gasps of breath, the result of unseemly running,
she signed to her confederates to remain in the background, and turned
curious eyes on me. Had she spoken as she approached, I am sure her
words would have been as flushed as her face, but now her mouth puckered
as David's does before he sets forth upon his smile, and I saw that she
thought she had me in a parley at last.

"I could not help being a little anxious," she said craftily, but I must
own, with some sweetness.

I merely raised my hat, and at that she turned quickly to David--I
cannot understand why the movement was so hasty--and lowered her face
to his. Oh, little trump of a boy! Instead of kissing her, he seized her
face with one hand and tried to work her eyebrows up and down with the
other. He failed, and his obvious disappointment in his mother was as
nectar to me.

"I don't understand what you want, darling," said she in distress, and
looked at me inquiringly, and I understood what he wanted, and let
her see that I understood. Had I been prepared to converse with her, I
should have said elatedly that, had she known what he wanted, still she
could not have done it, though she had practised for twenty years.

I tried to express all this by another movement of my hat.

It caught David's eye and at once he appealed to me with the most
perfect confidence. She failed to see what I did, for I shyly gave her
my back, but the effect on David was miraculous; he signed to her to go,
for he was engaged for the afternoon.

What would you have done then, reader? I didn't. In my great moment I
had strength of character to raise my hat for the third time and walk
away, leaving the child to judge between us. I walked slowly, for I knew
I must give him time to get it out, and I listened eagerly, but that
was unnecessary, for when it did come it was a very roar of anguish. I
turned my head, and saw David fiercely pushing the woman aside, that he
might have one last long look at me. He held out his wistful arms and
nodded repeatedly, and I faltered, but my glorious scheme saved me,
and I walked on. It was a scheme conceived in a flash, and ever since
relentlessly pursued, to burrow under Mary's influence with the boy,
expose her to him in all her vagaries, take him utterly from her and
make him mine.

XII. The Pleasantest Club in London

All perambulators lead to the Kensington Gardens.

Not, however, that you will see David in his perambulator much longer,
fo