"She would rather be with you than with me," she remarked, however.
"I wonder at her bad taste!" said Basil. But he turned his face to the baby, and laid it gently against her soft cheek.
"It is because you are stronger," Diana went in.
"Is it?"
"That is one thing. You may notice children always like strong arms."
"Her mother's arms are not weak."
"No—but I am not so strong as you, Basil, bodily or mentally. And I think that is more yet—mental strength, I mean. Children recognise that, and love to rest on it."
"You do not think such discrimination is confined to children?" said Basil, with a dry, quiet humourousness at which Diana could not help smiling, though she felt quite as much like a very different demonstration. She watched the two, as Basil walked on to his study-table and sat down, with the child on his knee; she saw the upturned eye of love with which the little one regarded him as he did this, and then how, with a long breath of satisfaction, she settled herself in her place, smoothed down her frock, and laid the little hands contentedly together in her lap. Basil drew his portfolio towards him and began to write a letter. Diana went to her work again in the window, feeling restless. She felt she must say something more, and in a different key, and as she worked she watched the two at the table. This was not the way things ought to be. Her husband must be told at least something of the change that had taken place in her; he ought to know that she was no longer miserable; he would be glad to know that. Diana thought he might have seen it without her telling; but if he did not, then she must speak. He had a right to so much comfort as she could give him, and he ought to be told that she was not now wishing to be in another presence and society than his. If she could tell him without his thinking too much—she watched till the letter was written and he was folding it up. And then Diana's tongue hesitated unaccountably.
"Basil," she began, obliging herself to speak,—"I can smell the roses again."
He looked up instantly with keen eyes.