“You don’t understand children,” said Laura coldly. “He was perfectly good. He only wanted managing.”
He surveyed the evidences of management with a twinkle, but he spoke sympathetically—
“I say, old girl, you’ll get a stiff neck. Keep still. No, I won’t wake him.”
With immense caution his big hands closed over the clutching, tiny fingers, straightened them, and unwound the tangle of bright hair. Then, slipping his arm under Timothy, he lifted him, warm and relaxed as a kitten, back into the identical hollow in which he had lain before. For an egg warm from the nest he could not have been more careful.
Timothy never stirred.
Laura, smoothing back her hair, watched him in silence, thinking thoughts of her own. Then, as he turned, she held out her hands, smiling.
“Help me up—I didn’t know I was so stiff. He won’t wake now, will he? He was dead tired, poor little chap! I’m so sorry I forgot about the bridge—but you see—it’s so bad to let them cry.”
“Of course,” he agreed indignantly. He too had had Timothy in his arms. “What was the matter?”
“Just frightened. That pig of a nurse had never put him a night-light. I shall tell Mrs. Cloud. It’s a sin not to give a child a night-light, with bears under every chair.”
“Bears! A bear would have been a comforting beast! I read Dracula when I was seven.”