What could I do?
Apparently nothing but gulp down my sugarless tea, push aside the stale war-bread with its one scrape of margarine that represented my breakfast, and set off for my day's work, leaving Elizabeth to wash up. She had a day off from the rabbit-warren. I wished I had; I scarcely felt like coping with the office.
"Poor old kid! Such is men," grunted Elizabeth. "You look absolutely played out."
"Do I? I needn't ever bother again about how I look. That's one comfort," I sighed, as I crammed on my hat.
This had an impertinent little wreath of coloured buds, and was lined with rose, because Harry said pink next to my face always suited me. I'd bought it to wear up the river with him.
Oh, the pathos of these hats, these pretty frocks that have been specially bought for "some" man! Long after that man has ceased to care a button what one wears the hat is still fresh, the frock seems to go on and on. Things remain. It's the people who change. I must have changed, too, after a blow in the face like that! What had it done to me? I gave one deliberate and searching glance at myself in the sitting-room looking-glass.
It showed me a plain and weary girl, with ten years added to her actual age. A slim, stooping figure that moved without zest. Eyes without brightness. Hair ditto—where were "the goldy lights" that Harry once praised in my hair? It was as drab and dull as the whole of my outlook had grown in the last half-hour.
I'd had what is called a ripping time, you see. Here was the bill I had to pay—low, secret misery, dark heaviness of heart, looks and girlishness lost—as I thought—for ever!
I stuffed into my bag the fateful letter that had knocked the bottom out of my world for me.
"You're forgetting these," Elizabeth reminded me, handing me a couple of other envelopes that lay unopened by my plate. I hadn't even noticed them.