Read The Victory for Free Online Page B

again.’
    As soon as the words were out, she knew that she should not have said 'again'. Chetwyn said nothing at first. She hardly knew what she had expected from him — shock, perhaps; anger certainly — but what she saw was something she had not bargained for. His face seemed to grow suddenly older, and set into its lines in a grey and exhausted way that filled her with fear. He minds, she thought in sudden be wilderment. She waited, her mouth dry.
    ‘Does he know?' was what he said at last.
    ‘I haven't told him.’
    He raised an eyebrow, 'Why such restraint?' he asked cynically.
    ‘ He — I didn't want to say anything until he has his commission. There's some question of a shore appointment. I didn't want to influence his decision.’
    A wry and bitter smile touched Chetwyn's lips. 'Dear Lucy, you do like to play fair, don't you?' he said ironically.
    Fear and guilt stung her. 'I wanted to tell you first, in any case,' she said quickly, putting up her chin. 'It's only right.' Chetwyn shrugged, a lazy gesture which imperfectly concealed the brittleness of his shoulders. 'It has nothing whatever to do with me,' he said.
    Lucy paled a little. 'Why — what do you mean?' she stam mered. 'You mean — you won't —?’
    Now the anger came. 'Oh no, Lucy, not again. What do you take me for?' He stood up abruptly and walked a few steps away and back. 'For God's sake, the whole world knows we have been living apart these eighteen months! You have taken your lover' — his lips curled bitterly over the word — ’to live with you in the most public way, and made yourself a talking point all over London. I said nothing. I left you alone —'
    ‘ Because you didn't care one way or the other!' she cried out. 'It suited you to live as a bachelor.’
    He stopped, and looked surprised. 'Is that what you thought? No, even you could not be such a fool. To have protested about what you were doing would only have made me ridiculous, so I pretended you had my blessing. What else could I do? But now you ask me to acknowledge his child, which no-one, no-one, could believe for an instant is mine! Oh no, Lucy, I won't do it. Damn you,' he said with sudden venom, 'I won't do it.’
    She looked at him in silence, filled with all manner of unhappy speculations. Her hands crept for comfort over her belly, a gesture not lost on her husband. 'What, then, is to become of me?' she asked at last in a small voice.
    ‘ I really have not the slightest interest,' he said, turning away and walking to the window at the other end of the room. Her heart contracted at the words; but he did not leave, and after a while she tried again.
    ‘Will you divorce me?’
    He answered without turning round — a single, neutral word. 'No.'
    ‘Then — what shall I do?’
    He said nothing for a long time, and then she saw his shoulders rise and fall in a deep sigh, and he turned back to her, reluctantly, wearily, as if taking up again a burden he had long wished to walk away from.
    ‘ You are my wife,' he said. 'I will keep and protect you, whatever happens, but I will not acknowledge your child. You must go out of London, to some secluded place in the country where your condition will not cause talk, and stay until the baby is born. You may choose where to go — I will see to it that you are comfortable. If the child lives, it must be sent away somewhere to foster parents. Then you may resume your usual pursuits.’
    He had spoken in her direction, but without looking at her; now his eyes focused on hers and he saw that she was pale and that her lips trembled. This was not like Lucy, who was always so strong, so practical; yet, he thought bitterly, she does not feel it as I feel it. He was forty-six, but he felt old, so old. 'All I ask is a little discretion,' he went on, but more gently. 'Is that so much to ask? Have I not the right to a little loyalty from you?'
    ‘ Yes — yes, of course,' she said faintly. She rose from her seat, and put out a hesitant hand