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234 Leda and the Swan
"Ah, but I can! You don't know the while she could—before Mannheimer, returning
whole of it, Doctor Hynes."
He looked at her keenly. and returning to the charge, should
"Since it wear her out and drag consent from her.
isn't a question of expense "
She looked about the store-room for
"It's a question of something very different
something to achieve her purpose with.
from mere expense. I'm afraid I She didn't want to ask Mrs. Bleeker for
shall have to have my own way about anything. In a dusty corner she found a
this."
screw-driver, and she seized it with a little
He stepped into the hall, then turned, gasp of relief. That would do. Lifting
with his hand on the door-knob. " I shall the covering from the picture, she gazed
have my way in the end, Mrs. Farrant." at it a moment. Her tears blinded her;
"Oh, in the end"—she emphasized the presently, she knew, she would feel like
words slightly—"you may do anything some nameless vandal. Grasping the
you like with me."
screw-driver, she drew her hand back, and
She paused a moment in the hall, while pierced the canvas with one straight
the doctor went down-stairs; then softly, stroke. Then she closed her eyes—as if
furtively, climbed the steps to the "studio."
Once inside, she turned the key, of blood. The black figures on the yel­
she expected to be sickened with the sight
and sat down where Mannheimer had lowish ground were no longer there;
seated himself in the morning. She was instead, she saw Mannheimer's smile.
very, very tired, but her nerves had lifted Then, blindly, she dragged the implanted
her to the complicated strain of the day, screw-driver down, in a firm diagonal.
and she must take advantage of whatever When she looked again, her work was done:
strength she had before she was let heavily,
helplessly down to the lower levels of drous white body of Leda, across the can­
a jagged rent passed through the won­
power. She did not dare close her eyes; vas, to the smooth plumage of the swan.
for, if she did, that relentless arithmetical "It isn't worth a penny now," she murmured.
Then she flung the tool away
vision would swim beneath her eyelids and
confront her. Only three figures: and the from her, loathing it as if it had killed.
doctor, and Miss Dall, and two more She covered the picture, wedging the
months of life, perhaps, for Leo. If she cloth tightly round the frame, and left the
could have been sure of herself, to the end, attic, locking the door carefully behind
she would not have lifted her hand. She her.
could trust herself now; but there was no As she entered her husband's room, he
telling what she might do later, with her smiled at her. The pain had left him for
heavy task upon her, half-crazed with another interval. The old phrase came.
weariness and strain. Mannheimer, waving
a beneficent cheque, might, then, in­
She took it. "Well?" And, smiling,
"Well, dear?" He held out his hand.
duce her to anything. She must do it now, she kissed him.