“I didn’t. Have you anything⸺?”
“Yes. I am enceinte.”
He thought about this in a clumsy, incredulous way. It was a Roland for his Oliver! She was going to have a baby! With what regularity he was countered! This event rose up in opposition to the night he had just spent, his new promises and hopes of swagger sex in the future. He was beaten.
“Whose child is it?”
“Kreisler’s.”
“There you are!” he thought.
He got up and stepped over to her with a bright relieved look in his face.
“Poor little girl! That’s a bad business. But don’t worry about it. We can get married and it can always pass as mine—if we do it quickly enough.”
She looked up at him obliquely and sharply, with suspicion grown a habit. When she saw the pleasant, assured expression, she saw that at last things had turned. Sorbert was denying reality! He was ending with miracles, against himself. Her instinct had always told her that generosity would not be wasted!
She did not tell him of the actual circumstances under which the child had come. That would have weakened her happiness and her case.