“Come,” he said commandingly, and pulled my hand through his arm. “We’ll go to the Eighty-sixth Street entrance and get a cab.”
We walked forward, arm in arm, and I gradually revived. I couldn’t come to any decision now. I wasn’t fit. I must think it over by myself. My forces began to come back and the feeling of my insides falling down into my shoes went away. Roger was in a state of deep contrition and concern, bending down to look into my face, while I held close to his arm. People stared at us. I think they took us for lovers. They must have thought the gentleman had singular taste to be in love with such a sorry specimen of a woman.
When we reached the Eighty-sixth Street entrance he wanted to take me home, but I insisted on going to Mrs. Ashworth’s. I couldn’t bear the thought of my own rooms. Alone there, I would go back to that appalling subject and I couldn’t stand any more of it now. We got into a taxi and sped away through the Sunday quietness of the city, sweeping through Columbus Circle and then down to Fifth Avenue. I leaned against the window watching the long line of vehicles. I was empty of sensation, gutted like a burned-out house, and that purposeful procession caught and carried my attention, exercising on my spent being a hypnotic attraction. Roger, finding me inclined for silence, sat back in his corner and lighted a cigarette. He had accepted my explanations in perturbed good faith. We sped on this way, with the glittering rush that swept by my window, lulling me into a sort of exhausted torpor.
The usual adjusting of myself to Mrs. Ashworth’s environment was not necessary. I harmonized better than I had ever done before. I am sure every red corpuscle in my blood was pale, and if, on my former visits I had instinctively moved softly, now I did so because I was too limp to move any other way. If refinement, as some people think, is merely an evidence of depleted vitality, I ought to have appeared one of the most refined females of my day and generation.
Betty was there and Harry Ferguson, Harry obviously ill at ease. I know just how he felt—as if he was too big for the chairs, and when he spoke it sounded like a stevedore. I used to feel that my manner of speech oscillated between that of the cowgirl in a western melodrama and the heroine of one of my favorite G. P. R. James’ romances, who, when she went out riding, described herself as “ascending her palfrey.” Betty, I noticed, escaped the general blight. She is too nervelessly unconscious; wouldn’t be bothered trying to correspond with anybody’s environment.
I sat in a Sheraton chair and watched Mrs. Ashworth’s hands as she made tea. The prominent veins interested me. I have heard that they are an indication of blue blood, and though they are not pretty, they suit Mrs. Ashworth as everything about her does. Her hands move deftly and without hurry and she never interrupts conversation with queries about sugar and cream. A maid, who was neither young nor old, pretty nor ugly, an unobtrusive, perfectly articulated piece of household machinery, made noiseless flittings with plates. Mrs. Ashworth does not like men servants. I suppose they are clumsy and by their large bulky shapes and gruff voices, disturb the rhythm of that beautiful, mellow, subdued room.
Presently I was sipping my tea and looking at Harry Ferguson trying to sip his in a perfect way. I knew that he didn’t like tea, would have preferred a Scotch highball, but didn’t dare to ask for it. He spilled some on the saucer, then dropped the spoon and had to grovel for it, coming up red and guilty, looking as if he had been caught in some shameful act. I could hear him telling Betty on the way home that it was nonsense taking him to tea—why the devil hadn’t she dropped him at the club. And Betty, making vague consoling sounds while she studied the appointments of passing motors.
Then suddenly they began to talk of Lizzie Harris and I forgot Mrs. Ashworth’s veins and Harry’s embarrassments. Betty explained her to our hostess, and I sat looking into my cup and listening. It was what might have been called the popularized version of a complicated subject—Lizzie as a sad and chastened neophyte who had failed in a great undertaking and been shattered. Mrs. Ashworth was softly sympathetic. She turned to me.
“Roger tells me that she is a charming person and very handsome.”
I agreed.