Barker audaciously, "he could get rid of it
elsewhere. He had another offer, but he thought yours the best. So don't
be silly."
By this time they had reached their rooms. Barker, apparently dismissing
the subject from his mind with characteristic buoyancy, turned into the
bedroom and walked smilingly towards a small crib which stood in the
corner. "Why, he's gone!" he said in some dismay.
"Well," said Mrs. Barker a little impatiently, "you didn't expect me to
take him into the public parlor, where I was seeing visitors, did you?
I sent him out with the nurse into the lower hall to play with the other
children."
A shade momentarily passed over Barker's face. He always looked forward
to meeting the child when he came back. He had a belief, based on no
grounds whatever, that the little creature understood him. And he had a
father's doubt of the wholesomeness of other people's children who
were born into the world indiscriminately and not under the exceptional
conditions of his own. "I'll go and fetch him," he said.
"You haven't told me anything about your interview; what you did and
what your good friend Stacy said," said Mrs. Barker, dropping languidly
into a chair. "And really if you are simply running away again after
that child, I might just as well have asked Captain Heath to stay
longer."
"Oh, as to Stacy," said Barker, dropping beside her and taking her hand;
"well, dear, he was awfully busy, you know, and shut up in the innermost
office like the agate in one of the Japanese nests of boxes.
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