She sat down then, and surveyed her belongings. "The job's over. What whelps it makes people—just to touch this business!"
XII
ANNETTE LIES
Blake rose from a night of protracted, dull suffering; of quick rages; of hideous, unrelieved despairs. When the day came and the city roared about him again, the habits of life reasserted themselves. He rose, dressed, sent for coffee, gained the pathetic victory of swallowing it. His face, seared by all the inner fires of that night, settled now to a look of steel resolution. He rose from his coffee, opened his desk and wrote this note:
MY DEAR MME. LE GRANGE:
I understand perfectly your motive in asking me to invade a private house and peep through a keyhole. It was the only thing which would have disillusioned me. Had you told me this, I would not have believed you. Though it was harsh treatment, I thank you. I enclose a check for a hundred dollars, payment two weeks in advance for your services, which I shall need no longer. You did your job well. You will understand, I think, that I do not reflect on you when I ask you never to see me again. You would recall something which I shall try for the rest of my life to forget.
WALTER H. BLAKE.
P.S. Do as you please about this—but I should prefer you to give Mrs. Markham the customary notice.
As he sealed the letter and put on his hat that he might go to post it with his own hands, he had the look of a man who has settled everything and for life. But the clanging lid of the letter box had no sooner closed than the look of resolution began to leave his face. For two hours, he paced the streets of Manhattan. He found himself at length apostrophizing a brick wall, "Who could believe it?" And again, to a lamp-post, "I can't believe it!" And again, "She made her!" He wheeled on this, turned into a drug store, shut himself into the telephone booth, and called up the Markham house.