swaddling clothes. Yes, uncommonly
pretty, but now sad--sad as a young widow at the funeral, that sort of
look. It was her eyes that especially showed it. Extraordinary eyes.
Like two great pools in a shadow. If I may quote poetry, at you,

Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even.

And all the sorrow in them of all the women since Mary Magdalen. All the
time but once. Once the baby whimpered, and she got up and went to it
and stooped over it the other side of the sofa from me, so I could see
her face. By gad, if you could have seen her eyes then! Motherhood!
Lucky you weren't there, because if you've any idea of ever painting a
picture called Motherhood, you'd ha' gone straight out and cut your
throat on the mat in despair. You certainly would.

"Well, anyway, the banquet got more and more awkward to endure as it
dragged on, and mighty glad I was when at last the girl got up--without
a word--and picked up the baby and left us. Left us. We were no more
chatty for being alone, I can promise you. I absolutely could not think
of a word to say, and any infernal thing that old Sabre managed to rake
up seemed complete and done to death the minute he'd said it.

"Then all of a sudden he began. He fished out some cigarettes and
chucked me one and we smoked like a couple of exhaust valves for about
two minutes and then he said, 'Hapgood, why on earth should I have to
explain all this to you? Why _should_ I?'

"I said, a tiny bit sharply--I was getting a bit on edge, you know--I
said, 'Well, who's asked you to? I haven't asked any questions, have I?'

"Sabre said, 'No, I know you haven't asked any, and I'm infernally
grateful to you. You're the first person across this threshold in months
that hasn't. But I know you're thinking them--hard. And I know I've got
to answer them. And I want to. I want to most frightfully. But what
beats me is this infernal feeling that I _must_ explain to you, to you
and to everybody, whether I want to or not. Why should I? It's my own
house. I can do what I like in it. I'm not, anyway, doing anything
wrong. I'm doing something more right than I've ever done in my life,
and yet everybody's got the right to question me and everybody's got the
right to be answered and--Hapgood, it's the most bewildering state of
affairs that can possibly be imagined. I'm up against a code of social
conventions, and by Jove I'm absolutely down and out. I'm absolutely
tied up hand and