"Oh, if it's like that!" she said. "It's only a wigging—go!" And she told her where he was.
He lay alone in the simple room, when Mary entered—a diminutive patient for whom the narrow cot looked large. The nurse had been showing him a picture-book, and this yawned loosely on the quilt, where it had slid from his listless hold. At the sound of Mary's approach, he turned. But he did not recognise her. A doubtful gaze appraised her intentions.
At first she did not speak. She stooped over the pillow, smoothing and re-smoothing it mechanically, a hand trembling closer to the disordered curls. Her own gaze deepened and hung upon him; her lips parted. Her hands crept timidly nearer. Her face was bent till her mouth was yielding kisses on his cheek. She yearned over him through wet lashes, a wondering smile always on her face.
"Archie," she murmured; "Archie, baby-boy, is it comfy for you? Won't you see the pictures—all the pretty people in the book?"
"Not nice pictures," he complained.
"You shall have nicer ones this afternoon," she said; "this afternoon, when I go out. Let me show you these now! Look, here's a little boy in bed, like you! His name was 'Archie,' too; and one day his papa took him to a big house, where papa had friends, and——
"Papa! I want papa!"
"Oh, my darling," she said, "papa is coming! He'll come very, very soon. The other little boy wanted papa as well, and he wasn't happy at first at all. But in the big house everybody was so kind, and glad to have Archie there, that presently he thought it a treat to stop. It was so nice directly that it was better than being at home. They gave him toys, lots and lots of toys; and there were oranges and puddings—it was beautiful!"
She could not remain, she was needed elsewhere; and when Kincaid made his round she was on duty. But she ascertained developments throughout the day, and by twilight she knew that the child was grievously ill. She did not marvel at her interest; it engrossed her to the exclusion of astonishment. If she was surprised at all, it was that Carew could have believed in her neutrality. Yet she was thankful that he had believed in it; and at the same time, rejoiced that his first impulse had been to put faith in her good heart. She did not analyse her sympathy, ashamed of the cause from which it sprang. When she had gazed, during the intervening years, at the faded photograph, she had reproached herself and wept; now it all seemed natural. She sought neither to reason nor to euphemise. The feeling was spontaneous, and she went with it. She called it by no wrong word, because she called it nothing. She was borne as it carried her, blindly, unresistingly, without pausing to name it, or to define its source. It seemed natural. She inquired about Archie when she had risen next morning, and a little later, contrived another flying visit to the room. But he was now too ill to notice her.
In the afternoon, Carew came again. She learnt it while he was there, and gathered something of his wretchedness. She heard how he besieged the nurse with questions: "Had she seen so bad a case before—well, often before? Had those who recovered been so young as Archie? Was there nothing else that could be tried?" She listened, with her head bowed, imagining the scene that she could not enter; deploring, remembering, re-living—praying for "Tony's child."