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He talked openly about his former love for her as of something that was over and done with. And yet, whenever he did so, he felt a pain in his heart, an irritating, cruel pain, a remorseless pain that could never die.

“Everything on earth withers and dies,” he mused, “why should her favourite song alone be an exception to this? When one has heard it three hundred and sixty-five times, it becomes stale; it can’t be helped. But is my wife right when she says that our love, also, has died? No, and yet–perhaps she is. Our marriage is no better than a vulgar liaison, for we have no child.”

One day he made up his mind to talk the matter over with a married friend, for were they not both members of the “Order of the Married”?

“How long have you been married?”

“Six years.”

“And does matrimony bore you?”

“At first it did; but when the children came, matters improved.”

“Was that so? It’s strange that we have no child.”

“Not your fault, old man! Tell your wife to go and see a doctor about it.”

He had an intimate conversation with her and she went.

Six weeks after what a change!

What a bustle and commotion in the house! The drawing-room table was littered with baby-clothes which were quickly hidden if anybody entered unexpectedly, and reappeared as quickly if it was only he who had come in. A name had to be thought of. It would surely be a boy. The midwife had to be interviewed, medical books had to be bought, and a cradle and a baby’s outfit.

The baby arrived and it really was a boy! And when he saw the “little monkey that smelled of butter” clasped to her bosom, which until then had but been his plaything, he reverently discovered the mother in his little wife; and “when he saw the big pupils looking at the baby so intently that they seemed to be looking into the future”, he realised that there were depths in her eyes after all; depths more profound than he could fathom for all his drama and religion. And now all his old love, his dear old love, burst into fresh flames, and there was something new added to it, which he had dimly divined, but never realised.

How beautiful she was when she busied herself about the house again! And how intelligent in all matters concerning the baby!

As for him, he felt a man. Instead of talking of the Baron’s horses and the Count’s cricket matches, he now talked, too much almost, of his son.

And when occasionally he was obliged to be out of an evening, he always longed for his own fireside; not because his wife sat there waiting for him, like an evil conscience, but because he knew that she was not alone. And when he came home, both mother and child were asleep. He was almost jealous of the baby, for there had been a certain charm in the thought that while he was out, somebody was sitting alone at home, eagerly awaiting his return.

Now he was allowed his afternoon nap. And as soon as he had gone back to town, the piano was opened and the favourite song of the Rose in the Wood was sung, for it was quite new to Harold, and had regained all its freshness for poor little Laura who hadn’t heard it for so many days.

She had no time now for crochet work, but there were plenty of antimacassars in the house. He, on his part, could not spare the time for his dissertation.

“Harold shall write it,” said the father, for he knew now that his life would not be over when he came to die.

Many an evening they sat together, as before, and gossiped, but now both took a share in the conversation, for now she understood what they were talking about.

She confessed that she was a silly girl who knew nothing about religion and the drama; but she said that she had always told him so, and that he had refused to believe it.

But now he believed it less than ever.

They sang the old favourite song, and Harold crowed, they danced to the tune and rocked the baby’s cradle to it, and the song always retained its freshness and charm.