But that time of pain and stress came not to Flower, because the strong, shielding love of a man was always around her, and his care warded off the very thing which alone could have brought about his comfort and her completion. And yet he was dimly conscious of a gradual growth in her, and sometimes, half wistfully, he called her "Mary," that name so sacred to perfect motherhood, and which had seemed such an incongruous gift from her sponsors, to his Flower of the rose-garden.
On this particular morning, when the doctor stood at the door looking into the boudoir, Flower was bending over a huge bowl of daffodils, arranging each golden trumpet to her liking.
The spring sunshine came glancing through the window and touched her hair to the gold of the blossoms. The doctor noted this, and a sudden look of adoration softened the cool clearness of his eyes.
The baby's godmother, on this last day of her visit, sitting by the fire with her feet on the fender, opening and smoothing a copy of the Times, glanced up, past the sunshine and the daffodils, saw that look and promptly retired behind a leading article.
The baby's godmother was a perfectly beautiful woman in an absolutely plain shell, but, unfortunately, no man had yet looked beneath the shell and seen the woman herself in her perfection. She would have made earth heaven for a blind lover who, not having eyes for the plainness of her face or the massiveness of her figure, might have drawn nearer and apprehended the wonder of her as a woman; experiencing the wealth of tenderness of which she was capable, the blessed comfort of the shelter of her love, the perfect comprehension of her sympathy, the marvellous joy of winning and wedding her. But as yet no blind man with far-seeing vision had come her way, and it always seemed to be her lot to take a second place on occasions when she would have filled the first to infinite perfection.
She had been bridesmaid at the doctor's wedding, to whom she would have made a wife such as Flower, develop as she might, could never be. She was godmother to the baby—she whose arms ached for motherhood itself and whose motherliness would have been a thing for men to kneel down and worship. She found her duties as godmother to various babies consisted chiefly in praying that the foolish mistakes made by their parents might be overruled by an all-wise Providence and work out somehow to their ultimate good.
She had a glorious voice; but her face, not matching it, its existence was rarely suspected; and as she accompanied to perfection, she was usually in requisition to play for the singing of others. Only once, at a concert, where the principal songstress failed at the last moment, she volunteered to fill the empty place, and walked to the piano, when the moment came, in the double capacity of singer and accompanist. How she "brought down the house" on this occasion, and how a blind man's eyes were opened, belongs to another story.
Meanwhile she was a woman of tact, and when she perceived how the doctor was momentarily dazzled by the sunlight and the gold, she retired, obviously, behind the Times leader.
"Darling," said the doctor, "I am wired for to Brighton, in consultation over a very important case. I must go down by an afternoon train, and I doubt if I can get back to-night."