"Nobody called me Sally!" she cried. "I don't know anybody."
Gaga sighed, and his head fell sideways, so that he no longer looked at her. They spoke no more. She believed that he knew she had been lying; but she had been caught unawares, and could not retract her assertions. Without a further word she began to prepare a basin of water, and washed herself. Then she went to ask that tea might be brought to the bedroom. They drank the tea in silence, both very grave. When they had finished, Sally took the tray to the end of the passage, where there was a projecting ledge, and then returned to the room.
"Shall I go and sing to you?" she asked.
"Not ... not now. Go for your wa ... walk. I shan't have any dinner. I'll just have a cup of cocoa."
Cocoa! Sally was transfixed.
"Oh, not cocoa!" she cried. "Not cocoa!" It was a desperate appeal. It came from the depths of her heart. She had been alarmed at his speech. She had been afraid of what he might do. But more than all she was afraid of the horrible voice that had followed fear with its imaginings of the means to her own salvation. At his further silence, she went quickly out of the room and out of the hotel. She walked at a rapid pace along the avenue, where others also were walking, as it was a favourite promenade; and she found herself shaking with emotion as the result of the disclosure which Gaga had made. He knew. He knew. What did he know? And what would he do? Sally laughed hysterically. Oh, let him do it soon! It was suspense that she could not bear. It was the ghastly sense of muddle and falsehood that was oppressing her now. Death—punishment—these were things of indifference. It was the fear of either that made her torture. To know the worst, to face it, to suffer for all she had done that was wrong, would satisfy her. But to be kept in this horrible suspense much longer would send her mad. Why had she not told Gaga the truth? She began hysterically to condemn herself. She should have told him the truth. She should have said that Toby was an old lover, jealous, angry, threatening. Now she could not tell any such tale, because she had denied that a man had used her name. To confess would make him disbelieve anything she ever said. Sally shrugged. He did not believe her now. He would never believe her. Once he was well he would find out everything. He would suspect her. He would persecute her with suspicions. He would suspect that she was going to have a baby. He would suspect ... he would know....
Creeping, creeping into Sally's mind came temptation. She walked more swiftly until she reached a part of the road which bordered the river. The water was less muddy here. The river looked in this aspect like a big pool of liquid lead. It was less sinister. It carried to her heart no sense of horror. She turned and began to walk back, meeting every now and then a couple of pedestrians, or little knots of people, or solitary individuals like herself, who strolled to and fro along the broad avenue. But it was very dark, and she could not well see the faces of those who passed, except when they were in the neighbourhood of a light. She did not recognise anybody; and when she came once more to the bridge she did not tarry, but walked straight across it. Upon the face of the river were reflected the lights of the hotel, for the balcony was now faintly illumined, and she could see that the curtains had been drawn at the corner windows, although not elsewhere. Again unperceived, she made her way upstairs and into the drawing-room, where she removed her coat and hat and seated herself at the piano.
xxi
But Sally did not stay at the piano. She was restless and apprehensive. She did not dare to strike a note, in case Gaga should be asleep. And she could not go into the bedroom. She tried to do so, but she so shrank from meeting Gaga after their talk that every impulse held her faltering here. Instead, Sally went through the door which led from the drawing-room to the balcony. Only one light was burning, at the farther end, and this cast such a tiny ray that it threw up the shadows of no more than a single enamelled iron table and wicker chair. For the rest, everything was in a monotonous grey twilight, bereft of all incidental colourings and of all significance. The electric bulb was grimed with age and the action of the air, and the light was quite yellow, as that from an oil lamp would have been. The matting with which the floor of the balcony was covered was in shadow. Through the windows Sally could see only a blackness in which the water and the opposite bank and the buildings farther away were all obscured. She went towards the light, and sat here in an armchair, staring straight before her, and thinking the one word ... poison ... poison ... poison.
She must have been sitting upon the balcony for several minutes in this state approaching stupor, when she heard a faint sound. It was like the brushing of leaves against a passing body. Her heart quickened, and she looked quickly towards the darker end of the balcony, near the door leading to the drawing-room. She could see nothing at all, but her nerves did not relax their tenseness. She could see nothing; but she felt that something—somebody was there, watching her. Somebody—whom could it be? Sally knew how deserted the bar was, how easy it would be for a man to slip up the stairs without being seen. She was defenceless. If she had been well, she would have gone straight along the balcony, to discover the cause of her alarm; but she was ill, and she shrank back in her chair, watching the pulsing dimness.