"I have been afraid to look you in the face, Gaunt," he replied gratefully, "since making such an utter ass of myself. I'm glad to take this chance of apologising; but I don't feel quite so repentant as I did, now that I see Mrs. Gaunt look so well and blooming."
Joey chimed in, vowing that the Derbyshire air was doing wonders for Virgie.
"If we could get some fine weather, Osbert ought to run you round the Peak," said Virgie to Gerald.
Gerald was puzzled. If this were acting it was jolly good. Surely this girl could not be afraid of her husband. He looked from one to the other, completely mystified.
Lunch was quite a hilarious meal. Tom and Bill were both present, and Virgie sat between them by special request. She confided various episodes from the career of Little Runt to their willing ears, and the way in which she understood them, and entered into conversation without the least effort, or any departure from her usual naturalness of manner, filled Gaunt with admiration. They behaved so well as to surprise both their parents, seeming quite hypnotised by the spell of the thrilling voice and the dainty nonsense talk with which she plied them.
After lunch, while the men stood about smoking a cigarette before starting, baby was brought down, and Joey and Virgie, kneeling on the drawing-room carpet, tried to inveigle her into making a tottering step alone. It was pathetically amusing to watch her little plump body, balanced upon its unsteady supports, her dimpled arms outspread, her baby lips parted in glee, showing the two rows of tiny pearls between. To and fro, to and fro, she wavered, with protecting arms on either hand, not touching, but guarding. Then at last, with a shriek of ecstasy at her own boldness, she ran forward—one step—two—and fell, a triumphant, huddled sweetness, right upon Virgie's breast.
The girl knelt up, clasping the rosy thing in her hugging arms, kissing her cheek and praising her courage. "Oh, babs, when you are a big, grown up girl," said she, "some day I will remind you that you took your first step to me."
Gaunt stood near the window, rigid, fascinated, his whole being melted into a tenderness so poignant as to be half painful. How many sources of happiness, simple and everyday, were in the world! How barren and dry and selfish his own life had been! In his moment of insight, he saw that even Joey Ferris, tied to Percy, might have her moments of utter beatification, since he had made her the mother of this babe.
He took a new resolve. When they got home that evening, he would have it out with Virginia, he would give her her choice. He would persuade her to tell him frankly if all her heart was bound up in Gerald. If it was not....
He did not hear Ferris suggesting to him that they should be on the move. They had to call him thrice before he started from his dream.