“But, my dear fellow, what on earth— Not two years.”
“Is it?”
“I say. Is she? Would you like Freda to go round?”
“No. She is quite calm. It’s finished. It’s she who said it. It never began.”
“Come, come. Sit down. You’d better sleep here to-night.”
“No, thanks. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
“Tut, tut! My good Fourmy!”
“I mean it,” said René dispassionately.
“Wait a moment.”
The Professor hurried out of the room, and René could hear him in the hall talking eagerly to his wife. He was seized with a dreary impatience of these good people, with their unfailing kindness. He knew perfectly well that in a moment they would return, husband and wife, the husband and wife, and throw him scraps of their happiness for comfort and persuasion, while with their exchange of glances they would bar him out. No. That was intolerable. He stepped to the French window, opened it, and walked out, round the house and through the garden into the street.