"Oh, how kind you are to me!" cried Alex.
Violet bent down and kissed her.
"Kind! Why, aren't I your sister, and Rosemary your one and only niece? Look at her, Alex, and see if she's like any one. Cedric sometimes says she's like your father."
"A little, perhaps. But she's very like you, I think."
"Oh, I never had those great, round, grey eyes! Those are Cedric's. And perhaps yours—they're the same colour. Anyway, I believe she's really very like what you must have been as a baby, Alex!"
It was evident that Violet was paying the highest compliment within her power.
Alex put out her hand timidly to little Rosemary. She was not at all shy, and seemed accustomed to being played with and admired, as she sat on her mother's lap. Alex thought how pretty and happy she and Violet looked together. She was emotionally too much worn-out, and had for too many years felt herself to be completely and for ever outside the pale of warm, human happiness, to feel any pang of envy.
Presently Violet reluctantly gave up Rosemary to the nurse again, and said:
"I'm afraid we ought to go down. I don't like to leave Barbara any longer. She never comes up here—hardly ever. Poor Barbara! I sometimes think it's because she hasn't any babies of her own. Let's come down and find her, Alex."
They found Barbara in the library, earnestly talking to Cedric, who was leaning back, smoking and looking very much bored.