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point of fact come. Still, the fates seldom give us what we want in the
way we want it, and though Mrs. Tower could flatter herself that she
had been right, I think after all she would sooner have been wrong.
For things did not happen at all in the way she expected.
One day I received an urgent message from her and fortunately
went to see her at once. When I was shown into the room Mrs. Tower
rose from her chair and came towards me with the stealthy swiftness
of a leopard stalking his prey. I saw that she was excited.
“Jane and Gilbert have separated,” she said.
“Not really? Well, you were right after all.”
Mrs. Tower looked at me with an expression I could not
understand.
“Poor Jane,” I muttered.
“Poor Jane!” she repeated, but in tones of such derision that I
was dumbfounded.
She found some difficulty in telling me exactly what had
occurred.
Gilbert had left her a moment before she leaped to the
telephone to summon me. When he entered the room, pale and
distraught, she saw at once that something terrible had happened. She
knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“Marion, Jane has left me.”
She gave him a little smile and took his hand.
“I knew you’d behave like a gentleman. It would have been
dreadful for her, for people to think that you had left her.”
“I’ve come to you because I know I could count on your
sympathy.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you, Gilbert,” said Mrs. Tower, very kindly.
“It was bound to happen.”
He sighed.
“I suppose so. I couldn’t hope to keep her always. She was too
wonderful and I’m a perfectly commonplace fellow.”
Mrs. Tower patted his hand. He was really behaving
beautifully.
“And what is going to happen now?”
“Well, she’s going to divorce me.”
“Jane always said she’d put no obstacle in your way if ever you
wanted to marry a girl.”