The generosity of her!  She’d “put it down in writing”!  “I told Uncle Henry she was white,” he thought.  But in spite of her whiteness his blue eyes were wide with horror; all those plans, of Lily in another city, and an unacknowledged child, in still another city—­for of course it could not be in Mercer any more than Lily could!—­all these safe arrangements faded into a swift vision of Lily, in this apartment, with it!  Lily, meeting him on the street!—­a flash of imagination showed him Lily, pushing a baby carriage!  For just a moment sheer terror made that dead Youth of his stir.

“You can’t keep it!” he said again, hoarsely; “I tell you, I won’t allow it!  I’ll look after it. But I won’t have it here! And I won’t ever see you.”

“You needn’t,” she said, reassuringly; “and I’ll never bother you.  That ain’t me!”

He was dumb.

“An’ look,” she said, cheerfully; “honest, it’s better for you.  What would you do, looking after a little girl?  Why, you couldn’t even curl her hair in the mornings!” Maurice shuddered.  “And I’ll never ask you for a cent, if you can just make it convenient to help me in February?”

“Of course I’ll help you,” he said; then, suddenly, his anger fell into despair.  “Oh, what a damned fool I was!”

“All gentlemen are,” she tried to comfort him.  Her generosity made him blush.  Added to his shame because of what he had done to Eleanor, was a new shame at his own thoughts about this little, kind, bad, honest woman!  “Look here,” Lily said; “if you’re strapped, never mind about helping me.  They’ll take you at the Maternity free, if you can’t pay.  So I’ll go there; and I’ll say I’m married; I’ll say my husband was Mr. George Dale, and he’s dead; I’ll never peep your name.  Now, don’t you worry!  I’ll keep on at Marston’s for four months, anyway.  Yes; I’ll buy me a ring and call myself Mrs. Dale; I guess I’ll say Mrs. Robert Dale; Robert’s a classier name than George.  And nobody can say anything to my baby.”

“Of course I’ll give you whatever you need for—­when—­when it’s born,” he said.  He was fumbling with his pocketbook; he had nothing more to say about leaving Mercer.

She took the money doubtfully.  “I won’t want it yet awhile,” she said.

“I’ll make it more if I can,” he told her; he got up, hesitated, then put out his hand.  For a single instant, just for her pluck, he was almost fond of her.  “Take care of yourself,” he said, huskily; and the next minute he was plunging down those three flights of unswept stairs to the street.  “My own fault—­my own fault,” he said, again; “oh, what a cussed, cussed, cussed fool!”

It was over, this dreadful interview! this looking at the dead face of his Youth.  Over, and he was back again just where he was when he came in.  Nothing settled.  Lily—­who was so much more generous than he!—­would still be in Mercer, waiting for this terrible child.  His child!