She knew when she was beaten.
I said, "Why do you let him do it, Lena? Why don't you turn them both
neck and crop out of the house?" "Because I want him in it. I want him
at any cost. And I want him to have what he wants, too, even if it's
Barbara. I want him to be happy.... I'm making a virtue of necessity.
It can be done, Roly, if you give up beautifully."
I put it to her it wasn't giving up beautifully to fret herself into an
unbecoming illness, to carry her disaster on her face. She would come
to me looking more ruined than ruinous, haggard and ashy, her eyes all
shrunk and hot with crying, and stand before the glass, looking at
herself and dabbing on powder in an utter abandonment to misery.
"I know," she moaned. "As if losing him wasn't enough I must go and
lose my looks. I know crying's simply suicidal at my age, yet I keep on
at it. I'm doing for myself. I'm digging my own grave, Roly. A little
deeper every day."
Then she said suddenly, "Do you know, you're the only man in London I
could come to looking like this."
I said, "Isn't that a bit unkind of you? It sounds as though you
thought I didn't matter.
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