The courtly old gentleman had inquired about madam—­indeed, the second glass had been dedicated to “mother and child”—­and he exhibited a friendly and almost paternal interest, as he always did, in Jack.

“By-the-way,” he said, after a silence, “is Henderson in town?”

“I haven’t heard.  Why?”

“There’s been a good deal of uneasiness in the Street as to what he is doing.  I hope you haven’t got anything depending on him.”

“I’ve got something in his stocks, if that is what you mean; but I don’t mind telling you I have made something.”

“Well, it’s none of my business, only the Henderson stocks have gone off a little, as you know.”

Jack knew, and he asked the Major a little nervously if he knew anything further.  The Major knew nothing except Street rumors.  Jack was uneasy, for the Major was a sort of weathercock, and before he left the club he wrote to Mavick.

He carried home with him a certain disquiet, to which he had been for months a stranger.  Even the sight of Edith, who met him with a happy face, and dragged him away at once to see how lovely the baby looked asleep, could not remove this.  It seemed strange that such a little thing should make a change, introduce an alien element into this domestic peace.  Jack was like some other men who lose heart not when they are doing a doubtful thing, but when they have to face the consequences —­cases of misplaced conscience.  The peace and content that he had left in the house in the morning seemed to have gone out of it when he returned at night.

Next day came a reassuring letter from Mavick.

Henderson was going on as usual.  It was only a little bear movement, which wouldn’t amount to anything.  Still, day after day, the bears kept clawing down, and Jack watched the stock-list with increasing eagerness.  He couldn’t decide to sacrifice anything as long as he had a margin of profit.

In this state of mind it was impossible to consider any of the plans he had talked over with Edith before the baby was born.  Inquiries he did make about some sort of position or regular occupation, and these he reported to Edith; but his heart was not in it.

As the days went by there was a little improvement in his stocks, and his spirits rose.  But this mood was no more favorable than the other for beginning a new life, nor did there seem to be, as he went along, any need of it.  He had an appearance of being busy every day; he rose late and went late to bed.  It was the old life.  Stocks down, there was a necessity of bracing up with whomever he met at any of the three or four clubs in which he lounged in the afternoon; and stocks up, there was reason for celebrating that fact in the same way.