No sooner had I said it, than I felt the weight of my self-commitment. Had she discovered—remembered all? Did she conceive the impediment as associated with some scandal attaching to the ineffable Aunt Mim? or was the baby, in her clouded soul, but an unattachable changeling, which had come to disrupt the kind order of things and brand their household with a curse?
“Yes, it is the child,” I said, and leaned my forehead into my hand while I frowned over the problem.
She made no answer. When I looked up at the end of a minute, she was gone.
I started to my feet, and went up and down. I made no attempt to follow. “It is better,” I thought angrily, “to let this stuff ferment in its own way. I could have given no other answer.”
At the twentieth turn I saw Valentine before me, and stopped abruptly.
“Well,” he said; “were you able to get it out of her?”
“What?” I asked defiantly.
“The reason—the impediment, you know?” he answered.
“Sit down, Valentine,” I said. “I will tell you the truth. I hinted that the mésalliance might be her unconscious consideration.”
“She is not so proud,” he said quietly; “though I’m unworthy to buckle her little shoe for her.”