Page:Dark Hester.djvu/301

The door opened and Hester stood before them. Clive turned his head and looked at her. He surveyed her steadily and she surveyed him. Then she said: ‘I’ve come to say good-bye to Clive and he and I must be alone.’

‘You shall be alone.’ Monica stood beside her son. Was she the tigress at bay, or was Hester? Each was fighting for Clive but not against each other, now; against him. ‘You shall be alone, when the time comes,’ she said. ‘But I must speak to you together, first.’

‘The time has come. It’s a quarter to twelve. The taxi will be here directly; and you know, Monica, all this is rather hard on Clive,’ said Hester. ‘I asked you to wait till I’d gone.’ She had closed the door and leaned back against it, keeping her hand on the knob. Her face had no rigidity; a sodden, gentle look, rather; and the dragging, bitter lines had been effaced by desperate weeping.

‘You shall be alone,’ Monica repeated. ‘But you can take a later train. I must speak to you. There are mistakes. There are mistakes between you and Clive as distorting as the ones I made.’