With a final toss and shout the dishevelled, panting baby was replaced in the bed, one cheek poppy-red from a rough masculine caress. A little shame-faced over the sentimentality, Masterson turned to his guest.
"All over!" he affected lightness. "Come have a Martini before dinner, Tony."
"No, thanks. I couldn't." Adriance pulled himself together with a sharp effort. "I heard your kiddie laughing, and just looked in here. I ought to apologize; I have not yet met this lady——"
Masterson regarded him curiously.
"Miss Elsie Murray, Mr. Adriance," he obeyed the implied request. "Miss Murray is good enough to be Holly's guardian, since no one of his family has time for that—or inclination."
She was a nurse. The simple fact came home to Adriance for the first time. The severe black dress, the little white cuffs and collar that made it a uniform, her constant attendance upon the baby—all the obvious evidence had been overshadowed for him by her face and bearing, the personality out of all accord with the position in which she was.
There was no change in her face. He comprehended that she never had imagined him ignorant of her relation to Holly. Through all his whirling confusion of thought, Adriance contrived to hold outward composure and acknowledge the introduction as he would that to any gentlewoman. The quaint word seemed to suit her.
She met him with a poise at least equal to his own. But it was he who offered his hand, heedless of Masterson's observation. It seemed to him that he never had desired anything in his life so desperately, with such passionate eagerness as he desired to be justified before this girl. He wanted her to know the very thing he could not honorably tell anyone: that he had broken with Lucille Masterson of his own free will. His eyes sought hers, unconsciously beseeching her grace of comprehension; indeed, he had a confused idea that she would comprehend that his offered handclasp was ventured only because he was not going to do the wrong they both hated.
Perhaps she did understand. At least, she gave him her hand, for the first time in their acquaintance. He grasped it with a brightening of his drawn face, leaning toward her.
"Thank you!" he said. "I congratulate Holly; you will teach him in time about Maître Raoul Galvez."