"I say, Gee-Gee's going strong, isn't she?"
Everybody affected not to hear him, and the youth went on smiling to his unappreciated self.
Gertrude appeared again presently, bringing the children. On the very threshold little Hugh struggled in her arms and tried to hurl himself on his mother. His object attained, he turned his back on everybody and hung his head over Jane's shoulder.
But little John Henry was admirably behaved. He wandered from guest to guest, shaking hands, in his solemn urbanity, with each. He looked already absurdly unastonished and important. He was not so much his father's son as the son of all the Brodricks. As for little Hugh, it was easy enough, Prothero said, to see whose son he was. And Winny Heron cried out in an ecstasy that he was going to be a genius, she was sure of it.
"Heaven forbid," said Brodrick. Everybody heard him.
"Oh, Uncle Hughy, if he was like Jin-Jin!" Allurement and tender reproach mingled in Winny's tone.
She turned to Jane with eyes that adored and loved and defended her. "I wish you'd have dozens of babies—darlings—like yourself."
"And I wish," said Eddy, "she'd have dozens of books like her last one."
Eddy was standing, very straight and tall, on his uncle's hearth. His chin, which was nothing if not determined, was thrust upwards and outwards over his irreproachable high collar. Everybody looked at Eddy as he spoke.
"What I want to know is why she doesn't have them? What have you all been doing to her? What have you been doing to her, Uncle Hughy?"