Her thoughts wandered away, until they were recalled by the door opening a mere chink to let a child slip into the room—a slim, tall child, in a blue smock—Tony. His thick, dark hair was cropped boywise now, and the likeness of the beautiful, sensitive child face to Ian's was more marked. It was evident that in him there was to be no blending of strains, but an exact reproduction of the paternal type.
Tims was in his eyes purely a comic character, but the ready grin with which he usually greeted her was replaced to-day by a little, inattentive smile. He went past her and stood by the sofa, looking fixedly at his mother with a grave mouth and a slight frown on his forehead. At length he turned away, and was about to leave the room as quietly as he had come, when Tims brought him to a stand-still at her knee. He held up an admonishing finger.
"Sh! Don't you wake my Mummy, or Daddy 'll be angry with you."
"We sha'n't wake her; she's too fast asleep. Tell me why you looked so solemnly at her just now, Tony?"
Tony, his hands held fast, wriggled, rubbed his shoulder against his ear, and for all answer laughed in a childish, silly way. Such is the depth and secretiveness of children, whom we call transparent.
"Did you think Mummy was dead?"
"What's 'dead'?" asked Tony, with interest, putting off his mask of inanity.
"People are dead when they've gone to sleep and will never wake again," returned Tims.
Tony thought a minute; then his dark eyes grew very large. He whispered slowly, as though with difficulty formulating his ideas:
"Doesn't they never wake? Doesn't they wake up after ever so long, when peoples can't remember everything—and it makes them want to cry, only grown-up people aren't 'lowed?"