She looked at his nervous, heated face with a queer, incongruous pity that seemed to her almost undignified.
"I'm sure you do, Ferdie," she answered kindly. "There's no reason on earth why you should not wish me well. I certainly wish you every happiness."
He was relieved and grateful at her lack of resentment, but at the same time it piqued him a little. He felt that it was not altogether normal of her to take things quite like this. He looked at her curiously, and her face seemed old, very plain, linked as it was to his memory of Clara Crichell's luscious beauty. He was very sorry for her, not only for being that most contemptible of creatures, an old woman without charm, but also because she was losing him.
They parted in the most friendly way, after he had telephoned for a taxi and laden it with his various boxes and bags.
"Where shall I send your letters?" she asked.
"Oh, you mustn't know where I am," he declared nervously, "or they'll bring in collusion. Gaskell-Walker will do it all for you." He paused on the step, looking up at the house into which, thirty years ago, they had come together, full of hopes and plans, and across his still beautiful, degenerate face there swept a little cloud of sentimental regret. "Life's a queer thing, isn't it?" he murmured, taking off his hat and standing bare-headed.
She nodded. "Yes, it is." Then she added quickly, "Never mind, Ferdie, it's all right. The children will come round after a bit. It's natural they should be annoyed just at first."
"If ever there's anything I can do for you," he added, incongruously, "after this business is over, of course, you'll let me know, won't you?"
He went his way, and she stood looking after him. It was all remarkably odd, but perhaps oddest of all was that he had failed to understand at the end of all these years, how little she could miss him; that it had always been she that had taken care of him, and that therefore that it was he who would miss the prop for the loss of which he was conventionally compassionating her.