She lighted the gas stove--the flat teemed in labour-saving annoyances--and sat by it, the heat making the perfume of the flowers almost overpowering. Bertie got her hot tea, sat with her, some of the old loving comradeship springing up between them. "That little chap made me envious, Es," he said, after a long silence. "Bertie--surely you wouldn't like a child?" Esmé's voice rang shrilly. "Surely you wouldn't. Coming to disturb us, crippling us!" "People manage," he said slowly. "They manage. We could have gone out of London, lived more quietly. Every man wants his son, Butterfly; they are selfish people, you know." "You'd like one?" The shrillness died out of Esmé's voice, it grew strained. "And after all better spend money on a little chap than waste it on Holbrook's wines and old brandies," he said. "Yes, it's the one thing I've wanted, Es--just to make our lives perfect. Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe; marriage is never quite right until the third comes to show a selfish pair what their fathers and mothers gave up for them." "I thought two people were so much happier alone." Esmé stared into the glowing, companionless fire, with no crackle of coal or hiss of wood, but the modern maid objects to blacking grates. "Well, sweetheart, some day you'll know better," he said, "perhaps." The maid brought in the evening paper, laying it on the table. "Esmé!" Bertie Carteret jumped up. "Young De Vinci is dead--dead of pneumonia." Death of the Earl of De Vinci on the eve of his marriage. Then Esmé caught the paper. "Is Uncle Hugh next heir--didn't you tell me so?" "Uncle Hugh is Lord De Vinci, and if he does not marry again, a remote contingency, I'm the next heir. A son, Esmé, is a necessity now." Esmé put the paper down. Her son, heir to a title, was at Sir Cyril Blakeney's house and she could not claim him. "Bertie"--she walked restlessly about the room--"I heard such a strange story the other day, a woman who did something hideously dreadful and--was afraid to tell." "Deceit is the one thing I could never forgive," said Carteret, firmly. "I'd put a woman away, even if it broke my heart, if I found out that she had done anything mean or had deceived me." Esmé grew white, for hers was a plot which no man could forgive. She had sold her son for a paltry allowance, for the right to amuse herself in peace. "I wonder if old Uncle Hugh will do anything for us now," she said in a strained, bitter voice. CHAPTER VIII