Part 12 (1/2)
”For the time being, he is asleep,” she answered, ”and so, I suppose, is having an excellent time. He's an exceedingly intelligent child and of the happiest disposition. I'm sure he is aware that he has a mother to love him, and that's enough to keep him contented.”
”Of course,” I a.s.sented. ”That somewhere there is a good woman to love him is all that a baby or a grown man needs to know in order to enjoy perfect bliss. Those who are fortunate enough to reach such a consummation are the elect of the world.”
She looked at me with a smile, and I saw a question hanging on her lips.
It was probably one I had heard very often. Frieda and some others, when hard put to it for a subject of conversation, are apt to ask me why I don't get married. I tell them that the only proof of the pudding is the eating and that, strangely enough, all the good wives I know are already wedded. Moreover, I know that very few women would deign to look with favor upon me. I have always deemed myself a predestined bachelor, a lover of other people's children and a most timid venturer among spinsters.
Frances, however, permitted the question to go unasked, which showed much cleverness on her part. She recognized the obviousness of the situation. As we went on, she gazed with admiration upon the yachts, many of which were lying becalmed, but picturesque. The big tramps at anchor awakened in her the wonder we all feel at the idea of sailing for faraway sh.o.r.es where grow strange men and exotic fruits. Then, when the steamer had turned around the great point of the island and her eyes caught the big open sea, I saw them filling, gradually. She was thinking of the gallant lad who had fallen for his first and greatest mother.
Recollections came to her of sailing away with him, with hopes and ambitions rosier than the illumined sh.o.r.es before us, that were kissed by the sun under a thin covering veil of mist. She remembered the days of her toil, rewarded at last by the ripening of her divine gift, and the days of love crowned by the little treasure on her lap. But now, all that had been very beautiful in her life was gone, saving the tiny one to whom she could not even sing a lullaby and whose very livelihood was precarious.
I knew that when she was in this mood it was better to say nothing or even appear to take no notice. Suddenly, a child running along the deck fell down, a dear little girl I ran to and lifted in my arms.
Confidingly, she wept upon my collar which, fortunately, was a soft one.
A broad shouldered youth made his way towards me.
”Hand her over, Mister,” he said, pleasantly, ”she's one o' mine.”
He took the child from me, tenderly, and I looked at him, somewhat puzzled, but instant recognition came to him.
”Say,” he declared, breezily, ”you's the guy I seen th' other day when I wuz havin' me picture took.”
He extended a grateful hand, which I shook cordially, for he was no less a personage than Kid Sullivan, who would have been champion, but for his defeat. On my last call upon Frieda at her studio I had seen him in the lighter garb of Orion, with a gold fillet about his brow, surmounted by a gilt star. I bade him come with me, but a couple of steps away, to where Frances sat, and I had left a small provision of chocolate drops.
”This,” I said, ”is my friend Mr. Sullivan. The child belongs to him, and I have come to see whether I cannot find consolation for her in the box of candy.”
Frances bowed pleasantly to him, and he removed his cap, civilly.
”Glad to meet ye, ma'am,” he said. ”Thought I'd take the wife and kids over to the Island. The painter-lady found me a job last week. It's only a coal wagon, but it's one o' them five-ton ones with three horses.
They're them big French dappled gray ones.”
I looked at Frances, fearing that this mention of his steeds might bring back to her the big Percherons of Paris, the omnibuses climbing the Montmartre hill or rattling through the Place St. Michel, that is the throbbing heart of the Latin Quarter. But she is a woman, as I may have mentioned a hundred times before this. Her interest went out to the child, and she bent over to one side and took a little hand within hers.
”I hope you were not hurt,” she said, tenderly.
At the recollection of the injury the little mouth puckered up for an instant. Diplomatically, I advanced a chocolate and the crisis was averted.
”She's a darling, Mr. Sullivan,” ventured Frances.
”Yes'm, that's what me and Loo thinks,” he a.s.sented. ”But you'd oughter see Buster. Wait a minute!”
About ten seconds later he returned with a slightly bashful and very girlish little wife, who struggled under the weight of a ponderous infant.
”Mr. Cole, Loo,” the Kid introduced me, ”and--and I guess Mrs. Cole.”
”No,” I objected, firmly. ”There is no Mrs. Cole. I beg to make you acquainted with Mrs. Dupont. Please take my chair, Mrs. Sullivan, you will find it very comfortable. My young friend, may I offer you a cigar?”
”I'm agreeable, sir,” said the young man, graciously. ”I've give up the ring now, so I don't train no more.”