Chapter VI: Part 6

The baby seized a spoon and rapped gleefully on the table.

"Isn't he cunning!" I cried, delightedly. "He's happy now, isn't he? I am inclined to think, Tom, that he'd rather have a nap than a rabbit."

"Not on your life!" came a deep, gruff voice from nowhere in particular. I looked at Tom in amazement, thinking that he had playfully disguised his tones and was poking fun at me and the baby. But Tom's expression of wonderment was as genuine as my own, while the nurse was gazing over her shoulder at the butler, who was eying us all in a bewildered way. Tom glanced at the nurse.

"Leave the room, James," he said hotly. "I'll see you later in the smoking-room." Then, to the nurse: "Remove the baby, will you, please? Thank you for letting us have him for an hour."

As soon as we were alone in the dining-room, Tom leaned toward me and said: "Shall I discharge James, my dear? He was most infernally impudent, to put it mildly."

But the frightful certainty had come to me that the butler was innocent of any wrong-doing. Absurd as the bald statement of fact seemed to be, my first husband was the guilty man, and, struggle as I might against the conviction, I knew it.

"Give him another chance, Tom." I managed to say, my voice unsteady and my tongue parched. "James was not quite himself, I imagine. I'm not well, Tom. Give me a swallow of cognac, will you, please?"

Tom, alarmed at my voice and face, hastily handed me a stimulant, and presently I felt my courage and my color coming back to me.

*CHAPTER IV.*

*NURSERY CONFESSIONS.*

The priceless sight
Springs to its curious organ, and the ear
Learns strangely to detect the articulate air
In its unseen divisions, and the tongue
Gets its miraculous lesson with the rest.
--_N. P. Willis_.

I longed, yet dreaded, to have an hour alone with the baby. I could no longer doubt that, through some psychical mischance, Jack's soul had found a lodgment in a family hospitable by habit and inclination, but not accustomed to disquieting intrusions. It was thus that I put the matter to myself, as I sat alone in my boudoir after luncheon, having dismissed Marie, my maid, with a message to Horatio's nurse; and the conventional make-up of my thought revealed to me, in a flash of insight, the materialistic tendencies of my mental methods. Metempsychosis had never assumed to my mind the dignity of even a philosophical working hypothesis. Much less had the idea ever come to me that reincarnation actually furnished a process through which the physical laws of evolution and the conservation of energy might find a psychical demonstration.

My natural inclination to take the world as I found it, and to leave the inner mysteries of life to profounder minds than mine, had been intensified by my association with Tom, a disciple of Haeckel, Buechner and other extremists of the materialistic school. I had come to admire Tom's intellectuality and to find satisfaction in the fact that his fondness for scientific studies would strengthen him to resist the temptations that surrounded him to become a mere man of leisure and luxury. Possessed of great wealth and without a profession, it was fortunate for Tom that he had found in scientific research an outlet for his superabundant energies. He had begun to make a reputation for himself as a clear-headed, well-balanced evolutionist, both conservative in method and progressive in spirit, and at our table could be found at times the leading scientific minds of New York. And now, into our little stronghold of enlightened materialism had been dropped a miraculous mystery, or mysterious miracle, that had overthrown all my preconceived ideas of the universe and opened before me a limitless field of groping conjecture. I realized, with due gratitude to fate, that if I had been born with an imaginative, poetical temperament my present predicament would have driven me insane at the outset. Fortunately for everybody concerned, I am a woman who rebounds quickly from the severest nervous shock, and I have taken a great deal of pride in retaining my mental poise in crises of my life that would have made hysteria excusable.

Nevertheless, it was a severe test of my nervous strength to hold Horatio in my arms at four o'clock that afternoon and watch his nurse donning her coat and hat preparatory to a short ride with Marie. I had carefully planned this opportunity for an uninterrupted hour with the baby, but now that it lay just before me I longed to run away from it. The nursery had become to me a temple of mysteries within which I felt chilled and awe-stricken, a victim of supernatural forces against which I was both rebellious and powerless.

After the nurse had left the room I seated myself in a rocking-chair, cuddling Horatio in my arms and softly humming a lullaby, attempting to deceive myself by the thought that I really wished him to sleep for an hour. In my innermost consciousness lay the conviction that I had actually come to the nursery for a heart-to-heart talk with Jack. My deepest desire was to be quickly gratified. A gruff whisper came to me presently from his pretty lips.

"Stop that 'bye-bye, baby,' will you, Clarissa?" he said, petulantly. "Haven't I had enough annoyance for one day?"

"Hush! hush!" I murmured, rocking frantically in the effort to put the child to sleep, despite my realization of the utter inconsistency of my action.

"Don't! don't!" growled the baby. "Do you want me to have _mal-de-mer_, Clarissa? I can't be responsible for what may happen. Where did everybody get the notion that a baby must be shaken after taking? It's getting to be an unbearable nuisance, Clarissa."

"Is that better, Jack?" I whispered, holding him upright on my knees and peering down into his disturbed face, puckered into a little knot, as if he were about to cry aloud.

"Thank you," he muttered, gratefully. "Under the circumstances, my dear, perhaps it's well that I didn't get that Welsh rabbit. But, frankly, I was bitterly disappointed at the moment."

"What can you expect, Jack?" I asked, argumentatively, again astonished at the matter-of-fact way in which I was handling this astounding crisis. "You seem to have a man's appetite but only a baby's digestive apparatus."

"That's my punishment, Clarissa," he explained, in awe-struck tones. "In the former cycle I ate too many rabbits. That was scored against me, under the general head of 'Gluttony,' and the sub-title 'Midnight Unnecessaries.' I'm up against it, Clarissa. I wouldn't complain if it were merely a question of not getting what I want. But it's getting what I don't want that jars me. You understand, of course, my dear, that, generally speaking, I refer to milk. Isn't there something in its place that you could persuade the nurse to give me? Don't babies get--er--malt extract, for instance?"

"I'll do what I can for you, Jack." I said, suddenly struck by a brilliant idea. "But I must make a condition, and you must make me a promise."

"I'd promise you anything for a change of diet," muttered Jack, kicking vigorously with his tiny legs and waving his fat fists in the air.

"If you'll swear to me, Jack, never to speak aloud again unless you and I are alone together, I'll agree to make every effort in my power to add to your physical comforts."

"Comforts be--blowed!" exclaimed the baby, crossly. "What I want are a few luxuries. And, furthermore, my dear, I'm getting very weary of that machine-made nurse. She's narrow, Clarissa. I don't wish to speak harshly about a woman whose heart seems to be in the right place, but you must get rid of her, if you care a continental rap about your little baby. You'll have to fill her place, Clarissa, with somebody more broad-minded and up-to-date. She bores me to death."

"You don't mean that you've been talking to her, Jack?" I cried, horrified.

"That's not necessary," growled the child. "What with her ''ittle baby go to seepy,' and 'now, Horatio, 'oo dear 'ittle pet lambie,' she freezes the words upon my tongue. Another thing, Clarissa, that you can't fully understand--I'm not permitted, through psychological conditions that you cannot grasp, to talk to anybody but you. It will relieve your mind to know that I'm as dumb as a--as a real baby when you're not within hearing."

"I'm so glad of that, Jack," I exclaimed, impulsively. "From things you've said before, I had obtained a different impression."

"I was only trying to scare you, Clarissa," remarked Jack, mischievously. "But I've told you the truth at last. By the way, what a stupendous idiot Tom Minturn is! How in the world did you happen to marry him?"

"Jack," I cried, angrily, "I am amazed at your lack of good taste. You are hardly in a position to do Tom justice. Unless you refrain from making such brutal remarks in the future, I shall leave you entirely to the care of the nurse."

"And be accused of neglecting your only child," suggested the baby, slyly.

I had not grasped the full scope of this clever remark, before I was startled by a quick step in the hallway, the throwing open of the door, and the sound of Tom's voice, crying:

"Oh, here you are! I've found you at last, have I? What a pretty picture you make, Clare, there in the half-lights with the baby on your knees. How is the dear little chap? Poor fellow, he must have thought that his dismissal from the luncheon-table was rather abrupt."

"What an ass he is!" whispered Jack, under his breath. Then he began to cry lustily, as had been his custom whenever Tom had deigned to enter the nursery.

*CHAPTER V.*

*A SPOILED CHILD.*

Yes, 'tis my dire misfortune now
To hang between two ties,
To hold within my furrowed brow
The earth's clay, and the skies.
--_Victor Hugo_.

Tom had come to the nursery in high spirits and with the best possible intention. Freed from the depressing presence of the nurse and butler he had argued, I felt sure, that now was the time for a frolic with the baby that should put their relations upon a smoother footing. He had said to me, more than once, that little Horatio's apparent prejudice against him was due to the fact that hirelings were always coming between children and parents in these latter days.

The baby's voice, however, was still for war. I did not dare to trot him upon my knees, knowing his prejudice against a shaking, so I sat there gazing up at Tom's smiling face in perplexity and holding my first husband, now howling lustily, firmly upright on my lap.

"Let me take him, my dear," suggested Tom, with what struck me as rather artificial enthusiasm. "I'll walk with him awhile. It may quiet him."

To my astonishment, the baby stopped crying at once, as Tom bent down and clasped him, rather awkwardly, in his arms. Hope began to dance merrily in my heart, and I laughed aloud. It was a sight to bring smiles to the saddest face. Tom paced up and down the nursery, sedately, furtively watching Jack, as he nestled against his shoulder, making no sound and apparently contented for the moment with the situation. But a sudden fear fell upon me. The thought that this might be the calm before the storm flashed through my mind, and the lightning of premonition was almost instantly followed by the thunder of fulfilment.

"What the dickens!" cried Tom, in anger and amazement. Jack, having deftly hurled Tom's eyeglasses to the floor, had begun to pummel his nose with one hand while he pulled his hair with the other, making strange, guttural sounds the while that were unlike anything that had ever issued from his baby throat before.

"Take him away, will you, Clare?" implored Tom, wildly. "He's the worst that ever happened. What's the matter with him?"

"Perhaps he's sleepy, Tom," I suggested, uncertain whether I should laugh or weep, as I removed the baby from my second husband's arms. "What a bad little boy you have been, Horatio!" I managed to say, chidingly, wondering if nature had not designed me for an actress.

"He ought to be spanked," growled Tom, bending to the floor to grope for his eye-glasses in the twilight.

"Spanked, eh?" whispered the baby, close to my ear. "We'll see about that. I've got it in for him, all right. Just wait!"

"Hush! hush!" I implored him, hurrying back to the rocking-chair, to get as far away from Tom as possible.

"What an infernal temper the boy has," remarked the latter, standing erect again and replacing his eye-glasses upon his nose. "I'm afraid my visit to the nursery has not been a success, Clare," he added, as he stalked to the doorway, evidently sorely hurt at heart.

When we were alone together again, I planted the baby firmly on my knees and bent down till I could look straight into his tear-stained eyes.

"You are very unkind, Jack," I said to him, earnestly. "Have you ever paused to consider what are you here for? Of course, I'm a convert to the theory of reincarnation. You're sufficient proof of its truth. As I understand it, it is incumbent upon you to lead a better life this time than you led before. Frankly, Jack, you aren't beginning well."

"I realize that, Clarissa," said the baby, repentantly. "If I don't brace up, I'll make a terrible mess of it, and my next birth'll be sure to jar me. Maybe I'll be doomed to show up in Brooklyn--or even Hoboken. If you care anything about my--ah--psychical future, my dear, you'll keep Tom Minturn away from me. He's so confoundedly patronizing! He's actually insufferable, my dear. Did you hear him quoting Herbert Spencer at the table, gazing at me all the while as if I were some kind of a germ that might develop in time? And the funny part of it is, Clarissa, that I am a sage, and he's nothing but a misguided ignoramus."

"But Tom has the reputation of being quite learned, Jack," I protested. "He's an active member of the Darwin Society, and has just been elected to the Association for the Promulgation of the Doctrine of Evolution."

"'And the dead, steered by the dumb, moved upward with the flood,'" quoted the baby, somewhat irrelevantly, I thought. "They are blind leaders of the blind, Clarissa. I could tell Tom in a minute more than he'll ever know if he always clings to the idea that the universe is a machine that was made by chance and is run by luck. But I sha'n't take the trouble to give him the tip. He'll know a thing or two some day. Meanwhile, my dear, you'd better keep him away from me. If worse comes to the worst you might send me to some institution. I realize, bitterly enough, that I'll be an awful nuisance to you if you keep me here."

I felt the tears coming into my eyes, and impulsively I drew the baby closer to me. I was in the most deplorable predicament that my imagination could conceive, torn by conflicting emotions and horrified by the awful possibilities presented to me by the immediate future. If Tom, through Jack's hot temper, should discover the truth, and be forced suddenly to abandon materialism by coming face to face with a convincing psychical demonstration, what would happen? I shuddered, there in the gloaming, as my mind dwelt reluctantly upon the unprecedented perils menacing my happiness. It was no comfort to my distraught soul to realize that, in all probability, no woman, since the world began, had been afflicted in just this way. Neither was there any relief in the conviction that I had been in no way to blame for this incongruous psychical visitation.

"No, I couldn't send you away, Jack," I said, musingly; "that is practically impossible. We'll have to make the best of it, and our successful manipulation of the situation depends almost wholly upon your self-control. You must adapt yourself to your environment, my boy; become a baby in fact as well as in theory. You'll be happier that way."

"Don't talk nonsense, Clarissa," grumbled Jack, kicking viciously at his long clothes. "I'm the victim of what might be called a temporary maladjustment of the machinery of psychical evolution. Ordinarily, a baby is not cognizant of a former existence. You advise me to forget the past and remember only that I am your cunning little eight-months-old Horatio. If I only could! It's the only thing that could give me permanent relief, my dear. But it's not possible. Here I am doomed to a kind of dual punishment, ashamed of myself as Horatio and afraid of myself as Jack. And all because I clogged my psychical progress in my late life by a carnal craving for Welsh rabbits! It sounds absurd, doesn't it, when one puts it into words? But, my dear, the sublime and the ridiculous are as close together in one realm of existence as in another. Truth has many faces, and there's always a grin on one of them."

"I think that I hear your nurse coming, Jack," I whispered. "Is there anything that I can do for you?"

"Yes," he answered, excitedly, lowering his voice, however. "Do you think, Clarissa, that you could secrete a flask of bottled cocktails in the room somewhere? I've learned a thing or two of late that might prove useful to me if I needed a stimulant and knew where to find it. I can raise my body by my arms and hold up my whole weight for ten minutes at a time. I've been experimenting at night, when the nurse was asleep. Tom's an evolutionist; ask him about it. He'll explain to you how it happens. You'll bring the cocktails, my dear?"

I hesitated, bewildered by his request; daring neither to grant nor deny it. The nurse was half-way down the hall, and nearing the door rapidly.

"Take your choice, Clarissa," whispered the baby, coolly. "Unless you promise me at once, I shall tell the nurse who I am, the moment she enters the room."

My heart sprang chokingly into my throat, and I whispered, hoarsely:

"Very well, Jack. I'll do as you wish. But do be careful, won't you? Don't take more than a sip at a time, will you?"

Before the baby could reply, the nurse had entered the room, smiling gaily.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*PROTOPLASM AND FROTH.*

We have forgot what we have been,
And what we are we little know.
--_Thomas W. Parsons_.

There was not the least doubt that our dinner in honor of the German biologist, Plaetner, had been a tremendous success. Long before we had reached the game course I had caught the gleam of triumph in Tom's eyes, and across the long board my gaze had met his in joyous congratulation. It was not merely personal glory that we had won by this well-conceived and smoothly executed social function. In a way, we had vindicated our caste, had proved to a censorious world that the inner circle of metropolitan society is not wholly frivolous, utterly indifferent to the achievements of genius and the marvelous feats of modern science.

When Tom had first suggested to me the possibility of our entertaining Plaetner, whose efforts had won the enthusiasm of materialists in all parts of the world, I had fought shy of the project. Tom's idea was to gather at our table the most noted scientists of the city, with the German biologist as the magnet, and to select our women from among the cleverest of our set, once vulgarly known as the "Four Hundred." Upon his first presentation of the scheme I had argued that it was impracticable, that the scientists would find our women frivolous, and that our women would be horribly bored by the sages. Even up to the moment of our entrance to the dining-room I had been annoyed by the fear that my pessimistic attitude toward the function was to be vindicated, that Tom's effort to make oil and water mix was doomed to failure.

And the funniest thing about the whole affair is that we were saved from disaster and raised to glory through the quaint personality of the Herr Doctor, our guest of honor. A typical German savant in appearance, with spectacles, beard and agitated hair, he displayed from the outset a perfect self-control beneath which, one quickly realized, glowed the fires of a fine enthusiasm. Speaking French or English with a fluency that was enviable, he aired his hobby in a genial, entertaining way, which saved him from being the bore that a man with a fixed idea is so apt to prove. Protoplasm may seem to be a most unpromising topic upon which to base the conversation at a fashionable dinner-party, but I found myself intensely interested, before the oyster-plates had been removed, in the scientific discussion that the learned Herr Doctor had set in motion and Tom had deftly kept alive.

"I had been impressed, years ago," Plaetner had begun, in answer to a polite question from Mrs. "Ned" Farrington, who is a very tactful woman; "I had been impressed by the similarity of protoplasm to a fine froth." Here the German scientist held an oyster poised on a fork and gazed at it musingly, the while he continued, in almost flawless English: "The most available froth, soap lather, is made up of air bubbles entangled in soap solution. After years of experimenting, my friends, I succeeded in making an oil foam from soapy water and olive oil. Under the microscope my solution closely resembles protoplasm."

"Does it really?" cried Mrs. "Ned," rapturously.

"Wonderful!" commented Professor Shanks, America's most noted zooelogist.

"It's curious," remarked Elinor Scarsdale, rather cleverly, I thought, "that from protoplasm to the highest civilization there should have been a struggle from soap to soap."

The Herr Doctor glanced approvingly at the brightest debutante of the season.

"In those words, young lady," he said, with flattering emphasis, "you have summed up the whole history of physical evolution. But to continue: My drops of oil foam act as if they were alive, their movements bearing a most marvelous resemblance to the activities of Pelomyxa, a jelly-like marine creature, protoplasmic in its simplicity." The Herr Doctor was again addressing his remarks to his oyster fork.

"Do I understand you, Dr. Plaetner," asked Tom, from the foot of the table, "that, under the microscope, rhozopod protoplasm, for example, would resemble your--ah--oil foam?"

"So closely, sir," answered Herr Plaetner, instantly, "that I have often deceived the most expert microscopists in Germany. Furthermore, Mr. Minturn, my artificial protoplasm retains its activity for long periods of time. I made one drop, sir, that was alive, so to speak, for six days."

"And then it died?" asked Mrs. "Ned," mournfully.

"To speak unscientifically, yes," answered the German, carefully. "Now, what are we to gather from all this, my friends?" The butler had removed the oysters, and the Herr Doctor was forced to glance at his audience.

"New reverence for soap and olive oil," suggested one of the younger scientists, a professor at a neighboring university.

Plaetner eyed the speaker suspiciously, and then said:

"That, of course, sir; but much more than that. I have proved conclusively, my friends, that the primary movements of life are due to structure, and that there is absolutely no necessity for believing in any peculiar vital essence or force. The living cell, I confidently assert, may be built up out of inert matter. The old-fashioned idea of a vital spark being absolutely essential is as obsolete as the belief in special creation. Let me live a hundred years, my friends, and I'll make for you a Goethe or a Shakespeare out of soap lather and olive oil."

"Just imagine it!" exclaimed Mrs. Farringdon, gazing with exaggerated admiration at the German genius.

"It's really not so shocking to our pride of ancestry as it seems at first sight;" Tom ventured to suggest. "Our generation has become reconciled, perforce, to its humble origin. It is hard for us to realize how severely Darwinism shocked our fathers and mothers."

"As I understand you, Dr. Plaetner," broke in Mrs. "Bob" Vincent, turning the blaze of her great, dark eyes full upon the German's face, "your discovery is a triumph for the extreme materialists? It destroys absolutely all the bases upon which the belief in psychic forces rests? We are machines, wound up to run for a while, and then to stop forever?"

"You have practically stated my creed, madame," answered the Herr Doctor, gravely. "Constant motion, constant change--these are the alpha and the omega of the universe. Why should we superimpose the concept of a psychical existence upon a structure that is already perfect? As I said in other words, my friends, I could, if sufficient time were granted to me, rebuild the earth and its creatures in my laboratory."

"Provided that it was situated near a barber shop and a delicatessen store," whispered Dr. Hopkins, who had been listening in silence on my left to our guest of honor. I was glad to hear this subdued note of protest from so eminent a source, but he shook his gray head as I glanced at him approvingly. Professor Hopkins, Ph. D., loves science but hates controversy. Had he crossed swords at that moment with the German he would have found, I imagine, that the sympathies of my guests were with the materialist. When a scientist frankly tells you that he can manufacture protoplasm, and goes on to describe to you his method of procedure, it's well to pause before plunging into an argument with him. But I, who had good reason to know that Herr Plaetner was ludicrously at fault in his conception of the universe, could not but regret that so brilliant a champion as Dr. Hopkins had not rushed to the defense of the truth. For a moment I was almost tempted to defy the rules of hospitality and voice the new faith that had come to me in the existence of psychic mysteries. This inclination was intensified by Herr Plaetner's answer to a question put to him by one of the men.

"It's all the veriest rubbish," I heard the German saying, with great emphasis. "All those Oriental philosophies and religions are merely picturesque presentments of the truths that are clearly stated by modern materialism, so-called. What is Nirvana but simply cessation of motion? Admitting reincarnation, for example, as a working hypothesis, it would mean simply the coming and going of atomic vibrations with successive losses of identity. They are dreamers, those Orientals, seeing half truths clearly enough, but never following them out to their logical conclusions."

"And yet the East is the mother of lather and olive oil," murmured Dr. Hopkins, under his breath.

At that instant my heart leaped into my throat, and I sprang to my feet in affright. With Horatio in her arms, his nurse had rushed frantically into the dining-room, despite the interference of the butler, and, with blanched face and staring eyes, was bearing down on me, with the purpose, evidently, of thrusting the baby into my grasp.

"Take him! take him!" she cried, hysterically, and before I could resist her insistence, Horatio was squirming in my bare arms. "He's bewitched," continued his nurse, frantically. "He's been talking like a man. I'm through with him. He ain't a baby! You just wait a moment, Mrs. Minturn. He'll speak again in a moment. He's got a voice like a steam calliope. And what he says! Oh, my!"

"Take her away at once," Tom was crying to the butler. "She has gone crazy," he went on, rushing past our astounded guests to my assistance. "Don't be frightened, my dear! I always thought that she was unbalanced, and now I know it. Poor little Horatio! He looks scared to death!"

*CHAPTER VII.*

*A BIOLOGIST AND A BABY.*

We know these things are so, we ask not why,
But act and follow as the dream goes on.
--_Lord Houghton_.

"Isn't he a lovely baby!"

"Don't send him away, Mrs. Minturn."

"Get his high chair for him, James."

"See him smile! I don't wonder at his relief. Just imagine being in the care of a crazy nurse!"

"What wild eyes she had! You say she was always eccentric, Mr. Minturn?"

"The baby's only eight months old? Really, Mrs. Minturn, he looks older."

"He has such pretty eyes! And look at the dimples in his little hands. Doesn't he ever cry? How good he is, dear little fellow!"

"Horatio! What a fine, dignified name! Horatio held a bridge, didn't he? or was it a full house?"

"What a question for a famous scientist to ask!"

The baby, erect and smiling in his high chair, had wonderfully enlivened our dinner-party. Even Tom, startled as he had been by the advent of the distraught nurse, was now wholly at his ease and beamed genially from the foot of the table upon the youngster, who seemed to be delighted at the attention that he was receiving from beautiful women and famous men. As he sat there, merrily waving a spoon in the air and crowing lustily, I watched him with mingled pride and consternation. Although a most distressing episode had been brought to a picturesque conclusion, there seemed to me to be startling possibilities in the present situation. I did not like the flush upon the baby's cheeks, the unnatural gleam in his laughing eyes. Impulsively I bent down and kissed him upon his pretty mouth. My worst fears were instantly realized, and I felt my spinal marrow turn to ice. I had detected the odor of a cocktail upon Horatio's--or, rather, Jack's--breath.

"I am forced to acknowledge, madame," I heard Herr Plaetner saying, in answer to one of Mrs. Farringdon's leading questions, "I am forced to acknowledge that my theories destroy much of the poetry of life. It is a most prosaic attitude that I am forced to hold toward yonder most beautiful baby, for example. Romance would point to him as an immortal soul in embryo. Realism asserts that he is a machine, like the rest of us, with a longer lease of activity before him than you or I have, who have been ticking, so to speak, for several years."

"Be good, Horatio!" I whispered. "Don't cry. You can have an ice pretty soon."

The baby brought his spoon down upon the table with a thump, and actually glared at the German professor, while my guests laughed gaily at the child's precocious demonstration.

"Isn't he cunning!" exclaimed Elinor Scarsdale, delightedly.

"He seems to have a prejudice against me, _nicht wahr_?" remarked the Herr Doctor, laughing aloud.

"You aren't to blame for that, little boy," murmured Dr. Hopkins, so that I alone could hear him. "He says that you are sprung from oil and lather and are rushing toward annihilation."

"Bah!" yelled the baby. "Bah! bah! bah!"

"'Ba-ba, ba-ba, black sheep, have 'oo any wool?' quoted Professor Rogers, the noted comparative philologist, who has identified the germ of epic poetry in the earliest known cradle songs.

"Isn't he fascinating!" cried Elinor Scarsdale, referring to the baby, not to the philologist.

"If you'll excuse me for a time," I said to my guests, seeing that Tom was growing weary of Horatio's prominence at the table, "I'll take the baby to the nursery."

"You'll do it at your peril," I heard a deep voice grumble, and Dr. Hopkins jumped nervously and glanced at me in amazement.

"Don't run off with him, Mrs. Minturn," cried Mrs. Farringdon; and her protest was sustained by a chorus of "don't" and "do let him stay."

"It may be only temporary," I heard Dr. Plaetner saying, as he gazed at Professor Shanks, who had asked him, evidently, a question about the baby's nurse. "It's not an uncommon form of insanity, and may be only temporary. I recall an instance of a very learned and perfectly harmless professor at Goettingen who believed for years that his pet cat talked Sanskrit to him. There was at my own university a young man wholly sane, apparently, who made a record of conversations that he had held with the skeleton of a gorilla. Both of these men were eventually restored to mental health, and have never had a return of their delusions. It is fortunate, however, that the poor woman, whose insanity we have so recently witnessed, exhibited her mania at this time. What might have happened otherwise to that charming little baby I shudder to think."

Horatio was pounding the table with a spoon, as if applauding the Herr Doctor's remarks. Suddenly he dropped the spoon and made a grab for Dr. Hopkins's wine-glass.

"What vivacity he has!" remarked Professor Shanks, as if addressing a roomful of students interested in a zooelogical specimen.

"He seems to know a rare vintage when he sees it," suggested Dr. Hopkins, intending, of course, to compliment his hostess.

"I think my dear--" began Tom, nervously.

"Don't go any further, Mr. Minturn," cried Elinor Scarsdale, playfully. "The baby is so much more interesting than----"

"Protoplasm," added Dr. Hopkins, under his breath.

Dr. Plaetner was gazing at the baby searchingly. He had been impressed evidently by certain eccentricities in Horatio's bearing.

"How old did you say the boy was, madame?" asked the German savant, presently.

"Eight months," I answered, a catch in my voice that I could not control.

"He's--ah--very intelligent for a child of that age," commented Plaetner, laboring under the mistake that he was saying something complimentary. "He has a most expressive face."

As the baby was scowling savagely at the German at that moment, and frantically shaking his little fists at him, there were both pith and point to the latter's remark.

"Rot!" muttered Jack, wickedly. I sprang to my feet and lifted him from his chair. He kicked protestingly for a moment, and gave vent to a yell that bore witness to his possession of a marvelous pair of lungs.

"Be quiet, Horatio," I whispered, imploringly, hurrying toward the door, without further apology to my guests. "If you'll be silent now, I'll have a bottle of champagne brought to the nursery."

At these words the baby nestled affectionately in my arms, and I felt that the fight was won. Just as we reached the doorway, however, Jack clambered to my shoulder and waved his little fist defiantly at my guests.

"Damn that frowsy old German donkey!" he muttered, close to my ear. "I'd give half a bottle of cocktails to prove to him what an amazing ignoramus he is! Just wait a minute, will you, Clarissa?"

I rushed out of the dining-room without more ado. In another instant Jack would have said the word that trembled on his tiny mouth, the word that would have brought the whole temple of modern materialism toppling down upon Herr Plaetner's devoted head.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*HUSH-A-BY, NUMBER ONE!*

Methinks that e'en through my laughter
Oft trembles a strain of dread;
A shivery ghost of laughter
That is loath to rise from the dead.
--_Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen_.

The nursery was in a condition of much disorder as I entered it with the baby's arms around my neck. Much to my surprise and delight Jack had fallen asleep as we mounted the stairs. How to get him into his crib without rousing him was a problem that I longed to solve, although I had determined not to return to the dining-room. I would send a maid presently to tell the butler to inform Tom that I could not leave the baby at this crisis. Surely our guests would consider a crazy nurse sufficient excuse for the retirement of their hostess.

But Jack opened his little eyes and crowed, rather hilariously, as I laid him on his pillows.

"Don't go, my dear Clarissa," he said, his baby tones strangely out of harmony with his words. "I have much to say to you at once. I owe you an explanation and apology. Sit down, won't you?"

"Keep quiet, Jack," I whispered, "I'll be back in a moment."

After I had despatched a servant to the dining-room with my message to Tom, and had assured myself that the baby's hysterical nurse had left the house--poor woman, I was sincerely sorry for her!--I returned to the nursery and shut myself in, with a feeling of great relief. So intense, indeed, was my nervous reaction after hours of varied emotions that I sank at once into a chair to check a sensation of dizziness that had come over me as I crossed the room.

"Isn't this cosy!" exclaimed the baby, kneeling at the side of his crib and striving to touch me with his fat, uncertain little hands. "I wanted to say to you, Clarissa, that I did not deliberately plan to frighten that tyrannical nurse of mine. To tell you the truth, my dear, I had taken just one swallow too much of those cocktails and was astonished to discover that, while thus slightly elevated, so to speak, I could communicate in the language of maturity with this--ah--comparative stranger. Naturally, it was a great shock to the nurse. As I remarked to you before, my dear, she's narrow. A more broad-minded woman would not have rushed before the public, making a kind of Balaam's ass of a helpless baby. But she's been discharged, of course?"

"She has gone away, if that's what you mean," I answered, laughing rather hysterically. "How do you account for your sudden loquacity in her presence, Jack?"

"That's a mystery," said the baby, screwing up his tiny mouth into a funny little knot. "Spirits had something to do with it, I suppose."

"Spirits!" I repeated, nervously.

"Yes," responded Jack, clapping his palms together with a ludicrously infantile gesture. "You see, my dear, there were spirits in the cocktail. To tell you the truth, Clarissa, I'm a bit scared. I'm going to swear off. By the way, did you order that champagne?"

"No," I answered, curtly.

"Well, perhaps it's better, on the whole, that you didn't," sighed the baby, tumbling back on his pillows and waving his chubby legs in the air. "I've about made up my mind, my dear, to lead a better life. It'll be easier for me to be good than it has been, now that the nurse is gone. She was so narrow, Clarissa! It was always on my mind, and it finally drove me to drink."

"I'll have to replace her at once, Jack," I remarked, drawing my chair closer to the crib. "What--ah--that is--have you some idea as to just what kind of a nurse you'd like?"

The baby was on his knees again at the side of the crib, waving his expressive fists in the air.

"Understand me, Clarissa," he said, sternly, "I refuse to risk my life again by placing myself in the power of a hireling nurse. You can't expect people of that kind to be open to new ideas. To a man of my temperament, my dear, you must realize that repeated doses of baby-talk are actually cloying. If you could engage some broad-minded, elderly woman who had been deaf and dumb from birth, I might put up with her for a while. But, of course, it would be hard to find such a prize. You'll have to look after your little baby yourself, my dear, until I'm a few years older. It'll be hard for you, I realize that, Clarissa. But, frankly, is there any other alternative? If I'm to lead a better life, my dear, I must have some encouragement."

I leaned back in my chair, and closed my eyes wearily. The burden that had been thrust upon me was growing greater than I could bear.

"We'll postpone this discussion until to-morrow, Jack," I said, presently. "I must think it all out carefully before I can come to a decision. Meanwhile, you'd better go to sleep. It's getting late, you know."

"You aren't going to leave me here alone, Clarissa?" cried the baby, nervously. "You'd better not. There'll be trouble if you do."

The fact was that I was in a quandary as to what was the proper thing to do, under the circumstances. I had only just begun to realize how many problems had been solved by the presence of the nurse. At this time of night it was impossible, of course, to get anybody to take her place. At such a crisis as this the natural solution of the problem lay in my temporary occupancy of her position. But I shrank from the obligation that fate had so unkindly thrust upon me. Lifting the very willing baby from the crib, I carried him to a rocking-chair, hoping that I might get him to sleep while I came thoughtfully to a determination regarding my course of action for the immediate future.

"Gently!" murmured Jack, cuddling gratefully in my arms. "A long, slow, dreamy kind of rocking is not so bad, Clarissa. It's the tempestuous, jerky style that I object to. That confounded nurse had a secret sorrow. It used to bother her whenever she got me into this chair. She'd groan and weep and swing me up and down, as if she were trying to pulverize her grief, with me as the hammer. Then I'd begin to yell, and she'd rock all the harder. You can't imagine, Clarissa, what your little Horatio has suffered of late."

I laughed aloud nervously, knowing that my merriment had a cruel sound, but unable to control it.

"Did you think that I was joking!" growled Jack, clutching at my chin, angrily.

"Forgive me, Jack!" I exclaimed, repentantly. "I know that you've had an awfully hard time, poor boy. And I promise you that I shall try my best to make life easier for you, from now on. And now, Jack, do try to get to sleep! I'll see to it that you are perfectly comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we'll talk about the future. Would you like to have me sing to you, Jack, as I rock you?"

The baby fairly shook with suppressed laughter at the suggestion.

"Doesn't it seem absurd, Clarissa?" he gasped, between chuckles. "Just imagine what it really means. You're about to hum hush-a-bye-baby to Number One, while Number Two is down-stairs talking scientific rubbish to a lot of old fogies! If you should ever write your memoirs, my dear----"

"Hush, Jack!" I cried, petulantly, setting the chair in motion. "I shall never write anything for publication."

"Nonsense," commented the baby, drowsily. "Everybody does. You'll be sure to try it on some day. What a story you could tell, couldn't you, my dear? You might call it, with my permission, 'Clarissa's Troublesome Baby.'"

*CHAPTER IX.*

*A BOSTON GIRL.*

It would be curious if we should find science and philosophy taking up again the old theory of metempsychosis. But stranger things have happened in the history of human opinion.--_James Freeman Clarke_.

It was only through the exercise of the nicest care that I escaped a complete nervous collapse during the weeks immediately following our now famous dinner to Herr Plaetner. I was tempted at times to run off to Europe and leave my fevered household to fend for itself. I seemed to spend the larger part of my time in keeping Jack quiet and Tom cool. Which was the more difficult task I am unable to say. Jack remained stubbornly unreasonable regarding the kind of nurse he was willing to submit to, while Tom grumbled continually because I spent so much time with the baby.

"What is the trouble in the nursery, Clarissa?" the latter asked me one morning at breakfast. "You have tried ten different experiments there since that crazy woman left us, and now you tell me that her place is again vacant. We pay the highest wages, Horatio is not a sickly, fretful child, but still these alleged nurses come and go, offering, so far as I can learn, only the flimsiest excuses for throwing up a seemingly desirable situation. There must be something radically wrong up there. Have you any idea, my dear, what it is?"

How could I tell Tom the truth about the matter? Had I informed him that the baby still insisted upon my engaging an elderly woman deaf and dumb from birth, and refused to adapt himself to any one of the many compromises that I had offered to him, Tom would have been justified in suspecting the existence of insanity germs in our nursery. He had seen one woman issue therefrom in an apparently crazy condition, and he had noted the eccentric fickleness of her successors. If I should now lay the actual facts before him, he would have good reason to believe that I also had lost my mental balance. At that moment there came to me a vague dread of my second husband's scientific habit of mind. It was evident that he was bent upon collecting data about the baby and his nurses, in order that he might reach some reasonable conclusion in explanation of the existing disturbed conditions in our formerly unruffled household. And the unfortunate part of it was that Tom had the leisure and, I feared, the inclination to wrestle with this problem until he had solved it in some way satisfactory to his exacting mind.

"The root of the trouble, Tom," I answered, presently, after carefully weighing my words before uttering them, "the root of the trouble is not in the baby or the nursery or the wages--or in me. It is to be found in the great change that is going on in the conditions of domestic service. A child's nurse to-day--I mean one of the kind that we should be willing to employ--is a highly-trained specialist who has grown haughty and despotic in the mere exercise of her profession. She realizes that the demand for experts in her line is greater than the supply, and----"

"I see," interrupted Tom, rather rudely, I thought. "But it does seem to me that if other people in our position, Clare, can find satisfactory nurses, we should not be the one family in the city that is forced to take care of its own baby. I am willing to pay any amount of money to insure Horatio's comfort. I'll admit that he is difficult at times. He seems to be a very sensitive, highly-strung child, but there's nothing abnormal about him. He's pugnacious and hot-tempered, but most healthy boy babies are inclined to be spunky, aren't they? What I object to is that he is gradually absorbing all your time, day and night, Clare. I'm not jealous of Horatio, my dear, but I don't believe in the old-fashioned idea that parents should sacrifice their comfort upon the altar of the nursery. You understand my position, do you not?"

"Gwendolen will be here to-day, Tom," I said, smiling at his disturbed face from across the table. "I hope that she'll take a fancy to the baby. At all events, she'll relieve the situation. When your wife's in the nursery, Tom, you'll have your cousin to talk to."

"Bah!" grumbled Tom, rising and placing a hand on the back of his chair, "Gwendolen's pretty and chic and up to date, but she's not in your class intellectually, my dear."

I smiled gratefully at Tom's compliment, but my mind was not at ease. Wasn't the presence of Gwendolen Van Voorhees in the house more likely to prove disastrous than satisfactory? When, however, Tom had insisted that his cousin's long-deferred visit to us be made at once, I could find no reasonable argument to oppose to his washes. From various points of view, Gwendolen's advent to the household appeared to be desirable. She was a charming girl, well read, widely traveled and a thoroughbred little _mondaine_. But I dreaded her arrival, despite the fact that I could not have put the vague fears that haunted me into specific words. I was beginning to realize what it means in this prosaic, unimaginative world to hide in one's bosom an uncanny secret. There had come to me, of late, moments when the inclination to tell Tom the whole truth about Horatio--or, rather, Jack--was almost irresistible. Perhaps my real reason for objecting to Gwendolen's presence was my fear, unacknowledged to myself, that I should be tempted eventually to tell her the amazing tale of Jack's ridiculous reincarnation. There were times, and they had constantly become more frequent, when the burden of my secret seemed greater than I could bear, when the longing to confess to somebody that the baby was a psychical freak of the most astounding kind burned hot within me. As I lingered over my coffee in the breakfast-room that morning, after Tom's departure, the immediate future looked black enough, and I could not see that the coming of Gwendolen gave it a lighter shade.

Nevertheless, I was really glad to welcome her later in the morning as I met her at the door of the drawing-room, and kissed her pretty, piquante mouth affectionately.

"I was awfully glad to come to you, Clare," she cried, vivaciously, as we mounted the stairs that I might show her to her rooms. "You know the song with the chorus, 'There's one New York, only one New York?' It's been running through my mind for two days."

"But I thought that you were wedded to Boston, Gwen," I remarked, my mind wandering for a moment as we passed the closed door of the nursery.

Presently we were seated cozily before an open fire in the guest chamber, while Gwendolen, dark, petite, smiling, appeared to me to be a most ornamental and fascinating addition to our little circle.

"Boston is amusing," she was saying, in her pleasantly emphatic way, "but it's so erratic, don't you know. My nerves always begin to ache after I've been there a few weeks. They are so fond of fads, Clare, those clever Bostonians! They take up everything, you know, and always go to extremes."

"It's American history now, is it not?" I asked.

"Yes," answered Gwen, gazing at the fire musingly. "That's coming in again. But they're perfectly crazy about theosophy just at present. You'd be amazed, Clare, to discover how much I know about Nirvana and adepts and metempsychosis, and all that kind of thing. Several of my most intimate friends have become vegetarians and live mostly on baked beans. It's awfully funny--they take it all so seriously."

"And what do you really think of it, Gwen?" I asked, nervously.

"Think of what, of which, my dear? Of living on beans, do you mean?"

"No. Beans are only a side issue, or, to speak with Tom's scientific accuracy, a side dish. What do you think, for instance, of reincarnation?"

"I don't know what to think about it, Clare," she answered, reflectively, pushing her dainty little feet toward the fire and gazing into my face with earnest eyes. "Do you know, there are times when I really imagine that there's something in it! Of course, it's absurd in a way, but it does solve a great many problems, does it not? It conforms beautifully to the laws of evolution and the conservation of energy, and there are so many things that can't be explained by any other theory! But it always makes me shudder to think of it. Imagine, Clare, being born again in Turkey, for example. Wouldn't it be shocking?"

I laughed, rather hysterically.

"The whole subject is too silly for any use," I managed to say, in a superior kind of way. "It does very well for Boston, of course, but it will never have much of a run here in New York."

"What a narrow way of looking at it, Clare!" exclaimed Gwendolen, protestingly. "Of course, I'm not a theosophist, but I'm broad-minded enough to realize that what's true in Benares or Boston must be true in New York. If reincarnation is really going on in this world, I can't believe that any exception is made in favor of our Knickerbocker families."

Again I laughed aloud, nervously. It was pleasing to me to discover that Gwendolen had a mind open to startling truths, but I regretted the fact that I must henceforth constantly fight against the temptation to tell her my great secret. The imminence of my peril in this regard was illustrated at once, for she turned to me suddenly and asked, with great vivacity of manner:

"Where is the baby, Clare? Won't you let me see him at once? I came to visit him, you know; not you or Tom. He's got such a lovely name! 'Horatio' is so fine and dignified! What do you call him for short, my dear?"

"I have not given him a nickname, Gwendolen," I answered, coldly. "If you wish to, we'll go to the nursery at once. As I told you in my letter, we've had difficulty in getting the baby a nurse. Just at present, I'm obliged to spend most of my time with him. But I gave you fair warning, you know."

"I'm so glad that I can have the run of the nursery," cried Gwendolen, gaily, springing to her feet. "I do so love really nice children, Clare! Is he a jolly baby? Will he take to me, do you think?"