“And why don’t you want to keep her?” she wanted to know.
“We meant to. But it turns out that she and my mother are—well, antagonistic.”
“That’s unfortunate, isn’t it? Please pardon me—you see, I’m really handicapped. But—what kind of woman is your mother?” She put the question so softly that it did not seem offensive.
Baron hesitated. “Perhaps it will explain if I say that she is elderly? There haven’t been any children in the house for a good many years. She believes—what is the familiar saying?—that children ought to be seen and not heard.”
Mrs. Thornburg hesitated. “That wouldn’t be quite the reason,” she said. “Your mother is—is orthodox, I suspect, in her friendships and ways. I’m sure you see what I mean.”
“Yes,” admitted Baron. “I think you are getting closer to the facts than I did.”
A pretty, delicate hue warmed the woman’s face, and her voice softened almost to tenderness. “I think I know,” she went on. “The little girl of the stage, out of some unknown place in Bohemia—she must seem quite disturbing, hopelessly out of harmony....”
“You put the case much better than I did. Yet you know all that’s scarcely fair to Bonnie May. She’s not really bold and impertinent, in the usual sense of those words. She hasn’t had the kind of training other children have. She has never associated with other children. You can see that instantly. She assumes that she has the same right to her opinion that older people have to theirs. She never means to offend. I have an idea she’s really quite affectionate. I have an idea if you once won her over——”
Mrs. Thornburg turned toward her husband and leaned forward in her chair, her eyes filled with a soft, generous impulse. When she spoke her voice vibrated with feeling.
“Bring her home!” she said.