"No!" he interrupted sharply, "if you take Bran I must console myself with Haidee. I should think you could spare me her, at least!"
She turned white as death. Haidee to take Bran's place with him! Their son--her love-baby--to be exiled from his father's heart as well as from his home! Of what use then all her plotting, her secret grief and suffering endured, that father and son might be spared.
"Oh, Joe! Oh, Joe!" was all she could say.
He stared at her incredulously. He had no idea she was so fond of Haidee. It seemed indeed as if she could be fond of any one but himself! He was thankful that Haidee herself made an end to the miserable discussion by bounding in at the moment and embracing him boisterously.
"And can I bring Bran in?" she cried, as soon as she had finished hugging him. "He 's just on the stairs. Nurse has brought him home from his walk ... he looks such a duck in his new pink pelisse."
"Yes, bring him in," said Westenra, heavily, but a moment later, when his son was sprawling on the bed thrusting fat fists into his father's eyes, exploring his father's nose and ears, moodiness departed from that father, and he began to laugh like a boy.
"Just feel that leg, Haidee ... muscle--sheer muscle. I tell you this fellow is a hot number. He 's going to make the athletes sit up and take notice; are n't you, old man? Hi! that's my nose!"
"He smells like a nice ripe peach! Oh, would n't I love to eat him!" shrieked Haidee, and hugged him until Val had to call out a warning not to crack his ribs. She stood watching them, unshed tears scorching her eyes. They were so dear, so very dear, that man and child; and Haidee too was dear for loving them so well. It was pain even to look at them. Their dearness burnt like flame. She felt that if she stayed in the room a moment longer she must fling herself down by them, cry out the truth to Westenra, tell him she could never leave him, nor rob him of his son. But that way madness lay. Sorrow and shame, worse things than separation for a time, must come of that. No, she must bear it alone. Her hand was to the plough and she must not turn weakly back. Even now there was that to do that was part of the plot, and she must leave the dear ones to go and do it.
"I think they can spare me for a little while," she thought, not without a certain tender irony, for the crowd on the bed were so very wrapped up in their own performances. Unnoticed, she slipped from the room, and went to Westenra's office to typewrite a letter.
When she did not keep the appointment at Shrapp's Hotel with Valdana, he had, as she foresaw, called at No. 700 in search of Alice Brook. On hearing that she had left, he asked for an interview with Mrs. Westenra. Fortunately, Val had not been with Garrett, but in her room resting with a bad headache, when the new maid, a Wicklow girl of good type, who had developed a great devotion for her mistress, brought in the card. By an effort Val had managed to control herself and look with calmness upon the inscribed name.