Billy did not have an opportunity to show Cyril how much or how little she knew about babies, for in another minute the maid had appeared with the extra nurse; and that young woman, with trained celerity and easy confidence, assumed instant command, and speedily had peace and order restored.
Cyril, freed from responsibility, cast longing eyes, for a moment, upon his work; but the next minute, with a despairing glance about him, he turned and fled precipitately.
Billy, following the direction of his eyes, suppressed a smile. On the top of Cyril's manuscript music on the table lay a hot-water bottle. Draped over the back of his favorite chair was a pink-bordered baby blanket. On the piano-stool rested a beribboned and beruffled baby's toilet basket.
From behind the sofa pillow leered ridiculously the Teddy bear, just as it had left Cyril's desperate hand.
No wonder, indeed, that Billy smiled. Billy was thinking of what Marie had said not a week before:
``I shall keep the baby, of course, in the nursery.
I've been in homes where they've had baby things strewn from one end of the house to the other; but it won't be that way here. In the first place, I don't believe in it; but, even if I did, I'd have to be careful on account of Cyril. Imagine Cyril's trying to write his music with a baby in the room! No! I shall keep the baby in the nursery, if possible; but wherever it is, it won't be anywhere near Cyril's den, anyway.''
Billy suppressed many a smile during the days that immediately followed the coming of the twins. Some of the smiles, however, refused to be suppressed. They became, indeed, shamelessly audible chuckles.
Billy was to sail the tenth, and, naturally, during those early July days, her time was pretty much occupied with her preparations for departure;but nothing could keep her from frequent, though short, visits to the home of her brother-in-law.
The twins were proving themselves to be fine, healthy boys. Two trained maids, and two trained nurses ruled the household with a rod of iron. As to Cyril--Billy declared that Cyril was learning something every day of his life now.
``Oh, yes, he's learning things,'' she said to Aunt Hannah, one morning; ``lots of things.
For instance: he has his breakfast now, not when he wants it, but when the maid wants to give it to him--which is precisely at eight o'clock every morning. So he's learning punctuality. And for the first time in his life he has discovered the astounding fact that there are several things more important in the world than is the special piece of music he happens to be composing--chiefly the twins' bath, the twins' nap, the twins'
airing, and the twins' colic.''
Aunt Hannah laughed, though she frowned, too.
``But, surely, Billy, with two nurses and the maids, Cyril doesn't have to--to--'' She came to a helpless pause.
``Oh, no,'' laughed Billy; ``Cyril doesn't have to really attend to any of those things--though I have seen each of the nurses, at different times, unhesitatingly thrust a twin into his arms and bid him hold the child till she comes back. But it's this way. You see, Marie must be kept quiet, and the nursery is very near her room. It worries her terribly when either of the children cries.
Besides, the little rascals have apparently fixed up some sort of labor-union compact with each other, so that if one cries for something or nothing, the other promptly joins in and helps. So the nurses have got into the habit of picking up the first disturber of the peace, and hurrying him to quarters remote; and Cyril's den being the most remote of all, they usually fetch up there.''
``You mean--they take those babies into Cyril's den--_now_?'' Even Aunt Hannah was plainly aghast.
