r twice, and then
Rose said, "Oh, kiss poor Rose"; and when he got to Rose he flung his
arms around her neck, too, and kissed her, once only. That was the
distinction that he made. And as he ran he laughed, he laughed as if
love were the biggest joke in all the world.

Tanqueray stood still in the doorway and watched, as he had stood once
in the doorway of the house in Bloomsbury, watching Rose. Now he was
watching Jinny. He thought he had never seen her look so divinely happy.
He watched Brodrick's son and thought distastefully that when Brodrick
was a baby he must have looked just like that.

And the little Brodrick ran to and fro, from Jinny to Rose and from Rose
to Jinny, passionately, monotonously busy, with always the same
rapturous embrace from Brodrick's wife and always the same cry from
Tanqueray's, "Kiss poor Rose!"

When Jane turned to greet Tanqueray, the baby clung to her gown. His
mouth drooped as he realized that it was no longer possible to reach her
face. Identifying Tanqueray as the cause of her remoteness, he stamped a
baby foot at him; he distorted his features and set up a riotous howl.
Rose reiterated her sad cry as a charm to distract him. She pretended to
cry too, because the baby wouldn't look at her. He wouldn't look at
anybody till his mother took him in her arms and kissed him. Then, with
his round face still flushing under his tears, he smiled at Tanqueray, a
smile of superhuman forgiveness and reconciliation.

Rose gazed at them in a rapture.

"Well," said she, "how you can keep orf kissin' 'im----"

"I can keep off kissing anything," said he.

Jane asked if he would ring for the nurse to take the baby.

Tanqueray was glad when he went. It had just dawned on him that he
didn't like to see Jinny with a baby; he didn't like to see her
preoccupied with Brodrick's son, adoring, positively adoring, and
caressing Brodrick's son.

At the same time it struck him that it was a pity that Rose had never
had a baby; but he didn't carry the thought far enough to reflect that
Rose's baby would be his son. He wondered if he could persuade Jinny to
send the baby home and stay for dinner.

He apologized for not having been there to receive her. Jane replied
that Rose had entertained her.

"You mean that you were entertaining Rose?"

"We were entertaining each other."

"And now you've got to entertain me."

She was going to when Rose interrupted (her mind was still running on
the baby).