Looking at the unconscious and yet tormented child, Edwin was aware of a
melting protective pity for him, of an immense desire to watch over his
rearing with all insight, sympathy, and help, so that in George's case
none of the mistakes and cruelties and misapprehensions should occur
which had occurred in his own. This feeling was intense to the point of
being painful.
"I don't know whether you know or not," he said, "but we're great pals,
the infant and I."
Hilda smiled, and in the very instant of seeing the smile its effect
upon him was such that he humiliated himself before her in secret for
ever having wildly suspected that she was jealous of the attachment.
"Do you think I don't know all about that?" she murmured. "He wouldn't
be here now if it hadn't been for that." After a silence she added:
"You're the only person that he ever has really cared for, and I can
tell you he likes you better than he likes me."
"How do you know that?"
"I know by the way he talks and looks."
"If he takes after his mother, that's no sign," Edwin retorted, without
considering what he said.
"What do you mean--`if he takes after his mother'?" She seemed puzzled.
"Could anyone tell _your_ real preferences from the way _you_ talked and
looked?" His audacious rashness astounded him. Nevertheless he stared
her in the eyes, and her glance fell.
"No one but you could have said a thing like that," she observed mildly,
yieldingly.
And what he had said suddenly acquired a mysterious and wise
significance and became oracular. She alone had the power of inspiring
him to be profound. He had noticed that before, years ago, and first at
their first meeting. Or was it that she saw in him an oracle, and
caused him to see with her?
Slowly her face coloured, and she walked away to the fireplace, and
cautiously tended it. Constraint had seized him again, and his heart
was loud.
"Edwin," she summoned him, from the fireplace.
He rose, shaking with emotion, and crossed the undiscovered spaces of
the room to where she was. He had the illusion that they were by
themselves not in the room but in the universe. She was leaning with
one hand on the mantelpiece.
"I must tell you something," she said, "that nobody at all knows except
George's father, and probably nobody ever will know. His sister knew,
but she's dead."
"Yes!" he muttered, in an exquisite rush of happiness. After all, it
was not with Charlie, nor even with Janet, that she was most intimate;
it was with himself!
"George's father was put in prison for bigamy. George is illegitimate."
She spoke with her characteristic extreme clearness of enunciation, in
a voice that showed no emotion.
"You don't mean it!" He gasped foolishly.
She nodded. "I'm not a married woman. I once thought I was, but I
wasn't. That's all."
"But--"
"But what?"
"You--you said six or seven years, didn't you? Surely they don't give
that long for bigamy?"
"Oh!" she replied mildly. "That was for something else. When he came
out of prison the first time they arrested him again instantly--so I was
told. It was in Scotland."
"I see."
There was a rattle as of hailstones on the window. They both started.
"That must be Charlie!" she exclaimed, suddenly loosing her excitement
under this pretext. "He doesn't want to ring and wake the house."
Edwin ran out of the room, sliding and slipping down the deserted stairs
that waited patiently through the night for human feet.
"Forgot to take a key," said Charlie, appearing, breathless, just as the
door opened. "I meant to take the big key, and then I forgot." He had
a little round box in his hand. He mounted the stairs two and three at
a time.
Edwin slowly closed the door. He could not bring himself to follow
Charlie and, after a moment's vacillation, he went back into the
breakfast-room.
------------------------------------------------------------------------