“You don’t! Do you suppose that I was going to tell them that I was—or that I wasn’t? What nonsense! Are you ‘a good young man’? How does a question like that sound?”
Baron pondered. “Well—” he suggested.
“Well, I wouldn’t stand it. I asked her if she was ‘a good old woman’—and the frowzy old thing stared at me just as ugly! She walked way down into the parquet without looking back. She’d been grinning when she asked me. I’ll bet she won’t grin like that very soon again.”
Baron walked to the window and looked out dully, to gain time.
How extraordinary the child’s attitude was! And yet.... He could understand that she might have been the only child in the troupe with which she travelled, and that her older companions, weary of mimicry and make-believe when their work was done, might have employed very frank, mature speech toward each other and their young companion.
He turned away from the window with a sigh. “Won’t you take my word for it, Bonnie May, that these people mean well, and that one should speak of them with respect, even if one cannot speak of them with affection?”
“But they don’t mean well. What’s the good of stalling?” She turned until her back was toward him, and sat so, her cheek in her hand, and her whole body eloquent of discouragement.
An instant later she turned toward him with the first evidence of surrender she had shown. Her chin quivered and her eyes were filled with misery. “Did you tell the man where I was, so they can come for me if they want me?” she asked.
Here spoke the child, Baron thought. His resentment fled instantly. “Truly I did,” he assured her. “I have been doing everything I could think of to help. I want you to believe that.”
“Oh, I do; but you all put too much on me. I want to go back to where things are real——”