“You called me Miss Molloy, and I just thought I would like you to know that I’m not Renata Molloy. It would make an untidy sort of finish if you went away thinking that I was, and I hate things untidy.”
“You’re a little devil,” said Ember ... “a little devil.”
Jane stuck her chin in the air.
“Well, I’m not Renata Molloy anyhow,” she said. “No one would ever have called her a devil. She was a white rabbit—a nice, quiet, tame white rabbit.”
Jane’s voice failed suddenly on the last word. Yet Mr. Ember had not looked at her again. His eyes went past her to Belcovitch, and it was to Belcovitch that he spoke.
“No, not yet,” he said, “but if she speaks again you can shoot.”
A long, slow shudder swept Jane. She leaned against the wall and was silent, and she shut her eyes because she could not bear to see Henry’s face. Ember turned back to Raymond.
“I’m sorry to hurry you.” His voice was low and confidential. “What I have to offer, you know. It is yours for the taking. Please don’t make any mistake. I have to change my base, it is true—I have even to change it with some haste—but neither that nor anything else can now affect my purpose and its achievement. What I offered is, without any shadow of uncertainty, mine to offer and yours to take, if you will ... if you will, Raymond?”
Raymond’s sombre gaze dwelt on him as he spoke. The whole scene affected her as one is affected by something which is taking place at a great distance. She did not seem able to adjust her mental focus to it. Her mind seemed to be divided into two parts. One of them was entirely and unreasonably preoccupied with the relationship between Jane and Henry, and the reason why Henry should have addressed Renata Molloy as Jane. These thoughts seemed to circle as continuously, and with as little aim, as goldfish in a glass bowl. The other part of her mind was bruised and sick because Jeffrey Ember had been her friend. When he said, “Will you, Raymond?” she did not speak. She looked at him in silence, and presently made a slow gesture of refusal.
Ember came a step nearer.