The sound of a young laughing voice came faintly up from below. ‘How did Jimmie Fortescue know she was coming home to-day?’
‘Will you not inquire of Jimmie Fortescue for yourself?’
‘Oh, what is the use of sneering?’ began the dull voice again. ‘I am horribly tired, Sheila. And try how you will, you can’t convince me that you believe for a moment that I am not myself, that you are as hard as you pretend. An acquaintance, even a friend might be deceived; but husband and wife—oh no! It isn’t only a man’s face that’s himself—or even his hands.’ He looked at them, straightened them slowly out, and buried them in his pockets. ‘All I care about now is Alice. Is she, or is she not going to be told? I am simply asking you to give her just a chance.’
‘“Simply asking me to give Alice a chance”; now isn’t that really just a little...?’
Lawford slowly shook his head. ‘You know in your heart it isn’t, Sheila; you understand me quite well, although you persistently pretend not to. I can’t argue now. I can’t speak up for myself. I am just about as far down as I can go. It’s only Alice.’
‘I see; a lucid interval?’ suggested his wife in a low, trembling voice.
‘Yes, yes, if you like,’ said her husband patiently, ‘“a lucid interval.” Don’t please look at my face like that, Sheila. Think—think that it’s just lupus, just some horrible disfigurement.’
Not much light was in the large room, and there was something so extraordinarily characteristic of her husband in those stooping shoulders, in the head hung a little forward, and in the preternaturally solemn voice, that Sheila had to bend a little over the bed to catch a glimpse of the sallow and keener face again. She sighed; and even on her own strained ear her sigh sounded almost like one of relief.
‘It’s useless, I know, to ask you anything while you are in this mood,’ continued Lawford dully; ‘I know that of old.’
The white, ringed hands clenched, ‘“Of old!”’