Sheila still remained silent.
The señora turned to the atom for the confirmation she desired. “Nene, como te llamas?”
It was intensely entertaining to the atom. He wagged the señora’s finger frantically, tossed back his head, and gave forth a low, gurgling laugh. “Jesu! That ees hees papa. He look like that when he laugh. Tu nombre, nene—tu nombre?” With a fresh outburst she sank down beside the carriage and buried her face in the brown legs and pink socks.
But the atom did not approve of this. His lower lip dropped and quivered; he reached out his arm to Sheila. “Ma-ma-ma-ma,” he coaxed.
“You no ma-ma, I ma-ma.” The señora was on her feet, shaking an angry fist at Sheila. But in an instant her anger was gone; she was down on her knees again, clasping Sheila’s skirt, while her voice wailed forth in supplication. “You no keep leetle babee? You ver’ good, ver’ kind, señorita—you muy simpatica, yes? You give leetle babee. I ma-ma. Yes?”
But Sheila O’Leary stood grim and unyielding. “No. He is mine. When he was sick, dying, you didn’t want him. You did not like to look at him because he was ugly; you did not like to hear him cry—so you abused him. Now, he’s all well; he’s a pretty baby; he does not cry; he does not scratch. I never shake him; he loves me very, very much. Now I keep him!” Thus Sheila delivered her ultimatum.
But the señora still clung. “I no shake babee now. I love babee now. Please—please—his pa-pa come. You give heem back?”
Sheila unclasped the señora’s hands, turned the atom’s carriage about, and deliberately wheeled him away.
Out of the lobby to the sidewalk she was pursued by pleading cries, expostulating reproofs, as well as actual particles of the crowd itself, the Reverend Mr. Grumble, the wife of one of the trustees, a handful of protesting patients, following to urge the rights of the prostrated mother. But Sheila refused to be held back or argued with; stoically she kept on her way. When she reached the little vine-covered porch only Peter, Father O’Friel, and Doctor Fuller remained as escort.
“You can’t keep him, Leerie. You’ve got to give him up.” The old doctor spoke sorrowfully but firmly.