“Miss Erroll desires to know whether Captain Selwyn would care to see her gown when she is ready to go down?”

“By all means,” said Selwyn, “I should like to see that, too.  Will you let me know when Miss Erroll is ready?  Thank you.”

Austin said as they reached the nursery door:  “Funny thing, feminine vanity—­almost pathetic, isn’t it? . . .  Don’t make too much noise! . . .  What do you think of that pair of legs, Phil?—­and he’s not yet five. . . .  And I want you to speak frankly; did you ever see anything to beat that bunch of infants?  Not because they’re ours and we happen to be your own people—­” he checked himself and the smile faded as he laid his big ruddy hand on Selwyn’s shoulder;—­“your own people, Phil.  Do you understand? . . .  And if I have not ventured to say anything about—­what has happened—­you understand that, too, don’t you?  You know I’m just as loyal to you as Nina is—­as it is natural and fitting that your own people should be.  Only a man finds it difficult to convey his—­his—­”

“Don’t say ’sympathies’!” cut in Selwyn nervously.

“I wasn’t going to, confound you!  I was going to say ‘sentiments.’  I’m sorry I said anything.  Go to the deuce!”

Selwyn did not even deign to glance around at him.  “You big red-pepper box,” he muttered affectionately, “you’ll wake up Drina.  Look at her in her cunning pajamas!  Oh, but she is a darling, Austin.  And look at that boy with his two white bears!  He’s a corker!  He’s a wonder—­honestly, Austin.  As for that Josephine kid she can have me on demand; I’ll answer to voice, whistle, or hand. . . .  I say, ought we to go away and leave Winthrop’s thumb in his mouth?”

“I guess I can get it out without waking him,” whispered Gerard.  A moment later he accomplished the office, leaned down and drew the bed-covers closer to Tina’s dimpled chin, then grasped Selwyn above the elbow in sudden alarm:  “If that trained terror, Miss Paisely, finds us in here when she comes from dinner, we’ll both catch it!  Come on; I’ll turn off the light.  Anyway, we ought to have been dressed long ago; but you insisted on butting in here.”

In the hallway below they encountered a radiant and bewildering vision awaiting them:  Eileen, in all her glory.

“Wonderful!” said Gerard, patting the vision’s rounded bare arm as he hurried past—­“fine gown! fine girl!—­but I’ve got to dress and so has Philip—­” He meant well.

“Do you like it, Captain Selwyn?” asked the girl, turning to confront him, where he had halted.  “Gerald isn’t coming and—­I thought perhaps you’d be interested—­”

The formal, half-patronising compliment on his tongue’s tip remained there, unsaid.  He stood silent, touched by the faint under-ringing wistfulness in the laughing voice that challenged his opinion; and something within him responded in time: 

“Your gown is a beauty; such wonderful lace.  Of course, anybody would know it came straight from Paris or from some other celestial region—­”