The seeming perversion of the child asserted itself again. “I usually take my bath in the morning,” she said a little stiffly; but she saw how the glad light in Miss Baron’s eyes wavered, and she added quickly, “but it will be all right.” And she went out into the bathroom. When she reappeared after a rather long time she was smiling radiantly. She had on Flora’s nightgown, soft and white, with pink ribbons. She held it daintily up before her feet, and glanced back at the train that dragged behind. “Isn’t it lovely!” she said. “It is, dear,” said Flora. She had turned the white coverlet and the sheet down. Now she watched the child scramble up into the bed. She wanted to help, but she refrained. “Would you like me to tell you a story?” asked Flora. Bonnie May looked at her swiftly, incredulously. “No!” she said. She burst out into riotous laughter. “I’m not an _infant_,” she explained. Flora flushed. “Very well,” she said gently. Yet she lingered in the room a little while. She put some of Victor’s masculine decorations out of sight. She adjusted the blind. She was about to extinguish the light when she looked again at the strange guest. The child’s eyes were fixed upon her widely, wonderingly. “You lovely thing!” said Bonnie May. “Good night, dear!” said Flora. And then she knew that the child wished to speak to her, and she went over and bent above the bed. “What is it, Bonnie May?” she asked. The child stared before her in silence for a moment and then the words came. “I wished so much that she would love me!” she said. “I tried so hard....” Flora slipped her hand under the guest’s head. “I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered. “If she hadn’t cared for you, she would have been quite polite; she would have been wonderfully gracious. She was ungracious and unkind because--because she loved you, dear. It seems absurd, doesn’t it? But I know.” * * * * * It was an absurd theory, perhaps; yet there was certainly needed some explanation of Mrs. Baron’s course later in the evening. The house became quiet after a time. The rumbling voices in the library ceased and Baggot, with meticulous circumspection, wended his way down the stairs and was gone. Later, Victor emerged from the library and disappeared for the night. Baron, Sr., came in and sat and smoked awhile--and retired. Flora sat in the sitting-room lingeringly, gazing pensively at a book without turning its pages, and at length she arose and kissed her mother’s cheek and said good night. And then Mrs. Baron tiptoed into another room and rummaged in a bureau drawer and found a gay piece of gingham which had been waiting its time to be useful. With this in her hands she returned to her sitting-room, and spread work materials upon her table. And with patience and fortitude and a kind of rapt self-absorption she worked far into the night. * * * * *