“And I as an ordinary, decent woman, couldn’t do less than what I’ve said.”
“Well?” said he.
They stood for a few seconds eye to eye. A faint colour came into her cheeks, and she smiled.
“Don’t suppose I’m not tempted. I am. But if I came, you’d spoil me. I’ve got to fight.”
This valiant attitude he could not induce her to abandon. At last, with a pathetic air of disappointment, he said:
“If I can help you in any other way, and you won’t let me, I shall be hurt.”
“Oh, I’ll let you,” she cried impulsively. “You may be sure. Who else is there?”
He went away comforted. Yet he did not return to Medlow. These early days, he argued, were critical. Anything might happen, and it would be well for him to remain within call.
Of what the future held for her she did not think. Her mind was concentrated on the struggle through the present. She received a woman caller and chattered over tea as though nothing had happened. The effort braced her, and she felt triumphant over self. She went about on her trivial shopping. She remembered a fitting for a coat and skirt which she had resolved to postpone till after the projected motor jaunt. If she was to live in the world, she must have clothes to cover her. One morning, therefore, she journeyed to the dressmaker’s in Hanover Street, and, the fitting over, wandered through the square, down Conduit Street into Bond Street. At the corner, she ran into Lydia, expensively dressed, creamy, serene.
“My dear, you’re looking like a ghost. What have you been doing with yourself?”