at a sleeping puppy. He kissed his cheek and felt his own blood turn to some mild sweet nectar, and his bones to nothing but a tender desire for love.
He took the baby into his arms and bent over him, his lank blond forelock falling over the little head. He kissed the head, the cheeks, the mouth extravagantly. He could not be satisfied. He poured out his soul in love. His eyes filled with tears, which dropped on to the little hands. My God, was it possible that Piers felt that way?
Voices were in the hall below. Pheasant and Aunt Augusta were coming up. . . . He thrust the child back into the cradle and drew the covers over him. Not for anything would he have been caught caressing his young nephew.
Upstairs he found he was no longer the victim of his nerves. He picked up the pencil, the Euclid, lighted one of Piers's cigarettes, and set to work.
Lady Buckley had laid aside her bracelets, her brooch, and her gold chain. She had taken off her black satin dress, her long black silk petticoat, and now, in her camisole and short white underpetticoat, was brushing her still abundant hair. Even in such jaunty apparel as this, her appearance of being on her dignity was not lessened. She regarded her reflection in the glass with her accustomed air of mingled complacence and offence. Her complexion had never been good—now it was mottled and liverish; her eyes had a peculiar glassy dullness, unlike her mother's, which still retained a clear fire. But her features were excellent. Her nose—the Court nose, though in a modified form. Not the fierce, carven feature that her mother and Renny thrust into the world. An improvement, she thought. More becoming to a lady, the widow of an English baronet. She began to think of her husband. . . .
How insignificant her parents and her brothers had thought him, with his pale side-whiskers, and his mild eyes, and his neat little feet! He had had a little lisp, too. She could almost hear him, even now, calling her: "Auguthta!" But what character! He had never lost
