Guess what I have
with me." Lee Randon had no idea, and Gregory produced a willow switch.
"That's for anybody who isn't good."
There was a wriggle down under the blanket, and Lee leaned forward;
"Are those your feet?" he demanded; "do you go that far down, are you
that tall?"
"Gracious, that's nothing," Helena cut in; "just see where I go." He
discovered that her active toes were almost under the end bar of the
bed. The covers were moulded by her firm body. In a few years, he
thought with a constricted throat, Helena would be grown up, flung into
the complex troubles of maturity. However, he knew, life wouldn't
greatly upset her--she had a calmness more stolid than Fanny's together
with his own sharpened sensibilities: it was probable that she would
marry soon.
Gregory was different; while Helena, in small ways, was unamenable, he
was as good as the gold stars he continually got for admirable conduct.
He had a deliberate, careful mind and, already, a sense of
responsibilities. He spoke slowly, giving the impression that the
selection of words was a heavy business; where Helena's speech came in
careless rushes. Gregory, too, Lee Randon told himself, would not be at
a loss later. The two children actually demanded very little from him
now beyond the love they took for granted and its obvious return. But,
for his part, did he give them much, indeed, any more? Was there, Lee
wondered, a deficiency in his sense of parenthood?
He knew men all of whose labor was for their children; they slaved to
have comfortable sums against their children's futures; they schemed
and talked, often fatuously, for and about their sons and, in lesser
degree, daughters.
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