“I hardly know,” Baron confessed. “I think we don’t use it very much at all.” “You might think from the properties that it was a rooming-house.” She had wriggled into a chair that was too high for her. Her curiosity was unconcealed. Baron could see by the look in her eyes that she had not meant her comment to be derisive, but only a statement of fact. “Possibly you haven’t seen many quite old, thoroughly established homes,” he suggested. The remark wasn’t meant at all as a rebuke. It represented the attitude of mind with which Baron had always been familiar. “Anyway,” she persisted, “it wouldn’t do for an up-to-date interior. It might do for an Ibsen play.” Baron, about to leave the room to find his mother, turned sharply. “What in the world do you know about Ibsen plays?” he asked sharply. “Besides, you’re not in a theatre! If you’ll excuse me a minute----” There were footsteps on the stairway, and Baron’s countenance underwent a swift change. He withdrew a little way into the room, so that he stood close to Bonnie May. He was trying to look conciliatory when his mother appeared in the doorway; but guilt was really the expression that was stamped on his face. It was a very austere-looking old lady who looked into the room. “Good evening,” she said, as if she were addressing strangers. Still, Baron detected a wryly humorous smile on her lips. She stood quite still, critically inspecting her son as well as his companion. Baron was glad that Bonnie May sprang to her feet instantly with comprehension and respect. “This is my mother, Mrs. Baron,” he said to the child; and to the quizzical old lady, who regarded him with a steady question, he added foolishly, “this is a little girl I have brought home.” “So I should have surmised.” Her tone was hardening. Her attitude was fearfully unyielding. It seemed to Baron that her gray hair, which rose high and free from her forehead, had never imparted so much severity to her features before, and that her black eyes had never seemed so imperious. But Bonnie May was advancing very prettily. “How do you do, Mrs. Baron?” she inquired. She was smiling almost radiantly. “I do hope I don’t intrude,” she added. Mrs. Baron looked down at her with frank amazement. For the moment she forgot the presence of her son. She took the child’s outstretched hand. Perhaps the touch of a child’s fingers to a woman who has had children but who has them no longer is magical. Perhaps Bonnie May was quite as extraordinary as Victor Baron had thought her. At any rate, Mrs. Baron’s face suddenly softened. She drew the child into the protection of her arm and held her close, looking at her son. [Illustration: “Good evening,” she said, as if she were addressing strangers.] “Who in the world is she?” she asked, and Baron saw that her eyes were touched with a light which was quite unfamiliar to him.