"If you mention her,"cried Winifred,"I go straight out to Park Lane and I don't come back."Suddenly he did a simple thing,but so uncharacteristic that it moved her.He shut his eyes.It was as if he had said:'All right!I'm dead to the world!'
"You can have a room for the night,"she said;"your things are still here.Only Imogen is at home."He leaned back against the bed-rail."Well,it's in your hands,"and his own made a writhing movement."I've been through it.You needn't hit too hard--it isn't worth while.I've been frightened;I've been frightened,Freddie."
That old pet name,disused for years and years,sent a shiver through Winifred.
'What am I to do with him?'she thought.'What in God's name am Ito do with him?'
"Got a cigarette?"
She gave him one from a little box she kept up there for when she couldn't sleep at night,and lighted it.With that action the matter-of-fact side of her nature came to life again.
"Go and have a hot bath.I'll put some clothes out for you in the dressing-room.We can talk later."He nodded,and fixed his eyes on her--they looked half-dead,or was it that the folds in the lids had become heavier?
'He's not the same,'she thought.He would never be quite the same again!But what would he be?
"All right!"he said,and went towards the door.He even moved differently,like a man who has lost illusion and doubts whether it is worth while to move at all.
When he was gone,and she heard the water in the bath running,she put out a complete set of garments on the bed in his dressing-room,then went downstairs and fetched up the biscuit box and whisky.
Putting on her coat again,and listening a moment at the bathroom door,she went down and out.In the street she hesitated.Past seven o'clock!Would Soames be at his Club or at Park Lane?She turned towards the latter.Back!
Soames had always feared it--she had sometimes hoped it.Back!
So like him--clown that he was--with this:'Here we are again!'to make fools of them all--of the Law,of Soames,of herself!