She flushed suddenly, and gathered the unshapen thing in her arms as if to hide it from his laughter.
"Don't, George," she said, "it--it seems unkind. Thank you, Premoo, very much. We will certainly send it home to the little masters; and they, I am sure--" Here her eyes fell upon the doll again, and mirth got the better of her gravity once more.
Half-an-hour afterwards, however, as she stood alone in the drawing-room, ready dressed for her drive, the gravity had returned as she looked down on the quaint monstrosity spread out on the table, where on the evening before the rose-shaded lamp had been. It was ridiculous, certainly, but beneath that there was something else. What was it? What had the old man said: "A doll is always a doll...." He had said that and something more: "As the child is always a child to the man and the woman." It ought to be--but was it? Was not that tie forgotten, lost sight of in others ... sometimes?
Half mechanically she took the rag doll, and sitting down on a rocking-chair laid the caricature on her lap among the dainty frills and laces of her pretty gown. And this was Christmas Day--the children's day--she thought vaguely, dreamily, as she rocked herself backwards and forwards slowly. But the house was empty save for this--this idea, like nothing really in heaven or earth; yet for all that giving the Christmas message, the message of peace and goodwill which the birth of a child into the world should give to the man and the woman:--
"Unto us a child is born."
She smiled faintly--the thing on her lap seemed so far from such a memory--and then, with that sudden half-remorseful pity, she once more gathered the rag doll closer in her arms, as if to shield it from her own laughter.
And as she sate so, her face soft and kind, her husband coming into the room behind her, paused at what he saw. And something that was not laughter surged up in him; for he understood in a flash, understood once and for all, how empty his house had been to her, how empty her arms, how empty her life.
He crossed to her quickly, but she was on her feet almost defiantly at the first sight of him. "Ridiculous monster!" she exclaimed, gaily tossing the doll back on the table. "But it has an uncanny look about it which fascinates one. Gracious! Where are my gloves? I must have left them in my room, and I promised to be ready at eleven!"
When she had gone to look for them, George Langford took up the rag doll in his turn--took it up gingerly, as men take their babies--and stared at it almost fiercely. And he stood there, stern, square, silent, staring at it until his wife came back. Then he walked up to her deliberately and laid his hands on hers.
"I'm going to pack this thing up at once, my dear," he said, "and take it over this morning to little Mrs. Greville. She starts this afternoon, you know, to catch the Messageries steamer. She'll take it home for us; and so the boys could have it by the Christmas mail, which I forgot."