The rude word escaped him despite himself; he rose and walked to and fro across the room trying to keep down the very unreasonable passion which burned within him.
“Pray sit down—or go out,” said Mouse calmly, and she lighted a fresh cigarette at the little silver lighter.
Brancepeth’s eyes filled with tears. He was wounded and unnerved. The amazing impudence of woman which always so completely outstrips and eclipses the uttermost audacity of man stunned his feebler and tender organization. She was really still fond of him, though his savor, as of forbidden fruit, was gone, and the stupid veracity and naïveté of his character irritated and bored her.
“My dear Harry, don’t be so upset,” she said in a kinder tone. “There are things which should never be said. Walls have ears. The Chinese are quite right. If a thing is not to be told do not tell it. It is quite natural you should like Cocky’s children since you were such friends with him and me; but you sometimes make too much fuss with them, especially in the nurseries. Children are so soon spoilt.”
Brancepeth looked at her from under his sleepy eyelids with something near akin to contempt.
“The doors are shut,” he said sullenly, “and there’s nobody on the balconies. Can’t we speak without bosh for once? The poor devil’s dead. Can’t we let his name alone? He was a bad lot, certainly, but we didn’t try to make him better. He wasn’t a fool; he must have known, you know——”
She roused herself from her reclining attitude, and her fair features were very set and stern.
“He is dead, as you observe. Ordinary intelligence would therefore suggest that it does not in the least matter what he did know and what he didn’t know. Being dead he yet speaketh, cannot happily be said of Cocky. He has tormented me by setting Ronnie over me and the children, but that is the only annoyance he had the wit to inflict.”
“Ronnie’ll do his duty.”
“Of course he will. People always do their duty when it consists in being disagreeable to others.”