“She's a woman not given to loving—except, in unexpected bursts, her offspring. But she will respect you.”
She stood for a few moments silent, her arm resting against the window jamb and her head on her arm. She remained there so long that at last I rose and, looking at her face, saw that her eyes were full of tears. She dashed them away with the back of her hand, gave me a swift look, and went and sat in the shadow of the room. An action of this kind on the part of a woman signifies a desire for solitude. I lit a cigarette and went into the garden.
It was a sorry business. I saw as clearly as Lola that Lady Kynnersley desired to purchase Dale's immediate happiness at any price, and that the future might bring bitter repentance. But I offered no advice. I have finished playing at Deputy Providence. A madman letting off fireworks in a gunpowder factory plays a less dangerous game.
Presently she joined me and ran her arm through mine.
“I'll write to Dale this afternoon,” she said. “Don't let us talk of it any more now. You are tired out. It's time for you to go and lie down. I'll walk with you up the hill.”
It has come to this, that I must lie down for some hours during the day lest I should fall to pieces.
“I suppose I'll have to,” I laughed. “What a thing it is to have the wits of a man and the strength of a baby.”
She pressed my arm and said in her low caressing voice which I had not heard for many weeks: “I shouldn't be so proud of those man's wits, if I were you.”
I knew she said it playfully with reference to masculine non-perception of the feminine; but I chose to take it broadly.
“My dear Lola,” said I, “it has been borne in upon me that I am the most witless fool that the unwisdom of generations of English country squires has ever succeeded in producing.”