Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/481

Rh "If you had been his mother," says Paul, jealously, "you would have loved him better than your husband."

"Should I?"

I bow my head over the child that he may not see my face; careless and impatient as I have been with children all my life, does he not know why I love his son so passionately, so deeply? The daisy chain is round Wattie's neck now, and he is nearly throttling me with his kisses and vigorously clinging arms. Gently I set him down and whisper something in his ear, giving him a little push; he hesitates a moment, this little son of not yet three years old, who is worse than fatherless, motherless, then (for he is as brave as he is beautiful) he goes with his little, short, unsteady steps to his father.

"Papa! papa!" he says, in his childish tender voice; and no hand being held out to greet him, he clasps his arms around Paul's knees. Paul stoops and unclasps them without a word, setting him aside, not roughly or hastily but inexorably. A piteous droop comes about the baby lips, and puckers up the baby brow, as Wattie stands alone, in disgrace as he thinks (a child cannot reason, but it knows when it is slighted and the tender little heart is grieved); then he runs across to me, and hides his head in my breast. Poor little desolate son! how many repulses have you not had from him before you could understand his ways so well?

"God forgive you!" I whisper to Paul with burning anger, as I lift Wattie in my arms and press my cheek against his, and so I carry him away through the blooming, fragrant alleys, and leave Paul standing in the midst of his rose garden alone.