The child scrambled to her feet and, seated on his broad
shoulder, granted the demand for toll. Her aunt's eyes filled.
This was the first time she had ever heard Martin ask for
something as sentimental as a kiss. She was thoroughly ashamed of
herself for it--it was really too absurd!--but she felt jealousy,
an emotion that had never bothered her since they had been
married. And this bit of chattering femininity had caused it.
Mrs. Wade worked faster.

The kiss was like the touch of silk against Martin's cheek. He
felt inexplicably sad as he put the child down again among her
playthings. There was, he realized with a shock, much that he was
missing, things he was letting work supplant. He wished that boy
of theirs could have lived. All might have been different. He had
almost forgotten that disappointment, had never understood until
this moment what a misfortune it had been, and here he was being
gripped by a more poignant sense of loss than he had ever before
felt, even when he had lost his mother.

Wonderful as little Rose was, she was not his own. But, he
wondered suddenly, wasn't this aching sense of need perhaps
something utterly different from unsatisfied paternal instinct?
He turned his head toward the kitchen where his Rag-weed was
working and asked himself if she were gone and some other woman
were here--such as little Rose might be when she grew up, one to
whom he went out spontaneously, would not his life be more
complete and far more worth while? What a fool he was, to bother
his head with such get-nowhere questions! He dismissed them
roughly, but new processes of thought had been opened, new
emotions awakened.