"You get round, don't you?" pursued Nan.
She took the chair Tira brought her and regarded him across the shining stove. Tira withdrew to a distance, and stood immovable by the scullery door, as if, Nan thought, she meant to keep open her line of retreat.
"No," said Tenney grimly, "I don't git about much. Three times a day I git from the house to the barn. I expect to do better, as time goes on. I've got my eye on a cord wood stick, an' I'm plannin' how I can whittle me out a crutch."
Nan, glancing at Tira, caught the tremor that went over her and understood this was, in a veiled way, a threat. She came, at a leap, to the purpose of her call.
"Mr. Tenney," she said, "I'm an awfully interfering person. I've come to ask you and your wife to let me do something."
Tenney was staring at her with lacklustre eyes. In these latter days, the old mad spark in them had gone.
"Your baby," said Nan, feeling her heart beat hard, "isn't right. I know places where such poor little children are made—right—if they can be. They're studied and looked after. I want you to let me take him away with me and see if something can be done. His mother could go, too, if she likes. You could go. Only, I'll be responsible. I'll arrange it all."
Tenney still stared at her, and she found the dull gaze disconcerting.
"So," he said at length, not even glancing at Tira, "so she's put that into your head."
"So far as that goes," said Nan boldly, "I've put it into hers. I saw he wasn't right. I told her I'd do everything in my power, in anybody's power, to have him"—she hesitated here for a homely word he might take in—"seen to. And now (you're his father) I've come to you."