these steps with me, there aren't but three of them, you see, and
we'll just step in here a moment. I don't know what house it is, but
I guess it'll be all right. Oh, yes, you can take him out; he is
safe, you know. Come on, youngsters."
Before Delia could protest he had pressed the button, and a man in
livery was opening the door.
"We've just escaped a nasty accident out here," said the little
doctor easily. "You were probably looking out of the window? Yes.
Well, this young woman is a sort of a patient of mine--Dr. Gibbs,
West Forty-ninth Street--and though she's very plucky and perfectly
uninjured, I want her to rest a moment in the hall here and have a
drink of water, if your mistress doesn't object. Just take up this
card and explain the circumstances, and"--his hand went into his
pocket a moment--"that's about all. Sit down, my dear."
The man took in at a glance the neat uniform of the nurse, the
General's smart, if diminutive, apparel, and the unmistakable though
somewhat ruffled exterior of Miss Honey.
"Very well, sir," he said politely, taking the card. "It will be all
right, sir, I'm sure. Thank you, sir. Sit down, please. It will be
all right. I will tell Madame Nicola."
"Well, well, so this is Madame Nicola's!" The little doctor looked
around him appreciatively, as the servant ran up the stairs.
"I wish I could stay with you, chickens, but I'm late for an
appointment as it is. I must rush along. Now, mind you, stay here
half an hour, Delia, and sit down. You're no trouble at all, and
Madame Nicola knows who I am--if she remembers. I sprayed her
throat once, if I'm not mistaken--she was on a tour, at Pittsburg.
She'll take care of you." He opened the door. "You're a good girl,
you biggest one," he added, nodding at Caroline. "You do as you're
told. Good-by."
The door shut, and Caroline, Miss Honey and Delia looked at each
other in a daze. Tears filled Delia's eyes, but she controlled her
voice, and only said huskily, "Come here, Miss Honey, and let me
brush you off--you look dreadful. Let me take your handkerchief. Did
it--were you--are you hurt, dear?"
"No, but you pushed me awful hard, Delia, and a nasty big man
grabbed me and tore my guimpe--see! I wish you'd told me what you
were going to do," began Miss Honey irritably.
"And you gave me a big kick--it was _me_ he grabbed--look at my
cheek!" Caroline's lips began to twitch; she felt hideously tired,
suddenly.
"Children, children, don't quarrel. General, darling, _won't_ you
sit still, please? You hurt Delia's knees, and you feel so heavy.
Oh, I wish we were all home!"
The man in livery came down the stairs. "Will you step up, Madame
says, and she has something for you up there. I'll take the baby,"
as Delia's eyes measured the climb. "Lord, I won't drop her--I've
got two o' my own. 'Bout a year, isn't she?"
"He's a boy," panted Delia, as she rested her weight on the rail,
"and he's only eight months last week," with a proud smile at the
General's massive proportions.
"Well, he _is_ a buster, isn't he? Here is the nurse, Madame, and
the children. The doctor has gone."
Caroline stretched her eyes wide and abandoned herself to a frank
inspection of her surroundings. For this she must be pardoned, as
every square inch of the dark, deep-colored room had been taken
bodily from Italian palaces of the most unimpeachable Renaissance
variety. With quick intuition, she immediately recognized a
background for many a tale of courts and kings hitherto unpictured
to herself, and smiled with pleasure at the Princess who advanced,
most royally clad in long shell pink, lace-clouded draperies, to
meet them.
"You are the brave nurse my maid told me about," said the Princess;
"she saw it all. You ought to be very proud of your quick wits. I
have some sherry for you, and you must lie down a little and then I
will send you home."
Delia blushed and sank into a high carved chair, the General staring
curiously about him. "It wasn't anything at all," she said,
awkwardly, "if I could have a drink--"
Caroline checked the Princess as she moved toward a wonderful
colored decanter with wee sparkling tumblers like curved bits of
rainbow grouped about it.
"She means a drink of water," she explained politely. "She only
drinks water--sometimes a little tea, but most usu'lly water."
"The sherry will do her more good, I think," the Princess returned,
noticing Caroline for the first time, apparently, her hand on the
decanter.
At this point Miss Honey descended from a throne of faded
wine-colored velvet, and addressed the Princess with her most
impressive and explanatory manner.
"It won't do you any good at all to pour that out," she began, with
her curious little air of delivering a set address, prepared in
private some time before, "and I'll tell you why. Delia knew a nurse
once that drank some beer, and the baby got burned, and she never
would drink anything if you gave her a million dollars. Besides, it
makes her sick."
The Princess looked amused and turned to a maid who appeared at that
moment with apron strings rivalling Caroline's.
"Get me a glass of water, please," she said, "and what may I give
you--milk, perhaps? I don't know very well what children drink."
"Thank you, we'd like some water, too," Miss Honey returned primly,
"we had some soda-water, strawberry, once to-day."
Caroline cocked her head to one side and tried to remember what the
lady's voice made her think of; she scowled in vain while Delia
drank her water and smiled her thanks at the maid. Suddenly it came
to her. It was not like a person talking at all, it was like a
person singing. Up and down her voice traveled, loud and soft; it
was quite pleasant to hear it.
"Do you feel better now? I am very glad. Bring in that reclining
chair, Ellis, from my room; these great seats are rather stiff,"
said the Princess, and Delia, protesting, was made comfortable in a
large curved lounging basket, with the General, contentedly putting
his clothespin through its paces, in her arm.
"How old is it?" the Princess inquired, after an interval of
silence, during which Miss Honey and Caroline regarded her with a
placid interest, and Delia stroked the General's hair, from which
she had taken the absurd lace cap.
"He's eight months, Madam, last week--eight months and ten days,
really."
"That's not very old, now, is it?" pursued the lady. "I suppose they
don't know very much, do they, so young?"
"Indeed he does, though," Delia protested, "You'll be surprised.
Just watch him, now. Look at Delia, darlin'; where's Delia?"
The General withdrew his lingering gaze from the clothespin, and
turned his blue eyes wonderingly up to her. The corner of his mouth
trembled, widened, his eyelids crinkled, and then he smiled
delightfully, straight into the eyes of the nurse, stretched up a
wavering pink hand, and patted her cheek. A soft, gurgling
monosyllable, difficult of classification but easy to interpret,
escaped him.
The Princess smiled appreciatively, and moved with a stately, long
step toward them.
"That was very pretty," she said, but Delia did not hear her.
"My baby, my own baby!" she murmured with a shiver, and hiding her
face in the General's neck she sobbed aloud.
Miss Honey, shocked and embarrassed, twisted her feet nervously and
looked at the inlaid floor. Caroline shared these feelings, but
though she turned red, she spoke sturdily.
"I guess Delia feels bad," she suggested shyly, "when she thinks
about--about what happened, you know. She don't cry usu'lly."
The Princess smiled again, this time directly at Caroline, who
fairly blinked in the radiance. With her long brown eyes still
holding Caroline's round ones, she patted Delia's shoulder kindly,
and both the children saw her chin tremble.
The General, smothered in that sudden hug, whimpered a little and
kicked out wildly with his fat white-stockinged legs. Seen from the
rear he had the appearance of a neat, if excited, package,
unaccountably frilled about with embroidered flannel. Delia
straightened herself, dabbed apologetically at her eyes, and
coughed.
"It's bottle-time," she announced in horror-stricken tones,
consulting a large nickel watch hanging from her belt, under the
apron. "It's down in the carriage. Could I have a little boiling
water to heat it, if you please?"
"Assuredly," said the Princess. "Ellis, will you get the--the bottle
from the baby's carriage and some boiling water, please. Do you mix
it here?"
"Mix--the food is all prepared, Madam." Delia spoke with repressed
scorn. "I only want to heat it for him."
"Oh, in that case, Ellis, take it down and have it heated, or," as
the nurse half rose, "perhaps you would feel better about it if you
attended to it yourself?"
"Yes, I think I will go down if you don't mind--when persons aren't
used to 'em they're apt to be a little careless, and I wouldn't have
it break, and him losing his three o'clock bottle, for the world.
You know how it is...."
The Princess shook her head whimsically. "But surely you will leave
the baby," and she moved toward them again. "I will hold it," with a
half grimace at her own condescension. "It seems so very good and
cheerful--I thought they cried. Will it come to me?"
Delia loosened her arms, but tightened them again as the little
creature leaned forward to catch at the swinging lace on the lady's
gown.
"I--I think I'll take baby with me. Thank you just the same, and
he'll go to any one--yes, indeed--but I feel so sort of nervous, I
think I'd better take him. If anything should happen.... Wave your
hand good-by--now, General!"
The General flapped his arms violently, and bestowed a toothless but
affectionate grin upon the wearer of the fascinating, swaying lace,
before he disappeared with the delighted Ellis in the van.
"And can you buy all that devotion for twenty, thirty, or is it
forty dollars a month, I wonder?" mused the Princess.
"Dear me," she added petulantly. "It really makes one actually
_want_ to hold it! It seems a jolly little rat--they're not all like
that, are they? They howl, I'm sure."
Again Miss Honey took the floor.
"When babies are sick, or you don't treat them right," she announced
didactically, "they cry, but not a well baby, Delia says. I"--with
conscious pride--"screamed night and day for two weeks!"
"Really!" observed the Princess. "That must have been--er--trying
for your family!"
"Worried to death!" Miss Honey rejoined airily, with such an adult
intonation that the Princess started.
"The General, he just laughs all the time," Caroline volunteered,
"unless you tease him," she added guiltily, "and then he squawks."
"Yes, indeed," Miss Honey bore witness, jealous of the lady's
flashing smile to Caroline, "my mother says I'm twice the trouble he
is!"
The Princess laughed aloud. "You're all trouble enough, I can well
believe," she said carelessly, "though you particular three are
certainly amusing little duds--for an afternoon. But for a steady
diet--I'm afraid I'd get a bit tired of you, eh?"
She tapped their cheeks lightly with a cool, sweet-smelling finger.
Miss Honey smiled uncertainly, but Caroline edged away. There was
something about this beautiful tall lady she could not understand,
something that alternately attracted and repelled. She was grown up,
certainly; her skirts, her size and her coiled hair proved that
conclusively, and the servants obeyed her without question. But what
was it? She was not like the other grown up people one knew. One
moment she sparkled at you and the next moment she forgot you. It
was perfectly obvious that she wanted the General only because Delia
had not wanted to relinquish him, which was not like grown people;
it was like--yes, that was it: she was like a little girl herself,
even though she was so tall and had such large red and blue rings on
her fingers.
Vaguely this rushed through Caroline's mind, and it was with an
unconscious air of patronage, that she said, as one making
allowances for inexperience, "When you get married, then you'll
_have_ to get tired of them, you know."
"But you'll be glad you've got 'em, when they're once in bed," Miss
Honey added encouragingly. "My mother says I'm a real treasure to
her, after half past seven!"
The Princess flushed; her straight dark eyebrows quivered and met
for an instant.
"But I _am_ married," she said.
There was an utter silence.
"I was married five years ago yesterday, as it happens," she went
on, "but it's not necessary to set up a day nursery, you know, under
those circumstances."
Still silence. Miss Honey studied the floor, and Caroline, after an
astonished stare at the Princess, directed her eyes from one
tapestry to another.
"I suppose you understand that, don't you?" demanded the Princess
sharply. She appeared unnecessarily irritated, and as a matter of
fact embarrassed her guests to such an extent that they were utterly
unable to relieve the stillness that oppressed them quite as much as
herself.
The Princess uttered an angry exclamation and paced rapidly up and
down the room, looking more regal and more unlike other people than
ever.
"For heaven's sake, say something, you little sillies!" she cried.
"I suppose you want me to lose my temper?"
Caroline gulped and Miss Honey examined her shoe ties mutely.
Suddenly a well-known voice floated toward them.
"Was his nice bottle all ready? Wait a minute, only a minute now,
General, and Delia'll give it to you!"
The procession filed into the room, Delia and the General, Ellis
deferentially holding a tiny white coat, the man in livery bearing a
small copper saucepan in which he balanced a white bottle with some
difficulty. His face was full of anxious interest.
Delia thanked them both gravely, seated herself on the foot of the
basket chair, arranged the General flat across her knees, and amid
the excited silence of her audience, shook the bottle once or twice
with the air of an alchemist on the brink of an epoch-making
discovery.
"Want it? Does Delia's baby want it?" she asked enticingly. The
General waved his arms and legs wildly; wreathed in smiles, he
opened and shut his mouth in quick alternation, chirping and
clucking, as she held it up before him; an ecstatic wriggling
pervaded him, and he chuckled unctuously. A moment later only
his deep-drawn, nozzling breaths could be heard in the room.
They watched him in hushed satisfaction; once, as he smiled
gratefully at Delia, Ellis sighed with pleasure.
"Ain't he sweet, though!" she murmured, and then glancing at the
butler, giggled impressibly as the strained attitudes of the
circle struck her.
"That will do, thank you, Haddock," said the Princess quickly,
drawing a long breath and seating herself, and the two servants
withdrew. Delia noted nothing, her eyes fixed on her charge;
clearly, it would not have surprised her in the least if they
had all stood, rapt, till the meal was over.
"He takes it beautiful," she said in low tones, looking
confidentially at the Princess; "I didn't know but being
in a strange place might make a difference with him, but
he's the best baby!--"
She wiped his mouth and lifting him, still horizontal,
approached her hostess.
"You can hold him now," she said superbly, "but keep him flat
for twenty minutes, please. I'll go and take the bottle down,
and get his carriage ready. He'll be good. He'll take a little
nap, most likely."
She laid him across the rose-colored lap of the Princess, who looked
curiously down on him, and offered him her finger tentatively. "I
never held one before," she explained. "I--I don't know...." The
General smiled lazily and patted the finger, picking at the great
sapphire.
"How soft its hands are," said the Princess. "They slip off, they
are so smooth! And how good--does it never cry?" This she said half
to herself, and Caroline and Miss Honey, knowing there was no need
to answer her, came and leaned against her knee unconsciously, and
twinkled their fingers at the baby.
"Hello, General! Hello!" they cried softly, and the General smiled
impartially at them and caressed the lady's finger.
The Princess stroked his cheek. "What a perfectly exquisite skin!"
she said, and bending over him, kissed him delicately.
"How good it smells--how--how different!" she murmured. "I thought
they--I thought they didn't."
Miss Honey had taken the lady's other hand, and was examining the
square ruby with a diamond on either side.
"My mother says that's the principal reason to have a baby," she
remarked, absorbed in the glittering thing. "You sprinkle 'em all
over with violet powder--just like doughnuts with sugar--and kiss
'em. Some people think they get germs that way, but my mother says
if she couldn't kiss 'em she wouldn't have 'em!"
The Princess bent over the baby again.
"It's going to sleep here!" she said, half fearfully, with an
inquiring glance at the two. "Oughtn't one to rock it?"
Miss Honey shook her head severely. "Not General," she answered, "he
won't stand it. My mother tried again and again--could I take that
blue ring a minute? I'd be awful careful--but he wouldn't. He sits
up and he lies down, but he won't rock."
"I might sing to him," suggested the Princess, brushing a damp lock
from the General's warm forehead and slipping her ringless finger
into his curved fist carefully. "Would he like it?"
"No, he wouldn't," said Miss Honey bluntly, twisting the ring around
her finger. "He only likes two people to sing--Delia and my mother.
Was that ruby ring a 'ngagement ring?"
Caroline interfered diplomatically. "General would be very much
obliged," she explained politely, "except that my Aunt Deedee is a
very good singer indeed, and Uncle Joe says General's taste is
ruined for just common singing."
The Princess stared at her blankly.
"Oh, indeed!" she remarked. Then she smiled again in that whimsical
expressive way. "You don't think I could sing well enough for
him--as well as your mother?"
[Illustration: With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a
portière and disappeared.]
Miss Honey laughed carelessly. "My mother is a singer," she said, "a
real one. She used to sing in concerts--real ones. In theatres.
Real theatres, I mean," as the lady appeared to be still amused.
"If you know where the Waldorf Hotel is," Caroline interrupted, "she
has sung in that, and it was five dollars to get in. It was to send
the poor children to a Fresh Air Fund. It--it's not the same as you
would sing--or me," she added politely.
The lady arose suddenly and deposited the General, like a doll, with
one swift motion in the basket chair. Striding across the room she
turned, flushed and tall, and confronted the wondering children.
"I will sing for you," she said haughtily, "and you can judge
better!"
With a great sweep of her half bare arm, she brushed aside a
portière and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano
behind the curtains and ceased abruptly.
"What does your mother sing?" she demanded, not raising her voice,
it seemed, and yet they heard her as plainly as when they had leaned
against her knee.
"She sings, 'My Heart's Own Heart,'" Miss Honey called back
defiantly.
"And it's printed on the song, 'To Madame Edith Holt!'" shrilled
Caroline.
The familiar prelude was played with a firm, elastic touch, the
opening chords struck, and a great shining voice, masterful, like a
golden trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; Miss Honey,
instinctively humming the prelude, got up from her foot-stool and
followed the music, unconscious that she walked. She had been
privileged to hear more good singing in her eight years than most
people have in twenty-four, had Miss Honey, and she knew that this
was no ordinary occasion. She did not know she was listening to one
of the greatest voices her country had ever produced--perhaps in
time to be known for the head of them all--but the sensitive little
soul swelled in her and her childish jealousy was drowned deep in
that river of wonderful sound.
Higher and sweeter and higher yet climbed the melody; one last
triumphant leap, and it was over.
"_My heart--my heart--my heart's own heart!_"
The Princess stood before them in the echoes of her glory, her
breath quick, her eyes brilliant.
"Well?" she said, looking straight at Miss Honey, "do I sing as well
as your mother?"
Miss Honey clenched her fists and caught her breath. Her heart was
breaking, but she could not lie.
"You--you--" she motioned blindly to Caroline, and turned away.
"You sing better," Caroline began sullenly; but the lady pointed to
Miss Honey.
"No, you tell me," she insisted remorselessly.
Miss Honey faced her.
"You--you sing better than my m-mother," she gulped, "but I _love_
her better, and she's nicer than you, and I don't love you at
_all_!"
She buried her face in the red velvet throne, and sobbed aloud with
excitement and fatigue. Caroline ran to her: how could she have
loved that cruel woman? She cast an ugly look at the Princess as she
went to comfort Miss Honey, but the Princess was at the throne
before her.
"Oh, I am abominable," she cried. "I am too horrid to live! It
wasn't kind of me, _chérie_, and I love you for standing up for
your mother. There's no one to do as much for me, when _I'm_ down
and out--no one!" Sorrow swept over her flexible face like a veil,
and seizing Miss Honey in her strong nervous arms she wept on her
shoulder.
Caroline, worn with the strain of the day, wept, too, and even the
General, abandoned in the great chair, burst into a tiny warning
wail.
Quick as thought the Princess was upon him, and had raised him
against her cheek.
"Hush, hush, don't cry--don't cry, little thing," she whispered, and
sank into one of the high carved chairs with him.
"No, no, I'll hold him," she protested, as Delia entered, her arms
out. "I'm going to sing to him. May I? He's sleepy."
Delia nodded indulgently. "For half an hour," she said, as one
allowing a great privilege, "and then we must go. The children are
tired."
"What do you sing to him?" the Princess questioned humbly.
"I generally sing 'Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,'" the nurse answered.
"Do you know it?"
"I think so," and the Princess began a sort of glorified humming,
like a great drowsy bee, all resonant and tremulous.
"Tell me the words," she said, and Delia recited them, as a mother
would, to humor a petted child.
The Princess lifted her voice and pressing the General to her, began
the song,
"Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise."
Soft the great voice was, soft and widely flowing; to Caroline, who
had retreated to the further end of the music-room, so that Delia
should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia herself, a wonderful
new Delia, were singing her, a baby again, to sleep. She felt
soothed, cradled, protected by that lapping sea of melody that
drifted her off her moorings, out of the room....
Vaguely she saw Miss Honey, relaxed on the red throne, smile in her
sleep, one arm falling over the broad seat. Was it in her dream that
some one in a blue and white apron--not Delia, for Delia was
singing--leaned back slowly in the long basket chair and closed her
tired eyes? Who was it that held the General close in her arms, and
smiled as he patted her cheek at the familiar song and mumbled her
fingers with happy cooing noises?
"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream!"
Soft as plush, sweet as honey, the warm voice dipped and rose to the
old tune. The General's head was growing heavy, but he smiled
confidingly into the dark eyes above him and stretched himself out
in full-fed, drowsy content. One hand slipped through the lace under
his cheek and rested on the singer's soft breast. She started like a
frightened woman, and her voice broke.
Down in the hall the butler and the maid sat on the lower stair.
"Ain't it grand?" she whispered, and Haddock nodded dreamily.
"Mother used to sing us that in the old country," he said. "There
was Tom and 'Enry an' me--Lord, Lord!"
The General was asleep. Sometimes a tiny frown drew his eyebrows
together. Sometimes she clenched and uncurled his warm hands.
Sometimes he sucked softly at nothing, with moist, reminiscent lips.
But on and on, over and over, rose and fell the quaint old song,
"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream!"