“We’re quick to act,” interrupted the man opposite her gently. He was still looking at his shoes, and he spoke very quietly, but Anastasia suddenly thrilled; she was not accustomed to be thrilled by anything a man said.
“I suppose that’s the meaning of English history,” she thought to herself; aloud she merely deepened her note of scorn:
“Quick?” she said. “Mr. Lestrange--ten years? I’m afraid it’s not quick enough. Do you know what happens when a woman is unhappy too long? She gets used to it. The habit of unhappiness sets in, the heart gets eaten up, she gets haggard, and old, and sad; and not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can make the queen take to her throne again! (That’s my own alteration, and rather a good one.) The truth of the whole matter, Mr. Lestrange, is that you’ve made a domestic hack of a woman who had the spirit of Joan of Arc--”
“What on earth are you saying about Joan of Arc?” asked Edith’s voice suddenly.
Anastasia started. Horace never turned his head.
“I was saying,” said Anastasia, “that she was burned alive at a stake by the English intellect and the French nerves!”
“I’ve found the shawl,” said Edith, “but the pink’s turned almost gray in twenty years.”
Anastasia laughed shortly. Edith looked quickly at her husband; in a moment she knew that something had taken place--the very room seemed tense with recent passion. A look of anxiety came into her eyes. What had Helen said or done? She tried to stem the silence with the thin stream of talk which is against the current of thought.
Anastasia rose and held out her hand.
“I’ve got to get home in time to oversee my packing. I leave to-morrow,” she said, “and I’m going to write your boy a line, Mr. Lestrange; don’t you or Edith worry. I’ll make things as easy as I can, and youth’s elastic. It doesn’t break quickly. He won’t do anything violent, you can depend on that; he talks conversational suicide, and that’s pretty safe. Just whistle me a taxi, will you?”