Free Such is love by Mary Burchell Page B

not." She realized then that, in her preoccupation with Toby, she had scarcely noticed Van's change of tone. She caught his hand eagerly, in an unusual access of emotion. "I hope we do have a child, my dear— every bit as much as you do."

    That was true—she did hope it. Only that must not shut out Toby. It must not.
    "Thank you, darling," Van said in that curt, almost formal way of his, and leaning forward, he kissed her on her lips.
    It wasn't possible to start the subject of Toby again after that, however much she might long to. Besides, what Van had said about their having had their home to themselves for only ten days was true. It was unreasonable and unkind to expect him to contemplate an intruder, yet—even such a small intruder as Toby.
    She tried to point out very reasonably to herself that she had managed very well without her child for five years. Why must she feel now that she could scarcely bear to pass a day without knowing what was happening to him?
    Very common sense, of course. But it didn't alter the fact that, now she had seen him, everything was changed —just as everything had been changed that day long ago when she had first heard him crying.
    The next few weeks were not altogether easy ones for Gwyneth. When Van was with her and they were doing the things which they had always loved to do together, it was all right. She was happy and she knew she made him happy.
    But there were long hours when Van was away at the office. In the ordinary way, this would not have worried her. There was plenty for her to do—in her home and in the social circle to which Van Onslie's wife naturally had to belong. Only now, when Van was not there, her thoughts fled at once to the little boy at Greystones who was hers and yet not hers, and then they would go round and round the same weary circle again.
    When could she tactfully mention the subject to Van once more? How would he take iiT What could she say that would make him, too, want to have Toby, at any rate for a visit? If Toby then made his own appeal, what would Van think if she suggested adopting him? How could she best put it? How would he take it?
    It was not possible to find the answers to these questions, nor was it possible to escape asking herself the same questions all over again.
    Carefully packing up the little jug, she sent it to Toby

    just a few days after the visit, and in reply she received a cordial letter from the matron, explaining that the jug had arrived safely and that Toby was extremely delighted with it. She read the letter many times and tried to imagine his pleasure when the parcel arrived. But it was all so remote when his baby enthusiasm had to be expressed in typewriting before she could hear about it.
    Somehow she had supposed something might come of this incident, but, of course, it didn't. And silence closed down on Greystones again.
    During the first week in September Mrs. Vilner stayed in London for a day or two on her way to Paris. Gwyneth spent some time shopping with her, and listened with her cool, remote smile to her mother's open congratulations on the excellent match she had made.
    "I had a few doubts at one time, Gwyneth. Those successful, unsmiling business men sometimes make very hard husbands."
    "Van has a very charming smile when he likes," protested Gwyneth mildly.
    "Yes, yes. I know. But it is when he likes—not to please other people. However, it's easy to see he is thoroughly indulgent where you are concerned."
    Gwyneth didn't think 'indulgent' was quite the word, but she let that pass.
    "We're very happy," she said conventionally, and her mother laughed softly.
    "All of which goes to show that I was right in what I did," she observed lightly.
    Something in the complacency of that, infuriated Gwyneth. She shattered her mother's cool self-satisfaction with the one brutal remark:
    "I went with Van to see Greystones a few weeks ago."
    "You ' Mrs. Vilner stopped dead in the middle of
    Regent Street, and then went on