Page:Quiller-Couch - Noughts and Crosses.djvu/69

Rh "Bless your heart, no! What put that into your head?" She advanced and took the chair which Miss Bunce had left, and resting her elbows on the table, regarded her sisters steadily. "What a preposterous age you both must be, to be sure! My husband's waiting for me outside."

"Your husband?" Miss Charlotte quavered.

"Why, of course. Did you suppose, because I ran away to act, that I wasn't an honest woman?" She stretched out her left hand; and there was a thin gold ring on her third finger. "He isn't much of an actor, poor dear. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, he has been hissed off two-and-thirty stages in Great Britain alone. Indeed, he's the very worst actor I ever saw, although I don't tell him. But as a husband he's sublime."

"Are there" Miss Charlotte began, and broke down. "Are there," she tried again, "are there—any—children?"

"Ah, my dear, if there were, I might be tempted to repent."

"Don't you?" jerked out Miss Bunce,