He looked at her, only too impatient to be convinced, forgetting all his mental whys and wherefores in the instincts toward faith and joy which came to him in the spell of her intimacy.
“I wanted to end it,” he said wistfully, yet already the thing was far away, incredible. “I’d made up my mind.”
“Won’t you let me try?” she cried passionately. “Mr. Dan, let me try—it would be such a big—big thing in my life!”
“Try,” he said impulsively, with a glad leap of his senses, and, even at this moment, it struck him how incongruous, in this sordid interior, was this sudden release toward the beauty and the faith of things.
“And now,” she said hurriedly, “let’s get out of here—out of this awful place!”
He sprang up hastily, cursing himself for his obtuseness, and came face to face with the worn image of himself in the murky mirror. A sudden loathing seized him.
“Good Lord, do I look like that?” he cried.
“Come,” she said smilingly. She stood in the doorway, her hand on the knob, opening the way to him until he came and stood beside her, looking back in revulsion at the tawdry room. “That’s the past—we’ll shut it out forever,” she said softly, and closed the door. “Now give me your hand.”
The hallway was dark. She took his hand and guided him through the musty, oppressive darkness down the creaking, uncertain stairs, never releasing her hold until she had found the door and led him, dazzled, into the mellowness of the day.
The lights were coming out on the avenue one by one when they returned to the Arcade. He stopped, suddenly solicitous of her, on the point of suggesting that she might prefer not to be seen returning thus. But, when this return of the worldly instinct was phrasing a question, she deliberately slipped her arm through his in a closer intimacy. He laughed contentedly.