"It seems to me like all other babies," Tommy remarked indifferently. "When it isn't asleep it is bawling; when it isn't bawling it's asleep. I have yet to understand why a girl can never pass a pram without stopping to kiss the baby in it!" Nevertheless, he thought it a pleasing habit with which he was not inclined to quarrel, but for the delay it occasioned in the ride.
"I would like you to tell Mrs. Meredith that the Squawk is like all other babies in the world and hear what she has to say!" Honor said indignantly. "This one is angelic!"
Tommy dismounted with the air of a martyr and peered at the bundle containing a human atom almost smothered in silk and laces. "Hallo! its eyes are actually open! It is the first time I have seen the miracle. Peep-bo!" he squeaked, bobbing his head at the apparition and crooking a finger up and down a few inches from the infant's nose.
"Tommy, you are a silly!" Honor exploded with laughter. "As if it can understand. You might be a tree for all it knows!"
"Then all I can say is, I have no use for kids until they develop some intellect." He assisted her to remount and they continued their way to Sombari. Soon, the last of the bungalows was left behind and they were cantering side by side along the main road which divided paddy fields still containing stagnant rain water and the decaying stalks of the harvested corn. At intervals on the road pipal trees afforded shelter to travellers by the wayside. In the distance, across rough country overgrown with scrub and coarse, thatching grass, could be seen the minarets of an ancient ruin—Muktiarbad's one and only show-place for sightseers—too familiar to the inhabitants to excite even passing notice.
In the meantime Honor soliloquised aloud—"I do so wish we could get Mrs. Meredith more reconciled to India," she sighed. "She has only one point of view at present, and that is a mother's. If she could only be made to see her husband's point of view and realise also her duties as a wife, she would be perfect, for Joyce Meredith is very lovable and good. I never knew any one so pretty and so free from personal vanity. But she is too sure of her husband. Too certain that he will go on worshipping her no matter what she does or how she treats him; and, after all, I suppose even love can die for want of sustenance. It seems to me she gives all she has to give to the baby, and her husband is left to pick up the crumbs that fall from her table!"
"It will end as all such marriages end," said Tommy. "She is only half awake to life, and too pretty for every-day use. Meredith should awaken her by flirting with Mrs. Fox; otherwise someone else will do it by flirting with his wife. I wouldn't put it beyond the doctor."
Honor stiffened visibly. "Why do you say that?" she asked coldly.
"Well, he is given every opportunity. Last night, for instance, on our way home from your place, Smart and I saw his motor in the avenue of the Bara Koti. It was under the trees with a shaft of moonlight full on the steering wheel. If he had wanted to make it invisible, he ought to have reckoned on the hour and the moon. We thought he had gone to Sombari, but he was singing to Mrs. Meredith."
"Is that true?" Honor asked in low tones of pained surprise.