"My 'ady! Take off!" he cried, holding up his muffled hands.
The Marchesa talked with him for about twenty minutes, then she lifted him, all subdued and piteous, into her arms, and carried him to his mother. The sun had now risen and that green light as of watery depths again filled the room.
The Marchesa put the boy down beside Sophy without a word. She did not look at him, but her arm went round him. Bobby snuggled close, then lifted his head and gazed into her white face. He began "pooring" it with his little hand. The Marchesa had turned back the bothersome sleeves. Then he knelt up to see her better.
"Poor dada ... dwownded...." he murmured, caressing her cheek. "Poor muvvah ... all lone...." His lips began to quiver with the sad sound of his own broken words.... "Don't c'y...." he pleaded, big tears bursting from his own eyes.... "Bobby 'tay wiv you.... Bobby tate tare of you.... Don't c'y...."
And with this he began to sob himself as though his little heart would break.
Sophy started from her trance of numbness. She caught the boy to her.... Then her tears came.... Then she remembered Cecil as her young lover ... her husband.... Then he became real to her again, as she clasped his son in her arms and they wept together.
The Marchesa had stolen out.
"Ringrazio Dio!" she said in her heart. She, too, was weeping.