“My dear woman, she wouldn’t be happy if she didn’t.”
“It isn’t good for her. Does it never strike you that she’s not strong?”
“Not strong? She’s—she’s almost indecently robust. What wouldn’t I give to have her strength!”
She looked at him, at the lean figure sunk in the armchair, at the dragged, infirm face, the blurred, owlish eyes, the expression of abject self-pity, of self-absorption. That was Robin.
The awful thing was that she couldn’t love him, couldn’t go on being faithful. This injured her self-esteem.
XI
Her old servant, Hannah, had gone, and her new servant, Maggie, had had a baby.
After the first shock and three months’ loss of Maggie, it occurred to Harriett that the beautiful thing would be to take Maggie back and let her have the baby with her, since she couldn’t leave it.
The baby lay in his cradle in the kitchen, black-eyed and rosy, doubling up his fat, naked knees, smiling his crooked smile, and saying things to himself. Harriett had to see him every time she came into the kitchen. Sometimes she heard him cry, an intolerable cry, tearing the nerves and heart. And sometimes she saw Maggie unbutton her black gown in a hurry and put out her white, rose-pointed breast to still his cry.
Harriett couldn’t bear it. She could not bear it.