How extraordinarily happy she had been that morning! The whole world had seemed so clean and fresh and wholesome, so delightfully straightforward and uncomplicated. If only she could get back that feeling, just for a moment, she thought she would be rested and ready to begin again. In the old days nothing had seemed hard, nothing out of reach, nothing perplexing. And now her life was spoiled.
One evening early in June she was having tea with May, longing for Tom to come in, dreading that he would come. May had sent for the baby, and he was sitting on his mother’s knee regarding his toes, which apparently seemed to him very wonderful inventions and quite original, and his mother was taking a sympathetic interest in his discoveries. Maud, who had been quite fascinating to the infant mind till he found out about his toes, had been thrown over, and as May’s attention was riveted on her son, she felt just a little out of it. Suddenly May looked up.
“Just fancy,” she said, “this little mite is our own, Tom’s and mine: I never get quite used to that fact. Yes, darling”--she turned her attention to the baby--“how pretty, and that’s all yours. Oh, you angel!”
Maud felt her breath catch in her throat, and on the moment the door opened and Tom came in.
“Baby-cult as usual,” he said. “How are you, Maud?”
Maud could not quite command her voice, but she murmured something.
“That surprising infant usurps far too much of May’s time,” continued he. “May will never quite recognize that one baby is rather like another baby.”
May bent over the little sparsely be-haired head.
“What an unnatural papa he’s got!” she said; “he says you’re like other babies. You know quite well, and so does he, that there never was a baby like you, and never will be!”
Tom’s pleasant soul sat laughing in his eyes as he answered her.
“Mothers are said to be biassed in favour of their own young; never you believe that, my boy.”
“May’s manners are cast to the winds when His Smallness is present,” he said; “she won’t attend to either of us, so we’ll attend to each other. Are you going to the Levesons’ to-morrow? I hear they are going to be very smart, and that it’s a case of red carpet. May, I must smoke a cigarette. I don’t care whether it’s the drawing-room or not.”