Yes--there it was--and people thought
fire-escapes ugly. Personally, Oliver had seldom seen anything in his life
which combined concrete utility with abstract beauty so ideally as that
little flight of iron steps leading down the entry outside the window into
blackness.
"You first, Ted."
"Can't." The word seemed to come despairingly out of the bottom of his
stomach.
"Came here. Own accord. Got to see it through. Take my medicine."
"You fool, she doesn't want you here! Think of Elinor!" For a moment Oliver
thought Ted was going to blaze into more blind rage. Then he checked
himself.
"I am. But listen to that."
The voices that came to them from the living-room were certainly both high
and excited--and the second that Oliver heard one of them he knew that all
his most preposterous suppositions on the drive down from Southampton had
come preposterously and rather ghastly true.
"Well, _listen_ to it! Do you know who the man is now? And will you get out
on the fire-escape, you _fool_?"
Ted listened intently for the space of a dozen seconds. Then "Oh my God!"
he said and his head went into his hands.
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