in its face.

"I'm glad I came," she said. "Because now I can see you."

He misunderstood. "I hope you will, Winky--very often."

"I mean--see you when you're not there."

He looked away. Something in her voice moved him unspeakably. For one
moment he saw into the heart of her--placid, profound, and pure.

He was going down the Avenue with her now. For in that moment he had
felt the beauty of her and the sadness. He couldn't bear to think of her
"seeing herself home," going back alone to that little room in St. Ann's
Terrace, where some day, when Maudie married, she would be left alone.
The least he could do was to walk with her a little way.

"I say, Win," he said, presently, "why ever haven't you come before?" He
really wondered.

There was a long silence. Then, "I don't know, Ranny," she said, simply.

They had come to the end of Acacia Avenue before either of them spoke
again. Then Ranny conceived something brilliant.

"What did you think of the Baby?" he said.

She fairly shone at him, and at the same time she was earnest and very
grave.

"Oh, Ranny," she said, "it's the most beautiful baby that ever
was--Isn't it?"

Ranny smiled superbly.

"They tell me so; but I dunno. _Is_ it?"

"Of course it is."

She had turned, parting from him at last, and she flung that at him as
she walked backward, smiling in his face.

"Well--I must be going back to Vi," he said.

And he went back.

CHAPTER XVII

In April Ransome looked confidently for Violet to "settle down." Mrs.
Usher had assured him again and again that the next month would bring
the blessed change.

"She'll be all right," said Mrs. Usher, "when the nurse goes and she has
you and Baby to herself."

And at first it seemed as though Violet's mother knew what she was
talking about.

April put an end to their separation. April, like a second honeymoon,
made them again bride and bridegroom to each other. Nature, whom Ranny
had blasphemed and upbraided, triumphed and was justified in Violet's
beauty, that bloomed again and yet was changed to something almost fine,
almost clear; as if its coarse strain had been purged from it by
maternity. Something fine and clear in Ranny responded to the change.

And, as in their first honeymoon, Violet's irritation ceased. She was
sullen-sweet, with a kind of brooding magic in her ways. She drew him
with eyes whose glamour was tenderness under lowering brows; she bound
him with arms that, for all th