I was alone in the nursery with the baby, a chubby boy whose eight months of life had amazingly increased his weight and vigor, when I heard the crack of doom issuing from his miniature mouth!
I wonder if your imagination is strong enough to put you, for a moment, in my place. Suppose that you had dismissed the nurse for a time that you might have a mother's frolic in the twilight with your only child, the blessing that had come to you as a reward for marrying again after five years of widowhood. Suppose that the baby, opening his little eyes to their widest extent, had said to you, as my baby said to me:
"You don't seem to recognize me, my dear, but I've come back to you."
Wedded to Tom, already jealous of your maternal fondness for the boy, what effect would Jack's voice, silenced five years ago by death, have had upon you, rising in gruff maturity from a baby's tiny throat? Was it strange that I came within a hair's breadth of dropping the uncanny child to the floor? Mechanically I glanced over my shoulder, in cold dread lest the nurse might return at any moment. Then I found courage to glance down into the baby's upturned face. There was something in the child's eyes so old and wise that I realized my ears had not deceived me--I had not been the victim of an hallucination resulting from the strain of an afternoon of calls and teas. The conviction came to me, like an icy douche, that I was standing there in a stunning afternoon costume, holding my first husband in my arms, and liable to let him fall if our weird tête-à-tête should be sharply interrupted.
"You aren't glad to see me," grumbled Jack, wiggling uneasily against my gloves and coat. "But it isn't my fault that I'm here, Clarissa. There's a lot of reincarnation going on, you know, and a fellow has to take his chances."
Softly, I stole to a chair and seated myself, holding the baby on my trembling knees.
"Are you--are you--comfortable, Jack?" I managed to whisper, falteringly, the thought flashing through my mind that I had gone suddenly insane.
"Keep quiet, can't you?" he pleaded. "Don't shake so! I'm not a rattle-box. I wish you'd tell the nurse, Clarissa, to put a stick in my milk, will you? There's a horrible sameness to my present diet that is absolutely cloying. Will you stop shaking? I can't stand it."
By a strong effort of will I controlled my nervous tremors, glancing apprehensively at the door through which the nurse must presently return.
"There, that's better," commented Jack, contentedly. "You don't know much about us, do you, Clarissa?"