‘I wish I could, sir,’ cried Marjorie, a flash of quickly-roused mutiny in her eyes. ‘The days when I was a little skinny Spanish witch were better than any I am likely to know again in this world.’
CHAPTER XLVII BESIDE THE CRADLE
‘I just feel we are too happy. It makes me tremble, Gaston. I would rather see the speck of cloud no bigger than a man’s hand than for ever live in dread of it.’
‘You would rather have anything than the actual, my dear. That is a little weakness of the sex. Surely your daughter ought to fill every crevice of your dissatisfied heart!’
‘She fills it, fuller than my heart can hold—my own sweet baby. She is a wonderfully forward child, is she not? So strong of her age,—so intelligent—so beautiful!’
‘Not beautiful, Dinah. I am no amateur of infants, although I can tolerate their presence after the age of two years. As regards the particular infant sleeping in the cradle, yonder, even my knowledge of the subject enables me to say she is unornamental—as unornamental a child as could be found in Florence.’
‘She is your living portrait,’ returned the mother, unconscious of irony. ‘Yes, even to her shrewd looks, to the firm way she clasps her fingers. And already—in that,’ murmured Dinah, penitently, ‘it may be she favours me—already, Baby has a temper.’
These exceedingly domestic confidences were interchanged in a vast old Florentine room, fitted up by Gaston Arbuthnot as a studio, and on a November night, some forty-eight hours later than the gray evening when Marjorie paid her farewell visit to Cassandra Tighe.