Cameron, dazed as never in his life before, lifted Billy to his shoulder and trotted up and down the room. "Nice little boy!" he laughed, Billy's damp fists hitting at him in ecstasy. "I'll just take him to the sitting-room while you finish your dinner." He did his best to pretend that the situation was not unusual, to act as if, in his own home, a man could be nothing but at home. All these confounded hirelings, acting as if they owned the place, had the cheek to be amazed over his dropping in!
Miss Merritt beamed.
"I always say, sir, that boys should know their fathers."
"Boys should know their fathers?" This was almost the last straw.
"Here!" said Miss Merritt, holding out a pink-edged blanket. "Jest put in on your lap, sir." There was about her that utter peculiar lack of decorum that is common to nurses and mothers and Cameron, blushing furiously, grabbed the blanket and fled.
"Boys should know their father, hey?" Cameron was enraged. "We'll see about that pretty quick!" Billy crowed with joy as the blanket flapped about them, and, above the chasm of his doubts and his conscience Cameron heard himself laugh, too. He got into his arm-chair. Billy, so warm and solid and gay, so evidently liking him, gave him, parent that he was, the thrill of adventure as his hands held him and knew him for his own. The blanket spread upon his knees, the door closed, Cameron expanded with the desire to know his son, even as it was desirable that his son should know him. He turned him over and around, he studied the vagaries of scallops and pearl buttons; profoundly he pitied his small image for all of his discomforts, and advised him to grow out of safety-pins as fast as possible. He fell into a philosophical mood, spouting away at Bill, and Bill responded with fists and delicious gurgles and an imitative sense of investigation. Cameron reflected, with illumination, upon the amusing sounds a baby makes when the world is well. They were really having an awfully good time.
Billy was fuzzy and blond, one of those moist, very blue-eyed babies that women appreciate. Cameron all at once saw why. Warmth expanded his aching heart, and his arms circled his own mite of boy. Billy yawned, agreed instantly with Cameron that a yawn from a baby was funny, and with a chuckle pitched against Cameron, bumped his nose on a waistcoat button, considered the button solemnly, with his small mouth stuck out ridiculously, and then snuggled into the hollow of his father's arms, and, closing his big eyes with a confidence that made thrills creep over him, the man, and brought something stinging to his eyes, Bill went to sleep.
After an unmeasured lapse of time, Miss Merritt came for the baby.
"Oh, the lambkin! Ain't he sweet, sir?"
Cameron ached in every joint, but he did not know it.
"Take care how you handle him!" he whispered. "It's awful to be awakened out of one's first sleep!"