"While we talked, Christopher went off to sleep in my arms, and even while I was so interested, I was enjoying the change that comes--the head growing heavier and heavier on my arm, as if sleep weighed something. "'Poor little kiddie,' I says, stupid. "'Rich little kiddie,' Insley says, wistful. "'Dear little kiddie,' says somebody else. "In the dining room doorway Robin stood--in a doorway as we had first seen her. "'Put him over here on the couch, do,' she says. 'It's much too hot to hold him, Calliope.' "She'd called me that at Mr. Bartlett's funeral, and I recollect how my throat went all over me when she done so. Ain't it funny about your own first name? It seems so _you_ when somebody nice says it for the first time--more you than you ever knew you were. "Insley lifted Chris in his arms to do as she said, and then stood staring at her across the child. "'I've been thinking,' he said, blunt--it's like watching the sign of folks to watch the different kind of things that makes them blunt. 'It's not my affair, but do you think you ought to let Chris get so--so used to you? What will he do when you're--when you go away?' "At this she said nothing for a moment, then she smiled up at him. "'I meant what I told him that night his father died,' she answered. 'I'm going to keep Chris with me, always.' "'Always?' He stared at her, saw her face mean what she said. 'How fine of you! How fine of Mr. Proudfit!' said Insley. "She waited just a breath, then she met his eyes, brave. "'Not fine of me,' she says--'only fine for me. And not--Mr. Proudfit at all. I ought to take back what I told you--since I did tell you. That is not going to be.' "I don't think Insley meant for a minute to show any lack of formal respect for Christopher's sleep. But what Insley did was simply to turn and sit him down, bolt upright, on my lap. Then he wheeled round, trying to read her face. "'Do you mean you aren't going to marry him?' he demanded, rough--it's like watching another sign of folks to watch for the one thing that will make one or another rough. "'We are not going to be married,' she said. 'I mean that.' "I suppose likely the room went away altogether then, Christopher and me included, and left Insley there in some place a long ways from everywhere, with Robin's face looking at him. And he just naturally took that face between his hands. "'Robin,' he said, 'don't make me wait to know.' "Insley was the suddenest thing. And land, what it done to her name to have him say it. Just for a minute it sounded as if her name was the population of the world,--but with room for everybody else, too. "I think she put up her hands to take down his hands, but when she touched them, I think hers must have closed over his, next door to on purpose. "'Dear,' she says, 'tell me afterward.' "In that minute of stillness in which any new heaven is let down on a suitable new earth, a little voice piped up:--