“Here comes her poor father, now,” the lady in taffeta announced with the dramatic commiseration of the self-invited auditor. “He thought an iced towel on her head might make her feel better. Is the dear little thing an orphan—I mean a half orphan?”
The assembled company seeming disinclined to respond, she repeated her inquiry to Collier Pratt himself, as with the susceptive grace that characterized all his movements, he swung the compress he was carrying sharply to and fro to preserve its temperature in transit. “Is the poor little thing a half orphan?”
“The poor little thing is nine-tenths orphan, madam,” said Collier Pratt, “that is—the only creature to whom she can turn for protection is the apology for a parent that you see before 132 you. Would you mind stepping aside and giving me a little more room to work in?”
“Not at all.” Irony was wasted on the indomitable sympathizer in blue. “Hasn’t she really anybody but you to take care of her?”
Collier Pratt arranged the towel precisely in position over the little girl’s forehead, smoothing with careful fingers the cloud of dusky hair that fell about her face.
“She has not,” he answered with some savagery.
“Hasn’t she any women friends or relatives that would be willing to take charge of her?”
“No, madam.”
“Then some woman that has no child of her own to care for ought to adopt her, and relieve you of the responsibility. It’s a shame and disgrace the way these New York women with no natural ties of their own go around crying for something to do, when there are sweet little children like this suffering for a mother’s care. I’d adopt her myself if I was able to. I certainly would.”
“I’m perfectly willing to give over the technical part of her bringing up to some one of the women whom you so feelingly describe,” Collier 133 Pratt said. “The trouble is to find the woman—the right woman. The vicarious mother is not the most prevalent of our modern types, I regret to say.”