Ruth had seen her twice a day ever since there had been any admittance for other than those in constant attendance, but her visits had necessarily been very brief, and there had been no attempt at conversation.
"Yes, indeed!" she made haste to say. "He is growing finely; you will be astonished to find how strong he is, and he seems to be perfectly well."
"He does you credit." His mother's tone was listlessness personified. Ruth, looking at her closely, began to realize that some strange change which seemed not to be accounted for by illness had come upon Irene. It was not simply that the fierceness of her love for her child was gone, and almost if not quite indifference taken its place, physical weakness might account for that; but there was an indescribable something about her that seemed to Ruth like a surrender, as one who had made a fierce fight and been worsted in the battle and had given up. The troubled grandmother thought it all over after she and baby were back in his room. She could not but fear that a new distress was coming upon them. What if Irene were that abnormal creature, a woman who could not continue to love a child, even her own! There was no fear that she would again desert it, her evident and unfailing, even increasing passion for her husband would hold her, this time, to her home; but—could the misery of it be borne, if this baby must grow up under the control of an unloving mother? She strained him to her so suddenly and so closely that he rebelled, and got off a lovely jargon of talk in protest.
She went back, later, to Irene's room, carrying the baby who was in a flutter of delight over just the joy of living. It did not seem possible that one could look at him without loving him. She could not help wanting to test Irene and see if her interest in him had indeed waned.
She smiled languidly on him, and suffered Ruth to place him on the couch beside her, although she said:—
"Two visits in one morning! Hasn't he been here before?"
"He was so sweet in his new dress," Ruth explained, "that I thought his mamma ought to see him while it was fresh." Then she began to rehearse some of his pretty baby ways, making a distinct effort to awaken in his mother's heart a sense of pride in her child. Irene listened vaguely, as one who only half heard. Suddenly she made an impatient movement.
"Here," she said, "take your baby. He is so full of life that the very sight of him wearies me. Take him away."
Ruth's heart sank. Better the fiercest, unreasoning passion of love and jealousy than this!
Others beside herself began to notice and be puzzled and troubled by this change in the patient. Rebecca, the nurse, expressed her mind to Ruth in anxious whispers.