There was a thoughtful interval.
“Having found so excellent a friend,” said the doctor, “why did you ever part from her?”
Sir Richmond seemed indisposed to answer, but Dr. Martineau’s face remained slantingly interrogative. He had found the effective counterattack and he meant to press it. “I was jealous of her,” Sir Richmond admitted. “I couldn’t stand that side of it.”
Section 5
After a meditative silence the doctor became briskly professional again.
“You care for your wife,” he said. “You care very much for your wife. She is, as you say, your great obligation and you are a man to respect obligations. I grasp that. Then you tell me of these women who have come and gone.... About them too you are perfectly frank... There remains someone else.” Sir Richmond stared at his physician.
“Well,” he said and laughed. “I didn’t pretend to have made my autobiography anything more than a sketch.”
“No, but there is a special person, the current person.”
“I haven’t dilated on my present situation, I admit.”
“From some little things that have dropped from you, I should say there is a child.”