Page 216 - lady-chatterlys-lover

’No! I mean as things are. It’s only muscular paralysis
with Sir Clifford—it doesn’t affect him,’ said Connie, lying
as naturally as breathing.
Clifford had put the idea into her head. He had said: ‘Of
course I may have a child yet. I’m not really mutilated at all.
The potency may easily come back, even if the muscles of
the hips and legs are paralysed. And then the seed may be
transferred.’
He really felt, when he had his periods of energy and
worked so hard at the question of the mines, as if his sexual
potency were returning. Connie had looked at him in terror.
But she was quite quick-witted enough to use his suggestion
for her own preservation. For she would have a child if she
could: but not his.
Mrs Bolton was for a moment breathless, flabbergasted.
Then she didn’t believe it: she saw in it a ruse. Yet doctors
could do such things nowadays. They might sort of graft
seed.
’Well, my Lady, I only hope and pray you may. It would
be lovely for you: and for everybody. My word, a child in
Wragby, what a difference it would make!’
’Wouldn’t it!’ said Connie.
And she chose three R. A. pictures of sixty years ago, to
send to the Duchess of Shortlands for that lady’s next chari-
table bazaar. She was called ‘the bazaar duchess’, and she
always asked all the county to send things for her to sell.
She would be delighted with three framed R. A.s. She might
even call, on the strength of them. How furious Clifford
was when she called!

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