Chapter II: Part 2

"He's a boy," panted Delia, as she rested her weight on the rail, "and he's only eight months last week," with a proud smile at the General's massive proportions.

"Well, he _is_ a buster, isn't he? Here is the nurse, Madame, and the children. The doctor has gone."

Caroline stretched her eyes wide and abandoned herself to a frank inspection of her surroundings. For this she must be pardoned, as every square inch of the dark, deep-colored room had been taken bodily from Italian palaces of the most unimpeachable Renaissance variety. With quick intuition, she immediately recognized a background for many a tale of courts and kings hitherto unpictured to herself, and smiled with pleasure at the Princess who advanced, most royally clad in long shell pink, lace-clouded draperies, to meet them.

"You are the brave nurse my maid told me about," said the Princess; "she saw it all. You ought to be very proud of your quick wits. I have some sherry for you, and you must lie down a little and then I will send you home."

Delia blushed and sank into a high carved chair, the General staring curiously about him. "It wasn't anything at all," she said, awkwardly, "if I could have a drink--"

Caroline checked the Princess as she moved toward a wonderful colored decanter with wee sparkling tumblers like curved bits of rainbow grouped about it.

"She means a drink of water," she explained politely. "She only drinks water--sometimes a little tea, but most usu'lly water."

"The sherry will do her more good, I think," the Princess returned, noticing Caroline for the first time, apparently, her hand on the decanter.

At this point Miss Honey descended from a throne of faded wine-colored velvet, and addressed the Princess with her most impressive and explanatory manner.

"It won't do you any good at all to pour that out," she began, with her curious little air of delivering a set address, prepared in private some time before, "and I'll tell you why. Delia knew a nurse once that drank some beer, and the baby got burned, and she never would drink anything if you gave her a million dollars. Besides, it makes her sick."

The Princess looked amused and turned to a maid who appeared at that moment with apron strings rivalling Caroline's.

"Get me a glass of water, please," she said, "and what may I give you--milk, perhaps? I don't know very well what children drink."

"Thank you, we'd like some water, too," Miss Honey returned primly, "we had some soda-water, strawberry, once to-day."

Caroline cocked her head to one side and tried to remember what the lady's voice made her think of; she scowled in vain while Delia drank her water and smiled her thanks at the maid. Suddenly it came to her. It was not like a person talking at all, it was like a person singing. Up and down her voice traveled, loud and soft; it was quite pleasant to hear it.

"Do you feel better now? I am very glad. Bring in that reclining chair, Ellis, from my room; these great seats are rather stiff," said the Princess, and Delia, protesting, was made comfortable in a large curved lounging basket, with the General, contentedly putting his clothespin through its paces, in her arm.

"How old is it?" the Princess inquired, after an interval of silence, during which Miss Honey and Caroline regarded her with a placid interest, and Delia stroked the General's hair, from which she had taken the absurd lace cap.

"He's eight months, Madam, last week--eight months and ten days, really."

"That's not very old, now, is it?" pursued the lady. "I suppose they don't know very much, do they, so young?"

"Indeed he does, though," Delia protested, "You'll be surprised. Just watch him, now. Look at Delia, darlin'; where's Delia?"

The General withdrew his lingering gaze from the clothespin, and turned his blue eyes wonderingly up to her. The corner of his mouth trembled, widened, his eyelids crinkled, and then he smiled delightfully, straight into the eyes of the nurse, stretched up a wavering pink hand, and patted her cheek. A soft, gurgling monosyllable, difficult of classification but easy to interpret, escaped him.

The Princess smiled appreciatively, and moved with a stately, long step toward them.

"That was very pretty," she said, but Delia did not hear her.

"My baby, my own baby!" she murmured with a shiver, and hiding her face in the General's neck she sobbed aloud.

Miss Honey, shocked and embarrassed, twisted her feet nervously and looked at the inlaid floor. Caroline shared these feelings, but though she turned red, she spoke sturdily.

"I guess Delia feels bad," she suggested shyly, "when she thinks about--about what happened, you know. She don't cry usu'lly."

The Princess smiled again, this time directly at Caroline, who fairly blinked in the radiance. With her long brown eyes still holding Caroline's round ones, she patted Delia's shoulder kindly, and both the children saw her chin tremble.

The General, smothered in that sudden hug, whimpered a little and kicked out wildly with his fat white-stockinged legs. Seen from the rear he had the appearance of a neat, if excited, package, unaccountably frilled about with embroidered flannel. Delia straightened herself, dabbed apologetically at her eyes, and coughed.

"It's bottle-time," she announced in horror-stricken tones, consulting a large nickel watch hanging from her belt, under the apron. "It's down in the carriage. Could I have a little boiling water to heat it, if you please?"

"Assuredly," said the Princess. "Ellis, will you get the--the bottle from the baby's carriage and some boiling water, please. Do you mix it here?"

"Mix--the food is all prepared, Madam." Delia spoke with repressed scorn. "I only want to heat it for him."

"Oh, in that case, Ellis, take it down and have it heated, or," as the nurse half rose, "perhaps you would feel better about it if you attended to it yourself?"

"Yes, I think I will go down if you don't mind--when persons aren't used to 'em they're apt to be a little careless, and I wouldn't have it break, and him losing his three o'clock bottle, for the world. You know how it is...."

The Princess shook her head whimsically. "But surely you will leave the baby," and she moved toward them again. "I will hold it," with a half grimace at her own condescension. "It seems so very good and cheerful--I thought they cried. Will it come to me?"

Delia loosened her arms, but tightened them again as the little creature leaned forward to catch at the swinging lace on the lady's gown.

"I--I think I'll take baby with me. Thank you just the same, and he'll go to any one--yes, indeed--but I feel so sort of nervous, I think I'd better take him. If anything should happen.... Wave your hand good-by--now, General!"

The General flapped his arms violently, and bestowed a toothless but affectionate grin upon the wearer of the fascinating, swaying lace, before he disappeared with the delighted Ellis in the van.

"And can you buy all that devotion for twenty, thirty, or is it forty dollars a month, I wonder?" mused the Princess.

"Dear me," she added petulantly. "It really makes one actually _want_ to hold it! It seems a jolly little rat--they're not all like that, are they? They howl, I'm sure."

Again Miss Honey took the floor.

"When babies are sick, or you don't treat them right," she announced didactically, "they cry, but not a well baby, Delia says. I"--with conscious pride--"screamed night and day for two weeks!"

"Really!" observed the Princess. "That must have been--er--trying for your family!"

"Worried to death!" Miss Honey rejoined airily, with such an adult intonation that the Princess started.

"The General, he just laughs all the time," Caroline volunteered, "unless you tease him," she added guiltily, "and then he squawks."

"Yes, indeed," Miss Honey bore witness, jealous of the lady's flashing smile to Caroline, "my mother says I'm twice the trouble he is!"

The Princess laughed aloud. "You're all trouble enough, I can well believe," she said carelessly, "though you particular three are certainly amusing little duds--for an afternoon. But for a steady diet--I'm afraid I'd get a bit tired of you, eh?"

She tapped their cheeks lightly with a cool, sweet-smelling finger. Miss Honey smiled uncertainly, but Caroline edged away. There was something about this beautiful tall lady she could not understand, something that alternately attracted and repelled. She was grown up, certainly; her skirts, her size and her coiled hair proved that conclusively, and the servants obeyed her without question. But what was it? She was not like the other grown up people one knew. One moment she sparkled at you and the next moment she forgot you. It was perfectly obvious that she wanted the General only because Delia had not wanted to relinquish him, which was not like grown people; it was like--yes, that was it: she was like a little girl herself, even though she was so tall and had such large red and blue rings on her fingers.

Vaguely this rushed through Caroline's mind, and it was with an unconscious air of patronage, that she said, as one making allowances for inexperience, "When you get married, then you'll _have_ to get tired of them, you know."

"But you'll be glad you've got 'em, when they're once in bed," Miss Honey added encouragingly. "My mother says I'm a real treasure to her, after half past seven!"

The Princess flushed; her straight dark eyebrows quivered and met for an instant.

"But I _am_ married," she said.

There was an utter silence.

"I was married five years ago yesterday, as it happens," she went on, "but it's not necessary to set up a day nursery, you know, under those circumstances."

Still silence. Miss Honey studied the floor, and Caroline, after an astonished stare at the Princess, directed her eyes from one tapestry to another.

"I suppose you understand that, don't you?" demanded the Princess sharply. She appeared unnecessarily irritated, and as a matter of fact embarrassed her guests to such an extent that they were utterly unable to relieve the stillness that oppressed them quite as much as herself.

The Princess uttered an angry exclamation and paced rapidly up and down the room, looking more regal and more unlike other people than ever.

"For heaven's sake, say something, you little sillies!" she cried. "I suppose you want me to lose my temper?"

Caroline gulped and Miss Honey examined her shoe ties mutely.

Suddenly a well-known voice floated toward them.

"Was his nice bottle all ready? Wait a minute, only a minute now, General, and Delia'll give it to you!"

The procession filed into the room, Delia and the General, Ellis deferentially holding a tiny white coat, the man in livery bearing a small copper saucepan in which he balanced a white bottle with some difficulty. His face was full of anxious interest.

Delia thanked them both gravely, seated herself on the foot of the basket chair, arranged the General flat across her knees, and amid the excited silence of her audience, shook the bottle once or twice with the air of an alchemist on the brink of an epoch-making discovery.

"Want it? Does Delia's baby want it?" she asked enticingly. The General waved his arms and legs wildly; wreathed in smiles, he opened and shut his mouth in quick alternation, chirping and clucking, as she held it up before him; an ecstatic wriggling pervaded him, and he chuckled unctuously. A moment later only his deep-drawn, nozzling breaths could be heard in the room. They watched him in hushed satisfaction; once, as he smiled gratefully at Delia, Ellis sighed with pleasure.

"Ain't he sweet, though!" she murmured, and then glancing at the butler, giggled impressibly as the strained attitudes of the circle struck her.

"That will do, thank you, Haddock," said the Princess quickly, drawing a long breath and seating herself, and the two servants withdrew. Delia noted nothing, her eyes fixed on her charge; clearly, it would not have surprised her in the least if they had all stood, rapt, till the meal was over.

"He takes it beautiful," she said in low tones, looking confidentially at the Princess; "I didn't know but being in a strange place might make a difference with him, but he's the best baby!--"

She wiped his mouth and lifting him, still horizontal, approached her hostess.

"You can hold him now," she said superbly, "but keep him flat for twenty minutes, please. I'll go and take the bottle down, and get his carriage ready. He'll be good. He'll take a little nap, most likely."

She laid him across the rose-colored lap of the Princess, who looked curiously down on him, and offered him her finger tentatively. "I never held one before," she explained. "I--I don't know...." The General smiled lazily and patted the finger, picking at the great sapphire.

"How soft its hands are," said the Princess. "They slip off, they are so smooth! And how good--does it never cry?" This she said half to herself, and Caroline and Miss Honey, knowing there was no need to answer her, came and leaned against her knee unconsciously, and twinkled their fingers at the baby.

"Hello, General! Hello!" they cried softly, and the General smiled impartially at them and caressed the lady's finger.

The Princess stroked his cheek. "What a perfectly exquisite skin!" she said, and bending over him, kissed him delicately.

"How good it smells--how--how different!" she murmured. "I thought they--I thought they didn't."

Miss Honey had taken the lady's other hand, and was examining the square ruby with a diamond on either side.

"My mother says that's the principal reason to have a baby," she remarked, absorbed in the glittering thing. "You sprinkle 'em all over with violet powder--just like doughnuts with sugar--and kiss 'em. Some people think they get germs that way, but my mother says if she couldn't kiss 'em she wouldn't have 'em!"

The Princess bent over the baby again.

"It's going to sleep here!" she said, half fearfully, with an inquiring glance at the two. "Oughtn't one to rock it?"

Miss Honey shook her head severely. "Not General," she answered, "he won't stand it. My mother tried again and again--could I take that blue ring a minute? I'd be awful careful--but he wouldn't. He sits up and he lies down, but he won't rock."

"I might sing to him," suggested the Princess, brushing a damp lock from the General's warm forehead and slipping her ringless finger into his curved fist carefully. "Would he like it?"

"No, he wouldn't," said Miss Honey bluntly, twisting the ring around her finger. "He only likes two people to sing--Delia and my mother. Was that ruby ring a 'ngagement ring?"

Caroline interfered diplomatically. "General would be very much obliged," she explained politely, "except that my Aunt Deedee is a very good singer indeed, and Uncle Joe says General's taste is ruined for just common singing."

The Princess stared at her blankly.

"Oh, indeed!" she remarked. Then she smiled again in that whimsical expressive way. "You don't think I could sing well enough for him--as well as your mother?"

Miss Honey laughed carelessly. "My mother is a singer," she said, "a real one. She used to sing in concerts--real ones. In theatres. Real theatres, I mean," as the lady appeared to be still amused.

"If you know where the Waldorf Hotel is," Caroline interrupted, "she has sung in that, and it was five dollars to get in. It was to send the poor children to a Fresh Air Fund. It--it's not the same as you would sing--or me," she added politely.

The lady arose suddenly and deposited the General, like a doll, with one swift motion in the basket chair. Striding across the room she turned, flushed and tall, and confronted the wondering children.

"I will sing for you," she said haughtily, "and you can judge better!"

With a great sweep of her half bare arm, she brushed aside a portière and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano behind the curtains and ceased abruptly.

"What does your mother sing?" she demanded, not raising her voice, it seemed, and yet they heard her as plainly as when they had leaned against her knee.

"She sings, 'My Heart's Own Heart,'" Miss Honey called back defiantly.

"And it's printed on the song, 'To Madame Edith Holt!'" shrilled Caroline.

The familiar prelude was played with a firm, elastic touch, the opening chords struck, and a great shining voice, masterful, like a golden trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; Miss Honey, instinctively humming the prelude, got up from her foot-stool and followed the music, unconscious that she walked. She had been privileged to hear more good singing in her eight years than most people have in twenty-four, had Miss Honey, and she knew that this was no ordinary occasion. She did not know she was listening to one of the greatest voices her country had ever produced--perhaps in time to be known for the head of them all--but the sensitive little soul swelled in her and her childish jealousy was drowned deep in that river of wonderful sound.

Higher and sweeter and higher yet climbed the melody; one last triumphant leap, and it was over.

"_My heart--my heart--my heart's own heart!_"

The Princess stood before them in the echoes of her glory, her breath quick, her eyes brilliant.

"Well?" she said, looking straight at Miss Honey, "do I sing as well as your mother?"

Miss Honey clenched her fists and caught her breath. Her heart was breaking, but she could not lie.

"You--you--" she motioned blindly to Caroline, and turned away.

"You sing better," Caroline began sullenly; but the lady pointed to Miss Honey.

"No, you tell me," she insisted remorselessly.

Miss Honey faced her.

"You--you sing better than my m-mother," she gulped, "but I _love_ her better, and she's nicer than you, and I don't love you at _all_!"

She buried her face in the red velvet throne, and sobbed aloud with excitement and fatigue. Caroline ran to her: how could she have loved that cruel woman? She cast an ugly look at the Princess as she went to comfort Miss Honey, but the Princess was at the throne before her.

"Oh, I am abominable," she cried. "I am too horrid to live! It wasn't kind of me, _chérie_, and I love you for standing up for your mother. There's no one to do as much for me, when _I'm_ down and out--no one!" Sorrow swept over her flexible face like a veil, and seizing Miss Honey in her strong nervous arms she wept on her shoulder.

Caroline, worn with the strain of the day, wept, too, and even the General, abandoned in the great chair, burst into a tiny warning wail.

Quick as thought the Princess was upon him, and had raised him against her cheek.

"Hush, hush, don't cry--don't cry, little thing," she whispered, and sank into one of the high carved chairs with him.

"No, no, I'll hold him," she protested, as Delia entered, her arms out. "I'm going to sing to him. May I? He's sleepy."

Delia nodded indulgently. "For half an hour," she said, as one allowing a great privilege, "and then we must go. The children are tired."

"What do you sing to him?" the Princess questioned humbly.

"I generally sing 'Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,'" the nurse answered. "Do you know it?"

"I think so," and the Princess began a sort of glorified humming, like a great drowsy bee, all resonant and tremulous.

"Tell me the words," she said, and Delia recited them, as a mother would, to humor a petted child.

The Princess lifted her voice and pressing the General to her, began the song,

"Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise."

Soft the great voice was, soft and widely flowing; to Caroline, who had retreated to the further end of the music-room, so that Delia should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia herself, a wonderful new Delia, were singing her, a baby again, to sleep. She felt soothed, cradled, protected by that lapping sea of melody that drifted her off her moorings, out of the room....

Vaguely she saw Miss Honey, relaxed on the red throne, smile in her sleep, one arm falling over the broad seat. Was it in her dream that some one in a blue and white apron--not Delia, for Delia was singing--leaned back slowly in the long basket chair and closed her tired eyes? Who was it that held the General close in her arms, and smiled as he patted her cheek at the familiar song and mumbled her fingers with happy cooing noises?

"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream!"

Soft as plush, sweet as honey, the warm voice dipped and rose to the old tune. The General's head was growing heavy, but he smiled confidingly into the dark eyes above him and stretched himself out in full-fed, drowsy content. One hand slipped through the lace under his cheek and rested on the singer's soft breast. She started like a frightened woman, and her voice broke.

Down in the hall the butler and the maid sat on the lower stair.

"Ain't it grand?" she whispered, and Haddock nodded dreamily.

"Mother used to sing us that in the old country," he said. "There was Tom and 'Enry an' me--Lord, Lord!"

The General was asleep. Sometimes a tiny frown drew his eyebrows together. Sometimes she clenched and uncurled his warm hands. Sometimes he sucked softly at nothing, with moist, reminiscent lips. But on and on, over and over, rose and fell the quaint old song,

"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream!"

It flooded the listening house, it spread a net of dreams about the happy people and coaxed them back to childhood and a child's protected sleep. It seemed a song that could not stop, that must return on its simple refrain so long as there were arms to encircle and breasts to lean upon.

Two men came softly up a smaller stair than the grand entrance flight, and paused in amazement at sight of Caroline stretched, full length, across the threshold. The older and smaller of the men had in fact stepped on her, and confused and half awake she listened to his apologies.

"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! not a vordt! Mein Gott! but it is marvellous! A voice of velvet! Hey? A voice of the heart. My friend, what is this?"

He peeped behind the drawn curtains, and withdrew a face of wonder.

"It is nothing but children--and they sleep!" he whispered. "Oh, but listen, listen! And I offered her fifteen hundred dollars for two hours only of that!"

The other man peeped behind the curtain in his turn, and seizing Caroline by the arm tip-toed with her to a further room.

"What--who--what is the meaning of this?" he whispered hoarsely. "That child--where--"

Caroline rubbed her eyes. The golden voice rose and fell around her.

"General--Delia," she muttered, and stumbled against him. He lifted her limp little body and laid it gently on a leather sofa.

"Another time," he said softly to the other man, "I--we cannot talk with you now. Will you excuse us?"

The man looked longingly at the curtains.

"She will never do more well than that. Never!" he hissed. "Oh, my friend, hear it grow soft! Yes, yes, I am going."

It seemed to Caroline that in a dream some one with a red face and glasses askew, shook her by the shoulder and said to her sternly, "Sh! sh! Listen to me. To-day you hear a great artist--hey? Will you forget it? I must go because they do not vant me, but you will stay and listen. There is here no such voice. Velvet! Honey! Sh! sh!" and he went the way of dreams.

The man who stayed looked long through the curtains.

As a swing droops slow and slower, as the ripples fade from a stone thrown in the stream, the song of the Princess softened and crooned and hushed. Now it was a rich breath, a resonant thread,

"Flow gently, sweet Afton--"

The man stepped across the room and sank below the General at her feet. With her finger on her lips she turned her eyes to his and looked deep into them. He caught his breath with a sob, and wrapping his arm about her as he knelt, hid his face on her lap, against the General. She laid her hand on his head, across the warm little body, and patted it tenderly. Around them lay the sleepers; the General's soft breath was in their ears. The man lifted his head and looked adoringly at the Princess: her hand caressed his cheek, but her eyes looked beyond him into the future.

III

THE PRIZE

Caroline sniffed her way luxuriously through the dusky panelled library.

"I think it smells awfully good here, don't you?" she inquired of her hostess.

The lady's wonderful velvet train dragged listlessly behind her. Her neck and arms were dressed in heavy yellowish lace, but all around her slim body waves of deep colored, soft velvet held the light in lustrous pools or darkened into almost black shadows. It was like stained glass in a church, thought Caroline, stroking it surreptitiously, and like stained glass, too, were the lovely books, bloody red, grassy green and brown, like Autumn woods, with edges of gold when the sunlight struck them. They made the walls like a great jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to ceiling: here and there a niche of polished wood held a white, clear-cut head. From the ceiling great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass chains; they swayed ever so slightly when one watched them closely.

"This is my favorite room, Duchess," said Caroline, "isn't it yours?"

"Do you really think I look like one?" returned the lady, "the only duchess I ever saw was fat--horribly fat. It is a very handsome library, of course."

"Then _she_ didn't look like a duchess, that's all," Caroline explained. "What I like about this library is, it's so clean. And you can pull the chairs out and show those big, shiny yellow ones on the bottom shelf."

"Of course; why not?" said the Duchess, dropping into a great carved chair with griffins' heads on the top.

"Why, you can't do that at Uncle Joe's," Caroline confided, sitting on a small griffin stool at the lady's feet, "because General gets at the bottom row and smears 'em. You see he's only two, and you can't blame him, but he licks himself dreadfully and then rubs it on the backs. He marks them, too, inside, with a pencil or a hatpin, or even an orange-wood stick that you clean your nails with. Yours is made of pearl, you know, but most--a great many, I mean--people have them wood. And so the chairs have to be all leaned around against the walls to keep him from the books."

The Duchess drew a long breath. "And your uncle objects?" she said, between her teeth.

"Uncle Joe says," Caroline returned, patting the griffin heads on her little stool, "that if the President had General in his library for half an hour he'd feel different about race suicide."

The Duchess laughed shortly.

"That is possible, too," she agreed. "You said Cousin Joe was well--and Edith?"

"Oh, yes, they're well--I mean, they're very well indeed, thank you," said Caroline. "Uncle Joe says they have to be, with the General's shoes two dollars and a half a pair! You see he has quite thick soles, now--he runs about everywhere. Aunt Edith says he needs a mounted policeman 'stead of a nurse."

"Did Edith get rested after the moving?"

"Oh, yes," Caroline answered absently. She was watching the opal globes sway. "Aunt Edith says before she was married she'd have gone South with a trained nurse after such an experience, but now she has to save the nurse for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down after lunch."

The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the griffin chair, but sank back again.

"And you have a trained nurse all the time," Caroline mused, stroking the glistering velvet, "isn't that funny? Just so in case you _might_ be sick...." The sunlight peeped and winked on the gold book-edges.

"It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding very low, "but she is not likely to be needed for measles."

"No," Caroline assented, "you and cousin Richard are pretty old for measles. It's children that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But you don't seem to ever have any children. And such a big house, too! And you're very fond of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that when you like them you can't manage to have any. And people that don't care about them have them all the time. It was only Christmas time that Norah Mahoney--she does the extra washing in the summer--had another. That makes seven. It's a boy. Joseph Michael, he's named, partly after Uncle Joe. Norah says there don't seem to be any end to your troubles, once you're married to a man."

The Duchess turned aside her head, but Caroline knew from the corner of her mouth that her eyes were full of tears. She stroked the hands that clenched the griffin's crest.

"Never mind," she urged, "maybe you'll have some. Most everybody has just one, anyway."

The Duchess shook her head mutely; a large round tear dropped on the griffin.

"Well, then," said Caroline briskly, "why don't you adopt one? The Weavers did, and she was quite a nice girl; I used to play with her. She sucked her thumb, though. But prob'ly they don't, all of them."

"I wouldn't mind, if she did," the Duchess declared. Already she spoke more brightly. "I wanted to adopt one--one could take it when it was very little. But Richard won't hear of it."

"Not a bit?" Caroline looked worried; she knew Richard.

"Not a bit," the Duchess repeated, "that is, he says he is willing under certain conditions, but they are simply impossible. Nobody could find such a child."

"There are lots of 'em in the Catholic Foundling," said Caroline thoughtfully, "all kinds. Aunt Edith went there to sing for them and she took Miss Honey and me. They're all dressed differently and they look so sweet. You can take your choice of them; Aunt Edith cried. But you must let them be Catholics."

"Richard wouldn't let me take one from an institution," the Duchess said, "and somehow I wouldn't care to, myself. But there is a woman I know of who is interested in children that--that aren't likely to grow up happily, and she will get one for anybody, only one can't ask any questions about them. You may have all the rights in them, but you will never know where they came from. And Richard won't have that. I suppose he's right."

"But there are plenty of people who would let you have one, if you would give her a good home and be kind to her," Caroline began, lapsing for the moment into her confusing, adult manner.

"Yes, but Richard says that no people nice enough to have a child we could want would ever give us the child, don't you see," the Duchess interrupted eagerly. "He says the father must be a gentleman--and educated--and the mother a good woman. He says there must be good blood behind it. And they must never see it, never ask about it, never want it. He says he doesn't see how I could bear to have a child that any other mother had ever loved."

Caroline sighed.

"Cousin Richard does make up his mind, so!" she muttered.

"He is unreasonable," said the Duchess suddenly, "unreasonable! He must know all about the child, but the parents must not know about us! Not know our name, even! Just give up the child and withdraw--why, the poorest, commonest people would not do that, and does he expect that people of the kind he requires would be so heartless? We shall never be able to get one--never. And yet he wants one so--almost as much as I!"

The Duchess had forgotten Caroline. Staring at the opal globes she sat, and again the tears rose, brimmed and overflowed.

Caroline slipped off the little stool and walked softly out of the beautiful room. The books glowed jewel-like, the four milky moons swayed ever so little on their brass chains, the white busts looked coldly at the Duchess as she sat crying in her big carved chair, and there was nobody that could help at all.

Through the dark, shiny halls she walked--cautiously, for she had had embarrassing lessons in its waxy polish--and paused from force of habit to pat the great white polar bear that made the little reception room such a delightful place. More than the busts in the library even, he set loose the fancy, and whiled one away to the enchanted North where the Snow Queen drove her white sledge through the sparkling glades, and the Water Baby dived beneath the dipping berg.

Miss Grundman, the trained nurse, appeared in the doorway.

"Did you care to go out with the brougham, to-day, dear?" she asked. "Hunt tells me he has to go 'way down town."

"Yes, I'd like to--can you take care of babies, too?" Caroline returned abruptly.

Miss Grundman started.

"What an odd child you are--of course I can!" she said. "All nurses can; it's part of the training. Have you any you're worried about?" she added pointedly. Caroline flushed.

"You're making fun o' me," she muttered, "you know very well only grown people have them! I don't mean if they're sick, but can you wash them, and cook the milk in that tin thing, and everything like that?"

"Bless the child, of course I can!" Miss Grundman cried, "you bring me one and I'll show you!"

"Oh, I b'lieve you, Miss Grundman, if you say so," Caroline assured her, and slid carefully along the hall for the stairs that led to her hat and coat.

They spun smoothly down the avenue with an almost imperceptible electric whir, Caroline bolt upright on the plum-colored cushion, Hunt and Gleggson bolt upright on the seat outside. It was a matter for congratulation to Caroline that of all the vehicles that glided by them, none boasted a more upright pair than Hunt and Gleggson.

The tall brown houses were gradually changing into bright shops; the carriages grew thicker and thicker; the long procession stopped and waited now almost every moment, so crowded was the brilliant street. Once a massive policeman actually smiled at her as Hunt stopped the brougham close to him, and Caroline's admiring soul crowded to her eyes at the mighty wave of his white, arresting hand. They drew up before a great window filled with broughams and victorias displayed as lavishly as if they had been hats or bonbon boxes--it was like a gigantic toy-shop. Hunt dropped acrobatically to the pavement and was seen describing his mysterious desires to an affable gentleman behind the plate-glass; he measured with his knuckles and illustrated in pantomime the snapping of something over his knee; the clerk shook his head in commiseration and signalled to an attendant, who darted off. Soon Hunt appeared with a small package and they started on again, turning a corner abruptly and winding through less exciting streets. The shops grew smaller and dingier; drays passed lumbering by and street cars jarred along beside them, but vehicles like their own were noticeably lacking. It was plain that they attracted more attention, now, and more than one group of children dancing in the street to the music of the hurdy-gurdy lingered daringly to provoke the thrilling, mellow warning of their horn. At last they stopped at a corner and Hunt dropped again to the pavement, lingering for a short consultation with Gleggson who pointed once or twice behind them to the small occupant of the brougham. On this occasion he took with him a mysterious and powerful handle, and Caroline knew that this was precisely equivalent to running away with the horses. He hurried around an unattractive corner, and Gleggson sat alone in front. Five, ten minutes passed. They seemed very dull to Caroline, and she reached for the plum-colored tube and spoke boldly through it.

"What are we waiting for, please, Gleggson? Where is Hunt?"

"'E just stepped off, Miss, for a minute, like. 'E'll be 'ere directly. Would you wish for me to go and look 'im up, Miss?"

Gleggson spoke very cordially.

"We-ell, I don't know," Caroline said doubtfully. "If you think he'll be right back ... I can wait...."

"Pre'aps I'd better, as you say, Miss," Gleggson continued, "for 'e _'as_ been gone some time, and I think I could lay me 'and on 'im. You'll not get out, of course, Miss, and I'll be back before you know it."

He clambered down and took the same general course as Hunt had taken, deflecting, however, to enter a little door made like a window-blind, that failed to reach its own door-sill.

"Hunt didn't go there at all," Caroline muttered resentfully, and deliberately opening the door of the brougham, she stepped out.

She had followed Hunt's track quite accurately till a sudden turn confused her, and she realized that after that corner she had no idea in which direction he had gone. She paused uncertainly; the street was dirty, the few children in sight were playing a game unknown to her and not playing very pleasantly, at that; the women who looked at her seemed more curious than kindly. The atmosphere was not sordid enough to be alarming or even interesting; it was merely slovenly and distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to go back when a young girl stopped by her and eyed her inquisitively.

"Were you lookin' for any particular party?" she asked.

"I was looking for Hunt," said Caroline, "he went this way, I think."

"There's some Hunts across the street there," the girl suggested, "right hand flat, second floor. I seen the name once. I guess you're lost all right, ain't you?"

"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I'm not lost. I can go right back. I'll see if Hunt's there."

The threshold was greasy and worn, the stairs covered with faded oil cloth, the side walls defaced and over-scrawled. At the head of the stairs three dingy doors opened in three different directions, and a soiled card on the middle one bore the name of Hunt. A man's voice somewhere behind it talked in a strange loud sing-song; he seemed to be telling a long, confusing story. At the moment of Caroline's timid knock he was saying over and over again,

"Isn't that so? Isn't that so? Who wouldn't have done the same? Put your finger on the place where I made the mistake! Will you? Will anybody? I ask it as a favor--"

"Hush, won't you?" a woman's voice interrupted, "wasn't that a knock?"

Caroline knocked again.

There was a hasty shuffling and a key turned in the door.

"Who is it?" the woman's voice asked. "What do you want? The auction's all over--there's nothing left. We're moving out to-morrow."

Surprise held Caroline dumb. How could one have an auction in such a place? At auctions there were red flags, and horses and carriages gathered around the house, and people brought luncheon; they had often driven to auctions out in the country.

The door opened.

"Why it's only a child!" said the woman, thin and fatigued, with dark rings under her not ungentle eyes. "What do you want here?"

"I'm looking for Hunt," Caroline answered, "doesn't he live here?"

"Heavens, no!" the woman said, "that old card's been there long before we moved in, I guess. They were old renters, most likely. What's the party to you, anyway? Is he your--"

She paused, studying Caroline's simple but unmistakeable clothes and manner.

"He drives the automobile," Caroline explained, "I thought he came this way."

"Come in, won't you?" said the woman, "there's no good getting any more lost than you are, I guess. There's not much to sit on, 'specially if you're used to automobiles, but we can find you something, I hope. I try to keep it better looking than this gen'ally, but this is my last day here. I'm going out West to-morrow."

An old table, two worn chairs and an over-turned box furnished the small room; through an open door Caroline spied a tumbled bed. A kitchen, dismantled and dreary, faced her.

"The agent gave me five dollars for all I left," the woman said, "I don't know which of us got the best o' the bargain. Now, about you. Where do you live? I s'pose they're looking for you right now while we're talking. Do you know where you left the automobile?"

"Oh, yes." Caroline stared frankly about her. "Wasn't there a man in here? Where did he go?"

The woman grunted out a sort of laugh. "If you're not the limit!" she murmured. She stepped to the door of the kitchen, looked in, and beckoned to Caroline.

"I suppose you heard him carrying on," she said, "he's in there. Poor fellow, he's all worn out."

Caroline peered into the kitchen. With his rough, unshaven face resting on his arms, his hair all tossed about, his face drawn in misery, even in his heavy sleep, a young man sat before a table, half lying on it, one hand on a soiled plate still grasping a piece of bread.

"Is he sick?" whispered Caroline.

"N--no, I wouldn't say sick, exactly, but I guess he'd be almost as well off if he was," said the woman. "It would take his mind off. He's had a lot of trouble."

The man scowled in his sleep and clenched his hand, so that the bread crumbled in it.

"And so I won the prize," he muttered, "just as I told her I would. Did I have any pull? Was there any favoritism? No--you know it as well as I do--it was good work won that prize!"

"Was it a bridge prize?" Caroline inquired maturely. The woman stared.

"A bridge prize?" she repeated vaguely. "Why, no, I guess not. It was for writing a story for one of those magazines. He won a thousand dollars."

The man opened his eyes suddenly.

"And if you don't believe it," he said, still in that strange sing-song voice, "just read that letter."

He pulled a worn, creased sheet from an inner pocket and thrust it at Caroline.

"It's typewritten," he added, "it's easy enough to see if I'm lying. Just read it out."

Caroline glanced at the engraved letter-heading and began to read in her careful, childish voice:

MY DEAR MR. WILLISTON:

_It is with great pleasure that I have to announce the fact that
your story, "The Renewal," has been selected by the judges as
most worthy of the thousand-dollar prize offered by us._

The woman snatched the paper from her hand.

"The idea!" she cried, "let the child alone, Mr. Williston! Don't you see she's lost?"

The man dropped like a stone on the table.

"Lost!" he whispered, "lost! Oh, that dreadful word! Yes, she's lost. Poor little Lou. It's all over."

The woman drew Caroline back into the sitting room.

"I'm sorry you should see him," she said. "You must excuse him--he don't really know what he's doing. He lost his wife a week ago and he's hardly slept since. It's real sad. I was as sorry as I could be for 'em, and I'd have kept 'em even longer if she'd lived, though they couldn't pay. I'd keep the baby, too, if I could, it's such a cute little thing, but I can't, and I'm to take it to the Foundling to-day. I'll go right out with you, and see that the police--"

"Oh, is there a baby? Let me see it!" Caroline pleaded. "How old is it?"

"Just a week," said the woman. "Yes, you can see him. He's good as gold, and big--! He weighs nine pounds."

In the third room, lying in a roll of blankets on a tumbled cot, a pink, fat baby slept, one fist in his dewy mouth. The red-gold down was thick on his round head; he looked like a wax Christ-child for a Christmas tree.

Caroline sighed ecstatically.

"Isn't he lovely!" she breathed.

"He's a fine child," the woman agreed. "And his mother never saw him, poor little thing. Nor his father either, for that matter."

Caroline looked in amazement toward the kitchen.

"Never laid his eyes on him," the woman went on sadly, "as if it was any good, to blame the poor baby! He's taken a terrible grudge on the little thing. He was awfully fond of his wife, though. He told me he was going to leave him right here, and then, of course, somebody in the house would notify the police, if I didn't take him to the Foundling. And of course he'd get better care, for that matter--there's no doubt about that. It's too bad. There's people that would give their eyes for a fine baby like that, you know."

"I know it," said Caroline simply, "my cousin Richard would be glad to have him--he wants one very much. But he's very particular."

The woman looked at her sharply. "What do you mean?" she asked. "How particular?"

Suddenly she laughed nervously. "I ought to be ashamed of myself," she said, "you ought to be at the police station now. But I'm all worn out, and it does me good to talk to anybody. I don't let the neighbors in much--it's a cheap set of people around here, and Mr. Williston's different from them and I hate to hear him talking to them the way he will. He don't know what he's doing. He tells 'em all about that prize--and it's true, you know, he did get it; that's what they married on, and he thought he could get plenty more that way, and then he never sold another story. It was too bad. He's a real gentleman, though you might not think it to look at him now, not shaved, and all. He thought he could earn a thousand every week, I s'pose, poor fellow. He got work in a department store, fin'ly, and it took all he made to bury her. She was a sweet little thing, but soft. I was real sorry for 'em."

She wiped her eyes hastily.

"Do you know whether he went to Harvard?" Caroline inquired, in a business-like tone.

The woman was heating some milk in a bottle, over a lamp, and did not answer her, but a voice from the door brought her sharply around. The young man stood there. Though still unshaven, he was otherwise quite changed. His hair was parted neatly, his coat brushed, his face no longer flushed, but pale and composed.

"If your extraordinary question refers to me, yes, I went to Harvard," he said in a grating, disagreeable voice. "I have in fact been called a 'typical Harvard man.' But that was some time ago. May I ask who you are?"

The woman lifted the bottle from the tin cup that held it and picked up the baby; the young man shifted his eyes from her immediately and looked persistently over Caroline's head.

"Her family's coachman's name is Hunt," said the woman, "and she thought he lived here, she says. He'd no business to go off and leave her alone. Her family'd be worried to death. When I go out with the baby I'll take her. I suppose you haven't changed your mind about the baby, Mr. Williston?--now you're feeling more like yourself," she added.

"I cannot discuss that subject, Mrs. Ufford," the young man answered, in his rasping, unnatural voice. "When you have disposed of the matter along the lines you yourself suggested, I am at your service till you take the train. After that--after that"--his lips tightened in a disagreeable smile--"I may be able to get to work--and win another prize!"

"There, there!" she cautioned him, "don't talk about that, Mr. Williston, don't, now! Why don't you go out with the little girl and see if you can find her automobile? That'll be less for me to do. Why don't you?"

He turned, muttering something about his hat, but Caroline tugged at his coat.

"Wait, wait!" she urged him, "I want you to tell her to let me take the baby! If you went to Harvard, that's all Cousin Richard said, except about a gentleman"--she paused and scrutinized him a moment. "You _are_ a gentleman, aren't you?" she asked.

He looked at her. "My father was," he answered briefly. "In my own case, I have grave doubts. What do you think?" he asked the woman, looking no lower than her eyes.

She fed the baby deftly. "Oh, Mr. Williston, don't talk so--of course you're a gentleman!" she cried, "you couldn't help about the money. You did your best."

His mouth twisted pitifully.

"That'll do," he said, "what does this child mean? Who is your cousin? Where does he live?"

"He lives on Madison Avenue," Caroline began eagerly, "but I mustn't tell you his last name, you know, because he doesn't want you to know. That's just it. But he'd love the baby. I could take it right back in the automobile."

The man felt in under his coat and detached from his waistcoat a small gold pin. He tore a strip of wrapping paper from the open box near him and wrote rapidly on it.

"There," he said, fastening the pin into the folded paper, "I'm glad I never pawned it. If your cousin is a Harvard man, the pin will be enough, but he can look me up from this paper--all he wants. They're all dead but me, though. Here, wait a moment!"

He went back into the sitting room and fumbled in a heap of waste paper on the floor, picked out of it a stiff sheet torn once through, and attached it with the gold pin to the bit of writing.

"That's her marriage certificate," he said to the woman. She stared at him.

"Mr. Williston, do you believe that child?" she burst out, loosening her hold on the bottle in her hand. "Why, she may be making it all up! I--I--you must be crazy! You don't even know her name! I won't allow it--"

He broke into her excited remonstrance gravely.

"I don't believe a child could make up such details, in the first place, Mrs. Ufford," he said, "she is repeating something she's heard, I think. Did your cousin mention anything else?" he said abruptly to Caroline.

She smiled gratefully at him. "The mother must be a good woman," she quoted placidly.

Both of them started.

"Do you think a child would invent that?" he demanded. "Now, see here. You take Mrs. Ufford home with you in the automobile and she can see if there's anything in what you say, really. If there's not, she can go right on with the--with it, and do as--as we arranged before. It's all written on the paper, and my full consent to the adoption, and if there's anything legal to do about it, Mrs. Ufford can attend to it. But nobody'll trouble 'em--they can be sure of that. My people all died long ago and--and hers--hers...."

He stopped short. With eyes filled and lips vaguely moving he fell into a strange revery, a sort of tranced stupor. So intense were his absent thoughts that they impressed the woman and the child; they knew that he was back in the past and waited patiently while for a few kind moments he forgot. At length his eyes shifted and he took up his broken phrase, unconscious, evidently, of the pause. "--her's are back in New England. They never knew.... I had _some_ pride. They're the I-told-you-so sort, anyhow. And they told her, all right. Oh yes, they told her! Narrow-minded, God-fearing prigs!" He stared at Mrs. Ufford curiously. "But they paid their debts, all the same," he added with a harsh laugh, "and that's more than I've been able to do, I suppose you're thinking."

But almost before the dark red had flushed her tired, lined face, he leaned forward and touched her shoulder kindly.

"I didn't mean that," he apologized. "I'm half crazy, I think. You've been as good as gold, and even when I've paid you the money I owe you, I'll owe you more than I can ever pay. I know that. And you're New England, too."

His sudden softening encouraged the woman, and she looked appealingly up at him, while she patted the bundle on her lap.

"Folks have hearts in New England, Mr. Williston," she began, "and if you was to go to her folks or write to 'em, I guess you'd find--oh, couldn't you?"

His impatient hand checked her.

"He might grow up to be a real comfort to you," she murmured persistently, "and you could look out for him well enough, once you get started. Just see how smart you are, Mr. Williston--look at that prize you got; she was awful proud of it."

His face twisted painfully.