The woman nodded, uneasy and suspicious, moving about her way, but never losing sight of the girl.
Dodo went to the trunk, took out Lindaberry's letters, and returned to the window. Outside it was raining by fits and starts, in swerving sheets, wind-driven, with the restlessness of March. Handfuls of drops flung against the panes with sudden rattling crescendo. She opened the last letter and read it without emotion, in a dull, listless, painless, concentration. It began, "Dodo, my good angel," and it announced the thing she had feared—his imminent return.
"He will get over it!" she said, staring down the avenue, where the rain-drops rebounded from the asphalt like myriads of shimmering insects, swarming hungrily. "He will get over it, and he will live his own life, and he will end by being grateful to me!"
She remained silent a long while, wondering, thinking of Massingale, of Blainey, watching the leaden clouds breaking and rolling above, feeling the spray that lashed the window, cooling her cheeks, fascinated by the rain-drops that swarmed, like myriad white insects, dancing below. There was so much to do—and she was unable to do anything.
At twelve she rose quietly, telephoned to Blainey for an afternoon appointment, signaled Snyder and led the way to luncheon.
She went to the theater by the subway on account of a famished pocketbook, and the depressing sensation of damp ankles and muddied skirts, which came to her as she clung to her umbrella and leaned against the wind, reinforced her determination to come to actualities.
"Hello! This is a surprise!" he said, when at last she had come, with dripping umbrella, into his office. "Must have got my dates mixed!"
"No! It's I who am tired of waiting!" she said abruptly.
She shed her rain-coat, shaking her skirts and glancing at her muddy shoes in delicate disgust. Then she advanced in a businesslike manner to the seat which Blainey, contrary to his customary bluff indifference, was presenting to her with extreme deference.
"Blainey, I've come to the end of my rope!" she said, folding her arms over her breast. "I'm through with playing and cutting up. I'm going to make up my mind to something serious now! I've got to talk to some one about it; that's why I've come to you!"