“I suppose so—one learns so much in trying. Now that he has stopped being all red and has turned pink, I do believe he resembles you, Adraste. Do you see it?”

“Oh, no, Helen, I think he’s much more like his father. I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry.”

“Be glad, of course. Damastor is very good-looking, and you’ll want your boy to favour you both. But you can’t form a final opinion when they are a week old. I dare say his mother has discovered some profound characteristics in him even now?”

“Do you know, I have, Helen. He’s the best little companion—I know his ways already. And I imagine he begins to notice me a little. If he doesn’t, I’ll be jealous, for he certainly has his eyes fixed on you—from the moment you came in. You’re used to that, of course.”

“He is a darling!”

“Do you think they do know, so early, Helen?”

“Well, Hermione flirted with her father when she was a week old. It’s the only indiscreet thing she ever permitted herself to do. Of course they know, the moment they’re born! Your boy grows wiser-looking every day. If he’s to put on a more profound air than this, I shan’t have the courage to face him. He is reading my soul at this minute … There, poor child, don’t cry! I’ll give him back to you. There! What on earth are you crying about? I’m tiring you, to be sure … I’ll come in again later, when you’ve had a chance to rest.”

“Don’t go, Helen, I’m not tired. Sometimes it comes over me—my dreadful fate; your kindness about the child makes me—”

“Nonsense!” said Helen. “You have no dreadful fate. You ought to be an extremely happy woman. You have this beautiful boy to love and bring up, and you have friends around you who are thinking how lucky the boy is in his mother. You’ll give him a wonderful childhood, a wonderful youth; he will always be young and shining, like you.”

“It’s all very well to say cheering things—it’s kind of you, Helen—but he will have only his mother; he won’t have a father, like other boys—he won’t have a complete home. I had no right to bear him, and all his life I shall be punished, seeing what he has missed.”