XV

THORNBURG WINS

WO weeks slipped by, and then one day at noon as Baron was emerging from the lobby of the Times building he heard a familiar voice in the street. The Thornburg automobile stopped and the manager pushed the door open.

"Been to lunch yet?" called Thornburg.

"Just going," was the response. Baron would have prevaricated if he'd had time to think; but now it was too late, and he made the best of the matter as Thornburg pulled him into the car.

"Come with me," said the manager; and then he became silent as he threaded the machine through the down-town congestion.

He did not speak again until they were in a comparatively quiet restaurant whose patronage was drawn chiefly from theatrical people who did not come in until late in the evening. Both men observed that they were to have the place practically to themselves; and then Baron was promptly given to understand what it was that Thornburg wanted.

"That's really a fine little girl," said the manager, frankly regarding Baron across the table.

"You mean Bonnie May. Yes, she certainly is. The fact is, you can't begin to realize how uncommonly fine she is until you know her better."

"Well, that's just the point. When am I going to know her better? When is she coming to us?"

Baron gave his whole attention to the waiter for a minute. He was trying to think of a response that wouldn't con

A summary of the preceding chapters of "Bonnie May" appears on page 7 of the Advertising pages.

cede too much.

He held the strong cards now. It would be foolish to relinquish them.

The waiter was gone now.

"The fact is, Thornburg," said Baron, "she doesn't seem at all eager to accept your invitation. I've told her about it, and explained what a fine place you've got, and all that—and she just changes the subject. You know, I didn't agree to force her to act. That's just what we both agreed not to do."

"Childish timidity-the first time," said Thornburg. "If you'd bring her over once, she'd get over feeling that way."

"She's just about as timid as a sunbeam. She'd go anywhere if she thought she'd enjoy it. The fact is, she's absolutely satisfied where she is, at present. Let the thing rest awhile. When things become monotonous I'll call her attention again to your invitation."

Thornburg shook out his napkin violently. "That sounds like beating about the bush," he said. "You know how to get a child started. 'Oh, look!' you say to them. Get them excited. Then they'll do anything."

"I don't want to get her excited," replied Baron dryly.

"Yes, that's just it!" retorted the other. "A little excitement would be good for her. I see the advantage of having her at your place part of the time, but I see the advantage of having her with us, too. It would be a shame if she ever got to thinking highly of some of this polite flubdub-" He checked himself in embarrassment and brushed imaginary crumbs from his waistcoat.

"Won't you enlighten me as to what you mean by 'polite flubdub’?”

Thornburg became almost defiant. "Being chilly, for one thing. And not seeing people. That kind of business." The manager was thinking of certain mat

ters that had transpired the night Bonnie May was brought out to the garden. "It used to be all right, but it's all done away with now. You might as well hang a knitted tidy up in an art display. Nothing but the goods counts these days."

"No doubt you're right," responded Baron briefly. He felt it would be impossible for him to admit that he saw any special application in what Thornburg had said.

A silence followed. Baron permitted a considerable degree of arrogance to stifle his friendlier thoughts. Thornburg had spoken offensively, which was rather less excusable than "polite flubdub."

Yet, Baron reflected, nothing in Thornburg's manner could alter the fact that it might be greatly to Bonnie May's advantage to accept the hospitality of the manager and his wife.

"You're right, Thornburg," he said finally. "I've been procrastinating that's all. I'll speak to her again. The next time I'll even say 'Oh, look!'-or words to that effect. In your own expressive phrase, we'll give her a chance to decide which of us has the better attraction to offer."

This new promise weighed heavily on his conscience that afternoon when he went home; for Bonnie May, unusually radiant, was waiting for him at the door. "Mr. Baggott was here to-day," she began. "He left his play. And he talked to me about it. He said you might keep it as long as you liked."

"All very kind of Mr. Baggott." Baron thoughtfully disposed of his hat and cane. When he turned to the child again there was a little furrow between

his eyes.

"Bonnie May," he began, "did I tell you some time ago that Mr. and Mrs. Thornburg would be glad to have you visit them?"

"Yes, I remember."

"They thought possibly you might have forgotten. They asked me to remind you."

"Thank you. And he's made the prettiest copy of it, with red lines drawn under the words you don't have to learn. Can't we go up-stairs and see it? I put it in your room."

"Yes, we'll go up-stairs." He was irritated by her supreme indifference to the matter which he had tried to bring to her attention. He meant to have the thing out definitely.

She rushed away in advance of him so impetuously that he paused and looked after her in amazement. The furrow disappeared and he was smiling.

And then the whole strange situation struck him with renewed force. Was she really the daughter of Thornburg, and was he afraid to claim her? Or was there no connection at all between her and the manager, and did he, Baron, hold the trump-card in that game which meant the permanent possession of her? If she were Thornburg's, why shouldn't Mrs. Thornburg frankly say to her husband: "I know everything-but I still want her"? It occurred to him that it might be his duty to suggest just that course to her. But old habits of restraint were too strong for him. After all, he didn't know the Thornburgs very well. He scarcely knew Mrs. Thornburg at all. He went up into the attic, which was made golden by a flood of late afternoon sunlight. In truth, he found himself in an atmosphere that was delightful in its warmth and aloofness and quietude.

Bonnie May hurried toward him, the manuscript in her hands. She was trembling with eagerness. A foolish little creature in some respects, surely, thought Baron. He glanced at the title-page and turned half a dozen pages aimlessly. And when he glanced at Bonnie May he was amazed by her expression of wonder, of distress.

"You don't seem to be interested in it?" said she.

"Not a great deal-just now. I'd have to get into it, you know. When I've more time. Besides"-he tossed the manuscript aside "I'm deeply interested in something else just now."

She quickly evinced a pretty spirit of submission. In response to his gesture she sat down near the window, opposite him. "I've been thinking about you to-day. Seriously."

"I hope I haven't been queering anything?"

"Not a bit of it. We're all very much pleased with you."

There may have been something of patronage in the tone. At any rate, she replied with a little smile. "Thank you," she said. "You know, an artist always strives to please." As he regarded her quietly she added, more earnestly: "It's strange that I got by, too, when you come to think about it. I was hardly prepared to play a nice part when I came here. Anyway, not a part where you have to have so much-what the critics call restraint. You can take it from me, the nice parts aren't half as fat as the nasty parts."

He did not remove his eyes from her face. He had the thought that she was very far away from him, after all. From all of them. "I wish," he said, "you wouldn't always talk as if you were only taking part in a play. Somehow, it doesn't seem quite friendly. We're trying to make this a real home for you. We're trying to be real friends. We're trying to live a real life. Why not look at it that way when you're with me? Wouldn't that seem friendlier?"

She looked at him with a little flicker of anxiety in her eyes. "You see," she said, "I can't help thinking all the time that everything I do must be like a nice ingénue part-and being afraid that you'll come home some day and find I've been doing some soubrette stuff."

He shook his head and abruptly assumed a new attitude. "Did you understand me clearly when I said that Mrs. Thornburg wishes you to visit her?"

"I think I didn't pay much attention," she admitted, looking away from him. "Did you wish me to go?"

"I think it would be very nice. If you didn't like them, you needn't ever go again." He tried to speak lightly.

She brought her eyes to his anxiously. "When did you think I ought to go?" she asked.

Baron brought his chair down with a bump. "I didn't say you ought to go, exactly. Don't put it that way. I only thought it would be nice and kind of you to go, because they wish it. I'd be anxious to have you come back quite soon, of

"And-and mother-does she wish me to go, too?"

Her use of that word brought warmth to his heart. "She doesn't wish it. Frankly, I think she wouldn't like it at all. But I think she'd consent."

She was greatly relieved. She leaned forward and patted him on the knee. "I was afraid you might be planning to cut down the company," she said.

He looked at her without comprehending readily.

"I mean," she elaborated, "I thought maybe it was a case of cold feet." He flinched. "Oh, Bonnie May!" was his disapproving rejoinder.

"You mean it's stale?" she asked. The expression in her eyes was innocent, perplexed.

He slowly shook his head in despair, and then he saw the swift look of comprehension that brightened her eyes.

"Oh, I know," she said. "Knockabout talk!"

He sprang to his feet and thrust his chair aside. "For a few moments I would be glad if we might use the English language," he said. "I was hopeful of arriving at an understanding with you on a certain simple proposition."

She began to laugh unrestrainedly, after an instant of shocked silence. She "stared him out of countenance," as the saying is. He had never heard her laugh so hilariously. Yet even then he could not be blind to the look of appeal in her eyes-appeal mingled with a defiant consciousness of guilt.

Then she became grave and conciliatory. "I'll go," she said. "It's nothing, after all. Just drive up some day and ring the bell and say, 'My lady, the carriage is waiting,' and I-I'll take a chance."

XVI

CONCERNING LAUGHTER-AND OTHER

THINGS

BARON had one more talk with her on the subject of her visit to the Thornburgs' before he reached the point where, under urgent reminders from the manager, he actually took upon himself the task of conveying the child from the one house

It was in the attic-where all their confidential conversations took place and Baggott's play, forgotten for the moment, lay on a table at Baron's elbow.

"You know, I can't stay over there long," said Bonnie May abruptly, with quiet determination.

they get it all wrong, too, but nobody thinks it's necessary to teach them any better. You can see I'm perfectly right." "I think what you say is quite absurd."

"It's just new to you, that's all. You know perfectly well that when most people try to laugh what they really do is to cackle, or giggle, or shriek, or make horrible noises until they nearly choke.

Baron didn't know what she was talking about.

"Flora is giving me lessons in reading," she explained. "You know, I'm to go to school next fall."

"No one has mentioned it to me. But of course you will. Everybody goes to school. And about giving her a lesson?" he added.

"I'm not sure I ought to talk about that. But why not-to you? You see, I'm teaching her how to laugh."

Baron stared. "Teaching her how to laugh!" he echoed.

She was immediately on the defensive. "I certainly am. You must have seen that she doesn't know how!"

"Nonsense! You're talking just plain nonsense!"

"You might think so. A good many people would. But I wish you would tell me how many people you know who really laugh right."

"Right! There's no question of laughing right. People laugh when there's an occasion for laughing."

"They don't really laugh, because they don't know how. And very few people know anything about the right occasion to laugh."

"Meaning-?"

"I can make it quite plain. You see, it's a custom to teach children how to talk, and some are taught how to sing. I say nothing about the silly things that are taught to 'speak pieces,' Heaven help them. They are taught these things because they wouldn't know how to do them right if they were left to themselves. They try to talk and they try to sing, and they get it all wrong. And then they are taught."

"That's an entirely different matter." "Not at all. When they try to laugh

them look ugly. But just think how some people look when they laugh! All they need is a few lessons at the right time. Then they know how to laugh" naturally and freely. You have to think how you are doing it at first. Afterward you laugh the right way without thinking at all."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I take pleasure in introducing Mlle. Bonnie May, laughing expert,'" said Baron derisively.

"A very fine argument," responded Bonnie May, nodding graciously. "And about the 'occasion' to laugh," she persisted seriously. "There's a whole lot to be said about that. You frame up a speech with a lot of care to get out of a scrape, or to make people do something they don't want to do or for something like that. You ought to laugh on the same principle. You know, you smile sometimes when you don't mean it, just to help things along; or you say you pity people, or you say something to encourage them, for the same reason. Well, then, you ought to laugh sometimes when you're not really amused. And you can make people take a sensible view of things sometimes just by laughing at them. But, of course, you have to know how to do it right. If you bray at them, or giggle, they'll be insulted, naturally."

Baron shook his head. "Where did you pick it all up?" he asked.

"I didn't pick it up, exactly. Miss Barry took particular pains to teach it to me. On account of my work, mostly. And I thought a lot of it out for myself."

Before Baron had time to make any response to her she sprang to her feet and picked up the neglected manuscript. All her interests were immediately centred in it.

She turned a dozen pages rapidly. Then she paused in indecision and turned