“Well, I think it's quite time you did! I don't love your son. I did once, but I don't now. I told him so yesterday, once for all.”
Mrs. Pendyce heard those words, which made so vast, so wonderful a difference—words which should have been like water in a wilderness—with a sort of horror, and all her spirit flamed up into her eyes.
“You don't love him?” she cried.
She felt only a blind sense of insult and affront.
This woman tire of George? Tire of her son? She looked at Mrs. Bellew, on whose face was a kind of inquisitive compassion, with eyes that had never before held hatred.
“You have tired of him? You have given him up? Then the sooner I go to him the better! Give me the address of his rooms, please.”
Helen Bellew knelt down at the bureau and wrote on an envelope, and the grace of the woman pierced Mrs. Pendyce to the heart.
She took the paper. She had never learned the art of abuse, and no words could express what was in her heart, so she turned and went out.
Mrs. Bellew's voice sounded quick and fierce behind her.
“How could I help getting tired? I am not you. Now go!”