“Well, you’ve got your handful.”
“Poor little thing,” said Irene.
She tucked the clothes around her, and, after a few nurse-like touches to the arrangements of the room, took Hugh downstairs. Lunch was ready. They sat down together. Gerard was absent on his fishing visit. They imagined him glowering at the weather through Weston’s dining-room windows.
“What will he say to our little friend upstairs?” asked Hugh, helping himself to claret.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you can’t settle her comfortably for life at a moment’s notice.”
Irene opened her eyes wide.
“Do you mean that he won’t be pleased to have her here? My dear Hugh!”
He smiled inwardly, but prudently changed the topic; enquired as to her discovery of the child. “Why was she herself out in such awful weather?”
“I was taking some trifles to a girl who is ill,” she answered. The rest of her explanation agreed with Hugh’s conjecture. Driving back, she had seen a woman trying to get the child on its feet. She had stopped the cab and swooped off with her prize.