“I think the less you say about it the better,” he retorted. “I remember some rather uncomfortable half hours spent on Evie’s account.”
She smiled, her face close pressed to the baby’s, her lips caressing it’s hair.
“How ridiculous it all seems now!” she exclaimed—“How small! What a pair of geese we were!”
“Yes,” he said, and he straightened himself and walked away to the window to hide the mortification in his eyes. His jealousy had been of a far graver nature than hers, and he did not like to hear it referred to even. He was very much ashamed of himself, and rather embarrassed by a generosity that forgave so quickly and entirely as Jill had done.
“Yes,” he repeated softly more to himself than her, “we were a pair of geese. How I wish we had found it out sooner than we did. What an infinitude of suffering it might have saved us both!”
The next important event in their lives, which took place as soon as Jill was well enough to walk to Church, was the baby’s christening. He was called John after his father as the eldest sons of the St. John’s had been from time immemorial. It was Jill’s wish that this should be, St. John, himself, having no idea on the subject. It was also Jill’s wish that Mr Thompkins should stand Godfather, and, upon being asked, the senior partner gave a somewhat reluctant consent. He was a practical, hard-working old bachelor, and babies were not much in his line, but he had an unbounded admiration and respect for this baby’s mother, so when she informed him of her desire very much after the manner of one conferring an inestimable favour he had not the pluck nor the cruelty to say her nay. The honour cost him a guinea in the shape of a christening present, but the guinea weighed lightly in the balance compared with the interest that he was expected to take in his Godson. Jill had a way of putting it in his arms, and watching him nurse it which not only embarrassed but annoyed him greatly; and sometimes St. John would come in and look on with a grin, observing the while that he was quite a family man, or something equally idiotic.
St. John was idiotic in those days. He thought so much of his ugly offspring, as the infant’s Godfather mentally called it, and spoilt as many plates in attempting to photograph it as would have served for all the babies that came to the studio in a year. Mr Thompkins groaned, but Jill laughed happily; this tiny link between herself and Jack seemed the one thing necessary to make her life perfect. Its advent had closed a chapter in their history and commenced a new one altogether brighter and happier than the last. The last had known Evie Bolton, and Markham; but now the name of the one was seldom mentioned, the other never. Jill had not seen Markham from the hour she sent him from her presence—neither had St. John—but a few days after the affair she had received a letter from him, just a short note of apology which ran as follows:—
“Dear Mrs St. John,—
“I cannot, I fear, convey to you my heartfelt sorrow at the indiscretion I was guilty of last Tuesday. I have been reproaching myself for my folly ever since. The fault was mine, as is also the loss. I made a mistake. Try to forgive me and to forget. I go abroad next week indefinitely. Goodbye.”
Jill offered it to her husband when she had finished reading, but St. John put her hand aside, and shook his head decisively.