The usual genial laugh came back to his face, as he turned to Madame Soule and began to romp with the baby lying in her lap.  He was a tall man, about six feet high, with a handsome face, red hair, a frank blue eye, and a natural, genuine laugh.  Whatever else history may record of him, a man of generous blood and sensitive instincts.  His subdued dress, quiet voice, suited him, were indigenous to his nature, not assumed:  even Starr could see that.  Starr used afterwards, when they became the country’s gossip, to talk of little traits in these people, showing the purity of their refinement.  To this day he believes in them.  How unostentatious their kindness was:  the delicate, scentless air that hung about them:  the fresh flowers always near.  “Eating with iron forks, an’ not a word,—­my silver being packed; their under-clothes like gossamer, outside plainer than mine.  Bah!  I know the real stuff, when I see it, I hope.  No sham there!”

When the baby was tired of its romp, Madame Soule hushed it to sleep.  She was the quietest nurse ever lived,—­the quietest woman,—­one whom you scarce noted when with her, and forgot as soon as you left the room.  Nature had made her up with its most faint, few lines, and palest coloring.  Soule, however, had found out the delicate beauty, and all else that lay beneath.  There was a passionate fierceness sometimes in his look at her, and a something else stranger,—­such an expression as a dog gives his master.  She never talked but to him.

“I thought you would have breakfasted with him, perhaps,” she said, now.

“No.  I’m too much of an Arab, Judith.  I can’t eat a man’s salt and empty his pocket at the same time.”

“I’m glad you did not,” smiling as the baby caught at his father’s seals, then glancing at the watch when Soule held it out for him.  “Nearly eleven.  It is time your brother was here.  See, John, how pink its feet are, and dimpled,”—­putting one to her mouth with a burst of childish laughter.

Soule played with a solitary white calla that stood near in a crystal vase, gulped down a glass of wine hastily, held the delicate glass up to see how like a golden bubble it was, then threw it down.

“Are you sure we are right in this, child?”

She stopped playing with the baby, but did not look up.

“About your brother?”

“I thought”—­with the doubtful look of one who is about to essay his strength against flint.  “It has been a hard life,—­Stephen’s,—­and through us.  What if we let him go?” anxiously.  “What would be better?  He has children,”—­taking the baby’s hand in his.

“Yes, children,—­clods, like his wife,”—­the pink lip curling.  “You should know your brother, John Yarrow.  You do know the stuff that is in him.  Will his brain ever muddle down to find comfort in that inn-keeper’s daughter?  Is it likely?  Besides, they are dead to him now.  You have succeeded in keeping them apart.”