He held her close, sat silent for a time.
"I was at Evie's yesterday," he said. "Eve Gresham's my cousin. I saw her boy."
"Horrid little things at that age," said Esmé, unsympathetically.
"It wasn't—it was fat and bonny; and Eve is so proud of it. If we had a sonny, Butterfly, you and I, I'd like him to be like Eve's."
Esmé sat astonished. Bertie wishing for a third in their lives. Bertie! knowing the difference it would make.
She jumped up, almost angrily. "If we had, we couldn't hunt, or do half what we do," she said. "And you've got me, Bertie. Do you want more?"
She began to cry suddenly, broke down, overwrought by her morning's plot, by this new idea of Carteret's.
Something, stronger for the moment than her selfish love of amusement, fought with her. If she gave up their mad scheme, told him now, he would not go to Africa; he would stay, watching her, guarding her. Esmé wavered.
"I looked at those emeralds too, yesterday," Bertie said; he was staring into the fire; had not noticed her agitation. "You know that queer old clasp. Fifty pounds. I couldn't manage it, girlie, for you."
"I wanted it," said Esmé, fretfully.