This descent of the conversation into reminiscence and apparent commonplace gave Eleanor an opening into which she leaped. It was wonderful; she had read of such cases. Had he heard that child crying in the corner, and had it bothered him? Had he been conscious that it was Mark Heath and none other who was asking so many questions? Mark Heath had done so much for them—she would tell him about it some other time. But Bertram still lay there with his frown of a 279 petulant boy on his face, and her voice ran down into nothing for lack of sympathy in her listener.
“Do you remember all you said?” he asked when she was quite silent.
“I think so—why?” The question had brought a little, warm jump of her nerves.
“Everything? Something you said to me?”
“I think so, Bertram.”
“Did I dream it, then?”
She made no answer to this, but her knees failed under her so that she sat down on the bed. Had she—had she said it aloud?
“Something like this: ‘Bertram, we don’t belong to each other’?” He laughed a little on this; even a certain blitheness came into his laugh, as though he should say, “the joke is on you.”
A sense of the shock she might give him moved her to temporize.
“Let us not talk of it now, Bertram. Let it be as it was until you’re better.”