r with a certain eagerness. "Maud, I could have loved
you like that--once."

She shook her head and her smile was sad. "No, my dear, believe me! I
couldn't have inspired it in you. I was too selfish myself in those days.
Some other woman will teach you that now."

"I wonder," said Charles Rex, half-mocking and half-touched.

She slipped her hand through his arm, turning from the subject with a
faint sigh. "Well, come and see the baby! He's very lovely."

"From your point of view or Jake's?" questioned Saltash.

She laughed. "From mine of course. He is going to be just like Jake."

"Heavens above! I pity you!" ejaculated Saltash. "You'll never cope with
two of 'em! They'll crush you flat."

She drew him from the terrace into the quiet house. "Don't be absurd,
Charlie! This boy of ours is to be the prop of our old age."

He went with her jesting, but when they entered the silent nursery in
which the two youngest children lay sleeping, his trifling ceased and he
trod with reverence.

They stood together in the dim light beside the baby's cot, and Saltash
looked down upon the flushed baby face with a faintly rueful smile upon
his own.

"There is something in being married and done for after all," he said.

Over the old baby, Betty, now two years old, he stooped and lightly
touched the fair silken hair, but he did not kiss her though the child
was sleeping deeply.

Later he went alone into the adjoining room where slept the two elder
children, Eileen aged five, and Molly who was not yet four. Maud did not
follow him, and presently he came back, treading softly, the flickering
night-light throwing odd shadows on his ugly face, and they left the room
together.

In the passage he turned to her abruptly. "Then I may send that child to
you tomorrow?" he said.

"Why not bring her?" said Maud smiling.

He shook his head. "No. I'll come over one day--on Sunday perhaps--and
see you all again. I won't--handicap her--by bringing her."

She understood him, and gave him her hand, but the fervour with which he
received and kissed it surprised her into drawing it away more quickly
than she had intended.

He laughed at the action. "I am only saluting motherhood," he explained.

But she shook her head and passed on. There were moments when even she
who knew him so well was not wholly sure of him.

They descended again and Saltash turned towards the drawing-room.

"Let's have some music!" he said, and dropped down befo