“I suppose I do.”
“You don't!”
“I haven't thought of them.”
“A man doesn't, perhaps. But I have.... I want them—like hunger. YOUR children, and home with you. Really, continually you! That's the trouble.... I can't have 'em, Master, and I can't have you.”
She was crying, and through her tears she laughed.
“I'm going to make a scene,” she said, “and get this over. I'm so discontented and miserable; I've got to tell you. It would come between us if I didn't. I'm in love with you, with everything—with all my brains. I'll pull through all right. I'll be good, Master, never you fear. But to-day I'm crying out with all my being. This election—You're going up; you're going on. In these papers—you're a great big fact. It's suddenly come home to me. At the back of my mind I've always had the idea I was going to have you somehow presently for myself—I mean to have you to go long tramps with, to keep house for, to get meals for, to watch for of an evening. It's a sort of habitual background to my thought of you. And it's nonsense—utter nonsense!” She stopped. She was crying and choking. “And the child, you know—the child!”
I was troubled beyond measure, but Handitch and its intimations were clear and strong.
“We can't have that,” I said.
“No,” she said, “we can't have that.”
“We've got our own things to do.”