With a sense of recklessness upon her, Cissy suddenly determined to tell him the truth. "Cecily hasn't been going out much. You see, there's the baby--"
He stared. "The baby--?"
"Her baby--Cecily's--"
"_Then you're a grandmother_?"
It seemed to Cissy that the whole restaurant rang with the emphasis of the words. Yet he had not spoken loudly; not a head was turned in their direction; even the waiter stood unmoved.
When she came to herself Landry was laughing softly. "When are you going to let me see--the baby--?"
"Never--"
"Why not?"
Cissy went on to her doom. "Because you'll want to put me on the shelf like all the rest of them. You'll want to see me with--my hair--parted--and spectacles. And my eyes are perfectly good--and my hair is my own--"
She stopped. Landry was surveying her with hard eyes.
"Don't you love--the baby--?"
Cissy shrugged. "Perhaps. I don't know yet. Some day I may when I haven't anything to do but sit in a chimney-corner."
Thus spoke Cissy Beale, making of herself a heartless creature, flinging back into the face of Valentine Landry his most cherished ideals.
But what did it matter? She had known from the moment of her confession that he would be repelled. What man could stand up in the face of the world and marry a grandmother!--the idea was preposterous.
She finished dinner with her head in the air; she was hypocritically lively during the drive home; she said "Good-night" and "Good-bye" without feeling, and went up-stairs with her heart like lead to find the nurse weeping wildly on the first landing.
The baby, it appeared, was very ill. And the baby's father and mother, having left the little cherub sleeping peacefully, were motoring somewhere in the wide spaces of the world. The family doctor was out. She had called up another doctor, and he would come as soon as he could. But in the meantime the baby was dying--
"Nonsense, Kate," said Cissy Beale, and pulling off her gloves as she ran, she made for the pale-gray room.
Now, as it happened, Valentine Landry, driving away in a priggish state of mind, was suddenly overwhelmed by miserable remorse. Reviewing the evening, he seemed to see, for the first time, the unhappiness in the eyes of the little woman who had borne herself so bravely. In a sudden moment of illumination he realized all that she must have been feeling. Perhaps it had not been heartlessness; perhaps it had been--heart hunger.
Leaning forward, he spoke to his chauffeur. They stopped at the first drug-store, and Landry called up Cissy. Her voice from the other end answered, sharply, then broke as he gave his name.
"I thought it was the doctor," she said. "Can you come back, please? The baby, oh, the baby is very ill!"
Five minutes later the nurse let him into the house. He followed her up the stairs and into the nursery. Cissy sat with the baby in her arms. The baby was in a blanket and Cissy was in her gray wrapper. She had donned it while the nurse held the baby in the hot bath which saved its life. Cissy's hair was out of curl and the color was out of her cheeks. But to Valentine Landry she was beautiful.
"It was a convulsion," she told him, simply. "I am afraid she will have another. We haven't been able to get a doctor--will you get one for us?"
Out he went on his mission for the lady of his heart, and the lady of his heart, sitting wet and worried in the pale-gray bedroom, was saying to herself, monotonously, "It's all over now--no man could see me like this and love me--"
Cecily and her husband and the doctor and Landry came in out of the darkness together. They went up-stairs together, then stopped on the threshold as Cissy held up a warning hand.
She continued to croon softly the lullaby which had belonged to her own babies: "Hushaby, sweet, my own--"
It was Cecily and the doctor who went in to her, and Landry, standing back in the shadows, waited. He spoke to Cissy as she came out.
"I am going so early in the morning," he said, "will you give me just one little minute now?"
In that minute he told her that he loved her.
And Cissy, standing in the library in all the disorder of uncurled locks and gray kimono, demanded, after a rapturous pause, "But why didn't you tell me before?"
He found it hard to explain. "I didn't quite realize it--until I saw you there so tender and sweet, with the baby in your arms--"
"A Madonna-creature," murmured Cissy Beale.
But he did not understand. "It isn't because I want you to sit in a chimney-corner--it wasn't fair of you to say that--"
Then in just one short speech Cissy Beale showed him her heart. She told of the years of devotion, always unrewarded by the affection she craved. "And here was the baby," she finished, "to grow up--and find somebody else, and forget me--"
As he gathered her into his protecting embrace, his big laugh comforted her.
"I'm yours till the end of the world, little grandmother," he whispered. "I shall never find any one else--and I shall never forget."
WAIT--FOR PRINCE CHARMING
Kingdon Knox was not conscious of any special meanness of spirit. He was a lawyer and a good one. He was fifty, and wore his years with an effect of youth. He exercised persistently and kept his boyish figure. He had keen, dark eyes, and silver in his hair. He was always well groomed and well dressed, and his income provided him with the proper settings. His home in the suburb was spacious and handsome and presided over by a handsome and socially successful wife. His office was presided over by Mary Barker, who was his private secretary. She was thirty-five and had been in his office for fifteen years. She had come to him an unformed girl of twenty; she was now a perfect adjunct to his other office appointments. She wore tailored frocks, her hair was exquisitely dressed in shining waves, her hands were white and her nails polished, her slender feet shod in unexceptional shoes.
Nannie Ashburner, who was also in the office and who now and then took Knox's dictation, had an immense admiration for Mary. "I wish I could wear my clothes as you do," she would say as they walked home together.
"Clothes aren't everything."
"Well, they are a lot."
"I would give them all to be as young as you are."
"You don't look old, Mary."
"Of course I take care of myself," said Mary, "but if I were as young as you I'd begin over again."
"How do you mean 'begin,' Mary?"
But Mary was not communicative. "Oh, well, I'd have some things that I might have had and can't get now," was all the satisfaction that she gave Nannie.
It was through Mary that Nannie had obtained her position in Kingdon Knox's office. Mary had boarded with Nannie's mother for five years. Nannie was fourteen when Mary came. She had finished high school and had had a year in a business college, and then Mrs. Ashburner had asked Mary if there was any chance for her in Kingdon Knox's office.
Mary had considered it, but had seemed to hesitate. "We need another typist, but I am not sure it is the place for her."
"Why not?"
Mary did not say why. "I wish she didn't have to work at all. She ought to get married."
"Dick McDonald wants her. But she's too young, Mary."
"You were married at nineteen."
"Yes, and a lot I got out of it." Mrs. Ashburner was sallow and cynical. "I kept boarders to make a living for my husband, Mary; and since he died I've kept boarders to make a living for Nannie and me."
"But Dick gets good wages."
"Well, he can wait till he saves something."
"Don't make him wait too long."
It was against her better judgment that Mary Barker spoke to her employer about Nannie. "I should want her to help me. She is not expert enough to take your dictation, but she could relieve me of a lot of detail."
"Well, let me have a look at her," Kingdon Knox had said.
So Nannie had come to be looked over, and she had blushed a little and had been rather breathless as she had talked to Mr. Kingdon, and he had been aware of the vividness of her young beauty; for Nannie had red hair that curled over her ears, and her skin was warm ivory, and her eyes were gray.
Her clothes were not quite up to the office standard, but Knox, having hired her, referred the matter to Mary. "You might suggest that she cut out thin waists and high heels," he had said; "you know what I like."
Mary knew, and Nannie's first month's salary had been spent in the purchase of a serge one-piece frock.
Mrs. Ashburner had rebelled at the expense. But Mary had been firm. "Mr. Knox won't have anybody around the office who looks slouchy or sloppy. It will pay in the end."
Nannie thought Mr. Knox wonderful. "He says that he wants me to work hard so that I can handle some of his letters."
"When did he tell you that?"
"Last night, while you were taking testimony in the library."
The office library was lined with law books. There were a handsome long mahogany table, green covered, and six handsome mahogany chairs. Mary, shut in with three of Knox's clients and a consulting partner, had had a sense of uneasiness. It was after hours. Nannie was waiting for her in the outer office. Everybody else had gone home except Knox, who was waiting for his clients.