“Are you superstitious?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps, where you are concerned.”
“Don’t be. Superstition seems to me the opposite of belief. Just wait, and remember, I know it will be a boy.”
One evening Dion went to Great Cumberland Place to dine with Bruce Evelin and Beatrice, leaving Rosamund apparently in her usual health. She was going to have “something on a tray” in her sitting-room, and he went in there to say good-by to her just before he started. He found her sitting by the fire, and looking at Hermes and the Child with steady eyes. They were lit up rather faintly by a couple of wax candles placed on the writing-table. The light from these candles and from the fire made a delicate and soothing radiance in the room, which was plainly furnished, and almost somber in color. A very dim and cloudy purple-blue pervaded it, a very beautiful hue, but austere, and somehow suggestive of things ecclesiastical. On a small, black oak table at Rosamund’s elbow two or three books were lying beside a bowl of dim blue glass which had opalescent lights in it. This bowl was nearly full of water upon which a water-lily floated. The fire on the hearth was small, but glowing with red and gold. Dark curtains were drawn across the one window which looked out at the back of the house. It was a frosty night and windless.
Dion stood still for a moment on the threshold of the room after he had opened the door.
“How quiet you are in here!” he said.
“This little room is always quiet.”
“Yes, but to-night it’s like a room to which some one has just said ‘Hush!’”
He came in and shut the door quietly behind him.
“I’ve just a minute.”