The Rainbow

His great and chiefest source of solace was the child. She

had been at first aloof from him, reserved. However friendly she

might seem one day, the next she would have lapsed to her

original disregard of him, cold, detached, at her distance.

The first morning after his marriage he had discovered it

would not be so easy with the child. At the break of dawn he had

started awake hearing a small voice outside the door saying

plaintively: "Mother!"

He rose and opened the door. She stood on the threshold in

her night-dress, as she had climbed out of bed, black eyes

staring round and hostile, her fair hair sticking out in a wild

fleece. The man and child confronted each other.

"I want my mother," she said, jealously accenting the

"my".

"Come on then," he said gently.

"Where's my mother?"

"She's here--come on."

The child's eyes, staring at the man with ruffled hair and

beard, did not change. The mother's voice called softly. The

little bare feet entered the room with trepidation.

"Mother!"

"Come, my dear."

The small bare feet approached swiftly.

"I wondered where you were," came the plaintive voice. The

mother stretched out her arms. The child stood beside the high

bed. Brangwen lightly lifted the tiny girl, with an

"up-a-daisy", then took his own place in the bed again.

"Mother!" cried the child, as in anguish.

"What, my pet?"

Anna wriggled close into her mother's arms, clinging tight,

hiding from the fact of the man. Brangwen lay still, and waited.

There was a long silence.

Then suddenly, Anna looked round, as if she thought he would

be gone. She saw the face of the man lying upturned to the

ceiling. Her black eyes stared antagonistic from her exquisite

face, her arms clung tightly to her mother, afraid. He did not

move for some time, not knowing what to say. His face was smooth

and soft-skinned with love, his eyes full of soft light. He

looked at her, scarcely moving his head, his eyes smiling.

"Have you just wakened up?" he said.

"Go away," she retorted, with a little darting forward of the

head, something like a viper.

"Nay," he answered, "I'm not going. You can go."

"Go away," came the sharp little command.

"There's room for you," he said.

"You can't send your father from his own bed, my little

bird," said her mother, pleasantly.

The child glowered at him, miserable in her impotence.

"There's room for you as well," he said. "It's a big bed

enough."

She glowered without answering, then turned and clung to her

mother. She would not allow it.

During the day she asked her mother several times: "When are we going home, mother?"

"We are at home, darling, we live here now. This is our

house, we live here with your father."