As if by common consent, they both turned to look at the child. She was holding the rabbit aloft, and trying to touch it with one little bare foot; she was quite happy; with superb unconcern she left her fate in the hands of these two young men. “I’d explain it to you, if I could,” Eddy went on; “but I can’t, just now. Later on, maybe. Only, she can’t stay here. I got to take her away before anybody sees her.” He paused. “I know somewheres I could leave her today, and bring her back here tonight, all right, only after that—” A dim and monstrous suspicion stirred in Ross, but he would not examine it. He did not want to understand. “After that,” he said, “I’ll look after her.” XIII They had breakfast together, Ross and Eddy and the child. And the rabbit was there, too, propped up against the coffeepot; he was fed with spoonfuls of water, and he got pretty wet in the process. It was an amazing meal. It seemed to Ross sometimes that he was still asleep, and this a dream—the little kitchen filled with that strange, pale light, the snow falling steadily outside, and the child beside him. “Why did I say I’d look after her?” he thought, with a sort of wonder. “What’s the matter with me, anyhow?” He didn’t know, and could not understand. He was hopelessly involved, now, in this sorry muddle, and he saw, very clearly, that every step had been taken deliberately, of his own free will. He could have got out, long ago, but—here he was. And he was committed now to an undertaking almost too fantastic, too preposterous to contemplate. Yet he did not regret it. Just as, in a shipwreck, he would have given his life for a tiny creature like this, so was he obliged now to offer it his protection. Eddy said she had nobody in the world. Very well, then; he had to stop, to turn aside from his own affairs, and lend a hand to this forlorn little fellow traveler. He had to do it. “More!” said the child, briskly. “More what?” asked Ross. “More—evvysing!” she cried, bouncing up and down perilously upon the telephone directories he had piled on her chair. “More evvysing!” “Give her some cawfee,” suggested Eddy. “No,” said Ross. “Too young. They only have milk—things like that.” And, with these words, the fantasy became real. He had actually assumed the responsibility, now. He was taking care of the child. He looked down at her, frowning a little, and she looked up into his face with cheerful expectancy. She knew very well! He was the one appointed to serve her, and she knew it. He was to supply her with “more evvysing.” “Look here, Eddy!” he said. “There must be some one who’ll turn up later to—to take care of the child. There’s bound to be _some one_” Eddy glanced up as if he were about to speak, but his face grew scarlet, and he turned away. “Well,” he said, after a time, “I dunno. It’s kind of hard to say. Only, I thought you—I thought you’d be a good one to—take her.”