“Yes. Your sending for him is a declaration of war.”
“It need not be so. Why should it?”
“In this case I happen to be aware that it is. The choice is your own, I suppose,” with ready bravado, “that you and he are prepared to face the consequences. But is Rosalie, and is your mother?”
“My father is a business man and will know what can be done. He will know what is worth doing,” she answered, without noticing his question. “But,” she added the words slowly, “I have been making up my mind—before I write to him—to say something to you—to ask you a question.”
He made a mock sentimental gesture.
“To ask me to spare my wife, to 'remember that she is the mother of my child'?”
She passed over that also.
“To ask you if there is no possible way in which all this unhappiness can be ended decently.”
“The only decent way of ending it would be that there should be no further interference. Let Rosalie supply the decency by showing me the consideration due from a wife to her husband. The place has been put in order. It was not for my benefit, and I have no money to keep it up. Let Rosalie be provided with means to do it.”
As he spoke the words he realised that he had opened a way for embarrassing comment. He expected her to remind him that Rosalie had not come to him without money. But she said nothing about the matter. She never said the things he expected to hear.