It is, perhaps, a wise plan.
When Aleck takes a peep into the apartment beyond, he sees a stirring spectacle, and yet it does not differ a particle from what he expected.
The first figure his eyes light upon is that of Samson Cereal. Standing there the man has assumed a dramatic pose that must fill Wycherley’s heart with delight as he thinks of him as his “first walking old gentleman.”
Not five feet away stands Saidee.
The indications of her former beauty are still apparent upon her face, upon every line of it intense emotion is expressed. Tears course down her cheeks, her long hair sweeps over her shoulders, both hands are stretched out beseechingly.
That is the picture Aleck sees, and he can feel his companion quiver with suppressed excitement as she, too, gazes upon it, and, for the first time since her babyhood, sees the face of her mother.
He fears lest she may faint, nor thinks it strange under the peculiar circumstances that he should slip an arm around her waist. She does not resent it—at such a time the strong arm of an honest man is not to be despised.
Saidee is pleading her cause. She is not in the plot of the cunning pasha, and believes Samson Cereal has come here to upbraid her because her heart yearned for her child. She speaks good English, though in her eagerness and emotion she sometimes trips in her speech as though the words were too weak to express her meaning. This is what they hear, and the words sink deeply into one heart at least:
“You have had her love all these years; can you deny me one look, one kiss, and my heart so hungry for it? Ah! Samson Cereal, you believe me bad, but it is not so. I was only crazy to again see my home; I believed I should die in this cold Chicago. Then I laid a plan. My brother came, you knew it not. We meant to take my little one and fly to our home, but at the last a move of yours ruined my hopes, and I had to leave my Dorothy behind.
“Alas! those years. I wrote to you, but my letters came back unopened. Then I went to England, where my brother had charge of a great work. I labored with him for years. We are known and honored in London. All this while I hungered to see my child, yet dared not come. At last the Fair—I conceived a plan, and behold you see me! Twice have I looked upon her, but she did not know it. Ah! so fair, so sweet; it almost drove me wild to think I could not take her in my arms and say, 'I am thy mother.’