She came back full of reproach.  “Oh, Philip, to think that you can’t recognise the voice of your little son!”

Dr. Gardner looked guilty.  “I really thought,” said he, “it was the cat.”  He hated these interruptions.

He looked for Mrs. Gardner to take up the thread of the delicious argument where she had dropped it; but something had reminded Mrs. Gardner that she must write a note to Mrs. Majendie.  She sat down and wrote it at once while she remembered.  She could think of nothing to say but, “When will you come and take tea with me, and see my little son?”

Anne came that week, and saw the little son, and rejoiced over him.  She kept on coming to see him.  She always had been fond of Mrs. Gardner, now she was growing fonder of her than ever.  In her happy presence she felt wonderfully at peace.  There had been a time when the spectacle of Mrs. Gardner’s happiness would have given her sharp pangs of jealousy; but that time was over now for Anne.  She liked to sit and look at her and watch the happiness flowering in Mrs. Gardner’s face.  She thought Mrs. Gardner’s face was more beautiful than any woman’s she had ever seen, except Edie’s.  Edie’s face was perfect; but Mrs. Gardner’s was a simple oval that sacrificed perfection in the tender amplitude of her chin.  There were no lines on it; for Mrs. Gardner was never worried, nor excited, nor perplexed.  How could she be worried when Dr. Gardner was well and happy?  Or excited, when, having Dr. Gardner, there was nothing left to be excited about?  Or perplexed, when Dr. Gardner held the solution of all problems in his mighty brain?

Mrs. Gardner’s bridal aspect had not disappeared with the advent of her motherhood.  She was not more wrapped up in the baby than she was in Dr. Gardner and his metaphysics.  She even admitted to Anne that the baby had been something of a disappointment.  Anne was sitting in the nursery with her when Mrs. Gardner ventured on this confidence.

“You know I’d rather have had a little daughter.”

Anne confessed that her own yearning was for a little son.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Gardner, “I wouldn’t have him different now.  He’s going to have as happy a life as ever I can give him.  I’ve got so much to make up for.”

“To make up for?” Anne wondered what little Mrs. Gardner could possibly have to make up for.

“Well, you see it’s a shocking confession to make; but I didn’t care for him at all before he came.  I didn’t want him.  I didn’t want anybody but Philip, and Philip didn’t want anybody but me.  Are you horrified?”

“I think I am,” said Anne.  She had difficulty in believing that dear little Mrs. Gardner could ever have taken this abnormal, this monstrous attitude.

“You see our life was so perfect as it was.  And we have so little time to be together, because of his tiresome patients.  I grudged every minute taken from him.  And, when I knew that this little creature was coming, I sat down and cried with rage.  I felt that he was going to spoil everything, and keep me from Philip.  I hadn’t a scrap of tenderness for him, poor little darling.”