Nancy snorted.  Mr. Champneys said nothing.

“Well!  An’ so you’re poor Milly’s husband!” said the woman, staring at him.  “You wasn’t so awful anxious to find out nothin’ about her kith an’ kin, was you?  Not that I’m any kin,” she added, hastily.  “When all’s said an’ done, Nancy ain’t no real kin, neither.  You an’ her’s only connected by marriage, but bein’ as you have come at last, I hope she’ll have more gratefulness to you than she’s got for me.  As you ain’t never done nothin’ by her, an’ I have, she’s sure to.”

“You make me so sick!” Nancy, with her hands on her hips, glared at the pair.  “Anything you ever done for me you paid yourself for double.  If you don’t owe me nothin’, like you said this mornin’, I don’t owe you nothin’, neither, so it’s quits.  You’d oughta be glad I’m goin’.”

“Goin’?  Who’s goin’?  Goin’ where?” Mrs. Baxter’s voice rose shrilly.  “Now, ain’t it always so?  You take a orphan child to your bosom an’ after many days it’ll grow up like a viper, an’ the minute your back ’s turned it’ll spit in your face!”

“Goin’, hey?  Where you goin’ to when you go?” demanded Mr. Baxter, hoarsely.

“She is going with me,” said Mr. Champneys.  The whole situation nauseated him; he felt that if he didn’t escape from that red-plush parlor very soon, he was going to be violently sick.  “I am now in a position to look after my wife’s niece, and I propose to do so.  From what I have heard from you both, I should think you would be rather glad than sorry to part with her.”

“You won’t gain nothin’ by raisin’ a row,” put in Nancy, in a hard voice.  “I’m goin’.  Make up your minds to that.”

“Oh, you are, are you, Miss Simms?  That’s all the thanks I mighta expected from you, you red-headed freckle-face!  I sure hope he’ll get his fill of you before he’s done!  Walkin’ off like a nigger without a minute’s notice, an’ me with my house full of men comin’ to their meals they’ve paid for an’ has to have!”

“Hire another nigger an’ pay ’em somethin’, so’s they won’t quit without notice, then,” suggested the girl, unfeelingly.

“How you know this feller’s Milly Champneys’s husband?” asked Mr. Baxter.  “Who’s to prove it?”

Nancy looked at him and laughed.  But Milly Champneys’s husband said hastily:  “Let us go, for God’s sake!  If there’s a telephone here, ring for a cab or a taxi.  How soon can you be ready?”

“I can walk out bag and baggage in ten minutes,” she replied, and darted from the room.

The South Carolina Don Quixote looked at the sordid, angry pair before him.  He felt like one in an evil dream, a dream that degraded him, and Milly’s memory, and Milly’s niece.

“If you wish to make any inquiries, I shall be at the Palace Hotel until this evening,” he told them.  “And—­would a hundred dollars soothe your feelings?”

The woman’s eyes slitted; the man’s bulged.