I asked if I might go and see him, but Lady Gascoyne said that she would rather I did not. It was always difficult to say how these childish ailments would develop. It might be something infectious, and she had Hammerton to think of. If anything happened to him Lord Gascoyne would be broken-hearted.
“Miss Lane is with him,” went on Lady Gascoyne. “She absolutely declines to allow anyone else to nurse him.”
I wondered whether Esther Lane had known that her undertaking to nurse the child would prevent her from seeing me. For the moment I was a little annoyed, as even the most supercilious man will be when he imagines the woman he is thinking of very much at the moment has found a duty which she places above her love.
‘I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more,’
is very trash in the case of both sexes. People who say they cannot love where they cannot respect are talking nonsense. Affection is independent of and survives prejudice, which I should surmise is an added terror in the lives of good people.
“You are not afraid of infection, are you?” asked Lady Gascoyne.
“Oh dear no, but what makes you think it is something infectious?”
“I don’t know. I had a sort of instinct that it was so directly I looked at Walter.”
I thought nothing more of Walter Chard during my visit except to ask how he was.
“The doctor says he cannot decide for a few hours what is the matter with him,” replied Lady Gascoyne.