"Can you telephone to Mrs. Brenton?" she asked.
"You think?"
"That she should be here. Can you get her?"
And then Brenton was forced to confess the truth. The nurse accepted the truth as mercifully as she was able.
"Poor little woman!" she said. "Isn't it wonderful the hold the thing gets—"
Her question was never ended. Instead, she laid her hand on Brenton's sleeve.
"Look!" she whispered.
All at once, the doze had ended. With its ending, all look of tiredness and suffering had gone away out of the baby face. Instead, the little eyes were eager; the little lips were breaking into a smile of utter joyousness; the little arms were up-stretched strongly, the hands wide open and shaking in happy recognition.
"Nurse!" Then Brenton steadied himself with a mighty effort, and bent forward to hold out his arms. "Daddy take boy?" he urged gently, in his accustomed phrase.
There came an instantaneous check upon the baby's eagerness. The head turned, while the eyes met Brenton's without a spark of response. Then once again the little arms shot upward above the brightening face where the eager look of recognition was changing fast to a happiness ineffable, to a glad surety that the vision opened to the baby eyes alone was far beyond the dreams which mortal mind could fashion.