“No.”
“I have promised to tell you something. And you will promise to keep my secret. However you may decide you will not tell Mr. Grandcourt, or any one else, that you have seen me?”
“I promise.”
“My name is Lydia Glasher. Mr. Grandcourt ought not to marry any one but me. I left my husband and child for him nine years ago. Those two children are his, and we have two others—girls—who are older. My husband is dead now, and Mr. Grandcourt ought to marry me. He ought to make that boy his heir.”
She looked at the boy as she spoke, and Gwendolen’s eyes followed hers. The handsome little fellow was puffing out his cheeks in trying to blow a tiny trumpet which remained dumb. His hat hung backward by a string, and his brown curls caught the sun-rays. He was a cherub.
The two women’s eyes met again, and Gwendolen said proudly, “I will not interfere with your wishes.” She looked as if she were shivering, and her lips were pale.
“You are very attractive, Miss Harleth. But when he first knew me, I too was young. Since then my life has been broken up and embittered. It is not fair that he should be happy and I miserable, and my boy thrust out of sight for another.”
These words were uttered with a biting accent, but with a determined abstinence from anything violent in tone or manner. Gwendolen, watching Mrs. Glasher’s face while she spoke, felt a sort of terror: it was as if some ghastly vision had come to her in a dream and said, “I am a woman’s life.”
“Have you anything more to say to me?” she asked in a low tone, but still proud and coldly. The revulsion within her was not tending to soften her. Everyone seemed hateful.
“Nothing. You know what I wished you to know. You can inquire about me if you like. My husband was Colonel Glasher.”