She had lain with the little bundle beside her, and from time to time reached out a weak hand to turn down a corner of the blanket and look at its sleeping face. The queer little thing! The pathos, the marvelous appeal of its weakness, its aloofness, the charm of its doll-like completeness! She never tired of looking at it, she never wanted it out of her arms. Its fierce and despairing cries pierced her soundest sleep; its faintest stir aroused her.
She occupied the big room on the third floor, so that the baby shouldn’t disturb Gilbert, and after the nurse went, she was alone with the baby. Miss Dorothy had eagerly offered to take charge of it at night, but Claudine wouldn’t listen to that. She had a little bassinet beside her, where the baby was supposed to sleep, but at the least sound, she would take it into the bed, to lie close to her, while she comforted its inexplicable little woes, whispered to it, sang to it, stroked its downy, restless little head.
She passed hours of mystic happiness alone with it in the big silent room, where a night-light burned dimly. They would lie looking at each other; she would gaze into its solemn unfathomable eyes, trying to impress her image upon it, trying to reach it. It would fall asleep clutching her finger, and she would weep with joy and terror, afraid of everything, haunted by spectres of croup, whooping-cough, of accidents, of all the cruel chances of life.
Gilbert had very much objected to the name Andrée. But Claudine was so ill and weak, and so determined, that he had submitted to it. He thought it was a charming and wonderful baby, and that it would undoubtedly be a comfort to him in his old age. He boasted about it to his business friends; he said it was the greatest thing in life. But he saw only the promise in it; he was impatient for it to develop, to become responsive and human. But Claudine loved it at each moment; she dreaded its changing. Every day she thought, “This is the very sweetest age! I wish she would stay like this forever!”
It was now two months old, and on this day was taking its first airing, in the arms of a highly recommended nurse-maid. The old lady had a prejudice against perambulators; she thought it all nonsense anyhow to take babies out into the street, but as Dr. Perceval was newfangled and insistent, she made no objection to a daily outing, provided it was carried. Perambulators were against nature; babies were meant to be carried, she said.
Claudine took little interest in this discussion. As long as they did nothing actually harmful, she didn’t care. Her only concern was to protect it, to keep it near her; matters of hygiene she considered a little unreal.
She heard the sound of heavy and deliberate footsteps ascending the stairs, and she rushed out into the hall.
“Be careful, Katie!” she called. “Go very slowly, and be sure you don’t catch your foot!”
She watched with frowning anxiety the progress of the nurse and the bundle in her arms, and the instant they reached the hall, she snatched the baby.
“She’s asleep!” said the nurse, warningly, but in vain, because the wicked mother had kissed it until it was awake and crying and had to be rocked. It was the first separation, it had been out of the house nearly an hour. Who was to blame her for her rapture at getting it back alive and well?