“Yes, I’m particularly anxious to have you go on with—with the lessons, you know. Not just the books and music, you understand, but—well, say a general influence. You know, she’s tremendously fond of all of you. I mean to get her off the stage as soon as the run here is finished. It’s time for her to have a little real life. And I’d like things to go on about as they were—I mean, having her in your house, or mine, just as she feels about it. You were the first to give her a mother’s attention. I’d be grateful if you felt you could go on with that.”
She had put her arms about the trembling old lady’s neck, and for the moment they were both silent.
Mrs. Baron tried to answer this quite punctiliously, but she had to turn aside to hide her eyes, and when she spoke her words were a surprise to her.
“I think you’re a good man,” she said. And she did not trust herself to say anything more. She was gazing at Bonnie May again, and noticing how the strange little creature was clinging to Flora’s hand with both her own, and telling—with her eyes illustrating the story gloriously—of the great events which had transpired since that day when the mansion went back to its normal condition of loneliness and silence.
Baron was observing her, too. He had found a chair quite outside the centre of the picture, and he was trying to assume the pose of a casual onlooker.
But Bonnie May’s eyes met his after a time and something of the radiance passed from her face. She turned away from Flora and stood apart a little and clasped her hands up nearly beneath her chin, and her whole being seemed suddenly tremulous. She was thinking of the home that had been made for her, and of how it was Baron who had opened its door. The others had been lovely, but the ready faith and the willingness to stand the brunt—these had been his.
She moved forward almost shyly until she stood before him, and then her hands went out to him.
“I must offer my congratulations, too!” he said.
But she ignored that. “Do you remember a time when we talked together about some words that we thought were beautiful—up in the attic?” she asked.