The Immortal Moment Part 36

"Some day."

"Don't sigh like that, Kitty."

"She's like Robert, isn't she?"

"Very like Robert."

She brooded.

"Janey," she said, "let me have him to myself this evening."

All evening she had him to herself, out on the Cliff, in the place where n.o.body came but they.

"Well," he said, "what do you think of them?"

"I think they're adorable."

"Funny little beggars, aren't they? How did you get on with Janet?"

She told him.

"That's Janet's little way. To give you something of her own." He smiled in tender satisfaction, repeating the child's phrase.

"It's all right, Kitty. She's only holding herself in. You're in for a big thing."

She surveyed it.

"I know, Robert. I know."

"You're tired? Have the children been too much for you?"

She shook her head.

"You're not to make yourself a slave to them, you know."

She looked at him.

"Was I all right, Robert?"

"You were perfect."

"You said I was only a child myself."

"So you are. That's why I like you."

She shook her head again.

"It's all very well," she said, "but that isn't what you want, dear--another child."

"How do you know what I want?"

"You want somebody much nicer than I am."

He was silent, looking at her as he had looked at Barbara, enjoying her absurdity, letting her play, like the child she was, with her preposterous idea.

"Oh, Robert, you do _really_ think I'm nice?" She came nearer to him, crying out like a child in pain. He put his arm round her, and comforted her as best he could.

"You child, do you suppose I'd marry you if I didn't think you nice?"

"You might. You mightn't care."

"As it happens, I do care, very much. Anyhow, I wouldn't ask you to be a mother to my children if I didn't think you nice. That's the test."

"Yes, Robert," she repeated, "that's the test."

They rose and went back to the hotel. From the lawn they could see the open window of the children's room. They looked up.

"Would you like to see them, Kitty?"

"Yes."

He took her up to them. They were asleep. Little Barbara lay curled up in the big bed, right in the middle of it where her dreams had tossed her. Janet, in the cot beside her, lay very straight and still.

Robert signed to Kitty to come near, and they stood together and looked first at the children and then into each other's faces. Kitty was very quiet.

"Do you like them?" he whispered.

Her lips quivered, but she made no sign.

He stooped over each bed, smoothing the long hair from Janet's forehead, folding back the blanket that weighed on Barbara's little body. When he turned, Kitty had gone. She had slipped into her own room.

She waited till she heard Robert go away. The children were alone in there. The nurse, she knew, was in Jane's room across the pa.s.sage. Jane was probably telling her that her master was to be married very soon.

She looked out. The door of Jane's room was shut; so was the door of the children's room through which Robert had gone out. The other, the door of communication, she had left ajar. She went softly back through it and stood again by the children's beds. Janet was still sound asleep. Her fine limbs were still stretched straight and quiet under the blanket.

Her hair was as Robert's hand had left it.

Kitty was afraid of disturbing Janet's sleep. She was afraid of Janet.

She stooped over little Barbara, and turned back the bedclothes from the bed. She laid herself down, half her length, upon it by Barbara's side, and folded her in arms that scarcely touched her at first, so light they lay on her. Then some perverse and pa.s.sionate impulse seized her to wake the child. She did it gently, tenderly, holding back her pa.s.sion, troubling the depths of sleep with fine, feather-like touches, with kisses soft as sleep.

The child stirred under the caressing arms. She lay in her divine beauty, half asleep, half awake, opening her eyes, and shutting them on the secret of her dream. Then Kitty's troubling hand turned her from her flight down the ways of sleep. She lay on her back, her eyes glimmered in the lifting of their lids; they opened under Kitty's eyes that watched them, luminous, large and clear. Her mouth curled under Kitty's mouth, in drowsy kisses plucked from the annihilated dream. She drew up her rosy knees and held out her arms to Kitty's arms and smiled, half awake and half asleep.

Kitty rose, lifting the child with her from the bed. She held her close, pressing the tender body close to her own body with quivering hands, stroking the adorable little face with her own face, closing her eyes under the touch of it as she closed them when Robert's face touched hers. She was aware that she had brought some pa.s.sionate, earthly quality of her love for Robert into her love for Robert's child.

She said to herself, "I'm terrible; there's something wrong with me.

This isn't the way to love a child."

She laid the little thing down again, freed her neck from the drowsy, detaining arms, and covered the small body up out of her sight.

Barbara, thus abandoned, cried, and the cry cut through her heart.