“I hardly think I’d be interested,” she decided. However, she did not speak with her usual certainty, and she glanced at her son a bit anxiously. If he really wanted her to go.... On a later occasion Baron again touched the subject. He had just got rid of Baggot, who was in an unusually enthusiastic mood. “Really, mother, I have an idea that play is going to be quite worth while. If you didn’t mind it very much....” But Mrs. Baron fancied she was being coerced. “No, I think not,” she said, shaking her head. “And Bonnie May,” added Baron. “Great goodness, how anxious she is to go! I suppose she thinks she can’t go unless you do.” Mrs. Baron’s eyes flashed. That was it! Bonnie May’s comfort and pleasure--that, and nothing more. “I remember that argument,” she said, rather disagreeably. “You forget that she has other friends now--rather better suited to her needs in this case. The Thornburgs can take her.” But Baron, noting the uncomfortable look in her eyes, left her with the conclusion, unexpressed: “My bet is that the Thornburgs will _not_ take her.” CHAPTER XXIII BARON COMES HOME ON A BEER-DRAY Baron was not at all confident that any of the dramatic editors would want him to write a review of “The Break of Day.” He merely hoped his services might be required. And he was disappointed. He might have had the assignment for the asking, perhaps; but he felt a hesitancy about asking. He had “fathered” the play, somewhat. He had a personal interest in it. Moreover, there was one reason why he was glad to be disengaged. Now he could attend the performance as an ordinary spectator, and he could take Bonnie May with him. The day of the first performance arrived. Baron left the mansion early in the forenoon, more for the purpose of escaping the half-insane Baggot than for any other reason. Baggot didn’t really believe that Baron could help him, perhaps, but his nature demanded that he talk about his play all the time, and Baron listened well. Bonnie May was not about when Baron left the mansion. He had had no final understanding with her as to whether she was to go to the theatre that night or not. And it was for this reason that he was coming home in a particularly eager mood, late in the afternoon, to tell her that he was foot-loose, and that she might depend upon him as an escort to the theatre. He was coming home with much eagerness--and then an accident happened. He started to alight from the cross-town car before it stopped, and his foot struck a loose fragment of stone, and he lost his balance. Thinking of the matter afterward, he decided that he could not recall an experience more banal, more needless. But he did not reach this conclusion at the time, for the good reason that his head struck the pavement and he lost consciousness. There had been just one instant of sharp agony.