This was received in dead silence.
"She went off with Percy when the baby was a month old."
Again there was nothing but dead silence.
"Mean she married Pink-eye Percy?" asked Tom, in a muffled tone.
"I dunno about marryin' him. They say he's got a wife or two already: legal and otherwise. All I know is they cleared out a month after the baby was born, and went down south."
Still dead silence from the other two. The room was full of golden light. Jack was looking at the fly-dirts and the lamp-black on the ceiling. He was sitting in a horse-hair arm-chair, and the broken springs were uncomfortable, and the horse-hair scratched his wrist. Otherwise he felt vacant, and in a deathly way, remote.
"You're minding what you're saying?" came Tom's empty voice.
"Minding what I'm saying!" echoed Easu rejoicingly. "I didn't want to tell you. It was you who asked me."
"Was the baby Percy's baby?" asked Jack.
"I should say so," Easu replied, stumbling. "I never asked her, myself. They were all thick with Percy at that time, and I was married with a family of my own. Why I've not been over to Wandoo for—for—for close on two years, I should think."