But before he had got to the street door, she came running down the stairs after him; he heard the clop-clop of her slippers, which were too large and left her foot at every step.
“Mr. Landry!” she cried. “Please!... I don’t want you to misjudge me.... I thought you would understand!”
“I don’t!” he said, briefly.
“But what else can I do? How can we live?”
“Does your husband know that you do—this?”
“Of course!” she cried, astonished. “He’s the one who—he asks me to.”
They were standing outside the door of what had been Lawrence’s old studio; the hall was entirely dark; he couldn’t see her at all. That made her voice seem quite different; it reached him a disembodied sound, miraculously sad.
“I never meant to tell anyone,” she said. “But now I’d like to tell you. It’s wrong. It’s weak. I ought just to do what I think right and not care if I am misunderstood. But I can’t.”
She was still a moment.
“Let’s go into the tea room downstairs. Miss Gosorkus is upstairs and I don’t think there’ll be anyone there.”