Part 7 (1/2)

”Well, if they don't SAY it they look it,” said Mrs. Barker, with a toss of her pretty head, ”and I believe that's at the bottom of Stacy's refusal.”

”But he never said a word, Kitty,” said Barker, flus.h.i.+ng.

”There, don't excite yourself, George,” said Mrs. Barker resignedly, ”but go for the baby. I know you're dying to go, and I suppose it's time Norah brought it upstairs.”

At any other time Barker would have lingered with explanations, but just then a deeper sense than usual of some misunderstanding made him anxious to shorten this domestic colloquy. He rose, pressed his wife's hand, and went out. But yet he was not entirely satisfied with himself for leaving her. ”I suppose it isn't right my going off as soon as I come in,” he murmured reproachfully to himself, ”but I think she wants the baby back as much as I; only, womanlike, she didn't care to let me know it.”

He reached the lower hall, which he knew was a favorite promenade for the nurses who were gathered at the farther end, where a large window looked upon Montgomery Street. But Norah, the Irish nurse, was not among them; he pa.s.sed through several corridors in his search, but in vain.

At last, worried and a little anxious, he turned to regain his rooms through the long saloon where he had found his wife previously. It was deserted now; the last caller had left--even frivolity had its prescribed limits. He was consequently startled by a gentle murmur from one of the heavily curtained window recesses. It was a woman's voice--low, sweet, caressing, and filled with an almost pathetic tenderness. And it was followed by a distinct gurgling satisfied crow.

Barker turned instantly in that direction. A step brought him to the curtain, where a singular spectacle presented itself.

Seated on a lounge, completely absorbed and possessed by her treasure, was the ”horrid woman” whom his wife had indicated only a little while ago, holding a baby--Kitty's sacred baby--in her wanton lap! The child was feebly grasping the end of the slender jeweled necklace which the woman held temptingly dangling from a thin white jeweled finger above it. But its eyes were beaming with an intense delight, as if trying to respond to the deep, concentrated love in the handsome face that was bent above it.

At the sudden intrusion of Barker she looked up. There was a faint rise in her color, but no loss of sell-possession.

”Please don't scold the nurse,” she said, ”nor say anything to Mrs.

Barker. It is all my fault. I thought that both the nurse and child looked dreadfully bored with each other, and I borrowed the little fellow for a while to try and amuse him. At least I haven't made him cry, have I, dear?” The last epithet, it is needless to say, was addressed to the little creature in her lap, but in its tender modulation it touched the father's quick sympathies as if he had shared it with the child. ”You see,” she said softly, disengaging the baby fingers from her necklace, ”that OUR s.e.x is not the only one tempted by jewelry and glitter.”

Barker hesitated; the Madonna-like devotion of a moment ago was gone; it was only the woman of the world who laughingly looked up at him.

Nevertheless he was touched. ”Have you--ever--had a child, Mrs.

Horncastle?” he asked gently and hesitatingly. He had a vague recollection that she pa.s.sed for a widow, and in his simple eyes all women were virgins or married saints.

”No,” she said abruptly. Then she added with a laugh, ”Or perhaps I should not admire them so much. I suppose it's the same feeling bachelors have for other people's wives. But I know you're dying to take that boy from me. Take him, then, and don't be ashamed to carry him yourself just because I'm here; you know you would delight to do it if I weren't.”

Barker bent over the silken lap in which the child was comfortably nestling, and in that att.i.tude had a faint consciousness that Mrs.

Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh.

Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of objection caught his father's curls with one fist, while with the other he grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and brought their heads into contact. Upon which humorous situation Norah, the nurse, entered.

”It's all right, Norah,” said Mrs. Horncastle, laughing, as she disengaged herself from the linking child. ”Mr. Barker has claimed the baby, and has agreed to forgive you and me and say nothing to Mrs.

Barker.” Norah, with the inscrutable criticism of her s.e.x on her s.e.x, thought it extremely probable, and halted with exasperating discretion.

”There,” continued Mrs. Horncastle, playfully evading the child's further advances, ”go with papa, that's a dear. Mr. Barker prefers to carry him back, Norah.”

”But,” said the ingenuous and persistent Barker, still lingering in hopes of recalling the woman's previous expression, ”you DO love children, and you think him a bright little chap for his age?”

”Yes,” said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her loosened braid, ”so round and fat and soft. And such a discriminating eye for jewelry. Really you ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs. Barker--it would please both, you know.” She moved slowly away, the united efforts of Norah and Barker scarcely sufficing to restrain the struggling child from leaping after her as she turned at the door and blew him a kiss.

When Barker regained his room he found that Mrs. Barker had dismissed Stacy from her mind except so far as to invoke Norah's aid in laying out her smartest gown for dinner. ”But why take all this trouble, dear?”

said her simple-minded husband; ”we are going to dine in a private room so that we can talk over old times all by ourselves, and any dress would suit him. And, Lord, dear!” he added, with a quick brightening at the fancy, ”if you could only just rig yourself up in that pretty lilac gown you used to wear at Boomville--it would be too killing, and just like old times. I put it away myself in one of our trunks--I couldn't bear to leave it behind; I know just where it is. I'll”--But Mrs. Barker's restraining scorn withheld him.

”George Barker, if you think I am going to let you throw away and utterly WASTE Mr. Stacy on us, alone, in a private room with closed doors--and I dare say you'd like to sit in your dressing-gown and slippers--you are entirely mistaken. I know what is due, not to your old partner, but to the great Mr. Stacy, the financier, and I know what is due FROM HIM TO US! No! We dine in the great dining-room, publicly, and, if possible, at the very next table to those stuck-up Peterburys and their Eastern friends, including that horrid woman, which, I'm sure, ought to satisfy you. Then you can talk as much as you like, and as loud as you like, about old times,--and the louder and the more the better,--but I don't think HE'LL like it.”

”But the baby!” expostulated Barker. ”Stacy's just wild to see him--and we can't bring him down to the table--though we MIGHT,” he added, momentarily brightening.

”After dinner,” said Mrs. Barker severely, ”we will walk through the big drawing-rooms, and THEN Mr. Stacy may come upstairs and see him in his crib; but not before. And now, George, I do wish that to-night, FOR ONCE, you would not wear a turn-down collar, and that you would go to the barber's and have him cut your hair and smooth out the curls. And, for Heaven's sake! let him put some wax or gum or SOMETHING on your mustache and twist it up on your cheek like Captain Heath's, for it positively droops over your mouth like a girl's ringlet. It's quite enough for me to hear people talk of your inexperience, but really I don't want you to look as if I had run away with a pretty schoolboy.

And, considering the size of that child, it's positively disgraceful.

And, one thing more, George. When I'm talking to anybody, please don't sit opposite to me, beaming with delight, and your mouth open. And don't roar if by chance I say something funny. And--whatever you do--don't make eyes at me in company whenever I happen to allude to you, as I did before Captain Heath. It is positively too ridiculous.”