Twilight Sleep
bewildered flight. Lita lay huddled on the couch in her spangles, twisted and emptied, like a festal garment flung off by its wearer. Manford stood between, his face a ruin. In the corner stood that other man, shrinking, motionless. Pauline's eyes. following her child's, travelled on to him.
"Arthur!" she gasped out, and felt Nona's feeble pressure on her arm.
"Don't . . . don't. . . It was an accident. Father—an accident! Father!"
The door of the room was wide now, and Powder stood there, unnaturally thin and gaunt in his improvised collarless garb, marshalling the gaping foot-men, with gardeners, chauffeurs and maids crowding the corridor behind them. It was really marvellous, how Pauline's system had worked.
Manford turned to Arthur Wyant, his stony face white with revenge. Wyant still stood motionless, his arms hanging down, his body emptied of all its strength, a broken word that sounded like "honour" stumbling from his bedraggled lips.
"Father!" At Nona's faint cry Manford's arm fell to his side also, and he stood there as powerless and motionless as the other.
"All an accident. . ." breathed from the white lips against Pauline.
Powder had stepped forward. His staccato orders rang back over his shoulder. "Ring up the doctor. Have a car ready. Scour the gardens. . . One of the women here! Madam's maid!"
