“What do you mean?” she asked.
Annabel set her teeth hard, and turned fiercely towards Anna.
“It means that I have had enough of this slavery,” she declared. “My husband and all his friends are fools, and the life they lead is impossible for me. It takes too many years to climb even a step in the social ladder. I’ve had enough of it. I want my freedom.”
“You mean to say,” Anna said slowly, “that you are going to leave your husband?”
“Yes.”
“You are willing to give up your position, your beautiful houses, your carriages and milliner’s accounts to come back to Bohemianism?”
“Why not?” Annabel declared. “I am sick of it. It is dull—deadly dull.”
“And what about this man—Mr. Montague Hill?”
Annabel put her hand suddenly to her throat and steadied herself with the back of a chair. She looked stealthily at Anna.
“You have succeeded a little too well in your personation,” she said bitterly, “to get rid very easily of Mr. Montague Hill. You are a great deal more like what I was a few months ago than I am now.”