“He will only imagine that you want something out of him,” she exclaimed pettishly.
“Never mind what he imagines,” answered St. John, bending over the speaker’s couch, and touching the baby’s smooth cheek with his finger. “It needn’t bother us so long as we are satisfied that we have done what is right. You wouldn’t like to think that one day this little man might fail in his duty to his father, would you?”
Jill looked down at the wee, mottled face, and laughed softly, though the tears stood in her eyes still, and would not be blinked away.
“How absurd it seems,” she said, “to think that this will one day be a man. It’s so small and frail that I’m half afraid of it, Jack. And it’s dreadfully ugly too, isn’t it, dear? Not even you could call it pretty.”
“Never mind it’s looks,” St. John answered reassuringly. “They’re all putty-faced at first, you know. If he only grows up with but half his mother’s charm and goodness he’ll do all right.”
Jill laughed again; the extravagance of the compliment amused her.
“I hope he won’t grow up with his mother’s temper,” she said, adding with a mischievous look at St. John, “nor his father’s either for that matter; I’d like him to strike out an original line there, Jack.”
“Too late, I’m afraid,” St. John answered ruefully as the baby screwed up its face preparatory to howling. “He always yells for nothing just when we’re having a quiet chat.”
Jill sat up a little and rocked the child gently in her arms.
“He is jealous,” she explained; “he takes after you in that.”