‘Oh, but he can’t help it. Dear Mrs. Colquhoun——’
‘Call me Milly.’
Milly? These barriers tumbling down all round before the blast of a crisis bewildered Catherine. Stephen, who had been so firmly entrenched behind example and precept, lying exposed there, so helplessly and completely exposed that she hardly liked to look at him, hardly liked either him or his mother to know she was there, because of later on when he should be normal again and they both might be humiliated by the recollection, and Mrs. Colquhoun, not only turning on her adored son but flinging away her insincerities and kissing her with almost eager affection and demanding to be called Milly. Strange by-products of Virginia’s suffering, thought Catherine. ‘I must go to her,’ she said, going towards the door.
‘Dear Catherine,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun holding her back, ‘they won’t let you in. It will soon be over now. And what will she say,’ she added, turning to Stephen and raising her voice, ‘what will she say when she asks for her husband and he is incapable of coming to her side?’
But Stephen was far beyond reacting to any twittings.
‘Oh, but he will be—won’t you, Stephen,’ said Catherine. ‘You’re going to be so happy, you and Virginia—so, so happy, and forget all about this——’
And she ran over to him, and stooped down and kissed him.
But Stephen only moaned.
‘He ought to go to bed and have a doctor,’ Catherine said, looking round at Mrs. Colquhoun.
‘He isn’t having the baby,’ was Mrs. Colquhoun’s reply.