Part 160

"I am 'oldin' it," said Rose.

He smiled at that in spite of himself. He was softened by its reminder of her submissive dumbness, by its implication that there were, after all, so many things she might have said and hadn't.

Having impressed upon her that she was on no account to let Mrs. Brodrick go till he came back, he rushed for his appointment.

By rushing away from it, cutting it very short indeed, he contrived to be back again at half-past four. Susan informed him that Mrs. Brodrick had come. She had arrived at four with the baby and the nurse. She was in there with the baby.

"The baby?"

Sounds of laughter came from the dining-room, rendering it unnecessary for Susan to repeat her statement. She smiled sidelong at the door, as much as to say she had put her master on to a good thing. He would appreciate what he found in there.

In there he found Jinny crouching on a footstool; facing her, Rose knelt upon the floor. In the space between them, running incessantly to and fro on his unsteady feet, was Brodrick's little son. When he got to Jinny he flung his arms around her neck and kissed her twice, and then Rose said, "Oh, kiss poor Rose"; and when he got to Rose he flung his arms around her neck, too, and kissed her, once only. That was the distinction that he made. And as he ran he laughed, he laughed as if love were the biggest joke in all the world.

Tanqueray stood still in the doorway and watched, as he had stood once in the doorway of the house in Bloomsbury, watching Rose. Now he was watching Jinny. He thought he had never seen her look so divinely happy. He watched Brodrick's son and thought distastefully that when Brodrick was a baby he must have looked just like that.

And the little Brodrick ran to and fro, from Jinny to Rose and from Rose to Jinny, passionately, monotonously busy, with always the same rapturous embrace from Brodrick's wife and always the same cry from Tanqueray's, "Kiss poor Rose!"

When Jane turned to greet Tanqueray, the baby clung to her gown. His mouth drooped as he realized that it was no longer possible to reach her face. Identifying Tanqueray as the cause of her remoteness, he stamped a baby foot at him; he distorted his features and set up a riotous howl. Rose reiterated her sad cry as a charm to distract him. She pretended to cry too, because the baby wouldn't look at her. He wouldn't look at anybody till his mother took him in her arms and kissed him. Then, with his round face still flushing under his tears, he smiled at Tanqueray, a smile of superhuman forgiveness and reconciliation.

Rose gazed at them in a rapture.

"Well," said she, "how you can keep orf kissin' 'im----"

"I can keep off kissing anything," said he.

Jane asked if he would ring for the nurse to take the baby.

Tanqueray was glad when he went. It had just dawned on him that he didn't like to see Jinny with a baby; he didn't like to see her preoccupied with Brodrick's son, adoring, positively adoring, and caressing Brodrick's son.

At the same time it struck him that it was a pity that Rose had never had a baby; but he didn't carry the thought far enough to reflect that Rose's baby would be his son. He wondered if he could persuade Jinny to send the baby home and stay for dinner.

He apologized for not having been there to receive her. Jane replied that Rose had entertained her.

"You mean that you were entertaining Rose?"

"We were entertaining each other."

"And now you've got to entertain me."

She was going to when Rose interrupted (her mind was still running on the baby).

"If I was you," said she, "I shouldn't leave 'im much to that Gertrude."

"What?" (It was Tanqueray who exclaimed.) "Not to the angel in the house?"

"I don't know about angels, but if it was me I wouldn't leave 'im, or she'll get a hold on 'im."

"Isn't he," said Tanqueray, "a little young?"

But Rose was very serious.

"It's when 'e's young she'll do the mischief."

"My dear Rose," said Jane, "whatever do you think she'll do?"