“Yes, if you will go on foot. In that case I’ll leave you there and walk back. I need the exercise. I feel like what you described as a fidgety Frenchman.”
Silverstairs pulled at his moustache. “It’s no end of a walk. But no matter, I’ll go with you.”
[VI]
That morning Leilah had two appointments, one with a modiste, the other with Violet Silverstairs. She did not feel equal to either. The episode of the previous evening had been to her like the supreme torture which medieval legislation devised. It was all she could bear—and more!
When, abruptly, she found herself face to face with Verplank, it was as though she were confronted by the dead. The sense of it numbed her, and the numbness was heightened by a horror that has no name. Into the seats of thought there entered the realisation that, in spite of all, she still loved him, that in spite of all he still loved her. In the core of these convictions fear entered, fear of him, fear of herself, a sensation of common peril and mutual perdition so blinding that Barouffski’s rudeness she barely noticed, and it was with a look the damned may have that she saw Verplank turn with Violet Silverstairs, and go.
As they passed, Barouffski, with the air of one commenting on a triviality, remarked: