"Are you going to get it with your wife? Which wife?"
"I can understand how you're feeling, so I'll try not to mind your being bitter, though it isn't like you one scrap. I can only implore you to trust me, to leave it all to me; I'll arrange everything. If you're right in what you fear you'll find a place ready for you when the time comes, in which you'll be comfortable, in which you'll have everything you want, and when it's over, if you like you can come home again, and no one will be one whit the wiser, and you won't be an atom the worse. It's done every day."
"Is it? And the child--what about the child?"
"The child? If it is my child----"
"If? if? if? What do you mean by 'if'? You'd better be careful, Rodney, what you are saying. What do you mean by 'if'?"
"My dear girl, it was only a way of speaking."
"Then don't you speak that way. 'If' it is your child! When you knew me I was innocent, and I'm innocent now except for you. Don't you dare to say if! You know it is your child!"
"My dear girl, of course I know it's my child. You won't let a fellow finish what he is going to say. I was only going to say that the child shall want for nothing; it shall have everything a child can have. So shall you; you'll be much better off than if you were my wife."
"If the child is born, and I am not your wife, I'll kill myself--and it. Or, rather, if I'm not going to be your wife, I'll kill myself before it's born, as sure as you are alive."
"Mabel, don't talk like that--don't! I can't bear it. If you only knew how it hurts!"