She ran on breathlessly, radiant with the promise of motherhood, dwelling in fancy upon the small blond ideal her imagination had conjured into life.
It was dark when they returned to town, and when Daniel entered his door, after leaving Alice in Henry Street, he found that the lamps were already lit in the library. As he passed up the staircase, he glanced into the room, and saw that Lydia and Dick were sitting together before the fire, the boy resting his head on her knees, while her fragile hand played caressingly with his hair. They did not look up at his footsteps, and his heart was so warm with happiness that even the picture of mother and son in the firelit room appeared dim beside it.
When he opened his door he found a bright fire in his grate, and throwing off his coat, he sat down in an easy chair with his eyes on the glowing coals. The beneficent vision that he had brought home with him was reflected now in the red heart of the fire, and while he gazed on it, he told himself that the years of his loneliness, and his inner impoverishment, were ended forever. The path of age showed to him no longer as hard and destitute, but as a peaceful road along which he might travel hopefully with young feet to keep him company. With a longing, which no excess of the imagination could exhaust, he saw Alice's child as she had seen it in her maternal rapture—as something immortally young and fair and innocent. He thought of the moment so long ago, when they had first placed Alice in his arms, and it seemed to him that this unborn child was only a renewal of the one he had held that day—that he would reach out his arms to it with that same half human, half mystic passion. Even to-day he could almost feel the soft pressure of her little body, and he hardly knew whether it was the body of Alice or of her child. Then suddenly it seemed to him that the reality faded from his consciousness and the dream began, for while he sat there he heard the patter of the little feet across his floor, and felt the little hands creep softly over his lips and brow. Oh, the little hands that would bring healing and love in their touch!
And he understood as he looked forward now into the dreaded future, that the age to which he was travelling was only an immortal youth.
CHAPTER VI
The Ultimate Choice
ON Christmas Eve a heavy snowstorm set in, and as there was but little work in the office that day, he took a long walk into the country before going home to luncheon. By the time he came back to town the ground was already covered with snow, which was blown by a high wind into deep drifts against the houses. Through the thick, whirling flakes the poplars stood out like white ghosts of trees, each branch outlined in a delicate tracery, and where the skeletons of last spring's flowers still clung to the boughs, the tiny cups were crowned with clusters of frozen blossoms.
As he passed Richard's house, the sight of his aunt's fair head at the window arrested his steps, and going inside, he found her filling yarn stockings for twenty poor children, to whose homes she went every Christmas Eve. The toys and the bright tarleton bags of candy scattered about the room gave it an air that was almost festive; and for a few minutes he stayed with her, watching the glow of pleasure in her small, pale face, while he helped stuff the toes of the yarn stockings with oranges and nuts. As he stood there, surrounded by the little gifts, he felt, for the first time since his childhood, the full significance of Christmas—of its cheer, its mirth and its solemnity.
"I am to have a tree at twelve o'clock to-morrow. Will you come?" she asked wistfully, and he promised, with a smile, before he left her and went out again into the storm.
In the street a crowd of boys were snowballing one another, and as he passed a ball struck him, knocking his hat into a drift. Turning in pretended fury, he plunged into the thick of the battle, and when he retreated some minutes afterward, he was powdered from head to foot with dry, feathery flakes. When he reached home, he discovered, with dismay, that he left patches of white on the carpet from the door to the upper landing. After he had entered his room he shook the snow from his clothes, and then looking at his watch, saw to his surprise, that luncheon must have been over for at least an hour. In a little while, he told himself, he would go downstairs and demand something to eat from the old butler; but the hearth was so bright and warm that after sinking into his accustomed chair, he found that it was almost impossible to make the effort to go out. In a moment a delicious drowsiness crept over him, and he fell presently asleep, while the cigar he had lighted burned slowly out in his hand.
The sound of the opening and closing door brought him suddenly awake with a throb of pain. The gray light from the windows, beyond which the snow fell heavily, was obscured by the figure of Lydia, who seemed to spring upon him out of some dim mist of sleep. At first he saw only her pale face and white outstretched hands; then as she came rapidly forward and dropped on her knees in the firelight, he saw that her face was convulsed with weeping and her eyes red and swollen. For the first time in his life, it occurred to him with a curious quickness of perception, he looked upon the naked soul of the woman, with her last rag of conventionality stripped from her. In the shock of the surprise, he half rose to his feet, and then sank back helplessly, putting out his hand as if he would push her away from him.