Her pride and gaiety had left her now, and she looked very wan through
frequent weeping, and very thin from nursing. Her beauty (like her
friends) had proved unfaithful under shame and sorrow, and little of
it now remained except the long brown tresses and the large blue eyes.
Those eyes she fixed upon Carne with more of terror than of love in
them; although the fear was such as turns with a very little kindness to
adoring love.
Carne left her to begin, for he really was not without shame in this
matter; and Polly was far better suited than Dolly for a scornful and
arrogant will like his. Deeply despising all the female race--as the
Greek tragedian calls them--save only the one who had given him to the
world, he might have been a God to Polly if he had but behaved as a
man to her. She looked at him now with an imploring gaze, from the
gentleness of her ill-used heart.
Their child, a fine boy about ten months old, broke the silence by
saying "booh, booh," very well, and holding out little hands to his
father, who had often been scornfully kind to him.
"Oh, Caryl, Caryl, you will never forsake him!" cried the young mother,
holding him up with rapture, and supporting his fat arms in that
position; "he is the very image of you, and he seems to know it. Baby,
say 'Da-da.' There, he has put his mouth up, and his memory is so
wonderful! Oh, Caryl, what do you think of that--and the first time of
trying it by moonlight?"
"There is no time for this nonsense, Polly.
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