Gertrude veiled her disappointment over there being really no communal incubator, by remarking sarcastically to her husband, "Well, a hot-nurse is the next best thing, and Martha makes an excellent one. It's all she's capable of."
"But do you think people will understand?" asked Eustace uneasily.
"All who keep abreast of the times will."
But gossip was rife. The Guinea hens started it, jabbering most scurrilously; the geese prated of it to the turkeys, who held up their feathers in genteel horror at the thought of such a scandal; and a pair of puritanical doves, looking down disapprovingly from a high gable, puffed themselves out with self-righteousness and murmured thanks be to heaven that they had always kept aloof from everybody else.
When the news reached Clarence, he left off flirting with his newest affinity and stalked home in a towering rage. He found Martha sitting on a batch of eggs, while round about her pattered the furry little ducklings.
"Faithless wife!" he cried. "Go! Never let me see your beak again! And take your web-footed brats with you!"
The hen was in a pitiable flutter of distress. "I am innocent," she clucked. "I have been true to you. I really don't know how it happened."
"Hah! Do you expect me to believe that, you English sparrow?"
"Revile me and peck me, if you have stopped loving me,—but, oh, don't drive me away from my eggs."
"Go!" he reiterated, shaking his comb at her. "You're not fit to have the custody of them!"