On the present occasion she had opened the door and stepped aside, smiling, before Mrs. Harrod had had time to touch the bell.
“Come in,” she said. And when the visitor had entered she closed the door softly. “Will you wait until I make a light?” she asked. “I’m afraid we’ve all forgotten about the light.” The lower rooms had become quite gloomy.
She had climbed upon a chair in the drawing-room, and touched a match to the gas-burner before she could be questioned or assisted, and for the moment the caller was only thinking how peculiar it was that the Barons went on relying upon gas, when electricity was so much more convenient.
“Please have a seat,” Bonnie May added, “while I call Mrs. Baron.” She turned toward the hall. “Shall I say who it is?” she asked.
Mrs. Harrod had not taken a seat. When the light filled the room child and woman confronted each other, the child deferential, the woman smiling with an odd sort of tenderness.
“Who are you?” asked the visitor. Her eyes were beaming; the curve of her lips was like a declaration of love.
“I’m Bonnie May.” The child advanced and held out her hand.
Mrs. Harrod pondered. “You’re not a—relative?”
“Oh, no. A—guest, I think. Nothing more than that.”
Mrs. Harrod drew a chair toward her without removing her eyes from the child’s face. “Do sit down a minute and talk to me,” she said. “We can let Mrs. Baron know afterward. A guest? But you don’t visit here often?”