"All right, mummie—Cyril not hurt," he had said, bravely, as he got up.
And now—they were playing at Bournemouth, and Baby Cyril had come through croup, with the best doctors in London striving against King Death for the life of Sir Cyril's heir.
How many children would have died in the wheezing, cruel struggle! At heart it made Denise a murderess, and she hated herself for it.
"You—you are cruel to that child," Esmé said. "You are, Denise. Take care."
Two small, sand-dusted hands pushed her away. Cyril backed with dignity.
"Mummie only made a miftook, tank you," he said—"only a miftook."
He was loyal to the woman who hated him. Her child, yet he pushed her away, would not accept the clinging tenderness of her hands. Esmé sat down again, her eyes hard and bitter.
The years had changed her greatly. Her dazzling beauty had not so much faded as hardened. Her eyes were still bright, her hair gold; but the flush of red-and-white was all art now; her mouth had tightened; the brightness of her blue eyes was that of aching restlessness.
She had tried rest cures and come away half maddened by the quiet, by her leisure to think. She had travelled and come home to England because the boy was there.
Sometimes she would turn to Bertie, show the same half-wild outbursts of tenderness which she had first shown on the day she had sold the pendant; trying to find comfort in his caresses, clinging to him, pouring out tender words. Then the phase would pass. Without perfect confidence perfect love cannot exist. There was a secret between them; they were lovers no longer. For weeks she would go her own careless way, spending recklessly, always in debt, paying off the mites on account which make debts rolling snowballs, mounting until they crush the maker.