ch taken up with the
baby. When she mentioned it to Henry he replied gravely that it was
physical. It would pass.

And yet it did not pass.

The crisis came in May of nineteen-six, when the baby was seven months
old. It all turned on the baby.

Every morning about nine o'clock, now that summer was come, you found
him in the garden, in his perambulator, barefooted and bareheaded,
taking the air before the sun had power. Every morning his nurse brought
him to his mother to be made much of; at nine when he went out, and at
eleven when he came in, full of sleep. In and out he went through the
French window of Jane's study, which opened straight on to the garden.
He was wheeled processionally up and down, up and down the gravel walk
outside it, or had his divine seat under the lime-tree on the lawn.
Always he was within sight of Jane's windows.

One Sunday morning (it was early, and he had not been out for five
minutes, poor lamb) Jane called to the nurse to take him away out of her
sight.

"Take him away," she said. "Take him down to the bottom of the garden,
where I can't see him."

Brodrick heard her. He was standing on the gravel path, contemplating
his son. It was his great merit that at these moments, and in the
presence of other people, he betrayed no fatuous emotion. And now his
face, fixed on the adorable infant, was destitute of all expression. At
Jane's cry it flushed heavily.

The flush was the only sign he gave that he had heard her. Without a
word he turned and followed, thoughtfully, the windings of the exiled
perambulator. From her place at the writing-table where she sat
tormented, Jane watched them go.

Ten minutes later Brodrick appeared at the window. He was about to
enter.

"Oh, no, no!" she cried. "_Not_ you!"

He entered.

"Jinny," he said gently, "what's the matter with you?"

His voice made her weak and tender.

"I want to write a book," she said. "Such a pretty book."

"It's that, is it?"

He sighed and stood contemplating her in ponderous thought.

Jane took up some pens and played with them.

"I can't write if you look at me like that," she said.

"I won't look at you; but I'm going to talk to you."

He sat down. She saw with terror his hostility to the thing she was
about to do.

"Talking's no good," she said. "It's got to be done."

"I don't see the necessity."

"It's not one of those things that can be seen."

"No. But look here----" He was very gentle and forbea