Cecily looked relieved.  “I was worried,” she confessed.  “It’s nurse’s night out and Victor had to go to a board meeting unexpectedly—­and with you away—­I lost my nerve.  It seemed dreadful to be alone, mother.”

Mrs. Beale knew how dreadful it was.  She had carried the wailing Cecily in her arms night after night in the weeks which followed the crushing knowledge of her husband’s infidelity.  But she had carried a heavier burden than the child—­the burden of poverty, of desertion, of an unknown future.

But these things were not to be voiced.  “You go to bed, Cecily,” she said.  “I’ll look after her.”

Walking the floor later with the baby in her arms, Mrs. Beale’s mind was on Landry.  “Heavens! if he could see me now!” was her shocked thought, as she stopped in front of a mirror to survey the picture she made.

Her hair was down and the grayest lock of all showed plainly.  She had discarded frills and furbelows and wore a warm gray wrapper.  She looked nice and middle-aged, yet carried, withal, a subtle air of girlishness—­would carry it, in spite of storm or stress, until the end, as the sign and seal of her undaunted spirit.

The baby stirred in her arms, and again Mrs. Beale went back and forth, crooning the lullaby with which she had once put her own babies to bed.

In the morning the baby was much better, but Mrs. Beale was haggard.  She stayed in bed until eleven o’clock, however.  Cecily, coming in at twelve, found her ready to go out.  In response to an inquiry, Mrs. Beale spoke of a luncheon engagement with Valentine Landry.

“Mother—­are you going to marry him?”

Cissy, studying the adjustment of her veil, confessed, “He hasn’t asked me.”

“But he will—­”

Mrs. Beale shrugged her shoulders.  “Who knows?”

In the weeks which followed, the little lady was conscious that things were not drawing to a comfortable climax.  By all the rules of the game, Landry should long ago have declared himself.  But he seemed to be slipping more and more into the fatal role of good friend and comrade.

Cissy’s pride would not let her admit, even to herself, that she had failed to attract at the final moment.  But there was something deeper than her pride involved, and she found her days restless and her nights sleepless.  One night in the dense darkness she faced the truth relentlessly.  “You’re in love, Cissy Beale,” she told herself, scornfully.  “You’re in love for the first time in your life—­and you a—­grandmother!”

Then she turned over on her pillow, hid her face in its white warmth, and cried as if her heart would break.

In the meantime the baby drooped.  Cecily, worried, consulted her mother continually.  Thus it came about that Mrs. Beale lived a double life.  From noon until midnight she was of to-day—­smartly gowned, girlish; from midnight until dawn she was of yesterday—­waking from her fitful slumbers at the first wailing note, presiding in gray gown and slippers over strange brews of catnip and of elderflower.