“I dropped in at the front to see you,” he said, with a bow. “They told me you were out here.” His eyes fell on the child, and a strange flare of inexpressible tenderness lighted his lack-lustre eyes as he drew a chair forward and sat down.
“Yes, I like it here,” she intoned, and her voice, in her own ears, sounded far off, and as if it had taken on the timbre of a new and exalted existence. She half feared that Galt would note it.
“You seem happy,” he said, thoughtfully, “and that is a condition that is most rare with humankind. I certainly envy a happy individual.”
“Yes, I am very happy,” she said—“more so than I ever was in my life before.”
“I certainly envy you,” he repeated, gloomily. “I have given up all hope of even touching the hem of the good dame's garment.” The boy had gone to him, and stood with his little hand on his father's knee, looking with trustful adoration into the dark, saturnine face above him. Something in the child's profile, now that Margaret held the glass of revelation to her eyes, showed kinship to its paternal prototype, and a dazzling dart of conviction flashed through her. At that instant she had a motherly instinct to draw the child from the contaminating touch of the man who had disowned it. His attitude of denial was a desecration to the holiness of parenthood, and in her soul she resented it.
“Come to me, Lionel,” she said, gently. “I want you to kiss me. Won't you, just once?”
The child stared as if scarcely believing that he had heard aright.
“What did you say, lady?” he asked, as he lingered hesitatingly.
She repeated her words more tenderly than before, and there was a mist before her sight as he came toward her.
“Do you like me now?” he asked, wonderingly. “Yes, and love you very, very much,” she answered, huskily.