Mrs. Bonstone, or that good little Wasp, as Gringo called her now, paid two long visits every day to the baby’s mother as long as the poor thing lived.
Sometimes Mr. Bonstone went with her. As I have said before, the man was no talker, but I heard him one day in the smoking-room, which both men haunted, though neither smoked. (I have forgotten to say that we had been invited to spend a week at the Bonstones, and the two men got to be great friends.) Well, this day Mr. Bonstone was telling my master of the Syrian woman’s actions when her beautiful child was brought in to her tiny room that first night.
“I never saw anything like it,” he said, “that poor wretch racked by pain. She draws herself up—stares at that old Ellen, at the child—at my wife’s picture—then she gets out that cross. ’Pon my word I nearly broke down—she’s a living martyr, but the awful joy of her face. I say, Granton—there’s something about mothers, men can’t comprehend.”
“There’s nothing like it,” my master said softly, then he went on to tell about his wife and his baby.
“Queer, isn’t it, more of the well-to-do don’t adopt these youngsters,” said Mr. Bonstone. “Cyria is going to be a beauty.”
“You’ll bring her up as your own child, I suppose,” said master.
“I guess so—after that mother.”
“You’re not afraid of heredity?” said master.
“Fudge, no—it’s up to us to shape her.”
“Frightens one, doesn’t it,” said master.