'Do you not know me?' he asked. 'Are you not glad to see me?'
Salome stood still and released her child. She was confused; she hardly knew whether she were awake or in the most beautiful, blissful of dreams.
'Well—this is hardly the—the—Salome. Do you not know me?'
'Oh, Philip!' she gasped, 'is it really you? And you have brought me my baby! Oh! how good, how kind!' and she fell to kissing and hugging her baby again.
Then Philip, finding himself put completely in the background, condemned to a subsidiary part to that played by Philip the Little, was offended, and said with a slight tone of acerbity: 'My dear Salome, be decorous. Give up Phil now to the nurse, a Swiss young person, and come, take my arm.'
'Philip,' said Salome, 'Oh, Philip, how good! how very dear of you!'
He felt her heart beating wildly against his arm, as she clung to him, at his side. Then she began to sob. 'It is too great happiness. My darling! My darling pet! and looking so well too.'
'You mean the baby?'
'Yes, of course, Philip.'
She put her hand in her pocket, drew out her 'kerchief and wiped her eyes.