abominable, you know. I really can’t say before her what I think, I really can’t say before you what I think of Barney’s treatment of her; because I know you agree with him.”
Oldmeadow felt all the more able, shaken though he was by the interview below, to remember, because of it, what he thought. “If you mean that I don’t consider Barney in the very least responsible for the death of the baby, I do agree with him,” he said.
“Apart from that, apart from the baby,” said Palgrave, controlling his temper, it was evident, in his wish to keep the ear of the impartial judge, “though what the loss of a child means to a woman like Adrienne I don’t believe you can guess; apart from whose was the responsibility, he ought to have seen, towards the end, at all events, if he’d eyes in his head and a heart in his breast, that all she asked was to forgive him and take him back. She was proud, of course. What woman of her power and significance wouldn’t have been? She couldn’t be the first to move. But Barney must have seen that her heart was breaking.”
“Well,” said Oldmeadow, taking in, with some perplexity, this new presentation of Adrienne Toner; “what about his heart? She’d led it a pretty dance. And you forget that I don’t consider she had anything to forgive him.”
“His heart!” Palgrave echoed scornfully, yet with a sorrowful scorn; “He mended his heart quick enough. Went and fell in love with Nancy, who only asks to be let alone.”
“He’s always loved Nancy. She’s always been like a sister to him. Adrienne has infected you with her groundless jealousy.”
“Groundless indeed!” Palgrave reached for his pipe and began to stuff it vindictively. “Nancy sees well enough, poor dear! She’s had to keep him off by any device she could contrive. She’s a good deal more than a sister to him, now. She’s the only person in the world for him. You can call it jealousy if you like. That’s only another name for a broken heart.”