We Three | Page 5

revolve about them.
Fulton once said to me, in that shy yet eager way of his: "If only I could arrest my babies' development; keep them exactly as they are; on tap when I wanted them, and hibernated like a couple of little bears when I was busy and mustn't be disturbed! They should never change, while I lived, if I had my way. And I'd promise not to abuse my privileges. I'd only take 'em out of the ice box when I absolutely needed them and couldn't do without them."
It was the first time that I ever was in the Fulton house that he said that. The two babies, a boy and a girl, Jock and "Hurry," two roly-polies, with their mother's eyes and mischievous smile, had been brought in to the tea table to be polite and share a lump of sugar. And they had been very polite, and had shown the proper command over their shyness, and had shaken me decorously by the hand, and made their funny grave little bows and asked me how I did. And I had said something in praise of the little girl to her face, and Fulton had reproached me a little for doing so.
"In India," he had said, "it is very bad luck to praise a child to its face, very bad luck indeed."
"I'm so sorry," I said, when the children had gone. "I ought to have remembered that even very little babies in the cradle understand everything that's said to them. May I praise them now? Because they are the two most delicious babies in the world. I'd like to eat them."
"When I'm tired or worried," said Fulton, his eyes lighting with tenderness, "Hurry always knows. And she comes and climbs into my lap and leans against me without saying a word, and she keeps creepy-mouse still until she knows that I'm feeling better. Then she chuckles, and I hug her. Sometimes I wish that she was made like a tennis ball; then I could hug her as hard as I wanted to without hurting her."
While he was speaking, Mrs. Fulton looked all the time at her husband's face. I remember thinking, "God! If ever some woman should look at me like that!" Her mouth smiled mischievously, just the way little Hurry's smiled, and her eyes--I won't try to describe the love and tenderness that was in them, nor the dog-like faithfulness--were eyes that prayed. And they were the deepest, most brilliant blue--like those Rheims windows that the Beast smashed the other day. She laughed and said: "Hurry and her father don't care about each other--not at all."
Fulton lifted his eyes to hers and it was as if "I love you" flashed from each to the other in that crumb of time. His face reddened a little, and hers became more rosy. They weren't a bit ashamed of being obviously in love with each other. I think they rather prided themselves on it.
"Why Hurry?" I asked. "Is it a real name? Of course I remember Hurry Harry in Cooper----"
"Her real name is Lucy," said Fulton, "same as her Mumsey, but they look so ridiculously alike that I was afraid I'd get 'em mixed up. And so we call her Hurry, because she always hurries; she hurries like mad. Same as her Mumsey."
"Do you," I asked, "hurry like mad?"
She gave a comical hurried nod that made me laugh right out, and Fulton said:
"She has smashed the more haste the less speed fallacy all to pieces." You could see that the man was glowing with pride. And he began to boast about her, and though she tried to stop him, she couldn't help looking perfectly delighted with herself, like some radiant child in the new dress for the party.
When Fulton had finished his eulogy, a long one, filled with humor, character drawing, and tenderness--something in his voice rather than his words, perhaps, always gave people the feeling that he had a wonderfully light touch, and a point of view at once sentimental and humorous--I reproached him, in turn, for praising a child to her face.
"In India," I said, "it's considered beastly unlucky."
Mrs. Fulton sprang to his defense. "I'm not a child," she defied me, "I'm a married woman."
They took me to the front door themselves, and watched me as far as the gate. I know this, because although I did not look back, it was when I reached the gate that I heard the door close, and I thought: "Now if I looked back, and the door was transparent, I'd see a pretty picture. It's a thousand to one shot that he's caught her in his arms and is kissing her and that she's perfectly delighted."

III
It is not easy for me to keep away from Lucy Fulton either on paper or in