Sometime after daylight he awoke. Cedric had been wont to lie quietly as long as ever I would do so, but Enid’s baby—for it was Enid’s baby for all our pretending—awoke and played with his fists. Then a fancy that had hovered over me all the night took shape, and I told it to Pelleas.
“Dear,” I said, “you know the things in the bottom drawer in the closet?”
“Yes,” he answered at once, “I have been thinking about them.”
“Suppose,” I suggested, “that we were to—to try some of them on the baby.”
“I have been thinking the same thing,” Pelleas said.
It was not cold in the room, for we had kept the hearth alive all the night. When we were warmly wrapped and had drawn chairs before the fire, Pelleas brought from the closet that box filled with the tender yellow muslins that Cedric had worn such a little time. I chose the white batiste gown that I had made myself, every stitch; and over his little nightgown we put it on Enid’s baby. He was very good, and crowed and nestled; and so we found the long white cloak that I had embroidered and a bonnet that Pelleas had once selected himself, all alone, at a shop. And Enid’s baby’s arm doubled up in a ball when I tried to put it in a sleeve—I suppose that there never was a baby’s arm that did not do this, but I have known only one little arm. And when the pink hand came creeping through the cuff Pelleas caught it and kissed it—O, I had not thought for years how he used to do that.
“Now!” I said, “Pelleas—look now.”
Enid’s baby sat on my knee, his back to us both. The little bent back in that white coat, the soft collar crumpling up about the neck in spite of me, the same little bonnet with the flower in the back and the lace all around—
Pelleas and I looked at each other silently. And not so much in grief as in longing that was like the hope of heaven.
We did not hear Nichola coming with our coffee. So she opened the door and saw the box on the floor and the things scattered all about. She knew what they were. She was with us when little Cedric was here, and she had not forgotten. She stood still, and then set the tray down on the table.