Of course! It was obviously impossible for two little mites to kiss a man of that height at that distance. Chip dropped into an arm-chair, waiting jealously for the two dutiful little pecks that might pass as spontaneous, and then throwing his big arms about his young ones in a desperate embrace. After that the ice was broken, and, with the aid of the games and the picture-books provided by Lily Bland, the meeting could go forward to a glorious termination in ice-cream. Now and then there were difficult questions or observations, but they were never pressed unduly for reply.
"Papa, why don't you live with us any more?"
"Papa, shall we have another papa after this one?"
"Papa, our other papa has a funny nose."
"Papa, are you our real papa, or is papa Lacon?"
In general it was Chippie who put these questions or made the remarks. Tom seemed to understand already that the situation was delicate, and had moments of puzzled gravity.
But, taking one thing with another, the occasion passed off well, as did similar meetings through the rest of that winter and whenever they were possible—which was not often—in the summer that followed. It was a joy to Chip when they began again in the autumn, with a promise of regularity. But that joy, too, was short-lived.
It was his second time of seeing them after the general return to town. Tom was hanging on his shoulder, while Chippie was seated on his knee. Chippie was again the spokesman.
"We've got a baby sister at our house."
It seemed to Chip as if all the blood in his body rushed back to his heart and stayed there. He felt dizzy, sick. The walls of his fool's paradise were dissolved as mist, revealing a picture he had seen twice already, each time with an upleaping of the primal and the fatherly in him; but now ... Edith had been lying in bed, wan, bright-eyed, happy, with a little fuzzy head just peeping at her breast!