The child in her agony of fright and grief threw herself face down upon the bed.
The officer, seating himself beside her, smoothed her hair with his huge right hand until she was quiet, then bit by bit got from her the story of her experiences in this great American city. Lucile listened eagerly as the little girl talked falteringly.
A Belgian refugee, she had been brought to the United States during the war, and because this unprincipled pair spoke French, which she too understood, the good-hearted but misguided people who had her in charge had given her over to them without fully looking up their record.
Because she was small and had an appealing face, and because she was a refugee, they had set her to begging on the street and had more than once asked her to steal.
Having been brought up by conscientious parents, all this was repulsive to her. So one day she had run away. She had wandered the streets of the great, unfriendly city until, almost at the point of starvation, she had been taken home by a very old man, a Frenchman.
“French,” she said, “but not like these,” she pointed a finger of scorn at the man and woman. “A French gentleman. A very, very wonderful man.”
She had lived with him and had helped him all she could. Then, one night, as she was on an errand for him, the woman, her stepmother, had found her. She had been seized and dragged along the street. But by some strange chance she did not at all understand, she had been rescued.
That night she had been carrying a book. The book belonged to her aged benefactor and was much prized by him. Thinking that her foster mother had the book, she had dared return to ask for it.
She proceeded to relate what had happened in that room and ended with a plea that she might be allowed to return to the cottage on Tyler street.
“Are you interested in this child?” the officer asked Lucile.