It was easy to get out of marriage as it had been to get into it.
“Is that all?” she asked, with a touch of her old lightness.
He rose. “Yes, thank you,” he said, and went to the door to open it for her. There were youth and elasticity and happiness all about him.
But as she watched him cross the room, something flashed in front of her eyes, a vivid ball of foolish years which broke into a thousand pieces at her feet, among the jagged ends of which she could see the ruins of a great career, the broken figure of a St. Anthony, with roses pinned to the cross upon his chest.
He stopped her as she was going and held out his hand again.
“I am very grateful, Feo.”
And she smiled and returned his grasp. “The best of luck,” she said. “I hope you’ll be very happy, for a change.”
V
Having now no incentive to go either to her room or anywhere else, her new plan dying at its birth, Feo remained in the corridor, standing with her back against one of the pieces of Flemish tapestry which Simpkins had pointed out to Lola. She folded her arms, crossed one foot over the other, and dipped her chin, not frowning, not with any sort of self-pity, but with elevated eyebrows and her mouth half open, incredulous.
“Of course I’m not surprised at Edmund’s being smashed on a girl,” she told herself. “How the Dickens he’s gone on so long is beyond belief. I hope she’s a nice child,—she must be young; he’s forty; I hope he’s not been bird-limed by one of the afterwar virgins who are prowling the earth for prey. I’m very ready to make way gracefully and have a dash at something else, probably hospital work, sitting on charity boards with the dowagers who wish to goodness they had dared to be as loose as I’ve been. But—but what I want to know is, who’s shuffling the cards? Why the devil am I getting this long run of Yarboroughs? I can’t hold anything,—anything at all, except an occasional knave like Macquarie. Why this run of bad luck now? Why not last year, next year, next week? Why should Edmund deliberately choose to-day, of all days, to come back, with no warning, and put a heavy foot bang in the middle of my scheme of retribution? Is it—meant? I mean it’s too beautifully neat to be an accident. Is it the good old upper cut one always gets for playing the giddy ox, I wonder?—Mf! Interesting. Very. More to come, too, probably, seeing that I’m still on my feet. I’ve got to get it in the solar plexus and slide under the ropes, I suppose, now they’re after me. ‘Every guilty deed holds in itself the seed of retribution and undying pain.’ Well, I’m a little nervous, like some poor creature on the way to the operating table; and—and I’ll tell you what else I am, by George! I’m eaten up with curiosity to know who the girl is, and how she managed to get into the line of vision of this girl-blind man,—and I don’t quite know how I shall be able to contain myself until I satisfy this longing.—Oh, hullo, Lola. This is good. I didn’t expect you till the morning. But I don’t mind saying that I’ve never been so pleased to see anybody as you, my dear. Had a good time?”