answered quickly, "not for any number of blank checks
or vacation trips shall you have the care and annoyance of those wild
Comanches."

"I know what I'll do!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I'll go right down to
the intelligence office and get anything in the shape of a maid and
put her in charge of the Polydore caravansary with double wages and
every night out and any other privileges she requests."

This seemed a sane and sensible arrangement, and I wended my way to
my office feeling that we were out of the woods.

When I returned home at noon, I found that we had only exchanged the
woods for water--and deep water at that.

I beheld a strange sight. Silvia sat by our bedroom window twittering
soft, cooing nonsensical nothings to Diogenes, who was clasped in her
arms, his flushed little face pressed close to her shoulder.

"He's been quite ill, Lucien. I was frightened and called the doctor.
He said it was only the slight fever that children are subject to. He
thought with good care that he'd be all right in a few days."

"Did you succeed in getting a cook to go to the Polydores?" I asked
anxiously. "You'll need a nurse to go there, too, to take care of
Diogenes."

She looked at me reproachfully and rebukingly.

"Why, Lucien! You don't suppose I could send this sick baby back to
that uninviting house with only hired help in charge! Besides, I don't
believe he'd stay with a stranger. He seems to have taken a fancy to
me."

Diogenes confirmed this belief by a languid lifting of his eyelids, as
he feelingly patted her cheek with his baby fingers.

I forebore to suggest that the fancy seemed to be mutual. Diogenes,
sick, was no longer an "imp of the devil", but a normal, appealing
little child. It occurred to me that possibly the care of a sick
Polydore might develop Silvia's tiny germ of child-ken.

"Keep him here of course," I agreed, "but--the other children must
return home."

"Diogenes would miss them," she said quickly, "and the doctor says his
whims must be humored while he is sick. He is almost asleep now. I
think he will let me put him down in his own little bed. Ptolemy
brought it over here. Pull back the covers for me, Lucien. There!"

Diogenes half opened his eyes, as she laid him in the bed and smiled
wanly.

"Mudder!" he cooed.

Silvia flushed and looked as if she dreaded some expression of mirth
from me. Relieved by my silence and a suggestion of moisture in the
region of my eyes--the day was