“And to think that I am respectably married and everything. But that’s what it is, a poor woman must always suffer for her mistakes, while as for you—you can have as many of them as you like, and you’re none the worse for them!” She stopped again; their silence checked her, she felt hushed by their quiet contempt; and yet, angrier than ever, “I’m the boy’s mother,” she said turning to Cynthia; “how would you like to have your child taken from you?” Cynthia looked helplessly at her husband; the woman had touched the right plea; she was the boy’s mother. “You shall see Launcelot to-morrow, Mrs. Hicks,” said Leslie, “and by that time I shall have inquired into your case, and if your assertions are true as to your husband and his means of support we will consider the matter. Meanwhile there is nothing more to be said, and if you will allow me I will take you downstairs.” Mrs. Hicks looked spitefully at Cynthia, but Leslie’s face checked her—the baby had begun to cry. She flung up her head and left the room. The baby had gone, and Cynthia was crying alone in the studio when he came back. He took her in his arms. “Oh, Leslie,” she moaned, “he meant everything to us, dear little fellow. Do you remember he made me good again, and he found you for me? Leslie, I can’t let him go back to her. She left him so cruelly. He is mine, darling—tell me I needn’t let him go—he’s such a delicate little fellow. Oh, I can’t! I can’t!” He stroked her hair; she had never cried since her marriage. “Dearest, we will leave it to him. She is his mother—we mustn’t forget that. She has some claim on him, after all.” “You could threaten to tell her husband about—about the Count,” she whispered. “Oh, no, no, no,” said Leslie gently. “I didn’t mean it, dear—I didn’t mean it,” she sobbed afresh. “I will go and bring Launcelot,” he said. “Isn’t that baby crying?” It was not baby crying, but she turned and fled upstairs. “After all,” said Leslie thoughtfully, “she’s not Launcelot’s mother.” Then he went out. Muriel came in to find the studio empty of everything but the great picture of “Motherhood.” The woman holding Paradise in her arms stung her to the quick with her expression of ineffable content. She was not looking at the child in her arms. She was holding it too close to need the reassurance of a glance; she was looking across the child with all the loves in her eyes, steady and beautiful and bright, eyes too happy to smile. Muriel knew suddenly that it was the way Cynthia looked at her husband. She did not wish to see them then, so slowly she let the curtain down before the picture and crept softly out of the room. But the woman’s eyes followed her home, and when she was in the club and back in her room she saw them still. They seemed to have a quiet wonder in them that any woman could ever dream that there was any other happiness than that.