‘I’m not a religious woman, as you know. I hadn’t got God.’
‘No, Mother. So?’
‘So I—I turned to Mr. Thorpe.’
‘Yes, Mother. Quite.’
The bitterness of Jocelyn’s soul was complete. A black fog of anger, jealousy, wounded trust, hurt pride and cruellest disappointment engulfed him.
‘Why not say at once,’ he said, lighting another cigarette with hands he was grimly determined should be perfectly steady, ‘that you are going to marry him?’
‘If it hadn’t been for your marriage it never would have happened,’ said Mrs. Luke.
‘Quite,’ said Jocelyn, very bitter, pitching the newly-lit cigarette away. ‘Oh, quite.’
Sally again. Always, at the bottom of everything, Sally.
Then he thought, ashamed, ‘My God, I’m a mean cur’—and sat in silence, his head in his hands, not looking up at all, while his mother did her best to make him see Mr. Thorpe as she wanted him to be seen.