"You must come to-night, will you?" Lilian insisted, transformed in a moment into the spoilt and exacting queen.
Gertrude nodded, brightly beaming.
"I do so want to talk to you," Lilian went on. "I've had nobody to talk to for--I mean like you. D'you know, Felix would have been alive now if it hadn't been for me." She burst into tears, and then, recovering, began an interminable detailed recital of events on the Riviera, coupled with a laudation of Felix. She revelled in it, and was shameless, well aware that Gertrude would defend her against herself. The relief which she felt was intense.
At the end of half an hour, when the torrent had slackened, Gertrude said:
"I really think I'd better be going now. What time would you like me to come to-night? I'm quite free because I'm not taking night duty this week. It's Milly's week." And as she was leaving she turned back rather nervously to the bed. "D'you mind me suggesting one thing? I wouldn't have you over-tire yourself; but if you could just show yourself at the office, I feel it would be such a good thing for all of us. The girls would understand then who the new employer is. Some of them are very stupid, you know. If you could just show yourself--a quarter of an hour. It's for your own sake, dear."
"As I am? I mean--you know----"
"Why not?"
"But would they----"
"Of course not," blandly and firmly decided Gertrude, who had been brought up in Islington, where the enterprise of procreation proceeds on an important scale and in a straightforward spirit. Strange that in Gertrude's virginal mentality such realism could coexist with such innocent ingenuousness! But it was so.
When Gertrude had left, Lilian opened the parcel. It was from Dr. Samson and contained two books recommended and promised by him about preparing for motherhood, and motherhood, and cognate matters. The mere titles of the chapters entranced her.