"Ruth is entirely right," Tom put in emphatically. "There is not the slightest need of dragging things out."
"I can understand that you naturally would not want any delay," George retorted sharply.
Tom turned and looked at him with an expression which made George change color, but before anything worse could be said, I hurried to ask Tom to ring for Rosa to act as a witness. I looked in my turn at George, and I think he understood how indignant I was.
"It's outrageous for you to burden yourself with his brat," George muttered under his breath as Tom went across the room to the bell-rope.
"You forget that you are speaking of my daughter," I answered him, with the most lofty air I could manage to assume.
He turned on his heel with an angry exclamation, and no more objections were made. George never showed me this unpleasant side of his character before in all the years I have known him. For the moment he behaved like a cad, like nothing else than a cad. Something very serious must have been troubling him. He must have been completely unstrung before he could be so disagreeable.
Rosa came in, and the signing was done. After the business was finished George lingered as if he wished to speak with me. Very likely he wished to apologize, but my nerves were not in tune for more talk with him, and in any case it was better to ignore all that had been unpleasant.
"You have no more business, have you, George?" I asked him directly. "Tom of course will want to see the daughter he has given away. I didn't let him see her first for fear he'd refuse to part with her."
George had no excuse for staying after that, and he was just leaving the room when Rosa reappeared with Tomine. The darling looked like a cherub, and was in a mood truly angelic. George scowled at her as if the dear little thing had done him some wrong, and hurried away. I do not understand how he could resist my darling, or why he should feel so about her. It is, I suppose, friendship for me; but he should realize a little what a blessing baby is to my lonely life.
Tom stood silent when Rosa took Thomasine up to him. He did not offer to touch the tiny pink face, and I could fancy how many thoughts must go through his mind as he looked. While he might not regret the dead woman, indeed, while he could hardly be other than glad that Julia was not alive, he must have some feeling about her which goes very deep. I should think any man who was not wholly hard must have some tenderness toward the mother of his child, no matter who or what she was. It moves even me, to think of such a feeling; and I could not look at Tom as he stood there with the living child to remind him of the dead mother.