'Daddy, I want to have a game with you.'
This was that rascal, Jimmy. I'm sure I was quite as ready for a game as he was. Only at that particular second I didn't altogether see my way. Mary caught at his words, with a sort of sob, which brought a lump into my throat.
'He knows his father!'
'They say it's a wise child which knows its own father. It would seem, madam, that your little boy is not overstocked with the quality which King Solomon so ardently desired. You seem to take this matter somewhat to heart. It is the humorous side of it which appeals to me. Suppose I had taken advantage of your innocent misapprehension, what a vista of tragedy suggests itself! I think that when you return home you will probably find that your husband is awaiting you. And it is then that the humorous side of the situation will appeal to you.'
'I don't understand! I don't understand!'
'Nor I. I have been away from home for something like fifteen years, and have returned to find there are two or three things which I don't understand. I am taken for a ghost by some; for a Mr. Babbington, or some such person, by some one else; for their father by those two dear little children; and for her husband by the most charming lady I have had the honour of meeting. You will allow, madam, that these circumstances present a concatenation of misunderstandings which are not unlikely to confuse the rather befogged brains of a wayfarer who has so recently returned to the purlieus of civilisation.'
I was beginning to believe that I had brought off the greatest feat which I had ever yet essayed--I had almost persuaded Mary that I wasn't me. She certainly couldn't depose on oath that either voice, manner, or language was her husband's. It was, of course, impossible to convince her altogether; at least, as she stood before me there and then. That I recognised. Complete conviction would require time and--well, we'll say other circumstances. But I had managed to shake her faith--to instil a doubt in her mind as to whether she mightn't, in some altogether incomprehensible way, be wrong. I knew my Mary. She was one of those not infrequent persons who are bewildered by an appearance of calm assurance. You had only to tell her, with an air which suggested that you were stating the merest commonplace, that two and two make five, and if you persisted long enough she'd begin to wonder if the thing could possibly be. When she began to wonder she was lost; at least while the wonder continued. Her mental processes were never clear ones. And the simple explanation of her credulity was that she preferred to distrust her own senses, rather than believe that there was such a liar in existence.
It was a failing on virtue's side, and I loved her for it. I protest it cut me to the quick to play the scoundrel with her on such lines. I'd never done it before, I'd not have done it then had not the situation developed in such unexpected directions that I saw no other way. While her white face, quivering hands, and trembling form were almost tearing me in two--and--hurting me the more because I dare not show it--the situation was fortunately relieved by the advent of Miss Desmond.
All at once she stood in the open doorway, observing the picture we presented.