She heard her mother calling:
‘Valentine! Valentine! Come down…Don’t you want to speak to Christopher?…Valentine! Valentine!…’ And then another burst: ‘Valentine…Valentine… Valentine …’ As if she had been a puppy dog! Mrs Wannop, thank God, was on the lowest step of the creaky stairs. She had left the telephone. She called up:
‘Come down. I want to tell you! The dear boy has saved me! He always saves me! What shall I do now he’s gone?’
‘He saved others: himself he could not save!’ Valentine quoted bitterly. She caught up her wideawake. She wasn’t going to prink herself for him. He must take her as she was…Himself he could not save! But he did himself proud! With women!…Coarsened! But perhaps only on the surface! She herself!…She was running downstairs!
Her mother had retreated into the
