"Our friend's gone home another way then, seemin'ly. But as you're here, let's make the most of it. Give us a kiss, little Millie."
"Don't be a cad, Amurrica!" said Millie, with a most unlooked-for gentleness. "I don't know why you stopped me, but I am glad you did, for there are things I want to say to you. Is my brother here?"
"Yes," said Arnie, slouching out from the gloom.
"Amurrica," said Millie earnestly, "first of everything, I want to beg your pardon. You were very cruel to me in the old days, but I have been shown to-day that it was my fault. I was hard and insolent. If I had been a different kind of girl, perhaps you'd not have wanted to injure me?"
Amurrica stood staring. Was this Millie? "What yer givin' us?" he growled.
"I want to say I am sorry," said the girl steadily. "I was hard and insolent to you again to-day. I provoked you to try and do me harm. But I—didn't know you had Arnie with you. I—I remember Arnie when he was a dear little curly-headed baby. I never was good to him. I was always—disagreeable. Arnie, I—am—so—sorry! I want to say—forgive me!"
Her voice broke. She turned her head away and drew out a handkerchief. Amurrica was stricken dumb. That Millie could humble herself—that Millie could cry—these incidents had seemed to him utterly out of the range of the things that happen. He had nothing to say. Arnie giggled awkwardly.
"Amurrica," said Millie earnestly, laying a hand on his sleeve, "you would have been a better man if you had known better women. I am one that helped to make you worse, because I never appealed to the good in you. There was only one of us who did the right thing all through; and that was Bert. He saved me then, and to-day he has saved me again. He has done more for me this day than I could ever tell anybody. Oh, Amurrica, we ought to be so ashamed of ourselves—you and I!"
Amurrica, during this remarkable interview, had been like one bereft of his usual faculties.
"Well, I'm d—d!" he said at last. "What kind of palaver's this? Mestaer's playin' his own hand, same as I am—him an' his bloomin' millions! Thought I didn't know him! Thought he was safe, did he? Bless his kind heart, he'll find out that I'm goin' to get even with him—if not one way, then another!"