She paused. Her eyes softened, her voice sank low—she became quite unlike the Mrs. Eyrecourt whom I knew.
“In a few months more, Winterfield,” she said, “my poor Stella will be a mother. My letter calls Romayne back to his wife—and his child.”
Mrs. Eyrecourt paused, evidently expecting me to offer an opinion of some sort. For the moment I was really unable to speak. Stella’s mother never had a very high opinion of my abilities. She now appeared to consider me the stupidest person in the circle of her acquaintance.
“Are you a little deaf, Winterfield?” she asked.
“Not that I know of.”
“Do you understand me?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then why can’t you say something? I want a man’s opinion of our prospects. Good gracious, how you fidget! Put yourself in Romayne’s place, and tell me this. If you had left Stella—”
“I should never have left her, Mrs. Eyrecourt.”
“Be quiet. You don’t know what you would have done. I insist on your supposing yourself to be a weak, superstitious, conceited, fanatical fool. You understand? Now, tell me, then. Could you keep away from your wife, when you were called back to her in the name of your firstborn child? Could you resist that?”