“Ta-ta, old man,” said Joe ironically.
You be damned! thought Wilfred, looking straight ahead of him.
He went out stiffly. Silence in the room behind him. Already! Already! What if he should go back? . . . Why go back? He knew without going back. And it wouldn’t shame them! . . . Elaine . . . and that soulless blackguard! All her brave colors hauled down! Abandoning herself . . . his practised embraces! Oh, Christ! . . .
He hurried out of the house with a shrieking in his ears.
V
After having resisted the temptation for many days, Wilfred pushed a button at the door of one of the little flats in the Manhanset Building on Fifty-Ninth street. He was ashamed to drag his dead and alive self there for succor; nevertheless a feeling of thankfulness sprang up in his breast like water in dusty earth. What a blessing it was to have a place where you could drop in without an appointment, and be sure of your welcome. Perhaps he could conceal from Frances Mary how far gone he was.
She opened the door. His eyes were gratified by the sight of her bland and dusky fairness; her calm. Frances Mary was always the same. “Hello!” she said with her ironical smile, while her eyes beamed with friendliness. She had a quality of voice that worked magic with refractory nerves. “Come in!”
She walked away from the door, leaving Wilfred to close it and follow. If she had read anything in his face she gave no sign of it.
“Hope I’m not interrupting your work,” he said, trying not to sound perfunctory. He knew he was interrupting.
“I was ripe for an interruption.”