"I don't know," she mused. "Sometimes I think not. It ain't because I don't want you, Jim," she continued, speaking more softly, now, "that I don't let you in. God knows, I like to meet old friends; but----" It was sufficient. The man gently took her arm from the way. He stepped in--glanced at the sleeping boy, lying still as death, shaded from the lamp--and turned again to the woman. "Don't wake him!" she said. They were still standing. The man was short, long-armed, vastly broad at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of feature--handsome enough, withal. He was an acrobat. Even in the dim light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength--of grace and agility. For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body: then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and thereafter regarded him watchfully. "Don't make no difference if I do wake him," he complained. "The boy knows me." "But he don't like you." "Aw, Millie!" said he, in reproach. "Come off!" "I seen it in his eyes," she insisted. The man softly laughed. "Don't you laugh no more!" she flashed. "You can't tell a mother what she sees in her own baby's eyes. I tell you, Jim, he don't like you. He never did." "That's all fancy, Millie. Why, he ain't seen me in three year! And you can't see nothing in the eyes of a four year old kid. You're too fond of that boy, anyhow," the man continued, indignantly. "What's got into you? You ain't forgot that winter night out there in Idaho, have you? Don't you remember what you said to Dick that night? You said Dick was to blame, Millie, don't you remember? Remember the doctor coming to the hotel? I'll never forget how you went on. Never heard a woman swear like you before. Never seen one go on like you went on. And when you hit Dick, Millie, for what you said he'd done, I felt bad for Dick, though I hadn't much cause to care for what happened to him. Millie, girl, you was a regular wildcat when the doctor told you what was coming. You didn't want no kid, then!" "Don't!" she gasped. "I ain't forgot. But I'm changed, Jim--since then." He moved a step nearer. "I ain't the same as I used to be in them days," she went on, staring at the window, and through the window to the starry night. "And Dick's dead, now. I don't know," she faltered; "it's all sort of--different." "What's gone and changed you, Millie?" "I ain't the same!" she repeated. "What's changed you?" "And I ain't been the same," she whispered, "since I got the boy!" In the pause, he took her hand. She seemed not to know it--but let it lie close held in his great palm. "And you won't have nothing to do with me?" he asked. "I can't," she answered. "I don't think of myself no more. And the boy--wouldn't like it."