I always think that’s Meg’s. Come and look in the stable. I’ve got a shire mare, and two nags: pretty good. I went down to Melton Mowbray with Tom Mayhew, to a chap they’ve had dealings with. Tom’s all right, and he knows how to buy, but he is such a lazy careless devil, too lazy to be bothered to sell——”
George was evidently interested. As we went round to the stables, Emily came out with the baby, which was dressed in a new silk frock. She advanced, smiling to me with dark eyes:
“See, now he is good! Doesn’t he look pretty?”
She held the baby for me to look at. I glanced at it, but I was only conscious of the near warmth of her cheek, and of the scent of her hair.
“Who is he like?” I asked, looking up and finding myself full in her eyes. The question was quite irrelevant; her eyes spoke a whole clear message that made my heart throb; yet she answered.
“Who is he? Why, nobody, of course! But he will be like father, don’t you think?”
The question drew my eyes to hers again, and again we looked each other the strange intelligence that made her flush and me breathe in as I smiled.
“Ay! Blue eyes like your father’s—not like yours——”
Again the wild messages in her looks.
“No!” she answered very softly. “And I think he’ll be jolly, like father—they have neither of them our eyes, have they?”
“No,” I answered, overcome by a sudden hot flush of tenderness. “No—not vulnerable. To have such soft, vulnerable eyes as you used makes one feel nerv-
