Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/308

 So there he lay, little Robinson Crusoe, in a desert expanse of polished floor, and there he crowed a welcome to my own beautiful baby!

Lady Crusoe was in a big chair. She was not strong, and William Watters had brought his sister Mandy to wait on her. She was very pale, this lovely lady, and there were shadows under her eyes. As I sat down beside her, she said: "I shall have to have your Billy sell some more things for me. You see the servants must be paid, and my Robin must be comfy. There's a console-table that ought to bring a lot from a city dealer."

"I wish that you needn't be worried," I said. "I wish—I wish—that you'd let me send for Robin's father"

"Robin's father!" she drew a quick breath, "how funny it sounds!—Robin's father"

I waited for that to sink in, and then I said: "I know how you feel. When I think of Billy as Junior's father it is different from thinking of him as my husband, and it makes a funny sensation in my throat as if I wanted to cry"

"You've nothing to cry about," she told me fiercely, "nothing, but I sometimes feel as if I could weep rivers of tears!"

I realized that I must be careful, so I changed the subject. "William," I said after a pause, "is 302