‘Oh!’ A passionate cry broke from Sheila. In a moment she was on her knees gazing with adoration at the flaxen-haired, elf-like child. For from the big dreaming eyes her vanished Kay looked at her; the wonderful boy dead and buried in a prematurely old man, lived again in this two-year old girl. Hungrily Sheila kissed the tiny face ... and once again she felt his arm about her and heard his boyish whispers.
‘Oh, give her to me!’ she cried, looking up over the child’s head at its father.
Kay’s face lit up.
‘I’ve got it now. I remember,’ he said triumphantly.
‘What?’ asked Sophie, troubled by Sheila’s emotion, and yet gratified by it.
‘Why,’ said Kay, ‘the name of Tomlinson’s youngest. It was Freddie. I told you it began with an F.’
He looked round with modest pride, and was surprised to see Sheila burst into tears.
So that was the solution of the problem. The beauty of life was only for the young, the very young. In a child’s heart and nowhere else the kingdom of heaven was to be found, a frail gossamer thing vanishing with the years. This was the common lot: by contact with the world to rub the down of paradise off our souls, to grow drab and dull in spirit, drab and dull in mind, even before that waning of physical strength which alone could assuage the bitterness of the process. In Kay youth had died; in Edward—Edward had never been young; but in herself youth lived and craved more life. Yes, it lived still, but now it was stricken and dying.
It flashed upon her then that she too could renew her youth. In a child she could live again.