well, I get mad. . ." and he smiled, with a certain faint humour.
"Couldn't you be really independent?" she asked.
"Me? I suppose I could, if you mean manage to exist on my pension. I could! But I've got to work, or I should die. That is, I've got to have something that keeps me occupied. And I'm not in a good enough temper to work for myself. It's got to be a sort of job for somebody else, or I should throw it up in a month, out of bad temper. So altogether I'm very well off here, especially lately. . ."
He laughed at her again, with mocking humour.
"But why are you in a bad temper?" she asked. "Do you mean you are always in a bad temper?"
"Pretty well," he said, laughing. "I don't quite digest my bile."
"But what bile?" she said.
"Bile!" he said. "Don't you know what that is?" She was silent, and disappointed. He was taking no notice of her.
"I'm going away for a while next month," she said.
"You are! Where to?"
"Venice."
"Venice! With Sir Clifford? For how long?"
"For a month or so," she replied. "Clifford won't go."
"He'll stay here?" he asked.
"Yes! He hates to travel as he is."
"Ay, poor devil!" he said, with sympathy.
There was a pause.
"You won't forget me when I'm gone, will you?" she asked. Again he lifted his eyes and looked full at her.
"Forget?" he said. "You know nobody forgets. It's not a question of memory."
She wanted to say: "What then?" but she didn't. Instead, she said in a mute kind of voice: "I told Clifford I might have a child."
Now he really looked at her, intense and searching.
"You did?" he said at last. "And what did he say?"
"Oh, he wouldn't mind. He'd be glad, really, so long as it seemed to be his." She dared not look up at him.
He was silent a long time, then he gazed again on her face.
"No mention of me, of course?" he said.
"No. No mention of you," she said.
"No, he'd hardly swallow me as a substitute breeder.—Then where are you supposed to be getting the child?"
