And with that he rose, and with courage which he had never shown before, and which he was never in his life to show again, he deliberately left his chair at the other side of the table and took one next to her. And she laughed prettily and fell in with his humour, and affected to turn her back upon Repton and to devote herself to serious discussion with him.
And that the discussion really did become serious may be supposed, for during the rest of the evening these two were never very far apart.
Presently a sense of something having happened stole over the assembly, and Repton found himself, with brilliant indiscretion, discussing the secretly-arrived-at situation with the same outspokenness as before.
“It now becomes a serious question,” he urged plaintively, “who is to educate that child. We were three of us, and we managed as well as could be expected. But now that there are five, the matter must be reconsidered. Who is to have the charge of the heir of Creux?”
“I am,” said Mrs Bayre, lifting her chubby boy and pressing his round cheek against hers.
“And I,” murmured Southerley, in a deep-voiced growl, “shall have the charge of you.”
“It’s a great pity,” said Repton, whose devotion to the child was as strong as it was new; “I’d have made an artist of him!”
“But the question is, you know,” said Bayre, “what he would have made of you.”
And then they all laughed; it took very little to set them laughing on that happy evening. And so the problem of the rule of three was solved in the easiest possible manner, and perhaps Jan Repton was not the least happy of the group.
“After all, there’s one’s art!” he remarked to the ladies, as he showed them, with pride, one of his paintings. It was on a most beautiful easel, one they could admire with a free conscience. But the picture itself was one of the worst you ever saw!