Clinton got up and took a book from a cupboard. Merefleet was watching him with strained eyes. His heart was thumping as if it would choke him. He rose as Clinton laid the picture before him, and steadied himself unconsciously by his friend's shoulder.
Clinton glanced at him in some surprise.
"Hullo!" he said. "A friend of yours, was she? My dear fellow, I'm sorry. I didn't know."
But Merefleet hung over the picture with fascinated eyes. And his answer came with a curiously strained laugh, that somehow rang exultant.
"Yes, a friend of mine, old chap," he said. "It's a wonderful face, isn't it? But it doesn't do her justice. I shouldn't frame it if I were you."
CHAPTER XVI
"Isn't he a monster?" said Mab, as she sat before the kitchen fire in Quiller's humble dwelling with Mrs. Quiller's three months' old baby in her arms. "I guess he'd fetch a prize at a baby show, Mrs. Quiller. Isn't he just too knowing for anything?"
"He's the best of the bunch, miss," said Mrs. Quiller proudly. "The other eight, they weren't nothing special. But this one, he be a beauty, though it ain't me as should say it. I'm sure it's very good of you, miss, to spend the time you do over him. He'd be an ungrateful little rogue if he didn't get on."
"It's real kind of you to make me welcome," Mab said, with her cheek against the baby's head, "I don't know what I'd do if you didn't."