“That makes it twice as good. It’s wonderful that a young man should take such an interest in the poor and in children, but that you should go to the trouble of getting one up here and keeping it for—a week, didn’t Weiber say? And then to be so modest about any one’s knowing it! Really, that’s perfectly fine of you! Shows so much generosity and thoughtfulness, and at the same time such an unostentatious sort of character!”
Fitzhugh wondered afterward if there was a touch of mockery in the grave interest of her tone, but at the moment he felt that he was all of that and more, and the feeling was agreeable.
“Don’t,” he said. “You praise me too much.” And he almost forgot, in his satisfaction, the true history of that baby.
“Not a bit. I’d enjoy praising you more.” Fitzhugh jumped, for a laugh came running over the edge of the sentence. “It’s nothing—only a joke I thought of,” she went on quickly, and so easy was her laughter always that he only smiled in approval. “I called on little Marcus yesterday afternoon, and found him a cunning rat. Don’t you want Mrs. Weiber to bring him up to see you some day?”
“No—Heavens, no!” said Fitzhugh promptly, in alarm, and again the laughter bubbled over.
“You’re not half properly interested in him; you ought to be trundling him about the Parade in the Weibers’s baby-carriage every afternoon. You know you’re responsible for that child every minute he is here—do you know that? You are. If he gets health and strength out of his visit, it’s to your credit; but if he falls ill and dies—that’s your fault, just the same.”
“Oh, don’t,” groaned Fitzhugh. “What a thing to say! Don’t say it.”
“Oh, I have to—it’s true,” Miss Duncan responded firmly. “He doesn’t look strong. But it was very good of you to have him up, and I’m sure I hope he won’t die or anything.”
Dancing eyes and white teeth joined in the smile that softened this ominous last speech, and Fitzhugh swung away down the shaded country street with a cold dislike of the innocent little Marcus in the bottom of his heart, but a very warm feeling for the innocent-seeming Miss Duncan filling all other space.
Neither Miss Duncan nor Wipes could persuade the cadet to see his charge. There he drew the line. But the horrid fact of its presence in the post weighed less and less upon him, and the daily accounts from the girl and the soldier began even to amuse him. He was planning how he could boast to the three lads of his skilfulness in putting the affair through by his unaided intellect. It grew to be a habit to expect, as the carpentered visage of Wipes appeared in his doorway, the report of: