He flung the door open and called: "Mrs. Kenny, Mrs. Kenny! Will you come up-stairs?"
CHAPTER XIX
Those five hours were short to him travelling back to New York. Bella talked to Fairfax until she was completely talked out. Leaning on him, pouring out her childish confidences, telling him things, asking him things, until his heart yearned over her, and he stored away the tones of her sweet gay voice, exquisite with pathos when she spoke of Gardiner, and naïvely tender when she said—
"Cousin Antony, I love you better than any one else. Why can't I stay with you and be happy? I want to work for my living too. I could be a factory girl."
A factory girl!
Then she fell asleep, her head on his shoulder, and was hardly awake when they reached Miss Mitty's house and the cab stopped.
He said, "Bella, we are home."
She did not answer, and, big girl as she was, he carried her in asleep.