As usual, I found it wiser to cut him dead.
"Well, dear," I said to Susan, "there's one good thing: you'll be able to use the old pair of slippers any time you need them now. I'm to be held in Paris, I find, for a three-months' job."
She opened her eyes again; disapprovingly, I felt.
"You shouldn't have done that, Ambo! You're needed at Evian; I know you are. It's bad enough to be out of things myself, but I won't drag you out of them! How could you imagine that would please me?"
"I hoped it would, a little," I replied, "but it hasn't any of it been my doing—Chatworth's wife's expecting a baby in a few weeks, and he wants to run home to welcome it; I'm to take on his executive work till he gets back. God knows he needs a rest!"
"As if you didn't, too!" protested Susan, inconsistently enough. Her eyes fell shut again; her hands slipped from mine. "Ambo," she asked presently, in a thread of voice that I had to lean down to her to hear, "have they told you I can never have a baby now? . . . Wasn't it lucky if that had to happen to some woman—it happened to me?"
No, they had not told me; and for the moment I could not answer her.
"Jimmy's wife is going to have a baby soon," added Susan.
"Jimmy's—what!" I shrieked. Yes, shrieked—for, to my horror, I heard my voice crack and soar, strident, incredulous.
Susan was staring at me, wide-eyed, her face aquiver with excitement; two deep spots of color flaming on her thin cheeks.