“You have never told me her name——”
He faced her, his eyes as cold as steel. “I may as well tell you now, Yvonne, that her name is never mentioned in this house.”
She seemed to shrink down farther in the chair.
“Why?” she asked, an insistent note in her voice.
“It isn't necessary to explain.” He walked away from her to the window and stood looking out over the bleak little courtyard. Neither spoke for many minutes, and yet he knew that her questioning gaze was upon him and that when he turned to her again she would ask still another question. He tried to think of something to say that would turn her away from this hated subject.
“Isn't it time for you to dress, dearest? The Gunnings live pretty far up north and the going will be bad with Fifth Avenue piled up with snow——”
“Doesn't Frederic ever mention his mother's name?” came the question that he feared before it was uttered.
“I am not certain that he knows her name,” said he levelly. The knuckles of his hands, clenched tightly behind his back, were white. “He has never heard me utter it.”
She looked at him darkly. There was something in her eyes that caused him to shift his own steady gaze uncomfortably. He could not have explained what it was, but it gave him a curiously uneasy feeling, as of impending peril. It was not unlike the queer, inexplicable, though definite, sensing of danger that more than once he had experienced in the silent, tranquil depths of great forests.
“But you loved her just the same, James, up to the time you met me. Is not that true?”