“That ruffian!” he laughed, feeling at his throat and trying to adjust the crooked tie.

“What will Mr. Keith think?”

“Oh, pshaw!  Keith thinks all right.  Keith is one of the men I don’t have to apologize to.  But if I do”—­he turned to Keith, smiling—­“I’ll show you the apology.  Come along.”  He seized Keith by the hand and started toward the door.

“You are not going to take Mr. Keith up-stairs!” exclaimed his wife.  “Remember, Mr. Keith may not share your enthusiasm.”

“Wait until he sees the apology.  Come along, Keith.”  He drew Keith toward the door.

“But, Norman, I don’t think—­” began Mrs. Wentworth.  What she did not think was lost to the two men; for Norman, not heeding her, had, with the eagerness of a boy, dragged his visitor out of the door and started up the stairs, telling him volubly of the treat that was in store for him in the perfections of a certain small young gentleman who had been responsible for his tardiness in appearing below.

When Norman threw back a silken portiere up-stairs and flung open a door, the scene that greeted Keith was one that made him agree that Norman was fully justified.  A yellow-haired boy was rolling on the floor, kicking up his little pink legs in all the abandon of his years, while a blue-eyed little girl was sitting in a nurse’s lap, making strenuous efforts to join her brother on the floor.

At sight of his father, the boy, with a whoop, scrambled to his feet, and, with outstretched arms and open mouth, showing all his little white teeth, made a rush for him, while the young lady suddenly changed her efforts to descend, and began to jump up and down in a frantic ecstasy of delight.

Norman gathered the boy up, and as soon as he could disentwine his little arms from about his neck, turned him toward Keith.  The child gave the stranger one of those calm, scrutinizing looks that children give, and then, his face suddenly breaking into a smile, with a rippling laugh of good-comradeship, he sprang into Keith’s outstretched arms.  That gentleman’s necktie was in danger of undergoing the same damaging process that had incurred Mrs. Norman’s criticism, when the youngster discovered that lady herself, standing at the door.  Scrambling down from his perch on Keith’s shoulder, the boy, with a shout, rushed toward his mother.  Mrs. Wentworth, with a little shriek, stopped him and held him off from her; she could not permit him to disarrange her toilet; her coiffure had cost too much thought; but the pair were evidently on terms of good-fellowship, and the light in the mother’s eyes even as she restrained the boy’s attempt at caresses changed her, and gave Keith a new insight into her character.

Keith and the hostess returned to the drawing-room before Norman, and she was no longer the professional beauty, the cold woman of the world, the mere fashionable hostess.  The doors were flung open more than once as Keith talked warmly of the boy, and within Keith got glimpses of what was hidden there, which made him rejoice again that his friend had such a treasure.  These glimpses of unexpected softness drew him nearer to her than he had ever expected to be, and on his part he talked to her with a frankness and earnestness which sank deep into her mind, and opened the way to a warmer friendship than she usually gave.