Part 34

"Why, Anthony, dear," said the kindly little woman, "I never knew you to be so faint of heart."

Anthony faced around again. "If my strength could do her any good I'd be a lion for her," he said. "But when all I can do is to wait--and think what I'd do if----"

He was gone suddenly into the night. With a tender smile on her lips Mrs. Dingley went on upon the errand which had brought her downstairs. "It's worth something to a woman to be able to make a man's heart ache like that," she said to herself with a little sigh. Anthony would not have understood, but even in this hour the older woman, in her wisdom, was envying Juliet.

Morning came at last, as mornings do. With the first streaks of the gray dawn Anthony heard a little, high-keyed, strange cry--new to his ears. He leaped up the stairs, four at a time, and paused, breathless, by the closed door of the blue-and-white room. After what seemed to him an interminable time Mrs. Dingley came out. At sight of Anthony her face broke into smiles, and at the same moment tears filled her eyes.

"It's a splendid boy, Tony," she said. "I meant to come to you the first minute, but I waited to be perfectly sure. He didn't breathe well at first."

But Anthony pushed this news aside impatiently. "Juliet?" he questioned eagerly.

"She's all right, you poor man," Mrs. Dingley assured him. "You shall see her presently, just for a minute. The first thing she said was, 'Tell Tony.' Go down now--I'll call you soon."

Anthony stole away downstairs to the outer door again. This time he ran out upon the porch and down the lawn and orchard, in the early half-light, to the willow path by the brook. He dashed along this path to its end and back again, as if he must in some way give expression to his relief from the tension of the night. But he was back and waiting impatiently long before he received his summons to his wife's room.

On his way up he wrung the friendly hand of Dr. Joseph Wilberforce, the best man in the city at times like these, and thanked him in a few uneven words. Then he came to the door of the blue-and-white room.

"Don't be afraid, Tony," said a very sweet, clear voice; "we're ever so well--Anthony Robeson, Junior, and I."

Anthony Robeson, Senior, walked across the room in a dim, gray fog which obscured nearly everything except the sight of a pair of eyes which were shining upon him brightly enough to penetrate any fog. At the bedside he dropped upon his knees.

"I suppose I'm an awful chump," he murmured, "but nothing ever broke me up so in all my life."

Juliet laughed. It was not a sentimental greeting, but she understood all it meant. "But I'm so happy, dear," she said.

"Are you? Somehow I can't seem to be--yet. I'm too badly scared."

"He's such a beautiful big boy."

"I suppose I shall be devoted to him some time, but all I can think of now is to make sure I've got you."

The pleasant-faced nurse in her white cap came softly in and glanced at Tony meaningly.

"If you'll come in here you may see your son, Mr. Robeson," she said, and went out again.

Anthony bent over his wife. "Little mother," he whispered, with a kiss, and obediently went.

Across the hall he stood looking dazedly down at the round, warm bundle the nurse laid in his arms.

"My son," he said; "how odd that sounds."

Then he hastily gave the bundle back to the nurse and got away downstairs, wiping the perspiration from his brow.

"Never dreamed it was going to knock me over like this," he was saying to himself. "I can't look at her; I can't look at him; I feel like a big boy who has seen a little fellow take his thrashing for him."

And in this humble--albeit most sincerely thankful--frame of mind he absently drank his breakfast coffee, and never realised that in her confusion of spirit good Mary McKaim, who was here again in time of need, had brewed him instead a powerful cup of tea.

XX.--A PRIOR CLAIM

"Come up, come up--you're just the people we want," cried Anthony heartily from his own porch. "Thought you'd be getting out to see us some of these fine August nights. Sit down--Juliet will be out in a minute."

"Baby asleep?" asked Judith Carey, as she and Wayne settled comfortably into two of the deep bamboo chairs with which the porch was furnished.

"To be sure he's asleep at this hour," Anthony assured her proudly; "been asleep for two hours. Regular as a clock, that youngster. Nurse trained him right at the beginning, and Juliet has kept it up. Four months old now, and sleeps from six at night till four in the morning without waking. How's that?"