were
his fault that Annette could never bear him a son! His fault! He even
resented her cheap adoration of the daughter he had not yet seen.

Curious how he jibbed away from sight of his wife and child!

One would have thought he must have rushed up at the first moment. On
the contrary, he had a sort of physical shrinking from it--fastidious
possessor that he was. He was afraid of what Annette was thinking of
him, author of her agonies, afraid of the look of the baby, afraid of
showing his disappointment with the present and--the future.

He spent an hour walking up and down the drawing-room before he could
screw his courage up to mount the stairs and knock on the door of their
room.

Madame Lamotte opened it.

"Ah! At last you come! Elle vous attend!" She passed him, and Soames
went in with his noiseless step, his jaw firmly set, his eyes furtive.

Annette was very pale and very pretty lying there. The baby was hidden
away somewhere; he could not see it. He went up to the bed, and with
sudden emotion bent and kissed her forehead.

"Here you are then, Soames," she said. "I am not so bad now. But I
suffered terribly, terribly. I am glad I cannot have any more. Oh! how I
suffered!"

Soames stood silent, stroking her hand; words of endearment, of
sympathy, absolutely would not come; the thought passed through him:
'An English girl wouldn't have said that!' At this moment he knew with
certainty that he would never be near to her in spirit and in truth, nor
she to him. He had collected her--that was all! And Jolyon's words came
rushing into his mind: "I should imagine you will be glad to have your
neck out of chancery." Well, he had got it out! Had he got it in again?

"We must feed you up," he said, "you'll soon be strong."

"Don't you want to see baby, Soames? She is asleep."

"Of course," said Soames, "very much."

He passed round the foot of the bed to the other side and stood staring.
For the first moment what he saw was much what he had expected to see--a
baby. But as he stared and the baby breathed and made little sleeping
movements with its tiny features, it seemed to assume an individual
shape, grew to be like a picture, a thing he would know again; not
repulsive, strangely bud-like and touching. It had dark hair. He touched
it with his finger, he wanted to see its eyes. They opened, they were
dark--whether blue or brown he could not tell. The eyes winked, stared,
they had a sort of sleepy depth in the