e."

"Probably. Do you object? You asked for it."

"Not a bit. I don't mind your telling me any thing that's a
fact. Bad thoughts are different, but facts, good or bad, coarse
or refined, are the stuff the world's made of, and why should we
shut our eyes to them? I like to take life as it comes without
expurgation. Lawrence, Lizzie never had any children, did she?"

"By me?"

"Yes."

"No, our married life didn't last long. I should have warned you,
my dear, if I had had any responsibilities of that description."

"So you would--I forgot that." Isabel lay silent a moment,
nestling her closed eyelids against his throat. "Lawrence, my
darling, I don't want to hurt you; but tell me, did she have any
children after she left you?"

"Yes--one, a boy: Rendell's."

"What became of him after Rendell died?"

"When it became impossible to leave him with Lizzie I sent him to
school. He spends his holidays with my agent here at Farringay.
He's quite a nice little chap, and good looking, like Arther, and
by the gossip of the neighbourhood I'm supposed to be his father.
Do you mind leaving it at that? It's no worse for him and less
ignominious for me."

"Nothing in what I've heard of your married life is ignominious
for you. So you brought up Rendell's child? Essentially generous
. . . . Kiss me." Isabel's pale beauty glowed like a flame. A
Christian malagre lui and very much ashamed of it, Lawrence gave
her the lightest of butterfly kisses, one on either eyelid. "Oh,
I suppose you'll say I am--what was it?--towardly too,"
murmured Isabel. "Don't you want to kiss me?" He shook his head.
Isabel, a trifle startled, opened her eyes, but was apparently
satisfied, for she shut them again hurriedly and let her arm fall
across them. "We'll go and see Rendell's boy tomorrow. You
shall take me. I can say what I like to you now, can't I? . . .
Shall you like to have one of our own?"

"Isabel, Isabel!"

"But it's perfectly proper now we're married! Oh Lawrence, it'll
so soon come to seem commonplace-- I want to taste the
strangeness of it while I'm still near enough to Isabel Stafford
to realize what a miracle it'll be. Our own! it seems so strange
to say 'ours.'"

"I don't want any brats to come between you and me."

"Aren't you always in your secret soul afraid of life?"

"Afraid of life--I?"

"You have no faith . . . Everything we possess--your happiness,
our love, the children you'll give me--don't y