“My clerk must have misunderstood your name. May I ask it?”
“I am Mrs. David RoBards—Junior. This is our little girl.”
“But Junior—my boy Junior—is——”
“I am his widow, sir.”
“But, my dear child, you—he——”
“We were married secretly the day before he marched with his regiment. He was afraid to tell you. I was afraid to come to you, sir, even when I heard of his beautiful death. You had sorrow enough, sir; and so had I. I shouldn’t be troubling you now, but I don’t seem to get strong enough to go back to work, and the baby—the baby—she doesn’t belong to me only. You might not forgive me if I let her die.”
The baby laughed at such a silly word, flung up two pink fists and two doll’s feet in knit socks, and said something in a language that has never been written but has never been misunderstood. The purport of its meaning brought RoBards rushing to the presence. He looked down past the sad eyes of Aletta into the sparkling little eyes of all mischief. The finger he touched the tiny hand with was moistly, warmly clasped by fingers hardly more than grape tendrils.
“Come in,” said RoBards. “Let me carry the baby.”
He motioned Aletta to the chair where never so strange a client had sat, and questioned her across the elusive armload that pulled his neckscarf awry and beat him about the face as with young tulip leaves.
Aletta had brought along her certificate of marriage to prove her honesty and she told a story of hardships that added the final confirmation, and filled RoBards with respect for her. His new-found daughter had been as brave as his new-lost son.