Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/252

 when she had bought that feeding bottle a fortnight ago and begun to teach the child to drink from it? God only knew what she had in her mind—that devious, calculating, rapacious mind of hers. How he hated her!

He thought of her little satiny brown neck—he would like to squeeze it till her eyes would start—those melting, shining, animal eyes.

The child made its mouth enormous and stiffened its body. He gave it a sharp shake. Damned little half-breed! He had a mind to throw it into the road after its mother. He grinned at the thought and shook it again. It ceased crying and looked up in his face with heartbroken astonishment, its mouth down at the corners, its round fists, wet with slobber, raised appealingly. Its eyelids were puffed with crying.

Derek's heart was touched. He got up with a sigh. "I wonder where that bottle is," he said aloud.

He found it on the kitchen table and beside it a jug of milk. He lifted a lid of the range and examined the fire. It was not a bad fire; he dug the coals with a poker and opened the draughts. The child, sitting on his arm, looked on hopefully.

It sat perfectly still when he put it on the table, while he heated some milk in a saucepan, sweetened it, tasted it, and filled the bottle; but it twitched with excitement when he took it up again and held the rubber nipple to its mouth. Its bare feet, he noticed, were icy cold.

He drew a chair before the oven and sat down with the baby on his knee, holding the little feet to the warmth. Jock, with a loud, troubled yawn, came and sat close beside.

As the baby felt the warmth of the oven, the comfort of Derek's supporting arm, and the yielding nipple in his mouth, he heaved a sigh of weary contentment and rolled