“But how do you know it is a she?” demanded Baron, indicating the newspaper.
“I mean Bonnie May. I don’t know anything about that advertisement.”
For a moment Baron could only stare at the manager. He was wholly at sea. He was beginning to feel a deep resentment. He had done nothing that a man need apologize for. By a fair enough interpretation it might be said that he had tried to do a good deed. And now he was being caught in the meshes of a mystery—and Thornburg was behaving disagreeably, unreasonably.
He leaned back in his chair and tried to assume a perfectly tranquil manner. He was determined not to lose his head.
“This advertisement,” he said, “seems to solve the problem. The writer of it may not care to take Bonnie May to Tophet; but at least he—or she—seems ready enough to take her off our hands. Off my hands, I should say. What more do you want?”
The manager scowled. “I don’t want anybody to take her off your hands, nor my hands.”
“Why not? If they’re entitled to her——”
“I don’t believe they’re entitled to her. A child like that.... She’s worth a lot to people who know how to handle her. Somebody who needs her in his business is probably trying to get hold of her.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound reasonable to me at all. Somebody has had charge of her. Somebody brought her to the theatre. Her mother, in all probability.” Baron tried to speak quite casually. “Possibly her father’s somewhere about, too.”
Thornburg glared resentfully at the younger man. “If her mother was about,” he demanded, “would she have waited all this while to speak?”