And David, much
confused, kicked vigorously.
"Do you think he will ever be able to talk?" she said.
William would not commit himself. "Perhaps; and perhaps not. I didn't
get anything clear out of him to-night, except--a bad word."
"Damn?" David asked with interest.
William chuckled and then remembered to look proper. But David feeling
that he was being laughed at, hid his face on Helena's shoulder, which
made her lift him on to her knee. There, in the drowsy warmth of the
little autumn fire, and the quiet flow of grown people's meaningless
talk, he began to get sleepy; gradually his head slipped from her
shoulder to her breast, and when she gathered his dangling legs into
her lap, he fell sound asleep.
"It isn't his bedtime yet," she excused herself. She rested her cheek
on the child's head and looked over at the doctor. She wore a dark
crimson silk, the bosom filled with sheer white muslin that was caught
together under her soft chin by a little pearl pin; her lace
undersleeves were pushed back so that William could see the lovely
lines of her white wrists. Her parted hair fell in soft, untidy waves
down over her ears; she was staring absently across David's head into
the fire.
"I wish," William said, "that you would go and call on old Mr. Wright
some time. Take David with you. It would cheer him up." It seemed to
William King, thinking of the forlorn old man in his big four-poster,
that such a vision of maternity and peace would be pleasant to look
upon.
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