And at that I saw plain what it was that had made him seem so much like a friend, and what had made me think to call him the Brother-man. Why, he was folks, like me. He wasn't only somebody big and distinguished and name-in-the-paper. He was like those that you meet all the time, going round the streets, talking to you casual, coming out of their houses quiet as stars coming out. He was folks and a brother to folks; and he knew it, and he seemed to want to keep letting folks know that he knew it. He wasn't the kind that goes around thinking "Me, me, me," nor even "You and me." It was "You and me and all of us" with the Brother-man.
"Isn't it strange," he says once, while we rode along, "that what all these streets and lights and houses are for, and what the whole world is for is helped along by taking just one little chap and bringing him up—bringing him up?" And he looked down at the baby, that was drowsing off in my arms, as if little chaps in general were to him windows into somewhere else.
The Proudfit house was lamps from top to bottom, but I could see from the glass vestibule that the big rooms were all empty, and I thought mebbe they hadn't had dinner yet, being they have it all unholy hours when most folks's is digested and ready to let them sleep. But when we stepped in the hall I heard a little tip-tap of strings from up above, and it was from the music-room that opens off the first stair-landing, and dinner was over and they were all up there; and the Piano Lady and the Violin Man were gettin' ready to play. Madame Proudfit had heard the car, and came down the stairs, saying a little pleased word when she saw the Brother-man. She looked lovely in black lace, and jewels I didn't know the name of, and she was gracious and glad and made him one of the welcomes that stay alive afterwards and are almost people to you to think about. The Brother-man kissed her hand, and he says to her, some rueful and some wanting to laugh:
"I'm most awfully sorry about the train, Madame Proudfit. But—I've brought two of us to make up for being so late. Will—will that not do?" he says.
Madame Proudfit looked over at me with a smile that was like people too—only her smile was like nice company and his was like dear friends; and then she saw the baby.
"Calliope!" she said, "what on earth have you been doing now?"
"She hasn't done it. I did it," says the Brother-man. "Look at him! You rub the back of his neck when he won't sleep."
Madame Proudfit looked from him to me.
"How utterly, extravagantly like both of you!" Madame Proudfit said. "Come in the library and tell me about it."
We went in the big, brown library, where nothing looked as if it would understand about this, except, mebbe, some of the books—and not all of them—and the fire, that was living on the hearth, understanding all about everything. I sat by the fire and pulled back the little chap's blanket and undid his coat and took his bonnet off; his hair was all mussed up at the back and the cheek he'd slept on was warm-red. Madame Proudfit and the Brother-man stood on the hearth-rug, looking down. Only she was looking from one star to another, and the Brother-man and I, we were on the same star, looking round.