“Well, if they don’t say it they look it,” said Mrs. Barker, with a toss of her pretty head, “and I believe that’s at the bottom of Stacy’s refusal.”

“But he never said a word, Kitty,” said Barker, flushing.

“There, don’t excite yourself, George,” said Mrs. Barker resignedly, “but go for the baby.  I know you’re dying to go, and I suppose it’s time Norah brought it upstairs.”

At any other time Barker would have lingered with explanations, but just then a deeper sense than usual of some misunderstanding made him anxious to shorten this domestic colloquy.  He rose, pressed his wife’s hand, and went out.  But yet he was not entirely satisfied with himself for leaving her.  “I suppose it isn’t right my going off as soon as I come in,” he murmured reproachfully to himself, “but I think she wants the baby back as much as I; only, womanlike, she didn’t care to let me know it.”

He reached the lower hall, which he knew was a favorite promenade for the nurses who were gathered at the farther end, where a large window looked upon Montgomery Street.  But Norah, the Irish nurse, was not among them; he passed through several corridors in his search, but in vain.  At last, worried and a little anxious, he turned to regain his rooms through the long saloon where he had found his wife previously.  It was deserted now; the last caller had left—­even frivolity had its prescribed limits.  He was consequently startled by a gentle murmur from one of the heavily curtained window recesses.  It was a woman’s voice—­low, sweet, caressing, and filled with an almost pathetic tenderness.  And it was followed by a distinct gurgling satisfied crow.

Barker turned instantly in that direction.  A step brought him to the curtain, where a singular spectacle presented itself.

Seated on a lounge, completely absorbed and possessed by her treasure, was the “horrid woman” whom his wife had indicated only a little while ago, holding a baby—­Kitty’s sacred baby—­in her wanton lap!  The child was feebly grasping the end of the slender jeweled necklace which the woman held temptingly dangling from a thin white jeweled finger above it.  But its eyes were beaming with an intense delight, as if trying to respond to the deep, concentrated love in the handsome face that was bent above it.

At the sudden intrusion of Barker she looked up.  There was a faint rise in her color, but no loss of sell-possession.

“Please don’t scold the nurse,” she said, “nor say anything to Mrs. Barker.  It is all my fault.  I thought that both the nurse and child looked dreadfully bored with each other, and I borrowed the little fellow for a while to try and amuse him.  At least I haven’t made him cry, have I, dear?” The last epithet, it is needless to say, was addressed to the little creature in her lap, but in its tender modulation it touched the father’s quick sympathies as if he had shared it with the child.  “You see,” she said softly, disengaging the baby fingers from her necklace, “that our sex is not the only one tempted by jewelry and glitter.”