Stanley who was in the thick of the danger. Her whole time
was spent in rescuing him, and restoring him, and calming him down, and
listening to his story. And what was left of her time was spent in the
dread of having children.

Linda frowned; she sat up quickly in her steamer chair and clasped her
ankles. Yes, that was her real grudge against life; that was what she
could not understand. That was the question she asked and asked, and
listened in vain for the answer. It was all very well to say it was
the common lot of women to bear children. It wasn't true. She, for one,
could prove that wrong. She was broken, made weak, her courage was gone,
through child-bearing. And what made it doubly hard to bear was, she did
not love her children. It was useless pretending. Even if she had had
the strength she never would have nursed and played with the little
girls. No, it was as though a cold breath had chilled her through and
through on each of those awful journeys; she had no warmth left to give
them. As to the boy--well, thank Heaven, mother had taken him; he was
mother's, or Beryl's, or anybody's who wanted him. She had hardly
held him in her arms. She was so indifferent about him that as he lay
there... Linda glanced down.

The boy had turned over. He lay facing her, and he was no longer asleep.
His dark-blue, baby eyes were open; he looked as though he was peeping
at his mother. And suddenly his face dimpled; it broke into a wide,
toothless smile, a perfect beam, no less.

"I'm here!" that happy smile seemed to say. "Why don't you like me?"

There was something so quaint, so unexpected about that smile that Linda
smiled herself. But she checked herself and said to the boy coldly, "I
don't like babies."

"Don't like babies?" The boy couldn't believe her. "Don't like me?" He
waved his arms foolishly at his mother.

Linda dropped off her chair on to the grass.

"Why do you keep on smiling?" she said severely. "If you knew what I was
thinking about, you wouldn't."

But he only squeezed up his eyes, slyly, and rolled his head on the
pillow. He didn't believe a word she said.

"We know all about that!" smiled the boy.

Linda was so astonished at the confidence of this little creature... Ah
no, be sincere. That was not what she felt; it was something far
different, it was something so new, so... The tears danced in her eyes;
she breathed in a small whisper to the boy, "Hallo, my funny!"

But by now the boy had forgo