In the French window he paused, stood looking out with an expression so peculiar that Ursula, curious, came to see the cause.  A few yards away, under a big symmetrical maple in full leaf sat Dorothy with the baby on her lap.  She was dressed very simply in white.  There was a little sunlight upon her hair, a sheen of gold over her skin.  She was looking down at the baby.  Her expression——­

Said Ursula:  “Several of the great painters have tried to catch that expression.  But they’ve failed.”

Norman made no reply.  He had not heard.  All in an instant there had been revealed to him a whole new world—­a view of man and woman—­of woman—­of sex—­its meaning so different from what he had believed and lived.

“What’re you thinking about, Fred?” inquired his sister.

He shook his head, with a mysterious smile, and strolled away.

XXII

The baby grew and thrived, as the habit is with healthy children well taken care of.  Mrs. Norman soon got back her strength, her figure, and perhaps more than her former beauty—­as the habit is with healthy women well taken care of.  Norman’s career continued to prosper, likewise according to the habit of all healthy things well taken care of.  In a world where nothing happens by chance, mischance, to be serious, must have some grave fault as its hidden cause.  We mortals, who love to live at haphazard and to blame God or destiny or “bad luck” for our calamities, hate to take this modern and scientific view of the world and life.  But, whether we like it or not, it is the truth—­and, as we can’t get round it, why not accept it cheerfully and, so appear a little less ignorant and ridiculous?

During their first year at the Hempstead place the results in luxury and comfort had at no time accounted for the money it cost and the servants it employed—­that is to say, paid.  But Norman was neither unreasonable nor impatient.  Also, in his years of experience with his sister’s housekeeping, and of observation of the other women, he had grown exceedingly moderate in his estimate of the ability of women and in his expectations from them.  He had reached the conclusion that the women who were sheltered and pampered by the men of the successful classes were proficient only in those things that call for no skill or effort beyond the wagging of the tongue.  He saw that Dorothy was making honest endeavor to learn her business, and he knew that learning takes time—­much time.

He believed that in the end she would do better than any other wife of his acquaintance, at the business of wife and mother.