"He sits up and takes notice," repeated Tom, as if proud of his old nurse's phrase. "Well, it's about time that Horatio ceased to treat me with that antagonistic uproariousness that has characterized his demeanor hitherto in my presence. I have decided to cultivate his acquaintance, Clare, and I need your help."
"He's--he's very young, Tom," I remarked, catching at a straw as I sank.
"I actually believe that you're jealous of the boy, my dear," cried Tom, laughingly. "Frankly, I'm greatly disappointed at your reception of my suggestion. You're so illogical, Clare! In one breath you charge me with lack of appreciation of the baby, and in the next you intimate that he's too young to endure my society. You place me in a very awkward position. I had honestly thought to please you, but I seem to have made a mess of it."
I was sorry for Tom, and realized that the accusation he had made against me was just. For a moment the mad project flashed through my mind of telling him the whole truth, the weird, absurd, unprecedented fact that lay at the bottom of my apparent inconsistency. But the instant that the thought took shape in unspoken words I rejected it as wildly impracticable. Furthermore, there had come to me, under the matter-of-fact influences surrounding me, a possibility that appealed to me as founded on common sense. Was it not reasonable to suppose that I had been the victim before dinner of overwrought nerves, of an hallucination that could be readily explained by purely scientific methods? I had gone to the nursery worn out by social exertions to which I had not been recently accustomed. Alone with the baby in the twilight, would it have been strange if I had fallen asleep for a moment and had dreamed that the child was talking to me? As I looked back upon the episode at this moment, it appeared to me more like the vagary of a transient doze than an actual occurrence. Even the "Damn!" that had seemed to issue from Horatio's tiny mouth as I had kissed his cheek might have been merely the tag-end of an interrupted nightmare, the reflex action of my disordered nervous system.
"You haven't made a mess of it, Tom," I said, presently, "and you have pleased me. The baby's old enough to--to--"
"To find my companionship bracing and enlightening?" suggested Tom, merrily.
"Yes, he's old enough for that," I answered, lightly, glad to feel the fog of my uncanny impressions disappearing before the sunlight of a rising conviction. With every minute that passed thus gaily in Tom's companionship, the certainty grew on me that in the nursery I had been the prey of nervous exhaustion, not the helpless protagonist of a startling psychic drama.
"I'll tell you what we'll do, Clare," remarked Tom, toward the close of an evening that had grown constantly more enjoyable to me as time passed, for, as I playfully misquoted to myself, Horatio was himself again, "I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll come home to luncheon to-morrow and we'll have the baby down from the nursery. I suppose we're all out of high chairs; but you can telephone for one in the morning, my dear."
"But, Tom, Horatio is--is only eight months old," I protested. "He--he doesn't know how to act at the table."
"Well, I'll teach him, then," cried Tom, paternally. "He needs a few lessons in manners, Clare. He has always treated me with the most astounding rudeness. It's really time for him to come under my influence, don't you think? Of course, I may be wrong. I don't know much about these matters, but I can learn a thing or two by experimenting with Horatio."