This turn took Wheeler by surprise. It also gave him real pain. “Bassett,” said he, “I pity you. What sort of a life has yours been for the last eight years? Yet, when there's no fuel left for war and hatred, you blow the embers. You are incurable.”
“I am,” said Richard. “I'll hate those two with my last breath and curse them in my last prayer.”
CHAPTER XXXVI.
LADY BASSETT'S forebodings, like most of our insights into the future, were confuted by the event.
She became the happy mother of a flaxen-haired boy. She insisted on nursing him herself; and the experienced persons who attended her raised no objection.
In connection with this she gave Sir Charles a peck, not very severe, but sudden, and remarkable as the only one on record.
He was contemplating her and her nursling with the deepest affection, and happened to say, “My own Bella, what delight it gives me to see you!”
“Yes,” said she, “we will have only one mother this time, will we, my darling? and it shall be Me.” Then suddenly, turning her head like a snake, “Oh, I saw the looks you gave that woman!”
This was the famous peck; administered in return for a look that he had bestowed on Mary Gosport not more than five years ago.