Chapter XI: A Question of Ownership

'And laid her face between her hands
And wept (I heard her tears).'

'See, they are ready,' Larrie said. He had folded the slips of paper up into two little square pieces. 'Will you draw or shall I?'

'What have you put on them?' Dot asked.

'L and D,' he said.

'You could have put baby on one and left the other blank,' she said, 'and then I could have drawn one and left the other.' She gained half a minute by the statement.

'It comes to the same,' he said, and held them out to her on the Japanese pen tray.

But she looked at the little pieces as if they had been dynamite; a faint colour stole up into her cheeks, her eyes dilated.

'Draw,' he said.

She put out her hand and drew it back again trembling like a leaf and empty.

'Wait a minute,' she said with a little gasp. She covered her eyes for a second, then, suspiciously, 'how do I know you have not marked one so you may know it?'

'If you draw it will make no difference,' he answered patiently.

She put out her hand again and touched them, first one and then the other.

'I _know_ I shall draw the wrong one,' she said in a choking voice, she turned them over and examined them with pitiful criticism.

'What did you make this one narrower than the other for?'

'Is it?' he said and looked.

His hand was not trembling at all, but in his heart there was a great aching for his little son.

'I think I had better draw and have done with it.'

The quick movement of her hand again showed her trust in him was not all it might have been--her fingers closed and unclosed round the wider piece. Her cheeks were burning, her breath coming in little quick pants.

'Get it over, Dot,' he said very gently.

She shut her eyes, her hand groped forward, her face grew very white. Then she unclosed her fingers and showed both little slips lying in her palm.

'I _won't_ do it that way,' she said with sudden passion, 'as if he were a cushion in a bazaar, or a lottery ticket. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Larrie.' She tore the paper into a hundred fragments and looked at him with wide, angry eyes.

'But how shall we decide?' he said heavily. He put the little tray back on the table and mechanically replaced the pens and paper knife, the darning needle and broken bit of coral he had emptied from it a few minutes ago.

'He shall decide himself,' she said. She got up and went towards the door. 'Write two more pieces of paper, and he shall draw.'

Larrie wrote L and D again with a heavy J nib, and again folded them up; then he followed his wife.

She was standing by the cot in an inner room looking down at the little sleep-flushed face. One little curled up hand was flung out on the counterpane, the other, with a thumb still wet, was drooped just below his chin. Damp little rings of hair lay on his forehead, his lips were apart, his long eyelashes motionless. Larrie came in on tip-toe.

'You can't wake him,' he said in a low voice.

She shook her head, there was almost a fierce look in her eyes.

'What will you do then?' he asked. And 'Wait,' she returned.

He brought a wicker chair to the bedside for her, a stiff-backed one for himself.

They sat and watched in utter silence till the sun kissed the grey dawn white. Then the child stirred, flung off the blanket, sighed--and slept again. Dot had gone pale as death, and even Larrie's heart had beaten faster. But they composed themselves again, and watched without speaking. And blue was born in the sky, and the white tossed itself into cloud shapes that a wind drove over the sky to the west. Away at the back a gate banged, there was a sound of the contact of a tin and milk jug on the verandah. Then the gate fell to again.

Baby uncurled his hands, sighed and changed his cuddled-up side position for one flat on his back. Then he opened his eyes.

'Are you ready?' Larrie said in rather a thick voice.

But Dot looked at him indignantly. 'Wait till he is awake and knows what he is doing,' she said.

He was laughing up at them, holding up his arms. There was some soft fur at his mother's neck that he was convinced would be good to eat, he had a desire also to pull the crisp curls on his father's head.

'Goo--goo--goo,' he said, with an impatient kick and an adorable smile.

How white Dot was! How Larrie's hand trembled as he picked up the tray!

'He is awake now,' he said in a low voice.

'Let them be quite even,' Dot returned, with an agitated look, 'of course he will take the nearest one.'

Larrie arranged them with mathematical precision, then put the tray near the little baby hands. For one wild second, Dot looked away, she could not have watched, then a low, mirthless laugh from Larrie recalled her eyes.

The child had taken the two without a moment's hesitation, and stuffed them instantly into his little open hungry mouth.

The diversion occupied some little time for both knew that paper was bad for infantile digestion, but the touch of humour about it did not strike either, or divert them from the tragedy they were bent upon.

'How _are_ we to settle it?' Larrie said wearily.

Dot lifted the child suddenly up on the pillow,--there was a look of resolution in her eyes.

'We will both hold out our arms,' she said, 'whomever he goes to shall have him; it is the fairest way.'

They bent down to the little fellow, father and mother, with faces that would whiten, and arms that trembled despite themselves.

'Come,' they both said.

One little roseleaf hand buried itself in Larrie's curls, one clutched the fur at Dot's neck.

'Come,' they said again, and this time there was a desperate look in Dot's eyes.

He looked gravely from one to the other and loosened his hold of their separate persons. There was a thoughtful expression in his eyes though his lips smiled. He half turned to Dot, and the intense look of her mouth relaxed faintly. But then suddenly he stretched out his arms and with a rapturous little leap flung himself at Larrie.