Two houses had been thrown into one to form the establishment at which Louie had now resided for a week. Officially it was a nursing home; actually it accepted declared invalids and quite well but unrobust lodgers alike. Miss Cora Mayville "ran" it; her cousin, Miss Dot Mayville, was "sister," and from four to eight uniformed nurses came and went continually. None of them had theories, moral, social, or of any other description; to them things were as they were. Nurse Meekins made Louie's bed as who should say, "Helpers of people in trouble do not go beyond their proper business"; Nurse Chalmers brought her letters or called her to dinner in the narrowminded spirit of one who leaves the systematics of charity to others. All were reprehensibly incurious and shockingly affectionate, and so far was Louie's case from being peculiar that, in the eyes of the law at any rate, Miss Dot Mayville was herself twice a parent. Twice (when, from reasons Lord Moone could have explained, the real parents had refused to do so) she had signed the birth-certificates of undesired infants. This irregularity the registrar for the district held perpetually over her head. She laughed, and held other things over his head in return. They were engaged to be married.
It was to this retreat that Buck drove Louie back that January evening, cutting "Richards, seven" without compunction. Poor Chaff had been sent off soon after lunch; there was somebody else to fetch and despatch his Mops now. Buck lifted Louie from the trap and rang the bell of one of the two brass-plated doors. A German youth dressed as a waiter appeared, and Buck bade him hold the horse. Then he went with Louie up to her room. He took off her hat and coat for her; he seemed unable to leave her. He had learned how it was with her.
He had hardly turned a hair at the news. He accepted it as part of the Scheme of Things. To him also indiscretions were of two kinds—indiscretions, and the indiscretions of the Scarisbricks. Only a wistful look had crossed his face; he had hoped Louie's somebody was a gentleman otherwise than in the top-hat sense of the word; and Louie had reassured him about that. For the rest, it was not for Buck to inquire into the private affairs of these great ones. He would as soon have allowed the young German who held the horse to inquire into his own.
"That little girl," he said once more, holding her away from him at the side of her bed.
"And you won't call me 'm'm,' daddy?" Louie laughed.
Buck gave it thought; it was not so simple as it looked. "And you really took daddy's name?" he asked. He had asked it twenty times already.
"Of course."
"And told all those young ladies?" (Louie had related the incident of Burnett Minor and the "Life and Battles.") "All about daddy and the Piker?"
"Of course!"
Buck found it too wonderful. He enfolded his little girl again.