Part 25 (1/2)

She stood by the window, looking out on the cool green of gra.s.s, on the blaze of colour from the flower borders, on neatly gravelled paths.

Here, too, there were roses; the green of the lawn was patterned gaily with their petals which the soft, warm wind had scattered wide and blown into little heaps and again distributed these in a pleasing blending of colour; the path was covered with them, sweet-scented, and newly scattered by the breeze.

”It looks festive,” she remarked.

”It looks as if the boy had better get to work with a broom,” George replied.

”Prosaic person?” she said, laughing. And added: ”Let them stay. It's a sweet disorder, anyhow.”

He stooped to kiss her.

”You are a sweet woman,” he said, and put his arm about her, and stood looking with her out upon the small but pretty garden of their home.

Pride of owners.h.i.+p filled the man's brain, flooded his heart with genial warmth, even as the sunlight which flooded the garden and shone hotly on the gaily coloured flowers in the borders. He felt that life had nothing more to offer him; his cup of happiness was full to the brim.

But to the woman, looking out on the sunlight with him, such complete satisfaction was not possible. She was content. But the sun of her happiness had pa.s.sed its zenith and was on the decline.

Together they went through the house on a tour of inspection, while lunch was preparing. Each room called for comment and fresh expressions of delight. They came to their bedroom last. George sat on the side of the bed while Esme removed her hat and gave little touches and pats to her hair, standing before the mirror and surveying her appearance critically. She discovered a tiny powder puff and dabbed her face with it. These mysteries of the toilet interested George profoundly. He disapproved of the puff.

”I can't understand why you do that,” he said. ”Your skin's all right.”

”We do a lot of incomprehensible things,” she returned, laughing at him.

”Men shave, for instance, though nature intended them to wear hair on the face.”

”That's one up to you, old dear,” he said, and got up and seized her by the shoulders and kissed her. ”It's rather jolly to be in our own home.

It was nice being away together; but this... Esme, I feel extraordinarily happy. It seems too good to be true, too good to last.

It's great.”

”Silly old duffer!” she said, smiling back into his eager eyes. ”Why should the good things be less enduring than the evil?”

”Put like that, I don't see why they should be,” he responded. ”Wise little woman! we will make our good time last for all our lives.”

Book 4--CHAPTER THIRTY.

Time pa.s.sed, and the Sinclair menage increased its numbers by one. A baby girl was born to Esme, and was christened, despite its father's protests, Georgina.

The baby ruled the household, and tyrannised over its parents, and made slaves of its G.o.dparents, who were amazingly interested in this small cousin of theirs. Mary, a pretty girl of nineteen, with all her s.e.x's partiality for babies, wors.h.i.+pped at the shrine of the new arrival; John, with masculine mistrust of humanity in miniature, regarded the infant doubtfully, until, with its further development, it captivated him with its smile. From the moment when the baby first smiled at him, John lost his awe of it. He found it infinitely more amusing than any puppy. He carried it about the garden, bundled under one arm like a parcel, to its intense gratification. It was a good-tempered mite, and seldom cried.

The coming of her baby brought complete happiness to Esme. It entirely changed the current of her thoughts, and drew her closer in love and sympathy to George, cementing their union with the strongest bond which married life can forge. Her love for George, as the father of her child, became a fine and tender emotion. She loved him in relation to the child. The great desire of her life was granted. She had her baby: life could give her no greater happiness.

Sinclair took very kindly to the parental role. Young things appealed to him; and he was immensely proud of his daughter, whose coming had completed the home circle, had indeed filled the home and banished for ever the quiet of former days. He never tired of watching Esme with the child. She suggested the incarnate picture of motherhood, with the brooding look of love and contentment in her eyes.

The gap was filled; and the old life with Paul slipped further into the background of her thoughts.

And in England a man, newly released from a German prison camp, ill, half-starved, with nerves racked and shaken, a physical wreck, was thinking of his wife in Africa, and wondering how life had gone with her in the years since he had left her because he had felt himself to be unfit to breathe the same air with her.

Had she grieved for him, he wondered? Or had she felt contempt for his weakness, blamed him for a coward, for leaving her secretly like a criminal? The years since he had left his home were so many that it was more than possible she believed him to be dead. Several times since he was made a prisoner, dining the early days of war, he had written to her; but, receiving no replies to his communications, he concluded that these, for some obscure reason of his captors, were never sent. Many men, like himself, had been similarly cut off from all communication with their friends. He had considered the question of writing after his release; but decided against it; he would wait until he saw her. His return would prove a shock in any case. He preferred to reserve explanations until he could offer them in person and comfort her for the sorrow of their years of separation.

Not once did it ever enter Paul Hallam's thoughts that his wife, even though she might believe him to be dead--which he considered likely-- would have married again. It simply did not occur to him.