“What on earth am I to do with you?” he asked whimsically.
The small arms tightened round his neck. “Take me to live with you,” sobbed the child.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings we learn wisdom. So be it,” said Jimmie, and he drove home with his charge.
As neither aunt nor uncle nor any human being in the wide world claimed the child, she became mistress of Jimmie's home from that hour. Her father's pictures and household effects were sold off to pay his creditors, and a little bundle of torn frocks and linen was Aline's sole legacy.
“I happened to look in upon him the evening of her arrival,” said King, by way of conclusion to his story. “In those days he managed with a charwoman who came only in the mornings, so he was quite alone in the place with the kid. What do you think I found him doing? Sitting cross-legged on the model-platform with a great pair of scissors and needles and thread, cutting down one of his own night garments so as to fit her, while the kid in a surprising state of déshabillé was seated on a table, kicking her bare legs and giving him directions. His explanation was that Miss Marden's luggage had not yet arrived and she must be made comfortable for the night! But you never saw anything so comic in your life.”
He leaned back and laughed at the reminiscence, not unkindly. Mrs. Hardacre, bored by the unprofitable tale, stared at the dim streets out of the brougham window. Norma, on friendlier terms with King, the little human story having perhaps drawn them together, joined in the laugh.
“And now, I suppose, when she grows a bit older, Mr. Padgate will marry her and she will be a dutiful little wife and they will live happy and humdrum ever after.”
“I hope he will provide her with some decent rags to put on,” said Mrs. Hardacre. “Those the child was wearing to-night were fit for a servant maid.”
“Jimmie would give her his skin if she could wear it,” said Morland, somewhat tartly.
This expression of feeling gave him, for the first time, a special place in Norma's esteem. After all, a woman desires to like the man who in a few months' time may be her husband, and hitherto Morland had presented a negativity of character which had baffled and irritated her. The positive trait of loyalty to a friend she welcomed instinctively, although if charged with the emotion she would have repudiated the accusation. When the carriage stopped at the awning and red strip of carpet before the house in Eaton Square where a dance awaited her, and she took leave of him, she returned his handshake with almost a warm pressure and sent him away, a sanguine lover, to his club.