Angelica was dismayed.
"No," she faltered. "I don’t want to bother him. If you’ll just give me my train fare, you could send me the rest."
"My dear, I don’t think I have even enough for your fare. Mr. Geraldine handles all my money for me."
She was a little ashamed of this arrangement, to which she had eagerly agreed when she and Vincent were first married. It humiliated her to be thus, without a penny.
"You needn’t mind disturbing him," she said. "He expects to do such things for me. Come up and say good-by to me the last thing before you go, won’t you?"
Angelica said "Yes," quite absently. She was thinking how this interview with Vincent might be avoided. It was the thing above all others she most desired to avoid. She had meant to go off quickly, to get home, where she could think in peace, where she could try a little to remember and to comprehend what had happened. She didn’t attempt to decide whether or not she would ever see Vincent again; she knew only that she did not want to see him now. But she was too well-trained in poverty, and had too much common sense, to go off penniless, without even her train fare, when there was honestly earned money due to her.
"Shall I wait for Eddie to come home?" she reflected.
No, that wouldn’t do at all. She wouldn’t know what to say to Eddie, how to explain her leaving. She felt absolutely afraid to see him.
"I’ll just have to go to Vincent," she decided. "But I’m going! He can’t stop me—I don’t care what he says!"
It took all her courage. She went down-stairs and into the library. There he sat, writing, as Polly had said. He didn’t look up. She stood in the doorway, waiting, for a few minutes; then she said: