"What is it?" she asked, after a glance at his face.
He wondered if he could soften the news, but it did not lend itself to euphemisms. He told it to her in as light a tone as he could acquire.
"It won't be for any length of time, and we can easily make shift for a bit," he said. "It isn't as if the child's things had to be left behind, you see. A handbag will hold all we really need for ourselves. What do we want, after all, for a week? It isn't a serious matter, if one comes to look at it. It sounds worse than it is, I think."
She sat startled and still. Then she cuddled the baby close, and forced a smile.
"My brown frock will do," she assented; "I shall go in that! Oh, it isn't so dreadful, no. Of course, just for a moment it does give one a shock, doesn't it? But—but, as you say, it sounds worse than it is. Were they nasty to you?"
"The old lady wasn't very affectionate; the girl wasn't so bad. It's cussed awkward, darling, I know. Poor little woman! I was funking telling you like anything. It took me ten minutes coming up those stairs, and I nearly went out for a walk first."
She laughed; she was already quite brave again.
"We shall get through it all right," she said. "Where shall we go? We might go back to the hotel where we stayed first, mightn't we? We paid there."
"I thought of that," he replied; "but it was rather dear, wasn't it? We had better spend as little a possible; there are our passages, and we mustn't arrive in London with nothing. I'm afraid we shan't be able to get your ring out in any case."
"That can't be helped. I'm sorrier about your watch and chain. A man is so lost without a watch. Saturday? Saturday will be mi-carême, won't it? We shall celebrate it nicely.... Oh!" She sat upright, and stared at him with frightened eyes. "Humphrey—Nurse!"