n.

Now, whether it was the soothing influence of that belief, or whether
Mrs. Nevill Tyson, the mystic of a moment, found help in the gray eyes
of the mother of God when Nevill had pointed out their beauty, pointed
out, too, the paradox of the divine hands pressing the human breasts for
the milk of life, she revived so far as to take, or seem to take, an
interest in her son. She indulged in no ecstasies of maternal passion;
but as she nursed the little creature, her face began to show a serene
half-ruminant, half-spiritual content.

He was very tiny, tinier than any baby she had ever seen, as well he
might be considering that he had come into the world full seven weeks
before his time; his skin was very red; his eyes were very small, but
even they looked too large for his ridiculous face; his fingers were
fine, like little claws; and his hands--she could hardly feel their
feeble kneading of her breast. He was not at all a pretty baby, but he
was very light to hold.

Tyson had not the least objection to Stanistreet or Sir Peter and the
rest of them, they were welcome to stare at his wife as much as they
pleased; but he was insanely jealous of this minute masculine thing that
claimed so much of her attention. He began to have a positive dislike to
seeing her with the child. There was a strain of morbid sensibility in
his nature, and what was beautiful to him in a Botticelli Madonna,
properly painted and framed, was not beautiful--to him--in Mrs. Nevill
Tyson. He had the sentiment of the thing, as I said, but the thing
itself, the flesh and blood of it, was altogether too much for his
fastidious nerves. And yet once or twice he had seen her turn away from
him, clutching hastily at the open bodice of her gown; once she had
started up and left the room when he came into it; and, curious
contradiction that he was, it had hurt him indescribably. He thought he
recognized in these demonstrations a prouder instinct than feminine
false shame. It was as if she had tried to hide from him some sacred
thing--as if she had risen up in her indignation to guard the portals
of her soul. To be sure he was in no mood just then for entering
sanctuaries; but for all that he did not like to have the door slammed
in his face.

Thank heaven, the worst had not happened. The little creature's volatile
beauty fluttered back to her from time to time; there was a purified
transparent quality in it that had been wanting before. It had still the