Esmé flung up her pretty head.
"I'll do it," she said, "but I must have a doctor. I must not die."
"A doctor to attend Lady Blakeney. Why not? Strange servants, a strange place, who would know?" Denise remembered everything.
"Yet it is wonderful how people do know," said Esmé, shrewdly, half afraid now that she had agreed; wondering what might happen. Yet she looked round her flat with a little sigh of relief. She could live her merry, careless life, live it more easily than before, and she did not want a child. She hated children, hated their responsibility.
"Some day," said Esmé, "I won't mind; then there can be another."
May had given way to a dismal June. Cold winds and showers swept over the world. Flowers were dragged from grates and fires put in. Esmé had lighted hers; sat over it, as her husband came in; they were lunching out.
He hung over her, delighting in her soft beauty, crying out at her pale cheeks.
"You're tired, girlie; we're always out. And now that I must leave you alone you'll do much more."
She leant back against him, ruffling her cloud of fair hair.
"We're absolutely happy, aren't we, Bertie? I'll be here when you come. I can let the flat until the spring, and you must leave that stupid army and live here all summer in dear London."