“And the newspapers and everything? Of course they would—everything.”
“I could ask Thornburg to take her. He offered to help. I have an idea he’d be only too glad to have her.”
“The theatre man—yes. And he’d dress her up in a fancy-ball costume, and encourage her in her brazen ways, and she’d be utterly shameless by the time she got to be a young woman.”
Baron sat down again with decision. “Mother, don’t!” he exclaimed. “Thornburg isn’t that kind at all. He’d—he’d probably try to get at her point of view now and then, and he might allow her to have certain liberties. I think he’s broad enough to want her to be good without insisting upon her being miserable!”
“Victor Baron!” warned his mother, and then she added with decision: “Then you’d better get him to take her—and the sooner the better.”
“That will be all right. To-morrow. I’ll call on him at his office to-morrow. I’ve never met his family. I’d consider it an intrusion to go to his house to-day, whether he did or not.”
This, of course, was spoken disagreeably, and Mrs. Baron resented it. “You’re very obliging, I’m sure,” she said. “But after what I’ve gone through I’ve no doubt I can wait until to-morrow.”
“No, it’s not that she has disappointed me,” responded Baron to a question by Thornburg the next morning.
They were sitting in the manager’s office, and Baron had realized too late that he should have waited until after luncheon, or for some other more auspicious occasion, to have a confidential talk with Thornburg. There were frequent interruptions, and the manager had his mind upon the complicated business of amusement purveying, rather than upon the welfare of a waif who, as he conceived it, had become the hobby of a somewhat eccentric young man. A special rehearsal was in progress in the theatre, and the voice of the stage-manager, lifted in anger, occasionally reached them. It was a warm morning, and many doors were open.