CHAPTER XI
Connie was sorting out one of the Wragby lumber rooms. There were several: the house was a warren, and the family never sold anything. Sir Geoffrey's father had liked pictures and Sir Geoffrey's mother had liked cinquecento furniture. Sir Geoffrey himself had liked old carved oak chests, vestry chests. So it went on through the generations. Clifford collected very modern pictures, at very moderate prices.
So in the lumber room there were bad Sir Edwin Landseers and pathetic William Henry Hunt birds' nests: and other Academy stuff, enough to frighten the daughter of an R. A. She determined to look through it one day, and clear it all. And the grotesque furniture interested her.
Wrapped up carefully to preserve it from damage and dry-rot was the old family cradle, of rosewood. She had to unwrap it, to look at it. It had a certain charm: she looked at it a long time.
"It's a thousand pities it won't be called for," sighed Mrs. Bolton, who was helping. "Though cradles like that are out of date nowadays."
"It might be called for. I might have a child," said Connie casually, as if saying she might have a new hat.
"You mean if anything happened to Sir Clifford!" stammered Mrs. Bolton.
"No! I mean as things are. It's only muscular paralysis with Sir Clifford—it doesn't affect him," said Connie, lying as naturally as breathing.
Clifford had put the idea into her head. He had said: "Of course I may have a child yet. I'm not really mutilated at all. The potency may easily come back, even if the muscles of the hips and legs are paralysed, And then the seed may be transferred."
