Heaven forgive me.
After receiving Lady Kynnersley's appeal, I went to Lola. It was just before the case came on at the Cour d'Assises. She had finished luncheon in her private room and was sitting over her coffee. I joined her. She wore the black blouse and skirt with which I have not yet been able to grow familiar, as it robbed her of the peculiar fascinating quality which I have tried to suggest by the word pantherine. Coffee over, we moved to the window which opened on a little back garden—the room was on the ground floor—in which grew prickly pear and mimosa, and newly flowering heliotrope. I don't know why I should mention this, except that some scenes impress themselves, for no particular reason, on the memory, while others associated with more important incidents fade into vagueness. I picked a bunch of heliotrope which she pinned at her bosom.
“Lola,” I said, “I want to speak to you seriously.”
She smiled wanly: “Do we ever speak otherwise these dreadful days?”
“It's about Dale. Read this,” said I, and I handed her Lady Kynnersley's letter. She read it through and returned it to me.
“Well?”
“I asked you a week or two ago what you were going to do with your life,” I said. “Does that letter offer you any suggestion?”
“I'm to give him some hope—what hope can I give him?”
“You're a free woman—free to marry. For the boy's sake the mother will consent. When she knows you as well as we know you she will—”
“She will—what? Love me?”