Paul had been in a joyous mood; had caught Anthony Ditchburn by the shoulders, and had pushed him into the room, and laughingly suggested a toasting of the baby. Anthony had not objected to the toasting, but he strongly objected to the baby.
"She's mine!" Old Paul had whispered exultantly. "There isn't a soul can claim her, Anthony; she's going to grow up with me, and by God!"—the joyous voice was lowered to seriousness—"she shall have a better childhood and a sweeter womanhood than her mother ever knew."
"You don't know what you're doing," Anthony had snapped. "Boys are bad enough—but a girl! They grow up; they put on airs with their frocks—and silly ways as their skirts grow longer. I know 'em!—and there's trouble brewing for you if you keep the child here. Rank sentiment and moonshine; she'll grow up to laugh at you, and to go out into the world for the first lad that holds up a finger to her. Send her packing in the morning; if you must look after her, find a good, hard boarding school."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Paul had replied with unexpected harshness. "This baby is more to me than anyone else could be, Anthony Ditchburn; with her tiny fingers she writes for me the book of life as I have known it; lisps out to me with her baby-lips all that life has spelled for me; tells over again, with the sweet eyes of her, a story I have tried to forget, and yet have been glad to remember. The child stays."
"Then it'll be damned uncomfortable!" Ditchburn had exclaimed in a heat.
"If it rests between you and the child, Anthony Ditchburn," Old Paul had said gravely, "there are other places where you can find opportunity for work and for thought." Which showed Anthony Ditchburn that it would be well to be silent.
But if these were his feelings on the arrival of Moira, what must have been his thoughts when Jimmy came into the house—and when Alice followed. The man for a time regarded himself as being in a state of siege; dared not move about the house, lest he might stumble upon some objectionable child. At meal times he grunted and ate in silence, while the merry talk went on at the other end of the table; he smoked many pipes, and determined that in the monumental work he would contrive to introduce a chapter dealing with a Rational Upbringing of Children; a chapter which should throw a new light upon a very much misunderstood subject.
Old Paul was a lover of peace; he would have been glad to bring Anthony Ditchburn to a better understanding of the children—to have welded together those warring elements. Knowing Ditchburn for a man of learning, it had occurred to him, as time went on, that the old man might do something towards the education of Moira and the others. Not that it occurred for a moment to the generous mind of Paul that in that way Anthony Ditchburn might work off a great debt; he would have blushed at the thought. But to Anthony himself the suggestion savoured of that, and he resented it hotly.
"You are evidently unaware, my dear Nannock," he said, "of the position I once occupied in the world, before I decided, for that world's service, to write my present treatise. Shall I, who have touched the highest in matters of learning, descend to teach babies the alphabet and the rule of three? Shall I, who have been regarded with veneration by men whose names (through their arts of self-advertisement) are known to the world, stoop to teach boys and girls their tables?"
"It occurred to me that you might care to help me in the matter," Paul had suggested humbly. "Of course, I can guess how great your attainments must have been, before you consented to come down here and to bury yourself; but the children want teaching something."