Sometimes it seems there really is only one way some kinds of situations
are ever played out. I knew from the first thought Anna
had - as, no
doubt, I was intended to. It's as if no other words had ever been
created for it.
"Tell him or not tell him?" she thought, looking into his quiet,
affectionate eyes. "He is so happy, so absorbed in his races that he
won't understand as he ought, he won't understand all the gravity of
this fact to us."
"But you haven't told me what you were thinking of when I came in," he
said, interrupting his narrative; "please tell me!"
She did not answer, and, bending her head a little, she looked
inquiringly at him from under her brows, her eyes shining under their
long lashes. Her hand shook as it played with a leaf she had picked.
He saw it, and his face expressed that utter subjection, that slavish
devotion, which had done so much to win her.
"I see something has happened. Do you suppose I can be at peace,
knowing you have a trouble I am not sharing? Tell me, for God's sake,"
he repeated imploringly.
"Yes, I shan't be able to forgive him if he does not realize all the
gravity of it. Better not tell; why put him to the proof?" she
thought, still staring at him in the same way, and feeling the hand
that held the leaf was trembling more and more.
"For God's sake!" he repeated, taking her hand.
"Shall I tell you?"
"Yes, yes, yes . . ."
"I'm with child," she said, softly and deliberately. The leaf in her
hand shook more violently, but she did not take her eyes off him,
watching how he would take it. He turned white, would have said
something, but stopped; he dropped her hand, and his head sank on his
breast. "Yes, he realizes all the gravity of it," she thought, and
gratefully she pressed his hand.
But she was mistaken in thinking he realized the gravity of the fact
as she, a woman, realized it.
