Barker hesitated; the Madonna-like devotion of a moment ago was gone; it was only the woman of the world who laughingly looked up at him.  Nevertheless he was touched.  “Have you—­ever—­had a child, Mrs. Horncastle?” he asked gently and hesitatingly.  He had a vague recollection that she passed for a widow, and in his simple eyes all women were virgins or married saints.

“No,” she said abruptly.  Then she added with a laugh, “Or perhaps I should not admire them so much.  I suppose it’s the same feeling bachelors have for other people’s wives.  But I know you’re dying to take that boy from me.  Take him, then, and don’t be ashamed to carry him yourself just because I’m here; you know you would delight to do it if I weren’t.”

Barker bent over the silken lap in which the child was comfortably nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs. Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh.  Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of objection caught his father’s curls with one fist, while with the other he grasped Mrs. Horncastle’s brown braids and brought their heads into contact.  Upon which humorous situation Norah, the nurse, entered.

“It’s all right, Norah,” said Mrs. Horncastle, laughing, as she disengaged herself from the linking child.  “Mr. Barker has claimed the baby, and has agreed to forgive you and me and say nothing to Mrs. Barker.”  Norah, with the inscrutable criticism of her sex on her sex, thought it extremely probable, and halted with exasperating discretion.  “There,” continued Mrs. Horncastle, playfully evading the child’s further advances, “go with papa, that’s a dear.  Mr. Barker prefers to carry him back, Norah.”

“But,” said the ingenuous and persistent Barker, still lingering in hopes of recalling the woman’s previous expression, “you do love children, and you think him a bright little chap for his age?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her loosened braid, “so round and fat and soft.  And such a discriminating eye for jewelry.  Really you ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs. Barker—­it would please both, you know.”  She moved slowly away, the united efforts of Norah and Barker scarcely sufficing to restrain the struggling child from leaping after her as she turned at the door and blew him a kiss.

When Barker regained his room he found that Mrs. Barker had dismissed Stacy from her mind except so far as to invoke Norah’s aid in laying out her smartest gown for dinner.  “But why take all this trouble, dear?” said her simple-minded husband; “we are going to dine in a private room so that we can talk over old times all by ourselves, and any dress would suit him.  And, Lord, dear!” he added, with a quick brightening at the fancy, “if you could only just rig yourself up in that pretty lilac gown you used to wear at Boomville—­it would be too killing, and just like old times.  I put it away myself in one of our trunks—­I couldn’t bear to leave it behind; I know just where it is.  I’ll”—­But Mrs. Barker’s restraining scorn withheld him.