Part 9

The child would die, he felt sure of that, and his heart quivered to think how she would suffer. And who was there to help her to bear it? He almost wished he was in truth her brother, that his might naturally be that right; almost, but not quite. Well, he wished a great many vain and useless things as he sat there opposite to her, conscious that she had forgotten him. He moved, and even coughed, but she took no notice. The baby's little mouth twitched slightly and her whole being became acutely conscious. She changed its position and words of passionate lovingness crowded upon her lips. But instead of responding to them, it began to whimper fretfully--a sound that brought a spasm of positive anguish across her face.

"There, then, mother's little dear lamb that mother has hurt and troubled! Mother loves her little man, and he'll get well and make poor mother happy again--won't he?"

It was some time before the child could be quieted. The peevish little whine almost angered Noel when he saw how it was cutting into Christine's heart. In the hope of diverting the baby he put out his hand and began to snap his fingers softly in front of its face. There was a ring on the hand that sparkled, and the baby saw it and stretched out his little hand toward it. A gleam of pure delight came into the mother's face.

"He hasn't noticed anything for days," she said, catching Noel's hand in an ardent grasp and holding it so that the baby could see the ring. He felt her fingers close upon it almost lovingly. He knew she could have kissed it, because it had for that second been of interest to her child--and with no knowledge that it was in any way different from the ring upon it. When the baby turned away from it fretfully she let it drop.

At last the little invalid went to sleep in Christine's lap. The boat, which was not to land but went only for the excursion on the water, had turned and they were going back toward the city. The breeze that played around Christine's bent head blew little curly strands about her face and called a faint flush into her cheeks. Noel noted everything.

Night began to draw on and she could no longer see the baby's face distinctly. She drew the end of a light shawl over him, saying as she did so:

"The doctor says this is the best of all--the coming back in the fresh evening air."

She sat up in her place then, and Noel could see that she kept her hand upon her baby's pulse.

"Do you ever sing now?" he asked abruptly.

She shook her head.

"No--except little songs to baby."

"I heard while I was in Europe of your making an immense hit in the amateur opera. Why did you stop?"

"I was forced to. Those people compelled me. I don't know why, but they looked on me as something apart from them. The women were strange and unfriendly, and the men--I don't know," she broke off confusedly, "but it is all hateful to me to think of. I was glad to get away from them. The night of the opera was the last time. Oh, if my baby will get well," she said, bending to touch his thin hair with her lips, "I will never need anything but him. You believe in prayer--don't you? Will you pray to God to make him well?"

Noel promised with a willingness that seemed to comfort her. Absorbed in the child once more, she soon seemed to forget him and silence fell between them again. It was scarcely broken during the whole return trip. She seemed to have nothing to say to him. When she spoke to him at all her thrilling voice dropped to a whisper, and it was always to give some information about the baby. Once she said with fervent interest, "He is asleep," and once she told him that his skin felt cool and natural. This was all. It must be owned that Noel didn't think very lovingly of that poor atom of humanity as he sat there. It was the baby that had caused her to be in this false position, which he felt so keenly, and it was terror for the baby which brought that suffering look to her face. And yet something of the same feeling was in his own breast as he palpitated at the thought of this little creature's dying and breaking the heart of its mother, who plainly loved it with the absorbingness of the first passion she had ever known.

When they reached the wharf it was quite dark, and the electric lights and publicity of the place made Noel shrink so from the thought of exposing the girl, in her suffering, to the gaze of such men and women as he saw about him, that, without consulting her, he called a carriage and helped her into it, following and seating himself opposite her. She protested at first, but he said:

"I have a long way to go and need a carriage, and I may as well drop you at home. Where must I put you down?"

She gave a street and number. The door was shut, the man mounted to his box and drove away, and they were alone together. Alone, except for the baby, but that was enough to make him feel that he and all the world beside were thousands of miles away from her. They drove on in silence. Now and then as they passed a bright light, her beautiful face, outlined by its dark hat-brim and darker hair, shone out from the shadow, but for which he might have felt himself in a dream interrupted by no sound, except the monotonous rumble of the wheels. Always as he looked her eyes were lowered to catch each passing glimpse of the baby's face. She never looked at him.

He began to feel it necessary to ask one or two questions that he might know what to prepare for, but as he broke the silence to begin she said warningly, in a low whisper:

"Sh-sh-sh, he is waking," and then fell to rocking and crooning over the baby and coaxing him back to sleep. When he seemed quite quiet again she said suddenly in a low whisper, and in the dark he felt her eyes upon him:

"What makes you so kind? No one is ever kind to me. I thought nobody cared. I had one friend but she went away. She did not want to leave me, but she had to go far off somewhere to make a living for her mother."

"I will always help you if you will let me," Noel said, whispering too, for fear of being silenced. "I will send my sisters to see you, if you will let them come--"

"Oh, no!" she said, interrupting him impulsively. "Don't send any women out of the world you live in to see me. They are cruel--they have dreadful thoughts of me. They look at me strangely and suspect me. Oh, no--I'd rather take my baby to the end of the earth and hide from them. I beg you not to send any one to see me."

Noel hastened to promise her that he certainly would not go against her wish, and was wondering how he should find out the things he longed so to know, when suddenly the carriage stopped.

The driver got down and rang the bell. As Noel was helping Christine to get out, the door was opened and the figure of Dallas appeared. It was a surprise to him, somehow, and an unwelcome one. How his spirit rose in abhorrence of this man!

Christine went up the steps with the baby, and as he had her bag and shawl Noel followed, telling the driver to wait.

It was a miserable little house, poor and cheap, and empty, and but for the counteracting effect of his anger against Dallas, Noel thought he must have almost sobbed to see Christine here. Dallas himself was not at all discomposed as he recognized his visitor and asked him in, offering a hand which Noel managed to touch.

The baby was still asleep, and when Christine had placed it carefully on a wretched little couch, she seemed, for the first time, free to think of Noel. She turned and asked him to sit down--at the same time glancing about her with a sudden rush of consciousness, which until now a nearer interest had crowded out. The poverty-stricken look of her surroundings was made the more evident by the few objects belonging to other days that lay about--a charming sacque, smartly braided and lined with rich silk, hung on the back of a chair, and a handsome travelling rug was folded under the baby on the sofa. Everything was clean, for Christine even yet had not come to contemplate the possibility of doing without a servant.

There was a small kerosene lamp on a table, over which were spread a lot of cards with their faces up. Some one had evidently been playing solitaire, and as evidently, on the witness of another sense, been accompanying the game by the smoking of bad tobacco. The room reeked with it to a degree that made Noel feel it an outrage to Christine. But what was he to do? There was but one thing. He said good-by and went away, carrying the memory of Christine's face flushed scarlet for shame.