“Good ickle quiet boysey, then.”
Philip winced. “His face, do you know, struck me as all wrong.”
“All wrong?”
“All puckered queerly.”
“Of course—with the shadows—you couldn’t see him.”
“Well, hold him up again.” She did so. He lit another match. It went out quickly, but not before he had seen that the baby was crying.
“Nonsense,” said Harriet sharply. “We should hear him if he cried.”
“No, he’s crying hard; I thought so before, and I’m certain now.”
Harriet touched the child’s face. It was bathed in tears. “Oh, the night air, I suppose,” she said, “or perhaps the wet of the rain.”
“I say, you haven’t hurt it, or held it the wrong way, or anything; it is too uncanny—crying and no noise. Why didn’t you get Perfetta to carry it to the hotel instead of muddling with the messenger? It’s a marvel he understood about the note.”