He sat down, read what he had written, and tore it across.
That would never do. It was like the vast prelude to a begging letter. She would never read it through.
He started again, beginning this time in the American bar of the Savoy, writing very carefully. He had reached, by tea-time, the reading of Rochester’s death in the paper.
Well satisfied with his progress he took afternoon tea, and then sat down comfortably to read what he had written.
He was aghast with the result. The things that had happened to him were believable because they had happened to him, but in cold writing they had an air of falsity. She would never believe this yarn. He tore the sheets across. Then he burned all he had written in the grate, took his seat in the armchair and began to think of the devil.
Surely there was something diabolical in the whole of this business and the manner in which everything and every circumstance headed him off from escape. After dinner he was sitting down to attempt a literary forlorn hope, when a sharp voice in the hall made him pause.
The door opened, and Venetia Birdbrook entered. She wore a new hat that seemed bigger than the one he had last beheld and her manner was wild.
She shut the door, walked to the table, placed her parasol on it and began peeling off a glove.
“She’s gone,” said Venetia.
Jones had risen to his feet.