“You’re afraid of being certain?,” she interrupted scornfully. “I’m only afraid of sheltering myself behind a dead man. . . . Oh, Henry, Mr. Oakleigh wants his despatch-box. And will you see that there’s a good fire in the tapestry-room and have his things moved in there? The . . . peacocks make so much noise on my side of the house,” she added.
6
As I finished dressing, Barbara tapped at my door and came in with Eric’s letter in her hand.
“If you want this, I must give it you back,” she began. Her voice had almost left her; and the radiant vitality of an hour before had flown. “I hope you won’t have to quote it, because these things are so terribly vulgarized in court. Do I . . . have to be unfaithful? I wasn’t . . . with Eric,” she added carelessly.
“I know you weren’t.”
“I meant to be, . . . if I must use that . . . unclean word. For one moment I had a vision of perfect happiness, I forgot everything else. . . . It would be generous of you to say you won’t use this. Eric’s dead. And people would think he was to blame.”
“I certainly shan’t use it. Barbara, why are you talking like this?”
Before she could answer, the letter had to be thrust into safety. Then, with one hand clutching it to her breast, as though Eric’s heart were beating against hers, she looked up and forced her mind on to my question:
“Because father’s coming down to-morrow, and we must decide what we’re going to do. We had to fight him pretty hard to get married, but we shall have to fight much harder to get divorced.”
“But no one has mentioned divorce.”