Before he could recover, she went on: "Go out and get that baby for me,
Vance. I want it."

He tossed his cigarette out of the window.

"Don't drop into one of your headstrong moods, sis. This is nonsense."

"That's why I want to do it. I'm tired of playing the man. I've had
enough to fill my mind. I want something to fill my arms and my heart."

She drew up her hands with a peculiar gesture toward her shallow, barren
bosom, and then her brother found himself silenced. At the same time he
was a little irritated, for there was an imputation in her speech that
she had been carrying the burden which his own shoulders should have
supported. Which was so true that he could not answer, and therefore he
cast about for some way of stinging her.

"I thought you were going to escape the sentimental period, Elizabeth.
But sooner or later I suppose a woman has to pass through it."

A spot of color came in her sallow cheek.

"That's sufficiently disagreeable, Vance."

A sense of his cowardice made him rise to conceal his confusion.

"I'm going to take you at your word, sis. I'm going out to get that baby.
I suppose it can be bought--like a calf!"

He went deliberately to the door and laid his hand on the knob. He had a