I glanced at the butler, but his wooden face showed no comprehension of the bad taste of Tom's remarks. I was glad of that, for Tom has earned a reputation among all classes for always saying and doing the right thing at the right time. I could not help wondering how he would act if I should tell him over our coffee that my first husband was in the nursery, doomed to another round of earthly experience in the outward seeming of Horatio Minturn.
"Forgive me, Clare," implored Tom, misinterpreting the expression of my face. "I didn't intend to hurt your feelings, my dear. And you mustn't do me an injustice. You have hinted several times of late that I am not as fond of the baby as I should be. Now, I know exactly what you mean, and I--"
"Suppose, Tom, that we defer further discussion of the subject until later on," I suggested, realizing that I was losing rapidly my grip on my nerves. "Tell me about your day. Where have you been? What have you done? Whom have you seen?"
It was not until we were seated in the smoking-room and Tom had lighted a long black cigar that he returned to a topic I had learned to dread. Heretofore, Tom's interest in the baby had seemed to me to be intermittent and never very intense. To-night is struck me as persistent and painfully strong.
"What I was going to say, Clare, when you interrupted me at the table," he recommenced, gazing at me thoughtfully through a nimbus of tobacco smoke, "was this: Theoretically, I am a fond and enthusiastic father; practically, I haven't seen the baby more than a dozen times--and he has always yelled at sight of me."
I laughed aloud, nervously, and Tom's glance had in it much astonishment and a little annoyance.
"It's hardly a subject for merriment, is it?" he queried, coldly. "You accuse me of not appreciating Horatio. May I ask you, my dear, when I have had an opportunity of observing his--ah--good points, so to speak? To be frank with you, Clare, and to paraphrase a popular song, 'all babies look alike to me.'"
"But there are great differences among them, Tom," I cried, impulsively; and again a touch of hysteria got into my voice.
"And ours, of course, is the finest in the world," he remarked, good-naturedly. "But what I was getting at, Clara, is this: I want to become better acquainted with the boy. He's old enough now, isn't he, to begin to--what is it they call it?--take notice?"
"Oh, yes." I managed to answer, without breaking down. If Tom would only change the subject! But how could I lead his mind to other things? Surely, I couldn't tell him flatly that hereafter the baby must be a tabooed topic between us, that there really was not any Horatio, that the law of psychic evolution through repeated reincarnations was making in our nursery a demonstration unprecedented in our knowledge of the race. All that I could do was to sit silent, pressing my cold hands together, and endeavor to prevent Tom from observing my increasing agitation.