"I sometimes think I'd rather see a boa-constrictor crawling into my room than see Shaw down on the sidewalk," she ended. "And yet--I know you can understand this--there's a queer kind of relief in the knowledge that at last, and finally, he has got me."
She whirled to face Laurie and threw out her hands. There was nothing theatrical in the gesture, merely an effect of entire finality.
"We have come to the end of things," she finished. "Since you would not have them end my way, they must end his way. Whatever happens, I shall not run and hide any more."
For a moment silence hung like a substance between them. Then the visitor resolutely shook off the effect of her words.
"I promise you I will get to the bottom of this," he quietly told her. "In the meantime, will you try to forget it, for a little while? You know you said you could do that, occasionally."
He was clearing the table as he spoke. Now he proceeded to unpack a basket he had sent over an hour before by Griggs, and which, he observed, had not been opened. Dropping back into her big chair, she watched him with an odd look. If he had seen this look it would have sorely puzzled him, for it held not only interest but an element of apprehension, even of fear.
"In the past two days," she said, after an interval, "you have sent me five baskets of food, four baskets of fruit, six boxes of candy, and three boxes of flowers. What do you suppose becomes of them all?"
"I know what becomes of the flowers." He cast an appreciative glance around the transformed room. "And I hope," he mildly added, "that you eat the food."
She broke into her rare laugh, soft, deep-throated, and contagious. Under it his spirits rose dizzyingly.
"You are feeding half the people in this building," she said, "not to mention Sam and his home circle. Sam has absorbed roast chicken, cold partridge, quail, and sweetbreads till he is getting critical. He asked me this morning if I shouldn't like ham and eggs for a change!"
"Do you mean to say that you're not eating any of the stuff yourself?" he demanded.
"Oh, I eat three meals a day. But I don't keep boarders, you know; so I give the rest to Sam to distribute. He feeds several dozen art students, I infer, and staggers home every night under the burden of what's left."