I tell you candidly there is only one way to save it."
"My darling Aspdale!
Of course I want to keep him.
How can you suggest such a horrid idea?
It is not a bit what I expected from you.
Claire told me—never mind what; but please understand that I will never give my baby up."
I was nettled by her perverseness, and although I tried hard to school myself to patience, it was exceedingly difficult.
"Indeed, Lady Henriette, I have no desire to separate you from your child, nor would I counsel you under any circumstances to give it up.
But quite certainly while you are here in Aix you are in imminent danger of losing it. You ought never to have kept it—it was madness to come here and run straight into the jaws of danger."
"How was I to know?" she retorted, now quite angrily. "I really think it is too bad of you to reproach me.
You are most unkind."
"Dear, dear," I said fretfully, "this is all beside the question.
What is most urgent is to shield and save you now when the peril is most pressing."
"And yet you propose to leave me to fight it out alone?
Is that reasonable?
Is it generous, chivalrous, to desert a poor woman in her extremity?"
"I protest, you must not put it like that.
I have explained the necessity.
Surely you must see that it would be madness, quite fatal for us, to be seen together, or for you to be seen at all.
I must still hoodwink them by going off this afternoon."
"And leave me without protection, with all I have at stake?
If only Claire was here."
"It wouldn't mend matters much, except that Lady Claire would side with me."
"Oh, yes, you say that, you believe she thinks so much of you and your opinion that she would agree to anything you suggest."
"Mine is the safest and the only course," I replied, I am afraid with some heat. "You must, you shall take it."
"Upon my word, Colonel Annesley, you speak to me as if I were a private soldier.
Be good enough to remember that I am not under your orders.
I claim to decide for myself how I shall act." She was no longer piteous or beseeching; her tears had dried, a flush of colour had risen to her cheeks, and it was evident that her despair had given place to very distinct temper.
I was in a rage myself, and sprang to my feet with a sharp exclamation of disgust.
"Really, Lady Henriette, you will drive me to wash my hands of the whole business.
But I came into it to oblige your sister, and I owe it to her to do my best without reference to you.
I have marked out a line for myself, and I shall follow it.
Unless you are disposed to change your views, I shall stick to mine; and I do not see the use of prolonging this interview.
I will bid you good day."
I moved towards the door, still keeping an eye on her, believing her to be quite set in her fatuous refusal to hear reason.
She still held herself erect and defiant, and there seemed to be small hope of doing anything with her. Then suddenly I saw symptoms of giving way.
Signals of distress were hung out in her quivering lip and the nervous twitching of her hands. All at once she broke down and cried passionately:
"No, no, no; you must not leave me—not like that.
I cannot bear it; I am too miserable, too agitated, too terrified.
I have no one to lean on but you.
What shall I do?
What shall I do?" And she collapsed into a chair, weeping as if her heart would break.
The situation was awkward, embarrassing.
At another time I might have been puzzled how to deal with it, but this was a moment of supreme emergency.
A great crisis was imminent, the ruin of our scheme and the downfall of our hopes were certainly at hand if I gave way to her.
Everything depended upon my action, and I knew that the only chance of safety lay in the execution of my design.
This being so, her tears made no great impression on me.
I may be called a hard-hearted brute, but I really had no great sympathy with her in her lamentations.
It was not an occasion for tears, I felt; and I must be firm and unwavering, whatever she might think of me.
I counted, at any rate, and with some assurance, on the approval of Lady Claire if the details of this painful scene should ever come to her ears.