. ." His voice was quite level, normal, and patient. Alcohol
took him in the legs, not the speech. "I can wait," his voice came
again. "Yes, I know they have a number. I have been in
communication with them before."
"He is going to telephone to your mother," Leonora said. "He will
make it all right for her." She got up and closed the door. She
came back to the fire, and added bitterly: "He can always make it
all right for everybody, except me--excepting me!"
The girl said nothing. She sat there in a blissful dream. She
seemed to see her lover sitting as he always sat, in a round-backed
chair, in the dark hall--sitting low, with the receiver at his ear,
talking in a gentle, slow voice, that he reserved for the
telephone--and saving the world and her, in the black darkness.
She moved her hand over the bareness of the base of her throat, to
have the warmth of flesh upon it and upon her bosom.
She said nothing; Leonora went on talking. . . .
God knows what Leonora said. She repeated that the girl must
belong to her husband. She said that she used that phrase because,
though she might have a divorce, or even a dissolution of the
marriage by the Church, it would still be adultery that the girl and
Edward would be committing.
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