He went over to her and took her limp hand. She half turned away. He patted the hand.
"Why, girl! This isn't very pleasant for me. I aimed to make you happy when I brought you out to Millings. I kind of wanted to work myself into your Poppa's place, kind of meant to make it up to you some way. I aimed to give you a home. 'Home, sweet home, there's no place like home'—that was my motto. And here you are, all pale around the gills and tears all over your face—and, say, there's a regular pool there on your pillow. Now, now—" he clicked with his tongue. "You're a bad girl, a regular bad, ungrateful girl, hanged if you aren't! You know what I'd do to you if you were as young as you are little and foolish? Smack you—good and plenty. But I'm not agoin' to do it, no, ma'am. Don't pull your hand away. Smacking's not in my line. I never smacked my own children in their lives, except Dickie. There was no other way with him. He was ornery. You come and set down here in the big chair and I'll pull up the little one and we'll talk things over. Put your trust in me, Miss Sheila. I'm all heart. I wasn't called 'Pap' for nothing. You know what I am? I'm your guardian. Yes'm. And you just got to make up your mind to cast your care upon me, as the hymn says. Nary worry must you keep to yourself. Come on now, kid, out with it. Get it off your chest."
Sheila had let him put her into the big creaking leather chair. She sat with a handkerchief clenched in both her hands, upon which he, drawing up the other chair, now placed one of his. She kept her head down, for she was ashamed of the pale, stained, and distorted little face which she could not yet control.
"Now, then, girl … Well, if you won't talk to me, I'll just light up and wait. I'm a patient man, I am. Don't hurry yourself any."
He withdrew his hand and took out a cigar. In a moment he was sitting on the middle of his spine, his long legs sprawled half across the room, his hands in his pockets, his head on the chair-back so that his chin pointed up to the ceiling. Smoke rose from him as from a volcano.
Sheila presently laughed uncertainly.
"That's better," he mumbled around his cigar.
"I've had a dreadful day," said Sheila.
"You won't have any more of them, my dear," Sylvester promised quietly.
She looked at him with faint hope.