He looked up with the adorably abashed expression that I love to bring to his eyes.
“They keep its attention,” he murmured apologetically, “nothing else would. I think it’s hungry.”
“‘It’!” I cried scornfully; “why, it’s a boy.”
“Ah, well now,” Pelleas argued placidly, “you said ‘It’s a boy.’ And I said, ‘It’s hungry.’ What’s the difference?”
And to this there was really no response.
The baby’s disturbed babbling waxed to a steady fretting which increased in volume and violence. Hungry he undoubtedly was.
I remembered that Enid’s black bag lay on the bench in the hall. I hurried to it, and there was the baby’s empty bottle. When I came back, though Pelleas was lighting matches at a furious rate, the baby was crying at the top of his small strength.
“He’ll disturb Enid,” I said. “Pelleas,” I added, as one proposing revolutions, “we must take the baby down to the kitchen and feed him.”
You to whom such sweet offices are the joy—or the burden!—of every day, what can you know of the thrill of that moment to one whose arms have been empty for so long? I protest that holding the keys to The Hague and all Europe and the other continents is not to be compared to the radiant responsibility of that moment.
Pelleas promptly stood up and extended his arms.