Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/78

66 them too you are perfectly frank... There remains someone else.” Sir Richmond stared at his physician.

“Well,” he said and laughed. “I didn’t pretend to have made my autobiography anything more than a sketch.”

“No, but there is a special person, the current person.”

“I haven’t dilated on my present situation, I admit.”

“From some little things that have dropped from you, I should say there is a child.”

“That,” said Sir Richmond after a brief pause, “is a good guess.”

“Not older than three.”

“Two years and a half.”

“You and this lady who is, I guess, young, are separated. At any rate, you can’t go to her. That leaves you at loose ends, because for some time, for two or three years at least, you have ceased to be—how shall I put it?—an emotional wanderer.”

“I begin to respect your psychoanalysis.”

“Hence your overwhelming sense of the necessity of feminine companionship for weary men. I guess she is a very jolly companion to be with, amusing, restful—interesting.”

“H’m,” said Sir Richmond. “I think that is a fair description. When she cares, that is. When she is in good form.”