“It came quite suddenly. It was pretty bad, but I’m all right now. Everybody’s been so good to me.” There was a nurse in the room, and Bertie waited until she had gone out and closed the door. Then she fixed her tired eyes on her brother, and said, “We call it appendicitis, because that’s the conventional thing, and what you’ll have to tell Dad and Aunt Emma. But you might as well know the truth—I was going to have a baby.”
“Oh, my God!” Bunny stared at her, aghast.
“You needn’t begin acting up—you’re no spring chicken, Bunny.”
“Who is the man?”
“Now, don’t start any melodrama. You know it might happen to anybody.”
“Yes—but who was it, Bertie?”
“I want you to get this straight at the beginning—it wasn’t his fault. I did it on purpose.”
Bunny didn’t know what to make of that. “You might as well tell me, Bertie.”
“Well, I want you to behave yourself. I’m my own boss, and I knew what I was doing. I wouldn’t marry him now for a million dollars—not for all his millions, because he’s a yellow pup, and I despise him.”
“You mean Charlie Norman!”