The child did not understand. So he told her about such schools and the little girls who went to them. She seemed deeply interested; her grey eyes were clear and seriously intelligent, and very, very intently fixed on him in the effort to follow and understand what he was saying.
He told her about other children who lived amid happy surroundings; what they did, how they were cared for, schooled, brought up; what was expected of them by the world – what was required by the world from those who had had advantages of a home, of training, of friends, and of an education. He was committing himself with every word, and refused to believe it.
At times he paused to question her, and she always nodded seriously that she understood.
"But this," he added smilingly, "you may not entirely comprehend, Steve; that such children, brought up as I have explained to you, owe the human race a debt which is never cancelled." He was talking to himself now, more than to her; voicing his thoughts; feeling his way toward the expression of a philosophy which he had heretofore only vaguely entertained.
"The hope of the world lies in such children, Steve," he said. "The world has a right to expect service from them. You don't understand, do you?"
Her wonderfully clear eyes were almost beautiful with intelligence as they looked straight into his. Perhaps the child understood more than she herself realized, more than he believed she understood.
"Shall I come to see you again, Steve?"
"Yes, sir, please."
There was a pause. Very gently the slight pressure of his arm, which had crept around her, conveyed to her its wistful meaning; and when she understood she leaned slowly toward him in winning response, and offered her lips with a gravity that captivated him.
"Good-bye, Steve, dear," he said unsteadily. "I'll come to see you again very soon. I surely, surely will come back again to see you, Steve."
Then he put on his hat and went out abruptly – not down town to Christensen's, but back to the United Charities, and, after an hour, from there he went down town to his attorney's, where he spent the entire day under suppressed excitement.
For there were many steps to take and much detail to be attended to before this new and momentous deal could be put through – a transaction concerning a human soul and the measures to be taken to insure its salvage.
CHAPTER III
During the next few weeks John William Cleland's instinct fought a continuous series of combats with his reason.
Instinct, with her powerful allies, loneliness and love, urged the solitary man to rash experiment; reason ridiculed impulse and made it very clear to Cleland that he was a fool.
But instinct had this advantage; she was always awake, whispering to his mind and heart; and reason often fell asleep on guard over his brain.
But when awake, reason laughed at the conspirators, always in ambush to slay him; and carried matters with a high hand, rebuking instinct and frowning upon her allies.
And John Cleland hesitated. He wrote to his only son every day. He strove to find occupation for every minute between the morning awakening in his silent chamber and the melancholy lying down at night.
But always the battle between reason and instinct continued.
Reason had always appealed to Cleland Senior. His parents and later his wife and son had known the only sentimental phenomena which had ever characterized him in his career. Outside of these exceptions, reason had always ruled him. This is usually the case among those who inherit money from forebears who, in turn, have been accustomed to inherit and hand down a moderate but unimpaired fortune through sober generations.
Such people are born logical when not born fools. And now Cleland Senior, mortified and irritated by the increasing longing which obsessed him, asked himself frequently which of these he really was.
Every atom of logic in him counselled him to abstain from what every instinct in him was desiring and demanding – a little child to fill the loneliness of his heart and house – something to mitigate the absence of his son, whose absences must, in the natural course of events, become more frequent and of longer duration with the years of college imminent, and the demands of new interests, new friends increasing year by year.
He told himself that to take another child into his home would be unfair to Jim; to take her into his heart was disloyal; that the dear past belonged to his wife alone, the present and the future to his only son.
And all the while the man was starving for what he wanted.
Well, the arrangements took some time to complete; but they were fairly complete when finished. She kept her own name; she was to have six thousand dollars a year for life after she became twenty-one. He charged himself with her mental, moral, spiritual, physical, and general education.
It came about in the following manner:
First of all, he went to see a gentleman whom he had known for many years, but whose status with himself had always remained a trifle indefinite in his mind – somewhere betwixt indifferent friendship and informal acquaintanceship.
The gentleman's name was Chiltern Grismer; his business, charity and religion. He did not dispense either of these, however; he made a living for himself out of both. Cleland had learned at the United Charities that Grismer was an important personage in the Manhattan Charities Concern, a separate sectarian affair with a big office building, and a book bindery in Brooklyn for the immense tonnage of sectarian books and pamphlets published and sold by the "Concern," as it called itself. The profits were said to be enormous.
Grismer, tall, bony, sandy and with a pair of unusually light yellowish eyes behind eye-glasses, appeared the classical philanthropist of the stage. With his white, bushy side-whiskers, his frock coat, and his little ready-made black bow-tie, slightly askew under a high choker, he certainly dressed the part. In fact, any dramatic producer would have welcomed him in the rôle, for he had no "business" to learn; it was perfectly natural for him to join his finger tips together while conversing; and his voice and manner left nothing whatever to criticize.
"Ah! My friend of many years!" he exclaimed as Cleland was ushered into his office in the building of the Manhattan Charities Concern. "And how, I pray, can I be of service to my old friend, John Cleland? M-m-m'yes – my friend of many years!"
Cleland told his story very simply, adding:
"I understand that your Concern is handling Case 119, Grismer – acting, I believe, for a child-placing agency."
"Which case?" demanded Grismer, almost sharply.
"Case 119. The case of Stephanie Quest," repeated Cleland.
Grismer looked at him with odd intentness for a moment, then his eyes shifted, as though something were disturbing his suave mental tranquillity:
"M-m-m'yes. Oh, yes. I believe we have this case to handle among many others. M-m-m! Quite so; quite so. Case 119? Quite so."
"May I have the child?" asked Cleland bluntly.
"Bless me! Do you really wish to take such chances, Cleland?"
"Why not? Others take them, don't they?"
"M-m-m'yes. Oh, yes. Certainly. But it is usually people of the – ah – middle and lower classes who adopt children. M-m-m'yes; the middle and lower classes. And, naturally, they would not be very much disappointed in a foundling or waif who failed to – ah – develop the finer, subtler, more delicate Christian qualities that a gentleman in your position might reasonably expect – m-m-m'yes! – might, as it were, demand in an adopted child."
"I'll take those chances in the case in question," said Cleland, quietly.
"M-m-m'yes, the case in question. Case 119. Quite so… I am wondering – " he passed a large, dry hand over his chin and mouth, reflectively, while his light-coloured eyes remained alertly on duty. "I have been wondering whether you have looked about before deciding on this particular child. There are a great many other deserving cases, m-m-m'yes – a great many deserving cases – "
"I