his fingers wavered above it, but they could not close on it. He groaned, hating and fearing himself. . . . He began to count the dim medallions of the carpet. He found that he was kneeling on the sixth medallion from the north end of the room, and the fifth from the west. Six and five were eleven—it was the eleventh day of November. Six times five—thirty. Thirty was the number of his locker at school. Thirty was the number of marks he had taken in the Euclid examination when he had failed . . . Christ was thirty years old when He had been crucified. . . .
He thought that if he had a cigarette to smoke he might be able to pick up the pencil and begin his work. He got to his feet and stole cautiously down the attic stairs. The door of the bedroom occupied by Piers and Pheasant stood ajar. A lowered lamp cast a peaceful light over the white bed and Mooey's cradle beside it. It was the same solid hooded cradle that had rocked all the infant Whiteoaks. Both the uncles had wept, and slumbered, and crowed in it. Meg and Renny, Eden, Piers (the most beautiful baby of all), himself (he could imagine the poor squalling wretch he had been), little Wake, whom he could remember gazing from under the hood with great dark eyes. . . . And two or three babies had died in it. Finch wondered how Mooey could sleep so quietly there.
He opened the top drawer of the chest of drawers where he knew Piers sometimes kept an extra packet or two of cigarettes. Ah, there they were—Piers was good to himself! A large-size tin box of Players, more than half full. A packet containing at least a dozen Turkish cigarettes. Finch helped himself, but with caution, and closed the drawer.
As he turned to go he bent over the cradle and looked in curiously at young Maurice. He was curled, sweet and warm, in baby sleep. One round fist, curved against his mouth, pressed the moist flower-petal lips to one side. There was a damp spot on the pillow where he had been slobbering a little. Finch went suddenly weak with tenderness as he looked at him. He put his head under the hood of the cradle and sniffed him, as a dog might sniff
