“Mother!”
Lily drew back her shoulder, her arm stiff, ready to strike; but a sense of respect withheld her.
“Stop!” she cried to the cabman, in a hoarse voice.
And, without even waiting for the cab to pull up beside the curb, Lily jumped out in the roadway, into the mud.
“Mother,” she said to Mrs. Clifton, “mother, I shall never forget this!”
And, mechanically, in her haste to get away, she handed the man what money she had left, made a sign to him to go on and, without saying good-by, Lily saw the cab drive off. It was evening, in a quiet street: where was she? Lily did not know; her head was in a whirl. She recognized Old Compton Street: had they gone no farther? It seemed to her that she had been riding for an hour ... but no, barely a few minutes....
Alone in London, without money, in the mud, in the dark, oh! she wished she could be swallowed up in the sewer. She felt like killing herself.
“If I walk toward the Thames,” she muttered, “I am done for!”
And she took a street on the left, leading in the direction of the embankment. The movement restored her to her self-consciousness.
An idea came to her, a distant hope, a glimmer, very faint at first, which suddenly grew in dimensions within her and lit her up in every particle. Jimmy! He appeared to her, all at once, like a giant eight feet high, as on his posters. Ah, people seemed to associate her life with his, to presume all sorts of things ... though he had never even kissed her! Yes, he had ... on the stage ... in Berlin, but that was before everybody! And everything drove her toward him, she always found herself on his path: Jimmy was everywhere, always. And Jimmy was powerful and he was good-looking and he loved her! He loved her! To keep straight was no use. Why, all of them, all of them, including her husband, that footy rotter, who was jealous of Jimmy without reason: she’d give him cause for jealousy soon, if it killed him with rage, him and all the rotten lot. And she’d do it that very moment! At two minutes’ walk from where she stood, in Whitcomb Mansions! She was not one of those women whom you can drive to despair with impunity: she had her vengeance ready....