Mr. Robert Carlaw at once expressed the keenest interest. "Delightful! What vigour you still possess, my dear Charlotte! What is the experiment to be?"
"I'll tell you. I'm going to make myself useful for once, in a way, if I can. I haven't quite lost sight of the hope that there's some good, some sweetness, in the world. You don't possess any, but that probably isn't your fault. I don't possess much, although I'm a devilish sight better than you are; but I may be able to find some. I've been haunted a little lately by the memory of that girl--our sister--who didn't care, or seem to care, a bit for any of the things I clutch so strongly, and you would clutch if you could. She was fool enough, in the world's eyes, to wait twenty years for a man who wasn't fit to touch her hand--at least that's my view--and then to die before she quite knew what the experiment was worth. God forgive me!--I might have eased the way for both of them; but I chose to laugh, as others did, and then was too ashamed afterward to do anything. Look here"--she pushed Comethup forward a little--"this is her boy; and I've learned, in a pretty long experience, to judge people by their voices and by their faces, for I can know a face better than you could if you had a dozen eyes. Bob, my dear, I'm going to make up for past neglect. This child is left alone in the world; I'm going to look after it."
Mr. Robert Carlaw's jaw dropped; he hesitated a moment, and then came forward protestingly. "But, my dear Charlotte, may I remind you that you have already held out hopes to----"
"Nothing of the kind," she ejaculated. "I gave _your_ boy the chance I might have given to any one else; I can't say I liked him, any more than I like his father; but he's got a father to look after him, and this lad hasn't. Besides"--she laughed a little--"your boy will make his way in the world; he's got the voice and the manner for it; he'll sail smoothly through things that would upset any one else. Therein he favours his father. No, this is my experiment, and if I can squeeze a little love and tenderness out of this baby for my own sake, and not for the sake of my bank account--well, I sha'n't quite have failed."
She got up, still with her hand on the boy's shoulder, and began to pace up and down that side of the room, firing a shot or two at Mr. Robert Carlaw as she moved.