Slowly Louie rose to her feet. "Very well," she called shakily; "talk to him till I come. Please go at once," she added to Evie.
Evie began: "I'm sorry I said——"
"Oh, do you want me to strike you?"
"Can't I—do anything—for you?"
"Go!"
She heard the outer door close behind Evie Jeffries. By that time her eyes were straining at a wide and empty horizon....
VII
§a
What followed when, after a few minutes during which Louie bathed her face in the bathroom, she entered her sitting-room again, fell mercifully flat. Any visit would have been an anti-climax; a visit now from Roy—it was Roy—was even welcome for that reason. If she must see him, best get it over.
He was sitting on a rush-seated chair with Jimmy between his knees. Jimmy was playing with his watch. Save that the rims of his stolid porcelain-blue eyes were pinkish, as if with suppressed tears, he had not greatly changed. He wore a braided morning-coat; his silk hat, stick and gloves lay on another chair. His watch slipped from his boy's hand and dangled by its chain as he rose. His voice carried Louie instantly back to the carpenter's shed at Rainham Parva.