The baby was
surprisingly well and surprisingly quiet. Such infantile remedies as
she absorbed were not potent enough to be perceived beyond the
nursery; and when Lethbury could be induced to enter that sanctuary,
there was nothing to jar his nerves in the mild pink presence of his
adopted daughter. Jars there were, indeed: they were probably
inevitable in the disturbed routine of the household; but they
occurred between Mrs. Lethbury and the nurses, and Jane contributed
to them only a placid stare which might have served as a rebuke to
the combatants.
In the reaction from his first impulse of atonement, Lethbury noted
with sharpened perceptions the effect of the change on his wife's
character. He saw already the error of supposing that it could work
any transformation in her. It simply magnified her existing
qualities. She was like a dried sponge put in water: she expanded,
but she did not change her shape. From the stand-point of scientific
observation it was curious to see how her stored instincts responded
to the pseudo-maternal call. She overflowed with the petty maxims of
the occasion. One felt in her the epitome, the consummation, of
centuries of animal maternity, so that this little woman, who
screamed at a mouse and was nervous about burglars, came to typify
the cave-mother rending her prey for her young.
It was less easy to regard philosophically the practical effects of
her borrowed motherhood. Lethbury found with surprise that she was
becoming assertive and definite.
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