She slipped her hand through his arm, turning from the subject with a faint sigh. "Well, come and see the baby! He's very lovely." "From your point of view or Jake's?" questioned Saltash. She laughed. "From mine of course. He is going to be just like Jake." "Heavens above! I pity you!" ejaculated Saltash. "You'll never cope with two of 'em! They'll crush you flat." She drew him from the terrace into the quiet house. "Don't be absurd, Charlie! This boy of ours is to be the prop of our old age." He went with her jesting, but when they entered the silent nursery in which the two youngest children lay sleeping, his trifling ceased and he trod with reverence. They stood together in the dim light beside the baby's cot, and Saltash looked down upon the flushed baby face with a faintly rueful smile upon his own. "There is something in being married and done for after all," he said. Over the old baby, Betty, now two years old, he stooped and lightly touched the fair silken hair, but he did not kiss her though the child was sleeping deeply. Later he went alone into the adjoining room where slept the two elder children, Eileen aged five, and Molly who was not yet four. Maud did not follow him, and presently he came back, treading softly, the flickering night-light throwing odd shadows on his ugly face, and they left the room together. In the passage he turned to her abruptly. "Then I may send that child to you tomorrow?" he said. "Why not bring her?" said Maud smiling. He shook his head. "No. I'll come over one day--on Sunday perhaps--and see you all again. I won't--handicap her--by bringing her." She understood him, and gave him her hand, but the fervour with which he received and kissed it surprised her into drawing it away more quickly than she had intended. He laughed at the action. "I am only saluting motherhood," he explained. But she shook her head and passed on. There were moments when even she who knew him so well was not wholly sure of him. They descended again and Saltash turned towards the drawing-room. "Let's have some music!" he said, and dropped down before Maud's piano. "You are tired, _ma chère_. You shall listen." He began to play an old French _chanson_ that once they had sung together, and Maud leaned back on a deep settee near him and dreamily surrendered herself to its charm. Charlie's touch had always been a sheer delight to her. It held her now with the old sweet spell. His spirit spoke to hers with an intimacy which ordinary converse had never attained. It was by his music that he first had spoken to her soul. In music they were always in complete accord. She was half-asleep in her corner with the old dog lying at her feet when Jake and Bunny came in, and Saltash very swiftly, with muffled chords, brought his performance to an end.