"Oh! oh! go out like a bear! dere's a bear come in here!"
And so, having brought the bear in, he was forced to drop again and growl the beast out, whereupon, appeased by this strict observance of the unities, the child sat up and demanded:
"You sure you'll bring me somefin next time?"
"Yes, sure, Lady Grenville St. Clare." "Well, you sure you're comin' next time?"
Being reassured on this point, and satisfied that no more bears were at large, she lay down once more while Percival and the two observers returned to the drawing-room.
"You love children so!" Miss Milbrey said. And never had she been so girlishly appealing to all that was strong in him as a man. The frolic with the child seemed to have blown away a fog from between them. Yet never had the other scene been more vivid to him, and never had the pain of her heartlessness been more poignant.
When he "played" with Baby Akemit thereafter, the pretence was not all with the child. For while she might "play" at giving a vexatiously large dinner, for which she was obliged to do the cooking because she had discharged all the servants, or when they "played" that the big couch was a splendid ferry-boat in which they were sailing to Chicago where Uncle David lived—with many stern threats to tell the janitor of the boat if the captain didn't behave himself and sail faster—Percival "played" that his companion's name was Baby Bines, and that her mother, who watched them with loving eyes, was a sweet and gracious young woman named Avice. And when he told Baby Akemit that she was "the only original sweetheart" he meant it of some one else than her.
When the play was over he always conducted himself back to sane reality by viewing this some one else in the cold light of truth.