"Maud, I could have loved
you like that--once."
She shook her head and her smile was sad. "No, my dear, believe me! I
couldn't have inspired it in you. I was too selfish myself in those days.
Some other woman will teach you that now."
"I wonder," said Charles Rex, half-mocking and half-touched.
She slipped her hand through his arm, turning from the subject with a
faint sigh. "Well, come and see the baby! He's very lovely."
"From your point of view or Jake's?" questioned Saltash.
She laughed. "From mine of course. He is going to be just like Jake."
"Heavens above! I pity you!" ejaculated Saltash. "You'll never cope with
two of 'em! They'll crush you flat."
She drew him from the terrace into the quiet house. "Don't be absurd,
Charlie! This boy of ours is to be the prop of our old age."
He went with her jesting, but when they entered the silent nursery in
which the two youngest children lay sleeping, his trifling ceased and he
trod with reverence.
They stood together in the dim light beside the baby's cot, and Saltash
looked down upon the flushed baby face with a faintly rueful smile upon
his own.
"There is something in being married and done for after all," he said.
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