Helena, rebuffed, was quite determined to make no more appeals: and he was silent, that mockery of talk in front of Lily over, except that now and then he would throw out questions—with the hard air of counsel cross-examining—questions that showed upon what string his mind was harping, questions to do always with the hated book. These she answered patiently, as one who knows she has deserved her punishment.
What she had not deserved, what she would not endure, Helena decided, was his whole treatment of her. Each afternoon he had an agent, publisher, friend, somebody that took him into London; each night he had some work to do—and this although he told her brutally that she had fatally wrecked his new novel. It was a fresh routine.
Helena found herself sentenced—apparently for life—to solitary confinement in a new-art cottage. Callers arrived, suspicious in their frequency, but she said, "Not At Home" to all, caring but little to feed their taste for a tit-bit of scandal. Letters came too from dear friends who congratulated her ... but these she tore up, unanswered. Others came from Mr. Blatchley—unctuous, consoling, full of the glad news that sales were leaping up as a result, and sending a big cheque as a polite advance. Helena loathed herself for not destroying this as well; but she had sold her happiness, so why not take the price? Besides, if Hubert's new book had really had to be abandoned,——!
"I hope to get some reviewing work," he said at the end of the fourth ghastly lunch. "That will be something. I am off to town about it but shall be back to dinner."
She forced herself to speak in the same level tones that he adopted. "Doesn't it occur to you," she asked, "that it's not very pleasant for me, just now, to be always left alone? I can't go out like that, with everybody saying that we've quarrelled."
"Are you blaming me, now?" he asked in icy surprise.
She refused to argue this; she felt that it was mean. "What am I to do," she said, "all these lonely afternoons?"
"I should send for your good friend Alison," he answered with a grim humour, and went out to his own room.
Helena sighed, a sigh of despair; then she got up with more energy than during all these days, buoyed by a resolve.
Anything was better than inaction. Even a row would not be so awful as this freezing calmness! She would do something—must!