"M-marry you. _I_ was goin' to do it. H-He hadn't any right to! I hate him--I hate him!" A minute there was silence, except for the soft creak of Her dress as She rocked him. Then She lifted his wet little face to Hers. "Reggie," She whispered, "how would a mother do?" He nestled his cheek against Her sleeve and rubbed it back and forth, back and forth, while he thought. A mother--then there would be no more loneliness. Then there would be a place to cuddle in, and somebody to tell things to. "I'd _ravver_ a mother," the Little Lover said. Chapter X The Child The Child had it all reasoned out in her own way. It was only lately she had got to the end of her reasoning and settled down. At first it had not been very satisfactory, but she had gradually, with a child's optimism, evolved from the dreary little maze a certain degree of content. She had only one confidant. The Child had always lived a rather proscribed, uneventful little life, with pitifully few intimates,--none of her own age. The Child was eight. The confidant, oddly, was a picture in the silent, awe-inspiring company-room. It represented a lady with a beautiful face, and a baby in her arms. The Child had never heard it called a Madonna, but it was because of that picture that she was never afraid in the company-room. Going in and out so often to confide things to the Lady had bred a familiarity with the silent place that came to amount in the end to friendliness. The Lady was always there, smiling gently at the Child, and so the other things did not matter--the silence and the awe-inspiringness. The Child told the Lady everything, standing down under the picture and looking up at it adoringly. She was explaining her conclusions concerning the Greatest Thing of All now. "I didn't tell you before," she said. "I wanted to get it reasoned _out_. If," rather wistfully, "you were a--a flesh-and-bloody lady, you could tell me if I haven't got it right. But I think I have. "You see, there are a great many kinds of fathers and mothers, but I'm only talking of my kind. I'm going to love my father one day and my mother the next. Like this: my mother Monday, my father Tuesday, mother Wednesday, father Thursday--right along. Of course you can't divide seven days even, but I'm going to love them both on Sundays. Just one day in the week I don't think it will do any harm, do you?-- Oh, you darling Lady, I wish you could shake your head or bow it! I'm only eight, you see, and eight isn't a very _reasonable_ age. But I couldn't think of any better way." The Child's eyes riveted to the beautiful face almost saw it nod a little.