"If that is enough for you, let it be so. But don't talk to me of it. I don't like it. It doesn't suit me. I had only one, and he has gone. It is always the way." He spoke of the child as having been his—not his and hers. She felt this, and understood the want of affection which it conveyed; but she said nothing of it.
"Oh, Hugh; what could we do? It was not our fault."
"Who is talking of any fault? I have said nothing as to fault. He was always poor and sickly. The Claverings, generally, have been so strong. Look at myself, and Archie, and my sisters. Well, it cannot be helped. Thinking of it will not bring him back again. You had better tell some one to get me something to eat. I came away, of course, without any dinner."
She herself had eaten nothing since the morning, but she neither spoke nor thought of that. She rang the bell, and going out into the passage gave the servant the order on the stairs.
"It is no good my staying here," he said. "I will go and dress. It is the best not to think of such things,—much the best. People call that heartless, of course, but then people are fools. If I were to sit still, and think of it for a week together, what good could I do?"
"But how not to think of it? that is the thing."
"Women are different, I suppose. I will dress and then go down to the breakfast-room. Tell Saunders to get me a bottle of champagne. You will be better also if you will take a glass of wine."
It was the first word he had spoken which showed any care for her, and she was grateful for it. As he arose to go, she came close to him again, and put her hand very gently on his arm. "Hugh," she said, "will you not see him?"
"What good will that do?"
"I think you would regret it if you were to let them take him away without looking at him. He is so pretty as he lays in his little bed. I thought you would come with me to see him." He was more gentle with her than she had expected, and she led him away to the room which had been their own, and in which the child had died.