At length he set her down upon the floor, gently.
"Well, well, little partner," he said, grinning sociably, "that most surely was a succulent salute…. I perceive from the remainder of your repast" his eyes had fallen upon the little breakfast table and the over- turned high-chair which, with infinite dignity unbent, the butler was rescuing from prostration "that you like a little oatmeal on your sugar."
"I do," confessed the child, friendly. "But Woberts doesn't. Do you,
Woberts?" Without waiting for the corroboration of the somewhat perturbed
Roberts, she turned again to Blake. "I like heaps and heaps of sugar….
Woberts gives it to me when there isn't anyone looking, don't you,
Woberts?" And then, very seriously, she added, "I like Woberts"
Blake laughed, a low, rumbling, ringing laugh.
"I don't blame you," he said. "I used to have sugar once…. I liked those who gave it to me."
He picked her up and set her again in the high-chair, moving it close to the table with its dainty china and center-piece of pink carnations.
The child looked up at him, half wondering. She was pretty—very pretty— with serious, round violet eyes, sun-kissed cheeks, and hair of the soft brown that is of kin to gold.
"Don't you get any sugar now?" she asked, very seriously.
He shook his head.
"Not any?" she persisted. "Never?"