“And would there be any harm in that? It’s not a danger, of course; but if it was, would anyone in his senses want to stop it? Looking round on the human race to-day one can hardly help saying that the sooner it dies out the better. Since we can’t kill it off, it’s well to remember––”
“To remember what, Aunt Marion?”
Miss Walbrook reflected as to how to express herself cautiously. “To remember that—in marrying—and having children—children who will have to face the highly probable miseries of the next generation—Well, I’m glad there’ll be no one to reproach me 313 with his being in the world, either as his mother or his ancestress.”
“They say Rash’s father and mother didn’t want him in the world, and I sometimes wish they’d had their way. If he wasn’t here—or if he was dead—I believe I could be happier. I shouldn’t be forever worrying about him. I shouldn’t have him on my mind. I often wonder if it’s—if it’s love I feel for him—or only an agonizing sense of responsibility.”
The door being open Walter Wildgoose waddled to the threshold, where he stood with his right hand clasped in his left. “Mr. Steptoe at Mr. Allerton’s to speak to Miss Barbara on the telyphone, please.”
Barbara gasped. “Oh, Lord! I wonder what it is now!”
Left to herself Miss Walbrook resumed her scanning of the paper, but she resumed it with the faintest quiver of a smile on her thin, cleanly-cut lips. It was the kind of smile which indicates patient hope, or the anticipation of something satisfactory.
“Oh!”
The exclamation was so loud as to be heard all the way from the telephone, which was in another part of the house. Miss Walbrook let the paper fall, sat bolt upright, and listened.
“Oh! Oh!”