Magsie eyed her charge affectionately.  When he had come to her dressing-room in former days trying to ignore his cough, trying to take her about and to order her suppers as the other men did, he had been vaguely irritating; but here in this plain little bed, so boyish, so dependent, so appreciative, he seemed more attractive than he ever had before.  Whatever there was maternal in Magsie rose to meet his need.  She could not but be impressed by the royal solicitude that surrounded the heir to the “Little Dick Mine.”  Mrs. Richard Gardiner would be something of a personage, thought Magsie dreamily.  He might not live long!

Of course, that was calculating and despicable; she was not the woman to marry where she did not love!  But then she really did love Richie in a way.  And Richie loved her—­no question of that!  Loved her more than Warren did for all his letters and gifts, she decided resentfully.

When Richie wakened, bewildered, at one o’clock, Magsie was still there.  She insisted that he drink more milk before a word was said.  Then they talked again, Magsie in a new mood of reluctance and gentleness, Richie half wild with rising hope and joy.

“And you would want me to marry you, feeling this way?” Magsie faltered.

“Oh, Magsie!” he whispered.

A tear fell on the thin hand that Magsie was patting.  Through dazzled eyes she saw the future:  reckless buying of gowns—­brief and few farewells—­the private car, the adoring invalid, the great sunny West with its forests and beaches, the plain gold ring on her little hand.  In the whole concerned group—­doctor, nurse, valet, mother, maid—­young Mrs. Gardiner would be supreme!  She saw herself flitting about a California bungalow, lending her young strength to Richie’s increasing strength in the sunwashed, health-giving air.

She put her arms about him, laid her rosy cheek against his pale one.

“And you really want me to go out,” Magsie began, smiling through tears, “and get a nice special license and a nice little plain gold ring and come back here with a nice kind clergyman, and say ’I will’—–­”

But at this her tears again interrupted her, and Richard, clinging desperately to her hand, could not speak either for tears.  His mother who had silently entered the room on Magsie’s last words suddenly put her fat arms about her and gave her the great motherly embrace for which, without knowing it, she had hungered for years, and they all fell to planning.

Richard could help only with an occasional assent.  There was nothing to which he would not consent now.  They would be married as soon as Magsie and his mother could get back with the necessities.  And then would he drink his milk, good boy—­and go straight to sleep, good boy.  Then to-morrow he should be helped into the softest motor car procurable for money, and into the private car that his mother and Magsie meant to engage, by hook or crook, to-night.