Mrs. Higgins gasped at the suddenness of the statement. She felt something like dismay. She saw Pippa's earnings, which had added largely to her weekly income, disappearing in the distance.
"And 'ow about the hexpense I've been put to!" she exclaimed. "Yer don't feed a growing child for six months fer nothink, and me as kind to 'er as hif I'd been 'er own mother." Mrs. Higgins began to sob here, moved to tears by the memory of her own tenderness.
"I think, Mrs. Higgins," he remarked, "that the less you say about your treatment of the child the better. As far as her keep is concerned her own earnings have no doubt paid you more than adequately for the food you have given her. As however you will lose them in the future----"
He pulled two sovereigns from his pocket.
"Take these," he said briefly, "and good evening."
He turned from the house leaving Mrs. Higgins gaping and astonished. It is a mercy when the Mrs. Higginses of the world can be thus easily disposed of.
Barnabas walked away down the street, marvelling at the fact that man had originally been created by God in His own image.
He went straight back to studio number seven, where he found Miss Mason anxiously awaiting him. He sat down and gave her a brief account of his search and its results, omitting, however, a description of the dirt and smells.
"And so," he ended, smiling, "you mean to keep this waif?"
"I couldn't let her go," said Miss Mason. "Did you see her eyes?"
Barnabas had. But the look in them had hurt him too much for him to care to think about it. So he merely said lightly:
"Asleep on half a dozen cushions and among blankets on the floor of my room. She has had a bath and been wrapped again in that red silk. She'll have to live in it till I can get her some more clothes. I've burnt the others, and put the hat, coat, and boots in the dust hole. In spite of her poor little attempts at cleanliness, one never knows."
"One does not," said Barnabas grimly, thinking of the house she had come from. "May I smoke?" he asked.
"Certainly," said Miss Mason. She liked the scent of tobacco in her studio. She felt it to be part and parcel of Bohemia.
Miss Mason was thinking of the child lying asleep in the next room. She had an odd feeling that the Fates had sent Pippa directly to her that she might in a way atone to herself for her own lonely childhood by making this morsel of humanity happy. She had already begun to weave the dreams that are woven by fairy godmothers.