Chapter II

His son was a month old before John saw him. Mrs. MacDermott led him to the cradle where the baby was sleeping, and as he looked down on it, the child awoke and screwed up its face and began to cry. Mrs. MacDermott took it in her arms and soothed it.

"Well?" she said to John.

He looked at the child with puzzled eyes. "Is it all right?" he asked.

"All right!" she exclaimed. "Of course, it's all right! What would be wrong with it?"

"It's so ugly-looking!..."

She stared incredulously at him. "Ugly," she said, "it's a beautiful baby. One of the loveliest children I've ever clapped my eyes on. Look at it!..." She held the baby forward to him.

"I can see it right enough," he answered. "I think it's ugly!"

"You don't know a fine-looking child when you see it," she answered indignantly.

He went back to Eleanor's room ... she was out of bed now, but because the day was cold was sitting before a fire in her bedroom ... and sat with her while she talked of little things that had happened to her during their separation. "You know, John," she said, "you're not looking well. You're getting thin and grey!..."

"Grey?"

"Yes ... your face looks grey. I'm sure that life isn't good for you!"

"I feel tired, but that may be the journey. The sea was rough last night, crossing from Liverpool to Belfast, and I didn't get any sleep. Mebbe that's what it is, I daresay I'll be looking all right to-morrow!"

"How long are you going to stay?" she asked.

"Well, Clotworthy told me to get back as soon as possible. Do you think you'll be able to come home with me at the end of the week?"

She did not answer.

"Of course," he went on, "we've got to get the tenants out of the flat first. I thought mebbe you'd come to Miss Squibb's with me till the flat was ready!"

"I don't think I should like that," she answered.

"No, mebbe not, but I'm terribly lonesome without you, Eleanor. It's been miserable all this while!..."

She put her arms about him and kissed him. "Poor old thing," she said.

"And I'd like you to come home as soon as possible."

Mrs. MacDermott brought the baby into the room. "John says he's an ugly child," she said to Eleanor, glancing angrily at her son.

"Oh, John!" Eleanor exclaimed reproachfully. "He isn't ugly. He's handsome!..."

"Well, I don't know what women call beautiful or handsome," John said, "but if you call that screwed-up face good-looking, then I don't know what good looks are!"

"I'm sure you weren't half so beautiful as baby is," Eleanor murmured.

Mrs. MacDermott put the child in its mother's arms, and happed the covering about its head. "Eight pounds he weighed when he was born," she said. "Eight pounds! And then you say he isn't beautiful! And him your own son, too!"

"Oh, well, if you only mean he's weighty when you say he's beautiful, mebbe you're right!..."

"You're unnatural, John," said Mrs. MacDermott.

"Are all babies like that?" he asked.

"All the good-looking ones are. Give him to me again, Eleanor, dear!" She took the baby from its mother, and holding it tightly in her arms, walked up and down the room singing it to sleep. "He's asleep," she said in a whisper, coming closer to them. She held the child so that they could see the tiny face in the firelight. They did not speak. Eleanor, leaning back in her chair, and John sitting forward in his, and Mrs. MacDermott standing with the baby in her arms, looked on the child.

"I'm its father," said John, at last. "That seems comic!"

"And I'm its mother," Eleanor murmured.

Mrs. MacDermott lifted the child so that her lips could touch its tiny mouth. "Five generations in the one house," she said. "I bless God for this day!"