She shook her head. There was no anger on her lips, only a drooping sadness.
“I wonder if that’s all a man’s love can ever mean.... I wonder! Good-night, Frank. Let’s close this chapter—friends. There have been faults on both sides.”
She held out her hand, but he turned away and flung himself on the divan with his head in his cushions.
She waited a moment, and then she went out of the door and down the stairs that led to the living-rooms below. Surely he would see her out? Would not Mrs. Marshall think it curious that she should depart in such an odd fashion? What a ludicrous finish to the evening!
The hall below was in darkness. She could see no light from the region of the kitchen. Was that, too, part of his experienced manœuvring? She shivered, and groped for the electric switch. After some time she found it. Her cloak was lying on one of the hall chairs.
Was he going to let her depart alone? How would she get a taxi? It was half past eleven. Oh! how tired she felt now. Her feet seemed leaden as she slipped the cloak round her shoulders. She cast one more glance up at the door of the studio. But it remained closed. His manners, with his hopes of her favours, had forsaken him. There had been something in Rhoda Carnegie’s remarks, after all.
She opened the hall-door, and found the stone stairs only very dimly lit. She went heavily down them, forgetting that she might have summoned the lift. Her soft pink dress trailed after her, for she was too tired to hold it up. How unending the stairs were! Would she ever get to the bottom? How many flights was it—six?
It seemed to her that she had been plodding down the stairs for ages, when suddenly a hall-door opened just as she was rounding a turn of the staircase. A voice said quietly, “I’ll come in to-morrow morning to see how he is getting on.”
She had unconsciously shrunk back against the wall among the shadows, but at the recognition of his voice she exclaimed, she thought in a whisper, “Colin!”
He stopped in the act of running down the stairs, and came back. But now she had no volition left to move backwards or forwards. He groped up the stairs, and saw the gleam of a diamond spray on her corsage. He went nearer and saw her.