I pushed him aside and gathered the unconscious little burden up into my arms. There was no time for sentiment. Every minute I expected the miserable old shelter would go over.
We made our way as best we could back through the darkness and driving blasts of rain. The loafer followed with a long series of “God bless you’s.” He essayed once or twice to hold the umbrella over his “little gal’s” head, but each time the wind turned it inside out, and he gave it up with an air of feeble inconsequence that characterized all his movements.
I put my burden down on a couch in the dining room, and chafed her hands and feet, while the boy brought a beer bottle filled with hot water.
It was a sweet little face, pinched and drawn, with big hazel eyes, that looked up into mine as my efforts sent the blood coursing through her veins. She was between five and six years old. A mass of dark brown hair, unkempt and matted, fell about her face and shoulders.
I wrapped a rug about her. She was asleep almost before I had finished.
A little later I roused her, and she nestled her damp little head against my shoulder as I gave her some soup; but her eyelids were heavy, and it seemed almost cruel to keep her awake, even for the food she so badly needed. The father had shuffled about uneasily during my motherly attentions, and seemed relieved when I was through.
While the boy brought a steaming hot curry and a goodly supply of whiskey and soda, I turned the self-confessed father of the big hazel eyes into the bath-room.
With the grime and dirt off his face he was pale and haggard. There were big blue marks under his shifting gray eyes and his hair hung ragged and singed about his ears.
He had discarded his dirty linen for a blue-flannel bathing-suit that some former high official of H. B. M. service had left behind. There were traces of starvation or dissipation in every movement. His hand trembled as he conveyed the hot soup to his blue lips.
Gradually the color came back to his sunken cheeks, and by the time he had laid in the second plate of curry and drank two whiskey and sodas he looked comparatively sleek and respectable. Even his anxiety for the little sleeper seemed to fade out of his weak face.