Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/299

 During the days of the crisis that followed Sheilah was forced to seek a public telephone-booth (for Laetitia chanced to be at home with a cold), call Roger's country house where he still lived on alone, since his mother's death, and beg for bulletins from a trained nurse, who treated the woman with the trembling voice who preferred not to give her name, with insinuating curtness; and finally with a refusal to answer any questions at all, as if she was some one Roger ought to be ashamed of. Roger got into communication with Sheilah as soon as possible, but not until it had been demonstrated to her that no woman should care like that for any man, or for any child, or for any human being whom she could not acknowledge.

'It can't go on,' she told Roger the first time he came to see her after his illness. 'It's disabling me. I'm losing my usefulness. I'm losing my grip on my job. I was worse than no mother when you were so sick. I'm not thinking about anything in the world but you. I'm not caring about anything in the world but you. And that's wrong. That's wasted thought, wasted caring, because I can't have you. At least I won't have you,' she brought out savagely.

She had become savage now. Her gentleness had disappeared, even her wistfulness. There were no similes any more, no play any more. There were even fewer caresses, so intense had become her despair.