Collier Pratt seated himself at the deal table that Sheila had set with the coffee-cups and a big loaf of French bread, and began slowly consuming a bowl of inky fluid, strong of chicory, into which from time to time he dipped a portion of the loaf. Sheila imitated his processes with less daintiness and precision, since she was shaken with excitement at Hitty's appearance.

"I should spread a newspaper down if I was you," Hitty said, "before I et my vittles off a table that way. If a table ain't scrubbed as often as twice a day it ain't fit to be et off."

"I know your breed," Collier Pratt said. "You'd be capable of taking your breakfast off _The Evening Telegram_ if no more appropriately colored sheet were at hand. Tell me, did Miss Martin send you here this morning, or was the inspiration to come entirely your own?"

"n.o.body had to send me. Wild horses wouldn't have kept me away from here."

"Nor drag you away from here, I suppose, until your gruesome visit is accomplished. What makes you think that I would give up Sheila to you?"

"I don't _think_ you would. I know you're a-goin' to."

"Indeed."

"We want the child. You don't want her, and you can't pretend to me that you do. Even if you did want her you can't take care of her in no way that's decent."

"There's a great deal in what you say, Hitty."

"What you're going to do is to sign a paper giving up your claim to her, and then Nancy can adopt her when she sees fitting to do so."

"What would you suggest my doing about the child's mother? She has a mother living, you know."

"Well, I didn't know," Hitty said, "but now I do know I guess I ain't going to have so much trouble as I thought I was. You're just a plain low-down yellow cur that any likely man I know would come down here and lick the lights out of."

"Well, don't send any more of them, Hitty," Collier Pratt protested.

"My work won't stand it."

"You 'tend to the child's mother then, and I'll 'tend to you. You'd better let Sheila come away peaceable without any more trouble."

"What do you propose doing to me if I don't?"

"There's so many different things I could use," Hitty said thoughtfully, "that I don't know which one to hold over your head first."

"I don't see how you could use anything you've got."

"I'd just as soon use something I hadn't got," Hitty said grimly. "I'd sue you for breach o' promise myself ruther than lose what I come after."

"I don't doubt you're capable of it," Collier Pratt said, surveying her ruefully. "That certainly would ruin my reputation. But seriously, supposing I were to give my consent to Sheila's going back to Miss Martin--Sheila's fond of her, and I should be very glad to do Miss Martin a service--little as you may be inclined to believe it of me.

I'm fond enough of the child, but she is a considerable embarra.s.sment to a man situated as I am. Supposing I should consent to giving her up as you suggest, how can a woman situated as Miss Martin is situated undertake such a charge permanently? How could she afford it? What kind of a future should I be surrendering my little girl to? One has to think of those things. Miss Martin is a poor girl--"

"It's a lucky thing that you didn't know it before," Hitty said deliberately. "What you don't know that a woman's got, you wouldn't be trying to get away from her. Nancy's Uncle Elijah that died last year left her a million dollars in his will."

"The devil he did--"

"I guess if anybody's going to talk about devils it had better be me,"

Hitty said dryly. "Does the child go or stay?"

"Oh! she goes," Collier Pratt said. "I'm sorry you didn't come after me too, Hitty."

"n.o.body from up our way is ever coming after you. You can put that in your pipe and smoke it. Put on your bonnet, Sheila."

"In some ways that is more of a relief than you know, Hitty. Some of the young men from up your way are so violent."

"It ain't generally known yet," Hitty said as a parting shot when, Sheila's hand in hers, she stood at the door preparatory to taking her triumphal departure. "But Nancy is going to marry considerable money in addition to what she's inherited."

Nancy finding it impossible to spend an hour of her time idly and with no appointments before noon that day, was engaged in darning a basket full of slum socks that she had brought home from the tenements to occupy Hitty's leisure moments. She was not very expert at this particular task, and the holes were so huge, and their method of behaving under scientific management so peculiar--it is hardly necessary to say that Nancy knew the theory of darning perfectly--that she was becoming more and more dissatisfied with her progress. Hitty's unprecedented and taciturn donning of her best bonnet in the early morning hours, followed by her abrupt departure without explanation or apology, was also a little disconcerting to any one acquainted with her habits. Nancy was relieved to hear her key in the lock again, and put down her work to greet her.

The door opened and Sheila stood on the threshold. Hitty was close behind her, but Nancy had eyes only for the child.

"Don't cry, Miss Dear," Sheila said, in her arms. "I cried hard every night when I was gone from you, but now I have come back. My father does not want me, and he says that you can have me."

"He signed a paper," Hitty said. "I've got it in my bag with my specs.

If ever he shows his face around here we can have the law on him."

"Can I really have Sheila?" Nancy cried. "I can't believe that--her father would let her go. I can't understand it."

"He's a kind of a poor soul," Hitty said. "He ain't got no real contrivance. He's glad enough to get rid of her."

"Did he say so?"

"Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way of talking but that was the amount of it. He knows which side his bread is b.u.t.tered. He ain't n.o.body's fool. I'll say that for him."

"I can't say that you make him out a very pleasant character," Nancy said. "But he's an artist, Hitty. Artists don't react to the same set of laws that we do. They're different somehow."

"They ain't so different, when it comes to that," Hitty said dryly.

"They won't take a hint, but the harder you kick 'em the better for all concerned. Don't you go sticking up for that low-down loon. He ain't worth it."

"I suppose he isn't," Nancy said; "he's a pretty poor apology for a man as we understand men, Hitty, but there's something about him,--a power and a charm that you can't altogether discount, even though you have lost every particle of your respect for him."

"He has a kind of way," Hitty conceded, "but I ain't one o' them kind o' women that hankers much for the society of a man that's once shown himself to be more of a sneak than the average."

"I don't think that I am, either," Nancy said gravely.

"I want to be your little girl always," Sheila announced, "if I may talk now, may I? And Monsieur d.i.c.k's, too, and sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream. I want to see Monsieur d.i.c.k. Where is he?"

"He's been sick," Nancy said, "but he's getting better now, I think. I haven't seen him for some time, myself."

"Don't you love him very much and aren't you very sorry?"

"He probably isn't very sick," Nancy said. "I don't think he could be--but if he were I should be sorry, of course."

"I don't want him to be sick," Sheila said, making herself a nest in Nancy's lap, and curling around in it like a kitten. "If he was I should be very, very unhappy, and I am tired of being unhappy, Miss Dear."

Nancy's arms closed tight about her little body, which was lighter in her arms than she had ever known it. "Oh! I'm going to make such a strong well, little girl of you," she cried, "and we're going to have so many pleasant times together. I'm tired of being unhappy, too, Sheila, dear."

CHAPTER XXI