“Always do. Always pray for you. Never less than three prayers every day. Mass once a week.”
Sylvia felt a lump in her throat; it seemed to her that this friend, accounted mad by the world, had paid her the tenderest and most exquisite courtesy she had ever known.
“Come along now, Cassandra,” cried the vicar, clapping his hands impatiently to cover his embarrassment. “Where are the flowers? Where are the flowers, you miserable old woman?”
Cassandra came up to him, breathing heavily with exertion. “You know, Mr. Dorward, you’re enough to try the patience of an angel on a tomb; you are indeed.”
Sylvia left them arguing all over again about the chrysanthemums. That afternoon she went away from Green Lanes to London.
Three months later, she obtained an engagement in a musical comedy company on tour and sent back to Philip the last shred of clothing that she had had through him, with a letter and ten pounds in bank-notes:
You must divorce me now. I’ve not been able to earn enough to pay you back more than this for your bad bargain. I don’t think I’ve given any more pleasure to the men who have paid less for me than you did, if that’s any consolation.
SYLVIA SCARLETT.
CHAPTER VIII
SYLVIA stood before the looking-glass in the Birmingham lodgings and made a speech to herself: