He exclaimed, hurt: "Am I such a brute to you, Molly?"
Ah, no; not that. But two was all he could look out for.
He kneeled, supporting her. Oh, if he could only be glad of it, then she would be happy. She'd not let it disturb him. It would be sure to be beautiful and have his eyes and hair.
He listened, touched. There was a mystery, a beauty in her voice with its rich cadence, her trembling breath, her fast beating pulse, her excitement. Below in the street the organ played, "Gallagher's Daughter Belle," then changed to—ah, how could he bear it!—"My Old Kentucky Home." Tears sprang to his eyes. Motherhood was sacred to him. Was he to have a son? Was he to be a father? He must make her happy, this modest, undemanding girl whom he had made woman and a wife. He kissed her and she clung to him, daring to whisper something of her adoration and her gratitude.
When after supper he stood with her in the window and looked out over the river where the anchored steamers were in port for over Sunday, and the May sunset covered the crude brick buildings with a garment of glory, he was astonished to find that the stone at his heart which had lain there so long was rolled a little away. He picked up the geranium which Molly had worn at her breast and which had fallen when she fainted, and put it in his button-hole. It was crushed and sweet. Molly whispered that he would kill her with goodness, and that "she was heart happy."
"Are you, really?" he asked her eagerly. "Then we'll have old Rainsford to supper, and you must tell him so!"
CHAPTER XXVIII
Fairfax, stirred as he had been to the depths by his visit to New York, awake again to the voices of his visions, could give but little of himself to his home life or to his work. The greatest proof of his kindly heart was that he did not let Molly see his irritation or his agony of discontent. If he were only nothing but an engineer with an Irish wife! Why, why, was he otherwise? In his useless rebellion the visions came and told him why—told him that to be born as he was, gifted as he was, was the most glorious thing and the most suffering thing in the world.