The man caught her shoulder and attempted to raise her. She shook him off almost as though she had not noticed it.
“Louise! Louise!” he said. “This is ridiculous. Sit down. She isn’t going to hurt the child.”
But the kneeling woman went on exactly as though she had not heard. “You mustn’t strike him. If anything should happen——” she hesitated. “My little boy——”
She stole a look over her shoulder at the angry man.
The Mexican woman’s doubled fist came down, unclinched and became fingers, which fumbled at her kitchen apron. “Is your young son dead, señora?” she asked, in an awed voice.
“Louise!” remonstrated the man.
The girl whom he addressed shivered, caught the boy in her arms, and sobbed wildly: “No, no—not dead, I wish he were. I wish I were dead!”
The man leaned down and lifted her bodily to her feet. “Here,” he said, pushing her not overgently back into the chair, “you sit down and get your nerves quiet.” He turned almost savagely to Huldah Sarvice, demanding: “There is surely some place you can give us where my wife can be alone. You see how it is here.”
Huldah nodded, looking at her visitor with shrewd, kindly eyes. “I ’spect your wife”—she put a little stress on the two words, and the girl winced, her pale face reddening—“I jest think she’s better off here among people.”
The man made a muttered objection, but Huldah went serenely on: “My lodgin’ rooms is acrost the street, and I don’t know’s I’ve got a vacant one. They’s a man with a broken leg in one of ’em, an’ a feller that’s been drinkin’ a little too much is in another. Two more of ’em is locked up by the men that rents ’em. Best sit here till I can git you a little supper; mebby that’ll cheer her up some.”