Merritt knew it too, and he laughed at her.

“Stop this nonsense, now,” he commanded roughly.  “I’m going to accomplish what I came here for, so you may as well take it quietly.  I can take the child without a whimper from her,—­and you know it!  So, why not be sensible and come along too, and look out for her yourself?”

“You shall not take her!” Azalea looked like an angry tigress.

“Gee!  Wish I had you on the screen like that!  You’re some picture!”

“Please, Mr. Merritt,” Azalea tried coaxing again, “please believe me,—­I can’t take Fleurette again.  Her mother—­why, Mr. Merritt, you have children of your own—­”

“Sure I have!  That’s how I know how to treat ’em so well.  If mine were only small enough, I wouldn’t need this little cutie.  Well, here goes, then!”

This time he laid such a definite hold on the baby, that Azalea could scarcely keep the child in her own arms.

In her utter desperation, a new idea struck her.  She would try strategy.

“Oh, don’t!” she cried, “rather than have you touch her, I’ll go—­I’ll take her.  Let me get her cap and coat.”

“Where are they?” he asked, suspiciously.

“Right here, in the library,—­just across the hall.”

“Go on, then,—­I trust you, ’cause I think you’re sensible.  I’d go along and keep you in sight, but I want to keep watch if anybody comes.  But you sing, or whistle or something, so’s I’ll know you’re right there.”

“All right,” and Azalea’s heart beat fast, for she had a splendid scheme.

Into the library she carried Fleurette, singing as she went, and once in the room, she put the baby on a chair and flew for the record rack.

Quickly she found the record of the baby’s crying spell and put it in place in the phonograph.

Then, picking up Fleurette, she set the needle going and hurried from the room.

Merritt, hearing the cries, screams and sobs, scowled with anger at the baby’s fit of ill temper, but never dreamed that it was not really the child crying at all.

So Azalea had ample chance to escape by a back door from the library, and crossing the dining-room went out on a side porch that faced the Gale place.

Looking carefully to see that Merritt had not followed her, and listening a moment to learn how much longer the record,—­of which she knew every familiar sound,—­would last, she ran with all the speed of which she was capable over to the Gales’.

Van Reypen was just taking leave, and he, as well as the others present, looked in amazement at the flying figure coming nearer and nearer until Azalea reached the group.

“Take her,” she said to Mrs. Gale, as she gave her the baby, “keep her safe—­safe!”

And then Azalea went flying back.

The record was finished,—­and with the sudden stop of the child’s crying
Merritt had started into the library to see what it meant.