“Unless you except the secrecy,” she rejoined with unexpected dryness.
He bristled perceptibly. “Secrecy?”
“I don’t know what else to call it.” The coquettish manner had disappeared. “It is quite obvious that my daughter-in-law is going to have a child, although of course she hardly shows it as yet. But what I cannot understand is why she has not told me about it. It seems very underhanded and strange, to say the least, decidedly unethical, not to say suspicious on your part.”
“Unethical? Suspicious? What do you mean?” he cried, taken unawares, and conscious of rising fury.
The guileless China-blue eyes opened wide.
“Why, nothing, of course, against you! Only I thought that perhaps there might be some reason for all this secrecy.”
“What reason should there be?” he exclaimed irritably. “Mrs. Petrovskey, like many other young women in her situation, has had an urgent desire to keep her condition to herself as long as possible. I assure you it is quite an ordinary phase in pregnancy.”
“Oh, is that so? How very quaint. I’m such a very simple person myself that it strikes me as very strange that a young woman should not want to tell her husband of an expected child, that is, of course, supposing it to be legitimate.”
Dr. Elliott’s lips grew white. What in hell was the old she-devil driving at?
“It might seem strange to a casual observer,” he said, very much on his guard. “But to a doctor it is very ordinary. Quite a normal idiosyncrasy, I assure you.”