"I'll give you as much as you ask me for."
"Five crowns, say—would you give me five crowns?"
"Of course I would."
"Here and now?" and she held out her hand.
He was nonplussed for the moment, but he took a bank-note from his pocket, and thrust it into her tiny fist.
"There, I guess there are fifty crowns and more there, Maryska. You shall have another when you want it."
The hand closed upon the bank-note like a vise. None the less, her thoughts were not wholly of the money.
"If my father had been here he would have been very glad of this. He will never know now."
"I don't believe that. He'll know that you've become my little daughter, Maryska. He'll understand that all right. My home's yours now. I want you to understand that right here."
She shook her head, the long hair smoothed back from her forehead.