"No!" I emphatically interrupted him. "That, never! She is not going from my house—certainly not to him!"
I was the more abashed by my own vehemence when I saw Dibdin staring at me with lifted eyebrows.
"Why—you are not—" he began blankly—but I interrupted him hotly.
"I am nothing!—She is to me just as Jimmie and Laura and Randolph are, but they are unfortunately his. Don't you know the meaning of responsibility for young lives, Dibdin? I want to give her her chance, educate her, make a fine woman of her. They have a father; she has no one but me. I can't turn her out—and I wish," I added lamely, "I had as much right to keep them all."
"Whew!" he whistled in renewed astonishment.
"I can only say I don't know you any more. I used to know you, but I'm proud to make the acquaintance of the new Mr. Randolph Byrd."
"Don't be a damn fool, Dibdin," I mumbled in exasperation. "You know you are talking rot. Why the devil are you so interested in the kids? There is that cheque you sent—!"
"You haven't cashed it," he interposed, moving his shoulders as one shaking off something. "Why the deuce haven't you?"
"I will some day," I grinned at him feebly, "when I need it more. But you haven't answered my question."
I felt I was goading him brutally but for once I seemed to have the dear old tramp upon the hip. For all his gruffness he was as full of emotions as anybody. It seemed to me absurd for a man to hide his implanted instinct, one of the noblest of all the little hidden root-cellars of our instincts, under a false shame or indifference. Women are wiser—they don't hide theirs; and I had become shameless about mine.