Perhaps her happiest hours, after Mollie left her, were spent in the Hillside nursery, playing with her baby-nephew. Geraldine noticed with secret satisfaction that her boy was becoming an engrossing interest to his young aunt.
'I am sure he knows you, Audrey,' she would say. 'Look how he stretches out his dear little arms and coos to you to take him! Go to Aunt Audrey, my precious!' and Geraldine would place him in her sister's arms as though she loved to see them together.
Geraldine had certain fine instincts of her own. Her womanly intuition told her that nothing could be more healing than the touch of those baby fingers. When Audrey sat down opposite to her, with her nephew sprawling on her lap, and kicking up his pink toes in a baby's aimless fashion, her face always looked happier, and a more contented look came into her eyes.
'You are very like your mother, Leonard,' she would say to him: 'but I do not believe that you will ever be as handsome.'
Baby's gurgling answer was no doubt rich with infantile wisdom, if he could only have couched it in mortal language. But, all the same, he was fulfilling his mission. Audrey felt somehow as though things must come right some day when baby gripped her finger and held it fast, or else tangled her hair. 'You are a happy woman, Gage,' she said one day; but she was a little sorry that she made the remark when Geraldine got up quickly and kissed her, with tears in her eyes.
'You will be happy, too, some day, my darling,' she said very tenderly. But to this Audrey made no reply.
Mollie was faithful to her compact, and did not write for three whole weeks. The school had reassembled by that time, and a tall, pale young man with spectacles filled Cyril's place at table. Audrey took very little notice of him. When Michael was there, she talked to him; but she found any conversation with the new-comer almost impossible.
'It hurts me to see him there,' she said once to her mother, and her lip quivered as she spoke. And of course her mother understood her.
'Yes, dear, it is very hard; your father was only saying so last night. I think he notices how silent you are at luncheon. Mr. Gisbourne is certainly not prepossessing—not like our dear Cyril; but your father says he is an excellent fellow.'
'I think I shall change my place at table, mother. I shall sit between you and father. That is, if you do not mind,' she added, with ready courtesy.