He stared up at her, his face congested. “Aren’t I always doing something for you?” he said hoarsely.
“This is such a little thing,” she said, smiling. “Will you leave me for an hour? I want to think. I want to get used to the idea. I have a feeling that when you come back…” She turned away. “Well, you’ll be surprised, George. I promise you that.”
He had gone at once, and he had spent the next hour tramping the back streets, continually looking at his watch, his hunger for her deadening him to any other feeling.
When he returned to the flat, she had gone. She had packed her clothes, taken her jewellery and gone. There was no personal thing of hers left in her room except the faint smell of sandalwood.
He stood looking round the room for a long time, and then he wandered into the sitting-room. He glanced almost indifferently at the mantelpiece where he had left the two hundred pounds. That had gone too.
He was angry. This was the last time a woman would make a fool of him! He didn’t blame her in a way. He should have guessed that she still loved Sydney too much to have any feeling for him. It wasn’t that that made him angry. It was the knowledge that she had deliberately thrown dust in his eyes, sure of her ability to fool him as she had fooled him before, as Babs had fooled him. What kind of a man was he, that women could fool him so easily? He clenched his fists, cursing himself for being such a simple, trusting weakling.
No doubt she hadn’t expected him to return so soon. She had probably been getting ready to leave when he had returned. So she had got rid of him with a promise, and instead of keeping the promise, she had packed and gone.
He lit a cigarette and, taking Leo on his lap, he stared out of the window. He remained like that until it grew dark. While he sat there, he decided that he would wash his hands of her. He would pack and go. He would go to Eastbourne. He had always wanted to go to Eastbourne, and now he would see what the town had to offer him He would put all this behind him and go hack to his bookselling It wasn’t much of a life, but anything was better than this ghastly, reckless existence.
He was still sitting there in misery, trying to holster up his spirits, when he heard someone rapping on the door. At first he wasn’t going to answer, but the rapping went on and on, so he got up fmally and jerked open the door.
Eva was standing there.