An inarticulate reply came up from the old man, and the next moment Mostyn heard Irene ascending the stairs. The door of her room opened and shut. Mostyn distinctly heard the turning of the key. He looked at his watch. It was half past eight. He would have to hurry to catch a car. He went back to the bureau.
At this instant something happened. Hearing a low sound and looking in the glass, he saw a little white-robed figure creeping stealthily across the floor to his bed. He pretended not to see, and watched Dick as he softly crept between the sheets. Turning round, he caught the boy's sheepish stare, which suddenly became a look of grim, even defiant, determination.
"Why did you come, Dick?" he asked, and as he spoke he crept toward the bed like a man in a dream drawn to some ravishing delight. He sat down on the edge of the bed. He caught the child's little hand in his own. The nerves of his whole yearning soul seemed centered in his fingers.
"Daddy"—the boy hesitated; his words hung as if entangled in a fear of refusal—"let me stay in your bed till you come home. I am not afraid. I don't want to sleep in there with Hilda. I don't like her."
Till he came home! The words seemed to sink into and surge back from the core of his accumulated remorse. Till he came home, perhaps near dawn, reeking with the odor of licentiousness—the very licentiousness he was praying that his child might not be drawn into.
He put his hand on the little brow. He bent and kissed it. He felt his resistance falling away from him like the severed thongs of a prisoner. A force was entering him which mere flesh could not combat. He slid his hand under the child to raise him up, and felt the little body bound in surprised delight toward him. He pressed the soft form to his breast. He felt the keen pain of restrained emotion within him.
Taking the boy in his arms, he sat down in a rocking-chair, holding him as a mother might an adored infant. "Do you want Daddy to rock you to sleep?" he asked.
"Oh, will you, Daddy, will you?"
"Yes." Mostyn stroked the soft cool legs caressingly and pressed the child's brow against his cheek. The boy was quiet for a moment; then his father felt him stir uneasily.
"What is it now?" he inquired.