Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/163

Rh It was fully ten minutes before the second bomb exploded. The letter immediately underneath Miss Fillibrown's was a note from the proprietor of the King Arthur. The proprietor of the King Arthur regretted that he would be unable to accommodate Stella the following season! He had rented her present apartment, he explained, to a party who had offered almost double what she was paying, and there would be no other space available.

Stella got up and walked over to the window, folded her arms, as if to hold herself under better control, and stood staring out into the street below. What did it mean? What had she done? Why were people so unkind? What was to become of Laurel and herself? It wasn't as if there were other apartment hotels in Milhampton. The King Arthur was unique. The other places were boarding-houses, pure and simple. All sorts of people lived in them. She could no more take Laurel to a boarding-house than send her to a public school. Good heavens, this was a serious situation! Stella had received blows before, but the combination of these two, occurring both at once, and striking such vital parts of the anatomy of her social position in Milhampton, she knew would prove fatal. A wave of physical sickness swept over her.

It was fully half an hour before the last bomb shattered the frail scaffolding of another of Stella's air-castles. The last letter in her pile was from a lawyer in New York. The lawyer stated that he was writing for Mr. Stephen Dallas. Stella's eyes skipped over the introductory sentences. She caught the word "divorce." Stephen wanted to get a divorce!