She dropped her hands and looked at him, her little, pretty face amazed and twitching:  “Do you mean you’ll take my baby?”

“I’ll see that it’s provided for.”

“I ain’t that kind of a girl!” They were standing, one on either side of a highly varnished table, on which, on a little brass tray, a cigarette stub was still smoldering. “I don’t want anything out of you”—­Lily paused; then said, “Mr. Curtis”—­(the fact that she didn’t call him “Curt” showed her recognition of a change in their relationship)—­“I’m not on the grab.  I can keep on at Marston’s for quite a bit.  All I want is just if you can help me in February?  But I’ll never give my baby up!  My first one died.”

“Your first—­”

“So I’ll never, never give it up!” Her shallow, honest, amber-colored eyes overflowed with bliss.  “I’ll just love it!” she said.

Maurice felt an almost physical collapse; neither he nor Henry Houghton had reckoned on maternal love.  Mr. Houghton had implied that Lily’s kind did not have maternal love.  “She’ll leave it on a convenient doorstep—­unless she’s a white blackbird,” Henry Houghton had said.  Maurice, too, had taken for granted Lily’s eagerness to get rid of the child.  In his amazement now, at this revelation of an unknown Lily—­a white blackbird Lily!—­he began, angrily, to argue:  “It is impossible for you to keep it!  Impossible!  I won’t permit it—­”

“I wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world!  I’ll take care of it.  You needn’t worry for fear I’ll put it onto you.”

“But I won’t have you keep it!  I promise you I’ll look after it.  You must go away, somewhere.  Anywhere!”

“But I don’t want to leave Mercer,” she said, simply.

In his despairing confusion, he sat down on the little bowlegged sofa and looked at her; Lily, sitting beside him, put her hand on his—­which quivered at the touch.  “Don’t you worry!  I’d never play you any mean trick.  You treated me good, and I’ll never treat you mean; I ’ain’t forgot the way you handed it out to Batty!  I’ll never let on to anybody.  Say—­I believe you’re afraid I’ll try a hold-up on you some day?  Why, Mr. Curtis, I wouldn’t do a thing like that—­no, not for a million dollars!  Look here; if it will make you easy in your mind, I’ll put it down in writing; I’ll say it ain’t yours!  Will that make you easy in your mind?” Her kind eyes were full of anxious pity for him.  “I’ll do anything for you, but I won’t give up my baby.”

She was trying to help him!  He was so angry and so frightened that he felt sick at his stomach; but he knew that she was trying to help him!

“You see,” she explained, “the first one died; now I’m going to have another, and you bet I’m going to have things nice for her!  I’m going to buy a parlor organ.  And I’ll have her learned to play.  It’s going to be a girl.  Oh, won’t I dress her pretty!  But I’ll never come down on you about her.  Now, don’t you worry.”