My mother had been fussing nervously with her shawl, her sleeves, her hair, giving herself little pats and tugs and looking this way and that. Her face was drawn and working. She kept moistening her lips and saying—“Is it possible? Is it possible?” She now broke in and cried plaintively—
“But, my son, all this is terrible. I do not understand. What was it you told her?”
“I told her quite simply, mother dear, that I had married her for her money, that I had managed it all with Mrs. Carpenter before I had ever seen her; (Old Izzy is done for with Jane now, I am afraid, but that can’t be helped) that I was tired of making love to her and would be grateful if she would become less exacting.”
“Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu!” wailed my mother. “Was it necessary to do anything so definite? Couldn’t you have gradually—enfin, does one say such things?”
“No, one does not, not in a civilized world, but Jane isn’t civilized. You’ve no idea what it is with her.”
Claire had risen and wandered away to the window with her usual drifting nonchalance.
“Et après?” she asked over her shoulder. “What did she say afterwards, when you had finished?”
“She said nothing, she fell down in a swoon.”
“Backwards?”