VI
BROWN'S PERSISTENT MEMORY
"I wonder," he said to himself an hour later, "if it's any use to go tobed at all!" He was walking the floor with the baby in his arms. Bim,puzzled and anxious, walked by his side, looking up at the small bundlewith a glance which seemed to say, "What in the world are we going todo with it?"
Whether the feeding from the teaspoon had disagreed with its digestioncould not be discovered, but clearly the baby was unhappy. It was quietwhen walked with but upon being put down immediately set up such anoutcry that the bachelor, unaccustomed, could not listen to it withstoicism. Therefore, when he had endured the sound as long as he could,he had taken the little visitor up and was now walking with it, himselfin bathgown and slippers.
"It may be a pin, Bim," said he suddenly.
He sat down before the fire, laid the baby upon its face on his kneesand began cautiously to investigate. He loosened the tiny garments oneby one, until he had reached the little body and could assure himselfthat no sharp point was responsible for the baby's discomfort. Hegently rubbed the small back, wondering, as he did so, at theinsignificant area his hand nearly covered. Under this treatment thewailing gradually quieted.
"Bim," said he resignedly, "we shall have to sit up with him--for awhile, at least."
Bim walked over to the window.
"No," said his master, "we can't disturb our neighbours at this time ofnight. We must see it through. If we can manage to read, it will make thetime go faster."
He reached for a book, opened it at a mark, and began to read, his hand,meanwhile, steadily maintaining the soothing motion up and down thebaby's back. But his thoughts were not upon the page. Instead, they tookhold upon one phrase his sister had used--one phrase, which had broughtup to him a certain face as vividly as the sudden presentation of aportrait might have done.
"_She's as wonderful to look at as ever_."
Was she? Well, she had been wonderful to look at--there could be noquestion of that. He had looked at her, and looked, and looked again,until his eyes had blurred with the dazzle of the vision. And havinglooked, there could be no possible forgetting, no merciful blotting outof the recollection of that face. He had tried to forget it, to forgetthe whole absorbing personality, had tried with all his strength, but thething could not be done. It seemed to him sometimes that the very effortto efface that image only cut its outlines deeper into his memory.
The baby began to cry afresh, with sudden, sharp insistence. Brown tookit up and strode the floor with it again.
"Poor little chap!" he murmured. "You can't have what you want, andI can't have what I want. But it doesn't do a bit of good to cryabout it--eh?"
The knocker sounded. Bim growled.
"At this hour!" thought Brown, with a glance at his watch lying on thetable. It was nearly two in the morning.
Holding the baby in the crook of his arm he crossed the floor and openedthe door gingerly, sheltering the baby behind it.
"Is it the toothache, Misther Brown?" inquired an eagerly pitiful voice."Or warse?"
Mrs. Kelcey came in, her shawl covering her unbound hair--his next-doorneighbour and little Norah's mother. Her face was full of astonishment atsight of Brown in his bathgown and the baby in his arms.
"I'm mighty glad to see you," Brown assured her. "I don't know what to dowith him, poor little fellow. I think it must be a pain."
"The saints and ahl!" said Mrs. Kelcey. She took the baby from him withwonted, motherly arms. "The teeny thing!" she exclaimed. "Where--"
"Left on my doorstep."
"An' ye thried to get through the night with him! Why didn't ye bring himto me at wanst?"
"It was late--your lights were out. How did you know I was up?"
"Yer lights wasn't out. I was up with me man--Pat's a sore fut, an' I wasbathin' it to quiet him. I seen yer lights. Ye sit up till ahl hours, Iknow, but I cud see the shadow movin' up and down. I says to Pat, 'He'sthe toothache, maybe, and me with plinty of rimidies nixt door.'"
She turned her attention to the tiny creature in her lap. Sheinquired into the case closely, and learned how the child had beenfed with a teaspoon.
"To think of a single man so handy!" she exclaimed admiringly. "But maybehe shwallied a bit too much air with the feedin'."
"He swallowed all the air there was at hand," admitted Brown, "andprecious little milk. But he seemed hungry, and I thought he was toolittle to go all night without being fed."
"Right ye were, an' 'tis feedin' he nades agin--only not with a shpoon.I'll take him home an' fix up a bit of a bottle for him, the poor thing.An' I'll take him at wanst, an' let ye get to bed, where ye belong, bythe looks of ye."
"You're an angel, Mrs. Kelcey. I hate to let you take him, with all youhave on your hands--"
"Shure, 'tis the hands that's full that can always hold a bit more. An' asingle man can't be bothered with cast-off childher, no matter how bighis heart is, as we well know."
And Mrs. Kelcey departed, with the baby under her shawl and a motherlylook for the man who opened the door for her and stood smiling at her inthe lamplight as she went away.
But when he had thrown himself, at last, on his bed, wearily longing forrest, he found he had still to wrestle a while with the persistent imageof the face which was "wonderful to look at," before kindly slumberwould efface it with the gray mists of oblivion.