“I haven’t!” she whispered, so fiercely that an old gentleman nearby almost spilled his coffee. “Hush, Venice!” “But I haven’t been to any doctor----” “Well, then,” said I wisely, “in that case, of course, I don’t see----” “Oh, you don’t!” she whispered with her fine, savage impatience. “I tell you, my child, that I can’t--I just feel that I can’t, in my bones I feel it, that I’ll never, never, never!” And she put a cloud of smoke between us to make her smile look plausible, but through the smoke her eyes looked as though they were holding back a pain. “Venice, darling,” I pleaded, “I’m not old enough to deal with an emergency like this. What you need is a man of Hilary’s years to turn you over and smack you and tell you that as long as you’re such a child you don’t deserve to have one----” “I’m so miserable,” she said. “But it’s absurd, Venice! I mean, it’s just nerves, you can’t possibly know----” “Do you actually think,” she grabbed a cigarette fiercely from my case, “that I’ve got to go to some dud doctor and have him poking about all over me before I know what’s _me_! Of course I can know, and I do know, and it’s a shame, and I daren’t tell Napier....” “You better hadn’t, on such insufficient evidence. I know what I’d do.” “Darling, darling, _darling_! Tell me, do men love children? Really, really, I mean? Would Napier hate it if he knew that I was as barren as that old fig-tree----” “Venice, how dare you let your nerves get the better of you like this! I’ve only got to be away from England for four months, and I find you in this silly state!” “Oh, but answer my questions! Why is every one so _awful_ these days! You see, I never know what’s going on in Napier’s mind, never! Do you think I would if he loved me?” “‘If?’” I said. “‘If,’ Venice?” Was I now to defend Napier’s love for Venice? And then I found that she was looking at me with wide-open, motherly, amused eyes. “You don’t actually think,” she almost laughed, “that I ever thought that Napier loved me?” “Well, I have thought so,” I bravely admitted. “Certainly I have. It is quite usual.” “But isn’t my gentleman friend stupid!” she suddenly giggled. “Of course, I know he loves me--as much as he can ever love any one. But that’s all, don’t you see....” She stared at the wounded end of her poor cigarette, and lit another from my case, as that was handy. The number of cigarettes that girl smoked, and how she tortured them! “You see,” she said, knitting together her golden eyebrows so that I should see, “Napier can’t love like other people--me, for instance, and perhaps you, though I’d have my doubts about you. I suppose people are born like that, and you’ve got to take it or leave it. Napier loves just as much as he can--which means that he’s willing, oh anxious, to do anything in the world for you--but you’re never quite sure what he’s thinking about while he’s doing it. See what I mean?” “I try hard, Venice.”