He answered, evenly.

"Yes. I ask that. Even I."

Quickly, with the agility of the brute, she thrust toward him the little,
puling thing that lay upon her lap.

"Look, then," she said, in deep, grating tones.

He leaned forward, crossing his hands behind him, and looked. The crop,
held in his right hand, tapped lightly against his booted left leg. The
woman waited. At length he stood erect. He shook his head and smiled.

"Babies are all alike," he remarked, easily. "Red, dirty, unformed, no
hair.... This is a little redder, a little more dirty, a little more
unformed; it has a little less hair.... Beyond that, _quoi_?"

The shrunken lips of the old woman set tightly; the eyes flared.

"You dare--!" she began. And then: "It is your mouth--your chin. The nose
is yours. The eyes they shall be hers." She nodded her head in the
direction of the dying mother upon the bed. "And perhaps, some day--" She
did not finish. She settled the baby back again upon her knees and sat,
waiting.

The man, still smiling, gazed up the woman on the bed.

"Dead?" he queried, with a lift of the brows.