2
I had not intended to come into The Sanctuary, but O’Rane insisted that Sonia would be disappointed if I turned back at the door. We found her in the nursery, playing with her elder boy, while the baby was packed protesting to bed in the next room. I had not often been privileged to catch Sonia in a domestic attitude and was ill-prepared for her efficiency. This child in her lap was a beautiful creature, in radiant health and exuberant spirits, with his mother’s brown hair and eyes. There was a lusty crow of delight when O’Rane came into the room; and, as I shook hands with Sonia, the child demanded shrilly that the interrupted tale of the day before should be resumed.
“Will you say good-night to David junior?,” she asked me, as Daniel surrendered to the spell of O’Rane’s story.
“If he’s not asleep,” I said; and she conducted me into the presence of a wide-awake and fierce Japanese doll, who gripped two of my fingers and demanded truculently what I was doing in his nursery.
At three years old, the child had his father’s flashing black eyes and imperious manner. Sonia added that he had also more than his father’s indomitable obstinacy.
“Is he equally fearless?,” I asked.
For answer she pointed from a green bruise on the child’s forehead to a padlocked grille over the window:
“David had a fire-escape fitted the other day. He went down it himself just to learn the way; and this infant must needs follow. He’d never been on a ladder in his life, but he climbed cheerfully out of the window . . .”
“Trusting to the special providence that looks after all O’Ranes,” I put in.
“By the mercy of heaven a policeman caught him; but if he behaves like that now . . .”