don’t you go calling yourself his poor mother.”
They laughed together. They were relieved that the ordeal was over. The child was healthy. Now they could return to their home in the country. Soon Phyllis would be able to ride again. Their life would go on in its accustomed pleasant groove. The baby had been born in the London nursing home because Mrs. Stuart-Grattan, Phyllis Rendel’s mother, had a deep-seated distrust of the general practitioner in the country. He had attended her daughter when the first child was born and she had had a very bad time. Mrs. Stuart-Grattan had plenty of means and a strong will. If Phyllis would have her baby in the nursing home, she would pay all expenses. She had, and the expenses were heavy.
The two fathers stood waiting for the lift. The passage was dim. The wan electric light made the men’s faces sallow, gave them a careworn look of false age. Robert Wylde leaned heavily on his stick and stared through the iron grille behind which the lift would appear. He would come again in the evening to see Camilla. Between then and now the day stretched purposeless, except for the visit to the steamship office. He wished Camilla had been satisfied with the stateroom. Still, he supposed she was right. It might be noisy.
The lift was coming. It stopped. Neither man moved forward to enter first. Then, seeing he was expected to because of his stick, Wylde stepped hastily through the door. The floor of the lift was not quite level with the floor of the passage. He stumbled and would have fallen but for Dick Rendel, who caught him by the arm and held him. Reddening with annoyance at what he looked on as his own stupidity, Wylde thanked him. The lift slid downward. In silence they descended, passed through the hall and into the street. The pale sunlight had deepened to a dusky gold. A flower-seller’s barrow appeared around the corner. The Englishman turned suddenly to the American.
“I hope you weren’t hurt,” he said.
“Oh, no. I’ve been in an accident and it’s made me clumsy, that’s all.”
“You’re from America, eh?”
“Yes, my accident kept us here. That’s why our baby was born in London.” He had a sudden desire to talk to another man. “I suppose you live here,” he said.
“No,” answered Rendel vaguely. “In the country.” And he added with unexpected familiarity, “How is your family doing?”
“Fine, thanks. How’s yours?”
“Couldn’t be better. It’s my second son. The other is three years old.”
Nurse Jennings, in her outdoor things, passed them on her way to meet Edgar. She gave them a swift, appraising look. She had a queer light-headed feeling as she passed them. Then she giggled and giggled.
CHAPTER II
THE cross-Channel steamer was nearing the cliffs of Dover. The sun was shining but there was a shrewdness in the breeze. It was late spring. Camilla Wylde turned up the collar of her coat and drew the rug about her knees. She wished Robert were there to do it for her. But he never seemed to be on hand at the moment when he was needed. Now he had not been near her for a long while. She might be in desperate need of him but he’d go right on being preoccupied by his own doings. What was he doing? she wondered. Talking over the European situation, she guessed, with some chance acquaintance. She was a little tired of the European situation. It was always boiling up to something and then subsiding into bickerings. Robert seemed inclined to take this crisis seriously, to be glad they were on their way back to America. She wanted a cigarette but knew she could not light it in the strong breeze. It was annoying. She kept imagining what it would be like to light a cigarette, to draw from it those first satisfying puffs.
She wondered where Palmer was. She wished he would come and get his warm sweater. After that nasty cold he’d had in Paris he needed special care. She took up her book and tried to read. But she was uneasy. She was certain that the Customs would charge a ridiculous duty on the things she had bought in Paris. If only Robert weren’t so terribly honest about declaring their purchases! She remembered the time she and Janet had come over by themselves and how she hadn’t declared anything and had got away with it.
Palmer came up. “Hey, Mom,” he said, “did you see all those planes?”
“No, darling, I was reading. But you’re just the boy I want. I want you to put on your sweater. Here it is.” She drew it from behind her and handed it to him with a tender yet half-annoyed look. “You’d stay out till you froze and never notice it.”
He drew back from her as though she were offering him poison.
“Why, Mom,” he exclaimed, “you don’t want to roast me alive, do you? Gee whizz, just feel me! I’m hot as an oven already.” He held out a rather grimy hand and round brown wrist.
“No. I don’t want to feel you. I want you to put your sweater on.” She pushed it against him.
“The boy I was with up in the bow has nothing but a cotton shirt on!”
“Palmer, will you please believe that mother knows best, and do what she tells you?”
When Camilla began to talk of herself in the third person, Palmer began to feel bored. He’d rather do what she said than go on listening to her. He took the thick striped sweater and began to struggle into it, as though there were not an instant to be lost.
“Palmer, do it more quietly. Goodness’ sakes, you’ll have it torn in another minute.”
“O.K., Mom.” There was defiant acquiescence in his voice. Then suddenly he gave her his sweet smile and escaped. The sweater wrinkled across his shoulders but, somehow, Palmer always wore his clothes well. He had a good figure and a good walk.
She was tired of fresh air. She yawned and thought of the moment when she would have a hot bath and a cigarette in her bedroom in the hotel. Now she saw Robert coming toward her down the deck. He had a boy Palmer’s age with him. It must be the boy Palmer had spoken of, for he wore a soft white shirt open at the throat. He was tanned a deep brown. Contrasted with his skin, his fair hair and eyebrows looked almost silvery. Robert and the boy stopped quite near her and leant against the rail staring at some planes circling overhead. She watched them, feeling rather amused by the similarity of their attitudes. Each had his elbows bent above the rail, his legs stiff, his face upturned and jaw dropped; one large figure; one small; it was ridiculous.
When the planes had passed she caught Robert’s eye and beckoned to him. He came, smiling.
“What is it, Camilla?”
“I’ve been dying for a smoke for ages but I can’t get a light in this wind. I feel stiff all over. Who is that boy?”
He gave her a cigarette, lighted it from his lighter, and said,—“You might feel better if you walked around. I don’t know who the youngster is but he’s mighty intelligent. He’s with his parents—they’re English.”
She closed her eyes and took a few delicious puffs at the cigarette. When she opened them the boy had drawn a little closer. He was looking at her with polite interest. She smiled.
He returned the smile, flushed a little and was turning away, when she asked:
“Have you been on your vacation too?”
He nodded. “Yes. We’ve been to Italy.”
“Is
