"Tom," I said, "I want to ask you about baby's name."
"Oh, call it anything you like," he answered.
"But you ought to name her," I told him.
He was silent a moment; then he turned and walked away to the window again. I thought that he might be considering the name, but when he came back abruptly he said:—
"Ruth, I can't pretend with you. I haven't any love for that child. I wish it weren't here to remind me of what I would give anything to have forgotten. If I have any feeling for it, it is pity that the poor little wretch had to be chucked into the world, and shame that I should have any responsibility about it."
I told him he would come to love her some time; that she was after all his daughter, and so sweet he couldn't help being fond of her.
"If I ever endure her," he said, almost doggedly, "it will be on your account."
"Nonsense, Tom," I retorted, as briskly as I could when I wanted to cry, "you'll be fond of her because you can't help it. See, she has your eyes, and her hair is going to be like yours."
He laughed with a trace of his old buoyant spirit.
"What idiocy!" was his reply. "Her eyes are any color you like, and she has only about six hairs on her head anyway."