She rang the bell.
“May I trouble you to book my passage?”
“It will be my happiness.”
“Au revoir,” she said, holding out her hand.
He raised his hat and walked away briskly. The door opened, and Norma entered the house.
Chapter XXVIII—THE WORD OF ALINE
|WHAT she wrote to him is no great matter.
Her letter, which he opened on coming down to breakfast the next morning, filled many pages. It was a rhapsody of passionate love and self-abasement, with frantic appeals for forgiveness. In its cowardice there was something horribly piteous. Jimmie read it beneath the high north window of the studio, his back turned towards Aline, who was seated at the breakfast-table at the other end. For a long, long while he stood there, quite still, holding the letter in his hand. Aline, in wonder, stole up quietly and touched his arm. When he turned, she saw that his face was ashen-grey, like a dead man's.