On one point
only he remained inflexible; and that was the changing of the waif's
name. Mrs. Lethbury, almost at once, had expressed a wish to
rechristen it: she fluctuated between Muriel and Gladys, deferring
the moment of decision like a lady wavering between two bonnets. But
Lethbury was unyielding. In the general surrender of his prejudices
this one alone held out.
"But Jane is so dreadful," Mrs. Lethbury protested.
"Well, we don't know that _she_ won't be dreadful. She may grow up a
Jane."
His wife exclaimed reproachfully. "The nurse says she's the
loveliest--"
"Don't they always say that?" asked Lethbury patiently. He was
prepared to be inexhaustibly patient now that he had reached a firm
foothold of opposition.
"It's cruel to call her Jane," Mrs. Lethbury pleaded.
"It's ridiculous to call her Muriel."
"The nurse is _sure_ she must be a lady's child."
Lethbury winced: he had tried, all along, to keep his mind off the
question of antecedents.
"Well, let her prove it," he said, with a rising sense of
exasperation. He wondered how he could ever have allowed himself to
be drawn into such a ridiculous business; for the first time he felt
the full irony of it. He had visions of coming home in the afternoon
to a house smelling of linseed and paregoric, and of being greeted
by a chronic howl as he went up stairs to dress for dinner. He had
never been a club-man, but he saw himself becoming one now.
The worst of his anticipations were unfulfilled.
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