She began to walk the floor. In the room the light was failing. It was growing dark--an angry portent--over the roofs of the opposite city. "Do you want him back?" the man asked. "Want him back!" she cried. "Then," said he, his voice soft, grave, "take care!" "Want him back?" she repeated, beginning, now, by habit, to tear at her nails. "I got to have him back! He's mine, ain't he? Didn't I bear him? Didn't I nurse him? Wasn't it me that--that--_made_ him? He's my kid, I tell you--_mine_! And I want him back! Oh, I want him so!" The man entered; but the woman seemed not to know it. He regarded her compassionately. "That there curate ain't got no right to him," she complained. "_He_ didn't have nothing to do with the boy. It was only me and Dick. What's he sneaking around here for--taking Dick's boy away? The boy's half mine and half Dick's. The curate ain't got no share. And now Dick's dead--and he's _all_ mine! The curate ain't got nothing to do with it. We don't want no curate here. I raised that boy for myself. I didn't do it to give him to no curate. What right's he got coming around here--getting a boy he didn't have no pain to bear or trouble to raise? I tell you _I_ got that boy. He's mine--and I want him!" "But you give the boy to the curate, Millie!" "No, I didn't!" she lied. "He took the boy. He come sneaking around here making trouble. _I_ didn't give him no boy. And I want him back," she screamed, in a gust of passion. "I want my boy back!" A rumble of thunder--failing, far off--came from the sea. "Millie," the acrobat persisted, "you said you wasn't fit to bring him up." "I ain't," she snapped. "But I don't care. He's mine--and I'll have him." The man shrugged his shoulders. "Jim," the woman said, now quiet, laying her hands on the acrobat's shoulders, looking steadily into his eyes, "that boy's mine. I want him--I want him--back. But I don't want him if he don't love me. And if I can't have him--if I can't have him----" "Millie!" "I'll be all alone, Jim--and I'll want----" He caught her hands. "Me?" he asked. "Will you want me?" "I don't know." "Millie," he said, speaking hurriedly, "_won't_ you want me? I've took up with the little Tounson blonde. But _she_ wouldn't care. You know how it goes, Millie. It's only for business. She and me team up. That's all. She wouldn't care. And if you want me--if you want me, Millie, straight and regular, for better or for worse--if you want me that way, Millie----" "Don't, Jim!"