faith that she possessed. She passed out into the bare and open high road, followed by Mrs. Momeby’s warning, “It’s no use going there, we’ve searched there a dozen times.” But Rose-Marie’s ears were already deaf to all things save self-congratulation; for sitting in the middle of the highway, playing contentedly with the dust and some faded buttercups, was a white-pinafored baby with a mop of tow-coloured hair tied over one temple with a pale-blue ribbon. Taking first the usual feminine precaution of looking to see that no motor-car was on the distant horizon, Rose-Marie dashed at the child and bore it, despite its vigorous opposition, in through the portals of Elsinore. The child’s furious screams had already announced the fact of its discovery, and the almost hysterical parents raced down the lawn to meet their restored offspring. The aesthetic value of the scene was marred in some degree by Rose-Marie’s difficulty in holding the struggling infant, which was borne wrong-end foremost towards the agitated bosom of its family. “Our own little Erik come back to us,” cried the Momebys in unison; as the child had rammed its fists tightly into its eye-sockets and nothing could be seen of its face but a widely gaping mouth, the recognition was in itself almost an act of faith.
“Is he glad to get back to Daddy and Mummy again?” crooned Mrs. Momeby; the preference which the child was showing for its dust and buttercup distractions was so marked that the question struck Clovis as being unnecessarily tactless.
“Give him a ride on the roly-poly,” suggested the father brilliantly, as the howls continued with no sign of early abatement. In a moment the child had been placed astride the big garden roller and a preliminary tug was given to set it in motion. From the hollow depths of the cylinder came an earsplitting roar, drowning even the vocal efforts of the squalling baby, and immediately afterwards there crept forth a white-pinafored infant with a mop of tow-coloured hair tied over one temple with a pale blue ribbon. There was no mistaking either the features or the lung-power of the new arrival.
“Our own little Erik,” screamed Mrs. Momeby, pouncing on him and nearly smothering him with kisses; “did he hide in the roly-poly to give us all a big fright?”
This was the obvious explanation of the child’s sudden disappearance and equally abrupt discovery. There remained, however, the problem of the interloping baby, which now sat whimpering on the lawn in a disfavour as chilling as its previous popularity had been unwelcome. The Momebys glared at it as though it had wormed its way into their short-lived affections by heartless and unworthy pretences. Miss Gilpet’s face took on an ashen tinge as she stared helplessly at the bunched-up figure that had been such a gladsome sight to her eyes a few moments ago.
“When love is over, how little of love even the lover understands,” quoted Clovis to himself.
Rose-Marie was the first to break the silence.
“If that is Erik you have in your arms, who is—that?”
“That, I think, is for you to explain,” said Mrs. Momeby stiffly.
“Obviously,” said Clovis, “it’s a duplicate Erik that your powers of faith called into being. The question is: What are you going to do with him?”
The ashen pallor deepened in Rose-Marie’s cheeks. Mrs. Momeby clutched the genuine Erik closer to her side, as though she feared that her uncanny neighbour might out of sheer pique turn him into a bowl of gold-fish.
“I found him sitting in the middle of the road,” said Rose-Marie weakly.
“You can’t take him back and leave him there,” said Clovis; “the highway is meant for traffic, not to be used as a lumber-room for disused miracles.”
Rose-Marie wept. The proverb “Weep and you weep alone,” broke down as badly on application as most of its kind. Both babies were wailing lugubriously, and the parent Momebys had scarcely recovered from their earlier lachrymose condition. Clovis alone maintained an unruffled cheerfulness.
“Must I keep him always?” asked Rose-Marie dolefully.
“Not always,” said Clovis consolingly; “he can go into the Navy when he’s thirteen.” Rose-Marie wept afresh.
“Of course,” added Clovis, “there may be no end of a bother about his birth certificate. You’ll have to explain matters to the Admiralty, and they’re dreadfully hidebound.”
It was rather a relief when a breathless nursemaid from the Villa Charlottenburg over the way came running across the lawn to claim little Percy, who had slipped out of the front gate and disappeared like a twinkling from the high road.
And even then Clovis found it necessary to go in person to the kitchen to make sure about the asparagus sauce.
WRATISLAV
The Gräfin’s two elder sons had made deplorable marriages. It was, observed Clovis, a family habit. The youngest boy, Wratislav, who was the black sheep of a rather greyish family, had as yet made no marriage at all.
“There is certainly this much to be said for viciousness,” said the Gräfin, “it keeps boys out of mischief.”
“Does it?” asked the Baroness Sophie, not by way of questioning the statement, but with a painstaking effort to talk intelligently. It was the one matter in which she attempted to override the decrees of Providence, which had obviously never intended that she should talk otherwise than inanely.
“I don’t know why I shouldn’t talk cleverly,” she would complain; “my mother was considered a brilliant conversationalist.”
“These things have a way of skipping one generation,” said the Gräfin.
“That seems so unjust,” said Sophie; “one doesn’t object to one’s mother having outshone one as a clever talker, but I must admit that I should be rather annoyed if my daughters talked brilliantly.”
“Well, none of them do,” said the Gräfin consolingly.
“I don’t know about that,” said the Baroness, promptly veering round in defence of her offspring. “Elsa said something quite clever on Thursday about the Triple Alliance. Something about it being like a paper umbrella, that was all right as long as you didn’t take it out in the rain. It’s not every one who could say that.”
“Every one has said it; at least every one that I know. But then I know very few people.”
“I don’t think you’re particularly agreeable to-day.”
“I never am. Haven’t you noticed that women with a really perfect profile like mine are seldom even moderately agreeable?”
“I don’t think your profile is so perfect as all that,” said the Baroness.
“It would be surprising if it wasn’t. My mother was one of the most noted classical beauties of her day.”
“These things sometimes skip a generation, you know,” put in the Baroness, with the breathless haste of one to whom repartee comes as rarely as the finding of a gold-handled umbrella.
“My dear Sophie,” said the Gräfin sweetly, “that isn’t in the least bit clever; but you do try so hard that I suppose I oughtn’t to discourage you. Tell me something: has it ever occurred to you that Elsa would do very well for Wratislav? It’s time he married somebody, and why not Elsa?”
“Elsa marry that dreadful boy!” gasped the Baroness.
“Beggars
