“I love you. You are kind, and sweet, and good,” the child said, softly, still regarding her with that deep, penetrating gaze, and with intense conviction in her tone.
The Tarara’s painted face began to quiver, and great tear-drops brimmed her eyes, as she caught the little creature to her, crushing to irremediable flatness her diaphanous tarletan skirts. She strained the small creature to her breast a moment, and then seated her on her lap. She had caught up a rich plush cape from a chair, and had thrown it over the tights and dancing-shoes.
Rhodes, meanwhile, stood looking on, in a state of stupefaction. They had both forgotten him, as they clung to each other, with close kisses and embraces.
A deep emotion was evident in both of them, but its character was different. The woman was stirred to a passionate excitement; her breaths came in deep, catching sobs; her face worked with a nervous strain; and her cheeks flushed hotly under their rouge. The child, on the other hand, was deeply calm and grave. She lay with utter contentment in that bedizened creature’s arms, and looked up at her as trustingly and unquestioningly as though she had been a Madonna. This long, deep, concentrated look was undisturbed, as she said with a wondering seriousness:
“Are you my mother?”
“No, darling, no,” the dancer said, bending above her with a mother’s tenderness, while the tears ran down her cheeks, making a pitiable daub of black and white and red there.
“My mother died,” the child went on, looking only at the gentle eyes of the woman, and speaking in a grave and placid tone.
“And my little baby died,” the dancer said. “She would have been as old as you. She died before she ever knew her mother’s face, and my heart has been empty, ever since.”
“I love you,” said the child.
The strong, spasmodic movement with which the dancer crushed her to her heart, as she said these words, must have been physically painful, but if it was, the child gave no sign, except a radiant smile of joy. There was a look of almost holy calm upon the little pallid face. She put up one small hand, and patted lovingly the smeared face that bent above her.