"I … can't … now, Eric.… Is it still raining? If it is, I'd better have a taxi."
"I'll see if I can get you one."
He had seen this gesture before; and Barbara had followed it with a stream of notes and messages; begging him to come back. Eric walked slowly into the street, giving her generous time for consideration. A taxi stood idle at the top of St. James' Street; and, when he returned with it, she was in the hall, white-faced but collected, turning over the pages of a review.
"Good-bye, Eric," she said quietly. "I'm afraid I've only brought you unhappiness. And my love doesn't seem much use to any one.… Don't bother to come down with me."
He went into the smoking-room and dropped limply onto a sofa, waiting for the telephone to ring, waiting for her to confess defeat. A hideous evening—almost as bad as that night before Christmas. His cheeks were burning, and his head ached savagely. Suddenly his theatrical composure and stoicism left him; his body trembled, and he was amazed to feel tears coursing down his cheeks. This, then—he was quite detached about it—was the nervous break-down which Gaisford had prophesied. He had not cried for twenty years … and now he could not stop. His heart seemed to have broken loose and to be hammering in space, like the engine of a disabled clock-work toy.
It was still absurdly early, for their scene had taken place among the nut-shells and coffee-cups of dinner. There was time for her to come back, to telephone; she knew by harrowing experience what a parting like this meant. And, while he waited, he must do something! Perhaps she would not break silence till the morning. He would see that she did not wait longer than that.…
"Darling Babs," he began. A hot tear splashed on to the paper, and he reached for a fresh sheet. "Darling Babs, It was your choice. I pray God that you will find greater happiness elsewhere.…"
He strung sentence to sentence, not knowing what he wrote. Was it not weakness that he should be writing the first letter? But Barbara was probably writing to him at this moment, writing or asking for his number.… The night lift-man was bribed to post the letter, because Eric dared not leave the telephone. He sat by it trembling as though with fever, while eleven o'clock struck … and midnight … and one … and three … and five.…
In the morning he was called at his usual time—to sink back on to the bed almost before he had risen from it. While he waited for his secretary, he telephoned to ask a colleague to shoulder double work for the day and began to think wearily what other engagements he must break. In an interlude of their over-night discussion Barbara had asked him to lunch with her.…
With a strangely uncontrolled hand he wrote—"I'm afraid I can't remember what I said in my letter last night. I was feeling too much upset. Didn't you ask me to lunch with you to-day? I'm afraid I'm feeling so ill that I've had to stay in bed.…"