He drew up in front of her and waited, with as little impatience as breeding would permit.
If this question had been put to her a week ago, or yesterday, she would have cried out, “Yes,” with joy and seen herself able to face a future with Arrowsmith, such as she had pictured in her dreams. It came upon her now, on top of her determination to turn over a new leaf, like a breaker, notwithstanding the fact that she had seen it coming. But she got up, pride and courage and tradition in every line of her eccentrically dressed body, and faced him.
“You may,” she replied. “And I will help you in every possible way. It’s the least that I can do.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I am deeply grateful. I knew that you would say just that.” And he bowed before turning to go to his desk. “Who _are_ your lawyers?”
She hadn’t any lawyers, but she remembered the name of the firm in which one of the partners was the husband of a woman in the gang, and she gave it to him.
He wrote it down eagerly. “I’m afraid it will be necessary for you to see these people in the morning. Is that perfectly convenient?”
“Perfectly,” she said. “I have no engagements, as it happens.”
“Then I will write a statement of the facts,” he said, “at once. The papers can be served upon me at Chilton.”
It was easy to get out of marriage as it had been to get into it.
“Is that all?” she asked, with a touch of her old lightness.
He rose. “Yes, thank you,” he said, and went to the door to open it for her. There were youth and elasticity and happiness all about him.
But as she watched him cross the room, something flashed in front of her eyes, a vivid ball of foolish years which broke into a thousand pieces at her feet, among the jagged ends of which she could see the ruins of a great career, the broken figure of a St. Anthony, with roses pinned to the cross upon his chest.
He stopped her as she was going and held out his hand again.
And she smiled and returned his grasp. “The best of luck,” she said. “I hope you’ll be very happy, for a change.”
Having now no incentive to go either to her room or anywhere else, her new plan dying at its birth, Feo remained in the corridor, standing with her back against one of the pieces of Flemish tapestry which Simpkins had pointed out to Lola. She folded her arms, crossed one foot over the other, and dipped her chin, not frowning, not with any sort of self-pity, but with elevated eyebrows and her mouth half open, incredulous.