Jerry wished passionately that she were a thousand miles away when Steve loomed over her but she didn't intend to let him suspect it. She pulled away the soft blanket that he could see better and challenged breathlessly:
"Isn't he a sweetie peach?"
"Isn't he—it—very red?" Courtlandt stammered in honest embarrassment that he could not conscientiously voice a paean of praise of the beauty of the Carey heir. Doc Rand indulged in a denatured guffaw.
"Lord-ee, Steve, your mental propeller showered sparks of originality that time, didn't it? The baby isn't appreciated here; you'd better take him back to his mother, Mrs. Eagan," as the nurse, beaming with full-moon effulgence, entered the room. Jerry smiled up at the portly woman as she laid the little bundle in her arms.
"Give my love to Mrs. Carey and tell her that he is the loveliest baby I ever saw," she whispered eagerly.
"What do you think about Beechy, Doc?" Courtlandt asked as Mrs. Eagan left the room.
"He'll pull through now that he has eased his conscience by confession. I had to let him talk and unburden his mind before I could heal his body."
"I've just come from the shack. Carl told me that if—it hadn't been for Denbigh he would have been in on that deal last night."
"Yes, Steve, but Beechy was out of the hold-up for good when he found that it was government money they were after. He was prepared to take what was coming to him for quitting; he knew mighty well that a man couldn't double-cross Ranlett and—and live, that is, not if the Skunk knew it. He knows now that Denbigh saved him. Beechy isn't bad at heart. He and a lot of others like him are suffering from an acute attack of disillusionment, that's all. They'd been fed up on 'Hail-to-the-conquering-hero' stuff and when the shouting was over and they spent weary months in hospital forgotten by the world at large, and in particular by that female portion of it that had fed them, written to them, married them during the war, do you wonder that they were ready for any deviltry that was afoot? I don't. But you see, in spite of his loud talk, when Beechy came slam up against the proposition of defrauding his government, ungrateful government that he thought it, there was nothing doing. He couldn't get away with it. He'll never be able to do much hard work, but there must be a place for him."
"A place for him! If he ever escapes my clutches again he's more slippery than I think him."