'Yes, I do, Aylmer. But he _is_ their father. They may keep him straight.'
'I consider you're utterly wasted,' he said. 'Well! He's stuck to you, apparently, for these last three years (as far as you know), and now I'm going to ask you something entirely different, for the last time. When I was dying, or thought I was, things showed themselves clearly enough, I can tell you. And I made up my mind if I lived to see you, to say this. Leave Bruce, with me!'
'In six weeks, when he's tired of telling his friends at the club about it, he'll make up his mind, I suppose, if you insist, or even without, to divorce you. But do you suppose he'll keep the children? No, my dear of course he won't. You'll never have to leave them. I would never ask you that. Now listen!' He put his hand over hers, not caressingly, but to keep her quiet. 'He'll want to marry again, won't he?'
'Probably already he's in love with that woman What's-her-name--Madame Frabelle--who's staying with you.'
'Perhaps he's in love with her already,' continued Aylmer.
'She's a very good sort. She's not a fool, like the girl. She'd look after Bruce very well.'
'Bruce will adore her, be under her thumb, and keep perfectly 'straight', as you call it--as straight as he ever would. Won't he?'
'You'll get the children then, don't you see?'
'Yes. With a bad reputation, with a cloud on my life, to bring up Dilly!'
He sighed impatiently, and said: 'You see, you don't see things as they really are, even now. How could you ever possibly hurt Dilly? You're only thinking of what the world says, now.
'Hear me out,' he went on. 'Is this the only country? After the war, won't everything be different? Thank goodness, I'm well provided for. You needn't take a farthing. Leave even your own income to Bruce if you like. You know I've five thousand a year now, Edith?'
'I didn't know it. But that has nothing on earth to do with it,' she answered.
'Bosh! It has a great deal to do with it. I can afford to bring your children up as well as Teddy, my boy. We can marry. And in a year or two no one would think any more about it.'
'I want to. Think it over. Don't be weak. I'm sorry, dear, to ask you to take the blame on your side. It's unfair; but after all, perhaps, it's straighter than waiting for an opportunity (which you could easily get in time) of finding Bruce in the wrong.'