Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/278

 

In the flat in Front Street, Philip put the last chair in place, washed his face and hands at the sink in the kitchen, and went in to look at the sleeping twins. They lay side by side, fat, rosy, healthy children, such as women like Naomi or Mabelle were certain to bear. He was alone in the room, and, after a time, he bent down and touched the fine, soft dark hair that covered their small, round heads. They were like him, and so, he supposed, like his father, with eyes that one day would be the same clear blue. It struck him suddenly that there was something ruthless in the operation of Nature which took no account of all the structure of habits and laws of man. It took no account of the fact that he had never loved Naomi, or that neither of them had really wanted these children. Nature had wanted children, and it did not matter how they were created, so long as the act of creation occurred. All man's ideas of love, of lawful wedlock, of sentimentality, had nothing to do with it. And it was impossible to imagine stronger, healthier children.

He fell to stroking the soft head of the little girl, and, slowly, in her sleep, she stirred and, groping with a fat, pink hand, found one of his fingers, and clutched it tightly. Something in the touch of the soft, plump hand melted him suddenly. She was so soft, so helpless, reaching out trustfully. And for the first time he felt a sudden quick pride and delight. These were his children; he knew that he loved them, despite everything, Naomi and his mother and all the trouble he had been through. They were his to care for and