It was odd how soon he became accustomed to consider himself and to be regarded as the father of a family.  That, also, like his marriage, seemed something done, and in a manner behind him.  There was a commonplaceness about the situation.  To Edith it was a great event.  To Jack it was a milestone in life.  He was proud of the boy; he was proud of Edith.  “I tell you, fellows,” he would say at the club, “it’s a great thing,” and so on, in a burst of confidence, and he was quite sincere in this.  But he preferred to be at the club and say these things rather than pass the same hours with his adorable family.  He liked to think what he would do for that family—­what luxuries he could procure for them, how they should travel and see the world.  There wasn’t a better father anywhere than Jack at this period.  And why shouldn’t a man of family amuse himself?  Because he was happy in his family he needn’t change all the habits of his life.

Presently he intended to look about him for something to do that would satisfy Edith and fill up his time; but meantime he drifted on, alternately anxious and elated, until the season opened.  The Blunts and the Van Dams and the Chesneys and the Tavishes and Mrs. Henderson had called, invitations had poured in, subscriptions were asked, studies and gayeties were projected, and the real business of life was under way.

XV

To the nurse of the Delancy boy and to his mother he was by no means an old story or merely an incident of the year.  He was an increasing wonder—­new every morning, and exciting every evening.  He was the centre of a world of solicitude and adoration.  It would be scarcely too much to say that his coming into the world promised a new era, and his traits, his likes and dislikes, set a new standard in his court.  If he had apprehended his position his vanity would have outgrown his curiosity about the world, but he displayed no more consciousness of his royalty than a kicking Infanta of Spain.  This was greatly to his credit in the opinion of the nurse, who devoted herself to the baby with that enthusiasm of women for infants which fortunately never fails, and won the heart of Edith by her worship.  And how much they found to say about this marvel!  To hear from the nurse, over and over again, what the baby had done and had not done, in a given hour, was to Edith like a fresh chapter out of an exciting romance.

And the boy’s biographer is inclined to think that he had rare powers of discrimination, for one day when Carmen had called and begged to be permitted to go up into the nursery, and had asked to take him in her arms just for a moment, notwithstanding her soft dress and her caressing manner, Fletcher had made a wry face and set up a howl.  “How much he looks like his father” (he didn’t look like anything), Carmen said, handing him over to the nurse.  What she thought was that in manner and disposition he was totally unlike Jack Delancy.