"Poor Hercules, what do you know about it? If Claude was a rotter, she should have left him. In all decency, she should have left him the moment she saw that her passion was merely physical. What has she done? Nothing. They are still together on the most intimate terms."
Kelly put his arm soothingly round her waist. It was a privilege she had allowed him in the dull days of late—though not often and always grudgingly.
"I don't suppose she's going to have a child," she went on, in a bitter tone, "yet that would be her one solid happiness. She's too selfish, I fear. Look how idiotically fate deals out the cards. She could have a child, but she doesn't want one, while I want one so much, but—"
It was a generous hiatus, and her voice softened as she approached it. She was forever telling men that she wanted a child of her own; they were usually embarrassed or piqued by the information; and whatever the effect she enjoyed it.
For once, Kelly was not nonplussed. He drew his arm tighter.
"Listen, sweetheart," he said, sentimentally, "what's to prevent it? I want kiddies, too."
"Do you indeed," said Cornelia, with a dangerous light in her eyes. "I said I wanted a child. The difficulty is that I don't want the father for it."
"Why not, if we're married?" he proceeded with unexampled obstinacy. "I'd rather follow Janet than go on being tormented like this," he concluded, drawing the long bow at a venture.
She withdrew from him and rose, her cheeks parading an angry red. Ordinarily, a look was enough to make him quail, but, lo and behold, he was marching with unprecedented independence to the door. And how could Cornelia know that his body went hot and cold by turns for fear that she would let him walk out?
She could not afford to lose him, so she called him back.