It was the child who completed her scrutiny first. She glanced about her appraisingly. “A very beautiful exterior you have here,” she remarked, somewhat loftily.
Mrs. Thornburg smiled rapturously at this. A warm hue stole into her cheeks.
“I’m glad you like it,” she said. She glanced at Baron now, with joyous wonder in her eyes. “We think it’s pretty,” she added. “It might make you think of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy-tales, mightn’t it?” It was plain that she was feeling her way cautiously. “We might imagine we were the children who played under the juniper-tree—though I’m not sure an apple-tree would pass for a juniper-tree.”
Bonnie May nodded amiably. “Or it might remind you of a Shakespeare setting,” she suggested.
The woman regarded her anew with a look of wonder, and pique, and delight; and then it was evident that she had reached the limits of her restraint. With hands that trembled she drew the child slowly toward her, until she had the radiant face pressed against her breast.
“Dear child, do try to love me, won’t you?” she pleaded, and Baron saw that her face twitched, and that her eyes were offering a prayer to the soft sky in which the first stars of evening were just blossoming.
Then, almost stealthily, he left them.
Baggot was waiting for him in front of the house when he reached home. To be exact, the young playwright was sitting on the front step, nervously puffing a cigarette.
“What took you out this time in the evening?” he demanded.