Van Bibbers Life | Page 7

but that she might not understand what he said.
"Yes," the woman answered, shortly, and bent her head to smooth out
the child's stage dress across her knees.
Van Bibber touched the little girl's head with his hand and found that
she was asleep, and so let his hand rest there, with the curls between his
fingers. "Are--are you her mother?" he asked, with a slight inclination
of his head. He felt quite confident she was not; at least, he hoped not.
The woman shook her head. "No," she said.
"Who is her mother?"
The woman looked at the sleeping child and then up at him almost
defiantly. "Ida Clare was her mother," she said.
Van Bibber's protecting hand left the child as suddenly as though
something had burned it, and he drew back so quickly that her head
slipped from his arm, and she awoke and raised her eyes and looked up
at him questioningly. He looked back at her with a glance of the
strangest concern and of the deepest pity. Then he stooped and drew
her towards him very tenderly, put her head back in the corner of his
arm, and watched her in silence while she smiled drowsily and went to
sleep again.

"And who takes care of her now?" he asked.
The woman straightened herself and seemed relieved. She saw that the
stranger had recognized the child's pedigree and knew her story, and
that he was not going to comment on it. "I do," she said. "After the
divorce Ida came to me," she said, speaking more freely. "I used to be
in her company when she was doing `Aladdin,' and then when I left the
stage and started to keep an actors' boarding-house, she came to me.
She lived on with us a year, until she died, and she made me the
guardian of the child. I train children for the stage, you know, me and
my sister, Ada Dyer; you've heard of her, I guess. The courts pay us for
her keep, but it isn't much, and I'm expecting to get what I spent on her
from what she makes on the stage. Two of them other children are my
pupils; but they can't touch Madie. She is a better dancer an' singer than
any of them. If it hadn't been for the Society keeping her back, she
would have been on the stage two years ago. She's great, she is. She'll
be just as good as her mother was." Van Bibber gave a little start, and
winced visibly, but turned it off into a cough. "And her father," he said
hesitatingly, "does he--"
"Her father," said the woman, tossing back her head, "he looks after
himself, he does. We don't ask no favors of HIM. She'll get along
without him or his folks, thank you. Call him a gentleman? Nice
gentleman he is!" Then she stopped abruptly. "I guess, though, you
know him," she added. Perhaps he's a friend of yourn?"
"I just know him," said Van Bibber, wearily.
He sat with the child asleep beside him while the woman turned to the
others and dressed them for the third act. She explained that Madie
would not appear in the last act, only the two larger girls, so she let her
sleep, with the cape of Van Bibber's cloak around her.
Van Bibber sat there for several long minutes thinking, and then looked
up quickly, and dropped his eyes again as quickly, and said, with an
effort to speak quietly and unconcernedly: "If the little girl is not on in
this act, would you mind if I took her home? I have a cab at the stage
door, and she's so sleepy it seems a pity to keep her up. The sister you

spoke of or some one could put her to bed."
"Yes," the woman said, doubtfully, "Ada's home. Yes, you can take her
around, if you want to."
She gave him the address, and he sprang down to the floor, and
gathered the child up in his arms and stepped out on the stage. The
prima donna had the centre of it to herself at that moment, and all the
rest of the company were waiting to go on; but when they saw the little
girl in Van Bibber's arms they made a rush at her, and the girls leaned
over and kissed her with a great show of rapture and with many gasps
of delight.
"Don't," said Van Bibber, he could not tell just why. "Don't."
"Why not?" asked one of the girls, looking up at him sharply.
"She was asleep; you've wakened her," he said, gently.
But he knew that was not the reason. He stepped into the cab at the
stage entrance, and put the child carefully down in