"About--about--who?" I gasped, wondering if he meant spirits.
"About babies," he said, with a wiggle and a chuckle that both attracted and repelled me. "Where's your handkerchief? Wipe my nose--pardon me, Clarissa, that sounds vulgar, doesn't it? But what the deuce am I to do? I'm absolutely helpless, don't you know?"
I could feel the tears near my eyes, as I gently touched the puckered baby face with a bit of lace.
"There was only one chance in ten thousand millions that I should come here," went on Jack, apologetically. "It's tough on you, Clarissa. Do you think that you can stand it? I've heard the nurse say that I make a pretty good baby."
I sat speechless for a time, trying to adapt myself to new conditions so startling and fantastic that I expected to waken presently from a dream--a dream that promised to become a nightmare. But there was an infernal realism about the whole affair that had impressed me from the first. Jack's matter-of-fact way of accepting the situation was so strikingly characteristic of him that I had felt, at once, a strong temptation to laugh aloud.
"I want you to make me a promise, Clarissa," he said, presently, seizing one of my gloved fingers with his fat little dimpled hand and making queer mouths, as if he were trying to whistle. "You won't tell--ah--Tom, will you? He wouldn't understand it at all. I don't myself, and I've been through it, don't you see? In a way, of course, it's mighty bad form. I know that. I feel it deeply. But I was powerless, Clarissa. You know I never took any stock in those Oriental philosophies. I was always laughing at Buddhism, metempsychosis, and that kind of thing. But there's really something in it, don't you think? Keep quiet, will you? You're shaking me up again."
"There's more in it than I had ever imagined, Jack," I remarked, gloomily. "Of course, I'll say nothing to Tom about it. It'll have to be our secret. I understand that."
"You'll have to be very careful about what you call me before people, Clarissa," said the baby, presently. "My name's Horatio, isn't it? What the dickens did you call me that for? I always hated the name Horatio."
"It was Tom's choice," I murmured. "I'm sorry you don't like it--Jack."
"If you called me 'Jack' for short--no, that wouldn't do. Tom wouldn't like it, would he? Your handkerchief again, please. Thank you, my dear. By the way, Clarissa, I wish you'd tell the nurse that she gets my bath too hot in the morning. I'd like a cold shower, if she doesn't mind."