"You must come with us, now, please, Miss Griffith - you shall have every facility for seeing a solicitor, you know."
Owen cried,
"Aimйe?"
She brushed past him without looking at him.
She said, "Don't talk to me.
Don't say anything.
And for heaven's sake don't look at me!"
They went out.
Owen stood like a man in a dream.
I waited a bit, then I came up to him.
"If there's anything I can do, Griffith, tell me."
He said like a man in a dream,
"Aimйe?
I don't believe it."
"It may be a mistake," I suggested feebly. He said slowly,
"She wouldn't take it like that if it were.
But I would never have believed it.
I can't believe it."
He sank down on a chair.
I made myself useful by finding a stiff drink and bringing it to him.
He swallowed it down and it seemed to do him good. He said,
"I couldn't take it in at first.
I'm all right now.
Thanks, Burton, but there's nothing you can do.
Nothing anyone can do."
The door opened and Joanna came in.
She was very white.
She came over to Owen and looked at me.
She said, "Get out, Jerry.
This is my business."
As I went out of the door, I saw her kneel down by his chair.
Chapter 8
I can't tell you coherently the events of the next twenty-four hours.
Various incidents stand out, unrelated to other incidents.
I remember Joanna coming home, very white and drawn and of how I tried to cheer her up, saying:
"Now who's being a ministering angel?"
And of how she smiled in a pitiful twisted way and said,
"He says he won't have me, Jerry.
He's very very proud and stiff!"
And I said,
"My girl won't have me either... "
We sat there for a while, Joanna saying at last,
"The Burton family isn't exactly in demand at the moment!"
I said,
"Never mind, my sweet, we still have each other," and Joanna said,
"Somehow or other, Jerry, that doesn't comfort me much just now... "
Owen came the next day and rhapsodized in the most fulsome way about Joanna.
She was wonderful, marvelous!
The way she'd come to him, the way she was willing to marry him - at once if he liked.
But he wasn't going to let her do that.