"Ten minutes from here. 10E Stanton Place. I'll show you a short way. I ran like a hare, hoping I'd catch you, and you'd put a bit of sense into the poor looney's head. Serves me right—taking on with his sort."
"Well—we'd better hurry," Robert said.
"Thanks. I said I'd show you the way. I'm not coming in. Don't you believe it. I've had enough. All I ask is—get him out and keep him out."
"You're through with him?"
Her habitual good-natured gaiety was gone. She looked disrupted and savagely afraid, like an animal that has escaped capture by a frantic effort. And yet it was difficult to imagine Rufus Cosgrave capturing or frightening anyone.
"You bet I'm through with him. You tell him so—tell him I don't want to see him again—I won't be bothered——" She broke off, and added, with a kind of rough relenting: "Put it any blessed way you like—say what's true—we've had our good times together—and it seems they're over—we've no use for one another."
"You mean—now he's failed."
"What do you mean—'now he's failed'? What's his rotten old exam got to do with me? I don't even know what it's about."
"You took the good time whilst you could get it, and now when you can't hope for anything more——"
She stopped short, and they faced each other with an antagonism that neither gave nor asked for quarter. They had always been enemies, and now that the gloves were off they were almost glad.