When the mother came nearer, and tried to take the little creature from him, he threw out his disengaged arm and warded her off, with a look in his eyes which she felt to be dangerous, and somehow, to her own surprise, it checked her. Rose-Jewel, terrified by the only half-comprehended threats of the mother, cried piteously on his neck, and even while to the excited woman before him he showed a spirit of daring, of which he knew he had never been capable until that minute, he was soothing and reassuring the child with soft, caressing sounds and touches, and inwardly vowing that, no matter what happened, he would never be separated from her—never give her up.
His wife saw that unknown look of resolution in his eyes, and felt compelled by it to yield her point.
She drew back a few steps, and after a moment’s hesitation, said:
“I won’t attempt to reason with a man who is out of his mind, for that is what you are, at present. Of course, if you choose to exercise force toward a woman, you are too strong for me. But, when I get my child back, I shall know how to keep her.”
“She is my child, too,” he answered, “and you shall never get her away from me. I will never give her up to you, or to any one.”
These words were said more by way of reassurance to the sobbing child than to the mother. He had felt Rose-Jewel draw him closer, as she heard her mother’s threat, and he answered the baby’s touch, rather than the woman’s words.
“You are too excited to see how foolish your words are,” answered his wife coldly, “but no one expects any practical sense from you. Rose-Jewel,” she added, with a sudden tone of harsh authoritativeness, “if you don’t stop that crying, I shall punish you for it. I’m going now, and your papa can keep you, but, to-night, you’ll have to come to me, and I’ll see if I can’t make you a better girl.”
As the mother left the room, Eastin felt the child’s sobbing increase. She uttered little stifled cries of terror that cut him to the very soul.
“There, my Rose, my Jewel, my Bird,” he said. “Don’t you be frightened. No one shall take Papa’s baby away from him. Papa’ll keep her, right in his arms, and never let her go out of them, that’s what he’ll do. Nobody shall lay their fingers on his baby.”
He said recklessly anything that he thought would reassure her, but, even while he spoke, he felt oppressed and terrified at the impossibility of performing what he was promising. His heart felt like lead, when he realized that he would have to give her up—that he would, in a few hours, now, at best, be forced to see her taken from him, struggling, crying, terrified, to begin her initiation into a life of torture, and that, when she left his arms, he could never take her back to them, in the same way, forever. All the privacy and sacredness of their intercourse was gone, even if, as was doubtful, he was ever allowed to have her again. And when she was out of his sight, what would be his dread about her? She had been threatened with blows, starvation, and revengeful anger, if she ever tried to play or sing again—and to stop her music would seem to him like murdering her soul.