Produced by Al Haines
Author of "Desert Love"
Copyright, 1921, by
[Transcriber's Note: The name "Madhu" appears throughout this book.The "u" in it can be correctly rendered only in Unicode, asu-macron—uppercase U+016A, lowercase U+016B.]
"And never the twain shall meet."
"To deliver thee from the strange woman!"—The Bible.
"Who found the kitten?"
"Me," quavered the childish voice.
Lady Susan Hetth tchcked with her tongue against her rather prominentteeth at the lamentable lapse in grammar, and looked crossly at Leonie,who immediately lifted up the quavering voice and wept.
Sobs too big for such a little girl shook the slender body, whilstgreat tears dripped from the long lashes to the tip of the upturnednose, down the chin and on the knee of the famous specialist, againstwhich she rested.
"Stand up, Leonie, and push your hair out of your eyes!"
The thin little body tautened like an overstrung violin string, and ashock of russet hair was pushed hastily back from a pair of indefinableeyes, in which shone the light of an intense grief strange in one soyoung.
"Leave her to me, Lady Hetth!"
The surgeon's voice was exceedingly suave but with the substratum ofsteel which had served to bend other wills to his with an even greaterfacility than the thumb of the potter moulds clay to his fancy.
"Leonie is going to tell me everything, and then she is going to theshop to buy a big doll and forget all about it!"
"Please may I have a book instead of——"
"Leonie, that is very rude."
"Please, Lady Hetth. Go on, darling—-what kind of book."
"'Bout tigers an' snakes, oh! an' elephants. Weal animals. Dolls, youknow"—she smiled as she confided the great secret—"aren't wealbabies, they're just full of sawdust."
He lifted the child on to his knee, frowning at the weight, andsmoothed the tangled mass of curls away from the low forehead with atouch which caused her to make a sound 'twixt sob and sigh, and to lieback against the broad shoulder.
It was a long and disjointed story, told in the inconsequent fashion ofa child of seven unused to converse with her elders; and continuallyinterrupted by the aunt, who, fretful and dying for her tea, jingledher distracting bracelets and chains, fidgeted with the Anglo-Indianodds-and-ends of her raiment, and disconcerted the chi