Miss Eppendorfer was lying down in her bedroom, not to be disturbed.
Kurt was not coming that evening, and the poor woman had seized the
chance of gratifying her long-starved vice. So that Frances was as good
as alone. She waited half an hour for Lionel without thinking much about
it; they wouldn’t be able to talk anyway. She couldn’t go out and leave
the authoress in her present condition, and she never entertained Lionel
in the flat. They both considered it incorrect. Still, he could tell her
what Horace had said. She was anxious about that interview. She was
afraid that Horace might have begged him to go on living with him; that
he might have weakened Lionel’s very new independence.
An hour passed, and she grew a little restless. It wasn’t like Lionel to
keep her waiting. Why didn’t he telephone? She picked up a book and
began to read. Another hour. She made herself a cup of tea and tried to
be angry, with all the time a dull alarm in her heart. Six o’clock! Her
anxiety grew unbearable, in that silent flat, worse than alone. She was
not much given to tears, but she shed some now. It grew dark; she
lighted a lamp and pulled down the shades and flung herself on the sofa.
She thought the same things any woman would have thought; that he had
met with an accident, been run over, that he was injured, dying, perhaps
dead. Then that he had deserted her, because he no longer loved her.
Then that there was some mistake, that he had meant Sunday....
At last there was a ring at the bell, and she flew to open the door.
Lionel stood outside.
“Lionel!” she cried. “I’ve been so worried! What _has_ been the matter?”
He said nothing, made no move to enter.
“Come in,” she said impatiently, “and tell me what’s kept you.”
Her alarm increased every minute; there was something queer about
him....
She took his arm and pulled him gently into the sitting room; then when
she was able to look at him in the lamp-light, she knew. She had seen
that silly smile, that flush before, had heard that thick and faltering
voice.
Her heart seemed to stop beating; her blazing eyes were fixed on his
face.
“You’re drunk,” she said, with what contempt, disgust, and bitterness!
“You’d better go.”
But he sat down on the sofa and began to cry forlornly, like a child.
“Stop!” she said. “Stop! Miss Eppendorfer’ll hear you.”
“I can’t!” he sobbed.
She closed the door into the hall, and went back to the sofa to find him
incredibly and suddenly asleep. She couldn’t at first believe in a
slumber so very sudden. She shook him.
“Get up and go away!” she said, but it had no effect. There he lay,
breathing heavily through his mouth, flushed, oddly serious in his
expression, like a weary victor in some mighty struggle.
Frances gave way to a sort of frenzy.
“I can’t have two of you!” she cried.
Recklessly she opened the door of Miss Eppendorfer’s room, found her
also sound asleep, not to be wakened. She revolted utterly then, locked
herself into her own little room, careless of what might happen to those
others.
For the first time in her life she remained awake all night. Early in
the morning, before it was quite light, she slipped into the kitchen to
make tea, and then went again to wake Lionel. This time it was not so
hard. She gave him a cup of tea, stood in stony silence while he gulped
it down, handed him his hat and overcoat, and firmly pushed him, dazed
and passive, out of the door.