That night in his attic room Baron arrived, by perfectly logical reasoning, at two conclusions, each of which was precisely the opposite of the other.

The first of these conclusions was that he had a perfect right to shape Bonnie May’s future according to his own inclination. The second was that he had no right at all to do such a thing.

He arrived at the first conclusion in this manner:

He had made an honest effort to locate any person or persons having a legal and just claim on the child, and he had failed. If the Thornburgs had any claim upon her, it was not his fault that they had bungled their affairs until they were unwilling to make their claim public.

Therefore he had a right to have and to hold Bonnie May, and to regard her, if not as his own, at least as a permanent member of the household.

His second and contrary opinion began to shape itself when he recalled the picture of Mrs. Thornburg, helpless and despairing, greatly desiring the presence of the child in her own home in order that she might complete a great moral victory over herself.

A man couldn’t oppose his claims and advantages to a need like that!

Besides—it was borne in upon Baron more and more strongly—there was a very serious question as to the child’s best interests.

She was an actress, born and bred, and some day she would surely hear the call of the theatre. Not in the near future certainly. Baron couldn’t bear to associate children and the stage. But in a few years....

And if she were ever to return to the profession which was her birthright, it was Thornburg she would need, and not the Barons.

Moreover, Thornburg was a wealthy man, and childless. He was now ready to take the child into his home as his own. There could be only one outcome to such an arrangement—an outcome wholly in Bonnie May’s favor.

Therefore, his—Baron’s—right to keep the child was of the shakiest possible nature.

And having reached these two conclusions, dwelling now upon the one and now upon the other, Baron extinguished his light and went to bed.

In the morning at about seven o’clock, while he was standing before the glass with a military hair-brush in his hand, his problem was solved for him in a flash. He stood with the brush suspended in air. A light leaped into his eyes.

“How simple!” he exclaimed. “The very way out of it. The only way.”

At three o’clock that afternoon he entered Thornburg’s private office, after having taken the precaution of ascertaining (1st) that Thornburg had returned from luncheon in a fairly good humor, and (2d) that the manager was alone.

“You know I had a little talk with Mrs. Thornburg about Bonnie May last night,” he began, when Thornburg had thrust a chair toward him. He was assuming his most casual manner, primarily because it suited his present purpose, and also because he had not failed to note that Thornburg’s face had darkened slightly at sight of him.

“Yes, I know.” The manager glanced at his desk as if he were a very busy man.

“I felt the least bit—up a tree, as the fellow said, after I had talked to her,” continued Baron. “You know I want to—to be decent about things.”

“Of course,” agreed the manager, giving part of his attention to the papers which were strewn about his desk. “And I suppose the child is a good deal of a burden——”

He glanced up, and Baron wondered why a man shouldn’t be able to keep the light of triumph out of his eyes when he really tried to.

“Not at all!” he interrupted blandly.

“——or that you are sure she will be, when the novelty of having her about wears off.” He squared about sharply, with the air of a man who means to do something handsome. “I’m still ready to take her, if you decide that you’d like to give her up. Of course, I don’t know how soon I might change my mind. In case Mrs. Thornburg loses interest, I’d be through with the case, naturally.”

He turned to his desk again and examined a letter which came uppermost, frowning and pursing his lips as if he were giving it deep consideration.

Baron did not wholly succeed in repressing a smile. “All wrong,” he said amiably. “The Greeks must have borne gifts to you before now, Thornburg. No, I’m not tired of her. I’m not likely to be, either. Why, she’s like a tonic. Sense? You wouldn’t believe it. She’s forever surprising you by taking some familiar old idea and making you really see it for the first time. She can stay at our house until the roof falls in, if she only will—though of course I don’t hope she’d be willing to. But don’t think there’s any question of our getting tired of her. She’s not that kind. I might add, neither are we.”

Much to his amazement Thornburg sprang to his feet excitedly.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at!” he exclaimed. “If you’ve got anything to say, why not say it and be done with it?”

Baron arose, too. He thought he was justified in feeling offended. “I think,” he said quietly, “I haven’t got anything to say, after all.” He managed to keep his voice and eyes under control. These proclaimed no unfriendliness. But his lips had become somewhat rigid.

“But you did have,” retorted Thornburg. He sat down again and produced a handkerchief with which he wiped his face and neck nervously. “Come, don’t pay any attention to my bad manners. You know I’ve got a thousand things to worry me.”

“Yes, I know. I’m really trying to help—or I had the thought of helping. You—you make it a bit difficult.”

“There was something about the little girl,” said Thornburg.

“Yes. As to her—status. Chapter I—the inquiry for her, and our little flurry—seems to be completed.”

“They probably didn’t care about her very much.”

“Well—possibly. At any rate, we seem to have come to a full stop for the time being. And I’ve been thinking about the future. I ought to tell you that after my talk with Mrs. Thornburg, the case didn’t seem quite so simple as it had seemed.”

Thornburg, clasping his knee in his hands, was bending upon the floor a gaze darkened by labored thought.

“I’ve begun to feel a kind of moral responsibility. At first I thought only of my own point of view. My family’s, I mean. Our interests and pleasures. But you see there’s also something to be said from the standpoint of our—our guest. I wouldn’t want to lessen her chances of future happiness. I wouldn’t want to have my way altogether and then find out after a while that it had been the wrong way. I never realized before how much the people of the stage are born and not made. That’s the gist of the matter. There will come a time when nothing in the world is going to keep Bonnie May off the stage. That’s my conviction now.”

“They say children do inherit—” interposed Thornburg.

“The question of her future stumps you a bit. It’s not as if she were like any other little girl I ever heard of. It’s like this: I’d like to have a skylark in a cage, if it would sing for me. But I’d never be able to forget that its right place was in the sky. You see what I mean. I don’t want to be wholly responsible for keeping Bonnie May—out of the sky.”

“Well?”

“My ideas aren’t exactly definite. But I want her to be free. I want her to have a part in working things out the way she wants them.”

“That’s good sense. Turn her over to me, then.”

“That’s not the idea at all. I think up to a certain point it may be good for her to experience the—the gentle tyrannies which are part of her life with us. On the other hand, if she becomes identified with you (I don’t know just what other word to use), and you get to be fond of her, why then in a material sense.... Oh, I don’t like the tone of that at all. But you’ll get the idea, and take it for granted that what I’m trying to get at is that I don’t want to stand in Bonnie May’s light.”

Baron tried to join the manager in the latter’s impatient laugh. “You’ll have to excuse my denseness,” said Thornburg. “I get your meaning as easy as I can see into a pocket. The way it sounds to me is that you’re sure you want to keep her, and that you’re just as sure that you don’t want to keep her.”

“That’s nearly it,” admitted Baron, flushing slightly. “Suppose I say that I want to keep her a part of the time, and that I’d like you to keep her the other part. Suppose I offer to share her with you: to encourage her to visit Mrs. Thornburg a day at a time—days at a time—a week at a time. Suppose we take her on a kind of partnership basis. No unfair influence; no special inducements. Suppose I make it plain to her that you and Mrs. Thornburg are her real friends, and that you will be glad to have her come as often as she likes, and stay as long as she likes.”

Thornburg’s eyes were beginning to brighten.

“Would you,” added Baron, “do the same thing by us? I mean, would you encourage her to come to us when she felt like it, and see that she had the chance to go as freely as she came?”

Thornburg’s flushed face was all good-nature now. The little barriers which he had kept between his visitor and himself fell away completely.

“A kind of duel between us,” he elaborated, “to see which of us has the best attractions to offer?”

“Well—yes, you might put it that way, I suppose. That’s a theatrical phrase, I believe. Perhaps it wouldn’t have occurred to me. At any rate, the plan I’ve outlined would give her a chance to do a little deciding on her own account. It would give her a chance to give her affections to those who win them. It would place some of the responsibility for her future on her own shoulders. And whatever conclusions she came to I’d be willing to bank on.”

“That,” declared Thornburg with enthusiasm, “is what I call the proposition of a first-class sport.” He extended his hand to Baron. “You stick to your part of the bargain and I’ll play fair to the letter.”

He would have shown Baron out of the office, then. He had a taste for suitable climaxes, too. But Baron lingered, chiefly because he didn’t like the prospect of an almost mischievous conflict which the manager seemed to welcome and to anticipate.

“She can be loyal to us all,” he said, “if she’s encouraged in being.”

At the sound of his own words he fell to thinking.

No, she wouldn’t need to be encouraged. She would be loyal without that. There was nothing to fear on that score at all.

He looked up rather whimsically. “Well, I’ll tell her,” he said.

“You’ll tell her——”

“That she has been invited to visit Mr. and Mrs. Thornburg, and make herself quite at home.”