"You see," she said softly, disengaging the baby
fingers from her necklace, "that OUR sex 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 passed 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 attitude 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.
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