He walked up and down for a moment, restless and wound up, passing and repassing the white-faced woman who could have told him precisely what he was about to say.
“I want to be set free,” he said, with almost as little emotion as would have been called up by the discussion of a change of butchers. “I want you to let me arrange to be divorced. Something has happened that has altered my entire scheme of life. I want to begin all over again. I have come back this afternoon to put this to you and to ask you to help me. I think I know that many times since we’ve been married you would have asked me to do this, if I hadn’t been in politics. I’m grateful to you, as I’m sure you know, for having respected what was my career to that extent. I am going out. My resignation is in my pocket. It is to be sent to the P. M. to-night. When I go back to-morrow, it will be as a free man, so far as Westminster is concerned. I want to return to Chilton, having left instructions with your lawyers, with your permission, to proceed with the action. The evidence necessary will be provided and the case will be undefended. I shall try to have it brought forward at the earliest possible moment. May I ask you to be kind enough to meet me in this matter?”
He drew up in front of her and waited, with as little impatience as breeding would permit.
If this question had been put to her a week ago, or yesterday, she would have cried out, “Yes,” with joy and seen herself able to face a future with Arrowsmith, such as she had pictured in her dreams. It came upon her now, on top of her determination to turn over a new leaf, like a breaker, notwithstanding the fact that she had seen it coming. But she got up, pride and courage and tradition in every line of her eccentrically dressed body, and faced him.
“You may,” she replied. “And I will help you in every possible way. It’s the least that I can do.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I am deeply grateful. I knew that you would say just that.” And he bowed before turning to go to his desk. “Who are your lawyers?”
She hadn’t any lawyers, but she remembered the name of the firm in which one of the partners was the husband of a woman in the gang, and she gave it to him.
He wrote it down eagerly. “I’m afraid it will be necessary for you to see these people in the morning. Is that perfectly convenient?”
“Perfectly,” she said. “I have no engagements, as it happens.”
“Then I will write a statement of the facts,” he said, “at once. The papers can be served upon me at Chilton.”