She tore herself away from him and threw herself sobbing into the armchair.
"Fanshaw, I can't ... I can't do it. It's all false," she was crying in a thin choked voice.
Fanshaw was standing stiffly in front of her. He felt desperately cold and tired.
"Nan, this is horrible ... Pull yourself together."
She turned to him a twisted face wet with tears.
"No, go away for the present ... Leave me alone."
She slipped to the floor and lay with her head on the blue velvet seat of the chair, her sandy hair undone, her body shaken with sobs.
In a curious maze of pain Fanshaw walked down the apartment house steps. Through spring-reeking streets, full of laughs and flower-scents and flushed cheeks and kidding voices of boys and girls arm in arm, he walked with long, sedate steps home.