So when Mr. Miller passed from the subject of Hallowell and Smiths' Marshals to that of his long-hoped-for Idee, Dorothy was ready for him. Avoiding the weak spot, she enlarged on the tradition--very different from a mere superstition--that, in Layettes, blue stood always for a boy and pink for a girl.
"You see," she said, "this is England when all's said, and we're _fright_fully conservative. Don't condemn it just because it wouldn't go in New York.... You've heard of the Willyhams, of course?" she broke off suddenly to ask.
"I cann't say I have, Mrs. Stan. But I'm sitting here. Tell me. They're a Fam'ly, I presoom?"
"Yes. Upshire's their title. Now that title's descended in the female line ever since Charles the First. Ever since then the Willyham Layettes have been pink as a matter of course. And now, not a month ago, there was a boy, and they had to rush off and get blue at the very last moment.... Let me see, your children are little girls, aren't they?" she again interrupted herself to say.
"Three little goils, Mrs. Stan, with black-and-white check frocks and large black bows in their hair."
"Well, and mine are boys. Blue for me and pink for you. But we'll come to that in a moment.--The thing that really strikes me as extraordinary is that in all these ages, with all the countless babies that have been born, we don't know _yet_ which it's going to be!... And I don't think we ever shall. Now just think what that means--not just to a Royal House, with a whole succession depending on it, and crowns and dynasties and things--but to _every_ woman! You see the _tremendous_ interest they take in it at once!--But I don't know whether a man can ever understand that----"
"Go on, Mrs. Stan--I want the feminine point of voo," said Mr. Miller.--"The man ain't broken Post Toasties yet that has more reverence for motherhood than what I have----"
"I know," said Dorothy bashfully. "But it isn't the same--being a father. It's--it's different. It's not the same. I doubt whether _any_ man knows what it means to us as we wait and wonder--and wait and wonder--day after day--day after day----"
Here she dropped her eyes. Here also Mr. Miller dropped his head.
"It isn't the same--being a father--it's different," Dorothy was heard to murmur.