The tap came again, and after a moment's interval the door opened.
"Jack!" exclaimed Dodo.
She got up from her chair and went quickly towards him. Jack was pale, and his breath came rather short, as if he had been running.
"Why, Dodo," he cried, "I thought I couldn't come, and then I thought I could, so I did."
He broke off rather lamely, and greeted Mrs. Vivian.
"Dear old Jack," said Dodo, "it does me good to see you. Your face is so nice and familiar, and I've wanted you awfully. Jack, what do you mean by writing me such a stupid letter? especially when I'd written to you so nicely. Really, I'm not your grand-mother yet, though I am a mother. Have you seen the baby? It isn't particularly interesting at present, though of course it's rather nice to think that that wretched little morsel of flesh and bones is going to be one of our landed proprietors. He'll be much more important than you will ever be, Jack. Aren't you jealous?"
Dodo was conscious of quite a fresh tide of interest in her life. Her intellectual faculties, she felt, had been neglected. She could not conceive why, because she had a husband and baby, she should be supposed not to care for other interests as well. Chesterford was an excellent husband, with a magnificent heart; but Dodo had told herself so often that he was not very clever, that she had ceased trying to take an intellectual pleasure in his society, and the baby could not be called intellectual by the fondest parent at present. There were a quantity of women who were content to pore on their baby's face for hour after hour, with no further occupation than saying "Didums" occasionally. Dodo had given what she considered a fair trial to this treatment, and she found it bored her to say "Didums" for an indefinite period, and she did not believe it amused the baby. She had a certain pride in having given birth to the son and heir of one of the largest English properties, and she was extremely glad to have done so, and felt a certain pleased sort of proprietorship in the little pink morsel, but she certainly had experienced none of the absorbing pleasures of maternity. She had got used to not being in love with her husband, and she accepted as part of this same deficiency the absence of absorbing pleasure in the baby. Not that she considered it a deficiency, it was merely another type turned out of Nature's workshop. Dodo laid all the blame on Nature. She shrugged her shoulders and said: "You made me so without consulting me. It isn't my fault!" But Dodo was aware that Nature had given her a brain, and she found a very decided pleasure in the company of clever people. Perhaps it was the greatest pleasure of her life to be admired and amused by clever people. Of course Chesterford always admired her, but he was in love with her, and he was not clever. Dodo had felt some difficulty before her marriage in dealing with this perplexing unknown quantity, and she had to confess it puzzled her still. The result was, that when it occurred, she had to admit her inability to tackle it, and as soon as possible to turn to another page in this algebra of life.
But she still felt that her marriage had been a great success. Chesterford had entirely fulfilled what she expected of him: he was immensely rich, he let her do as she liked, he adored her. Dodo quite felt that it was better that he should adore her. As long as that lasted, he would be blind to any fault of hers, and she acknowledged that, to a man of Chesterford's character, she must seem far from faultless, if he contemplated her calmly. But he was quite unable to contemplate her calmly. For him she walked in a golden cloud that dazzled and entranced him. Dodo was duly grateful to the golden cloud.
But she felt that the element which Jack, and Mrs. Vivian, and other friends of hers brought, had been conspicuously absent, and she welcomed its return with eagerness.
"You know we haven't been leading a very intellectual life lately," Dodo continued. "Chesterford is divinely kind to me, but he is careful not to excite me. So he talks chiefly about the baby, and how he lost his umbrella at the club; it is very soothing, but I have got past that now. I want stimulating. Sometimes I go to sleep, and then he sits as still as a mouse till I wake again. Pity me, Jack, I have had a dull fortnight; and that is worse than anything else. I really never remember being bored before!"