Martha Macauley urgently. She was the mother of two small sons, and Burns's sketch had interested her.
He looked up at her. “Want to see him?”
“Of course I do. Did you take him to somebody in town? Are you going to send him to the asylum in the city?”
“Do you want to see him?”. Burns inquired of Winifred Chester. He rose.
“Red! What do you mean? Have you got a child here?”
“Come along, all of you, if you like. He won't wake up. He's sleeping like a top—can't help it, with all that bread and milk inside of him. Part cream it was, too. I saw Cynthia chucking it in. He'd got her, good and plenty, in the first five minutes. Bless her susceptible heart! Come on.”
“Talk of susceptible hearts,” jeered Macauley as he followed. “There's the softest one in the county.”
“Nobody would ever guess it,” murmured Pauline Hempstead.
They tiptoed into the house, across the offices into the big, square room which was Burns's own. He switched on a hooded reading-light beside the bed and turned it so that its rays fell on the small occupant.
He lay in spread-eagle, small-child fashion, arms and legs thrown wide, the black, curly head disdaining the pillow, one fist clutching a man's riding-crop. In sleep the little face was an exquisite one; the onlookers might guess what it would be awake.
Burns pointed at the crop, smiling. “That was the nearest approach to a plaything I could muster to-night. To-morrow the shops will help me out.”
“I'll send over plenty in the morning, Red,” whispered Martha Macauley. Her eyes were suspiciously shiny.
“Did you bring him home just now?” questioned Winifred.
Burns nodded. “I hadn't meant to get him to-night, if I did at all. My call took me within half a mile. I went over and saw him again. That settled it.”
The small sleeper stirred, sighed. Burns turned off the light in a twinkling. “He's not used to electricity point blank,” he chuckled.
Going down the steps a hand touched his arm. He looked into Ellen Lessing's upturned face and discovered anew that it was a face to hold the attention of a man. But there was no coquetry in it. Instead, he saw a stirred look in eyes which struck him suddenly as singularly like those of the child he had just shown her, “black, with a fringe around 'em.”
“Doctor Burns,” she said, “will you give me the very great pleasure of dressing the boy? I know how to do it.”
“Of course, if you want to,” he responded gladly. “I hoped you ladies would look after that.”
“Let me do it alone,” she urged. “They have their children: it would only be a task to them. To me—I can't tell you what a delight it would be.”
“I'll take you and Bob to the city in the morning if you'll go.”
“It will be a happy morning for Bob and me, then,” she answered, and he saw it in her face that it would be. But he felt that it was because of the boy; not for any other reason. It occurred to him that it might possibly be a happy morning for the driver of the Green Imp, also.
“So Ellen's going to dress the brat.” Macauley was strolling over the lawn with Chester and Burns, as, having out-sat the women on the Macauley porch, the men were turning bedward, reluctant to leave the cool star-shine of the July night. “It's easy to see why she wants to do that. Her three-year-old boy would have been just about this Bob's age by now. Tough luck, wasn't it?—when he was all she had left since Jack got out of the game?”
Burns stared at him. “Oh, that's why? I didn't know about her boy, or I'd forgotten it if I was ever told. She will enjoy fitting Bob out, if I can keep her from putting him into white clothes to make him resemble an angel instead of a small boy with an eye for dirt.”
“You'll find Ellen's no fool,” Macauley assured him warmly. “But if she takes an interest in the boy it'll be the best thing that could happen to him. She has a lot of money. She may get a notion to adopt him.”
But upon this Red Pepper Burns spoke with decision. “Confound you, the kiddie belongs to me. Didn't I tell you his name is now Robert Burns? She may dress him if she likes. She can't have him, not by a long shot. He's mine!”
“Oh, well, it might be arranged,” murmured Macauley, but not quite low enough. In a flash he was laid flat on his back on the lawn, a menacing figure standing over him.
“None of that!” growled the man with the temper. “Not now or any other time.” Then he laughed and let his victim up. “Alcohol will take out grass stains, Jim,” he advised. “Tell Martha that.”
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