“I beg your pardon,” she said, “for intruding; but Richard has led us a dance, and I suppose the mother may go where her child goes.”
“The mother and the child are always welcome wherever they go,” said General Armour quietly.
All the men had risen to their feet, and they made a kind of semicircle before her. The white-robed child had clasped its arms about her neck, and nestled its face against hers, as if, with perfect satisfaction, it had got to the end of its adventure; but the look of humour was still in the eyes as they ran from Richard to his father and back again.
Frank Armour stepped forwards and took the child’s hand, as it rested on the mother’s shoulder. Lali’s face underwent a slight change as her husband’s fingers touched her neck.
“I must go,” she said. “I hope I have not broken up a serious conversation—or were you not so serious after all?” she said, glancing archly at General Armour. “We were talking of women,” said Lambert.
“The subject is wide,” replied Lali, “and the speakers many. One would think some wisdom might be got in such a case.”
“Believe me, we were not trying to understand the subject,” said Captain Vidall; “the most that a mere man can do is to appreciate it.”
“There are some things that are hidden from the struggling mind of man, and are revealed unto babes and the mothers of babes,” said General Armour gravely, as, reaching out his hands, he took the child from the mother’s arms, kissed it full upon the lips, and added: “Men do not understand women, because men’s minds have not been trained in the same school. When once a man has mastered the very alphabet of motherhood, then he shall have mastered the mind of woman; but I, at least, refuse to say that I do not understand, from the stand-point of modern cynicism.”
“Ah, General, General!” said Lambert, “we have lost the chivalric way of saying things, which belongs to your generation.”
By this time the wife had reached the door. She turned and held out her arms for the child. General Armour came and placed the boy where he had found it, and, with eyes suddenly filling, laid both his hands upon Lali’s and they clasped the child, and said: “It is worth while to have lived so long and to have seen so much.” Her eyes met his in a wistful, anxious expression, shifted to those of her husband, dropped to the cheeks of the child, and with the whispered word, which no one, not even the general, heard, she passed from the room, the nurse following her.