the Levines in St. John's Wood, there was now an incessant
converging upon Brodrick's house. The women took an unwearying and
unwandering interest in Hugh's amazing son. (It was a girl they had
expected.) First thing in the morning, or at noon, or in the early
evening at his bed-time, John's wife, Mabel, came with her red-eyed,
sad-hearted worship. Winny Heron hung about him and Jane for ever. Jane
discovered in Sophy and in Frances an undercurrent of positive affection
that set from her child to her.

John Brodrick regarded her with solemn but tender approval, and Henry
(who might have owed her a grudge for upsetting his verdict), Henry
loved her even more than he approved. She had performed her part beyond
all hope; she linked the generations; she was wedded and made one with
the solidarity of the Brodricks.

Jane with a baby was a mystery and a marvel to herself. She spent days
in worshipping the small divinity of his person, and in the
contemplation of his heartrending human attributes. She doubted if there
were any delirium of the senses to compare with the touch of her hands
upon his body, or of his fingers on her breast. She fretted herself to
fever at his untimely weaning. She ached with longing for the work of
his hands upon her, for the wonder of his eyes, opening at her for a
moment, bright and small, over the white rim of her breast.

In his presence there perished in her all consciousness of time. Time
was nothing to him. He laid his diminutive hands upon the hours and
destroyed them for his play.

You would have said that time was no more to Jane than it was to the
baby. For six months she watched with indifference the slaughter and
ruin of the perfect hours. For six months she remained untormented by
the desire to write. Brodrick looked upon her as a woman made perfect,
wholly satisfied and appeased.

At the end of six months she was attacked by a mysterious restlessness
and fatigue. Brodrick, at Henry's suggestion, took her to the seaside.
They were away six weeks.

She came back declaring herself strong.

But there was something about her that Henry did not like. She was if
anything more restless; unnaturally (he said) abstracted when you spoke
to her; hardly aware of you at times. John had noticed that, too, and
had not liked it. They had all noticed it. They were afraid it must be
worrying Hugh. She seemed, Sophy said, to be letting things go all
round. Frances thought she was not nearly so mu