“I should say not. He put it off without thinking about it. But naturally it made him want to see the last of me.”
“I’m going to have a child.”
The expression died utterly out of his face, out of his whole body. He looked at her with darkened eyes, whose look she could not understand at all: like some dark-flamed spirit looking at her.
“Say you’re glad!” she pleaded, groping for his hand. And she saw a certain exultance spring up in him. But it was netted down by things she could not understand.
“It’s the future,” he said.
“But aren’t you glad?” she persisted.
“I have such a terrible mistrust of the future.”
“But you needn’t be troubled by any responsibility. Clifford would have it as his own, he’d be glad.”
She saw him go pale, and recoil under this. He did not answer.
“Shall I go back to Clifford, and put a little baronet into Wragby?” she asked.
He looked at her, pale and very remote. The ugly little grin flickered on his face.
“You wouldn’t have to tell him who the father was.”
“Oh!” she said; “he’d take it even then, if I wanted him to.”
He thought for a time.
“Ay!” he said at last, to himself. “I suppose he would.”