Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/16

2 he would take no proceedings; a sum of which he had had the administration, and of which he could render not the least account! The obligation thus attributed to her adversary was no small balm to Ida's resentment. It drew a part of the sting from her defeat, and compelled Mr. Farange perceptibly to lower his crest. He was unable to produce the money or to raise it in any way; so that after a squabble scarcely less public and scarcely more decent than the original shock of battle, his only issue from his predicament was a compromise proposed by his legal advisers, and finally accepted by hers.

His debt was by this arrangement remitted to him, and the little girl disposed of in a manner worthy of the judgment-seat of Solomon. She was cut in twain, and the portions tossed impartially to the disputants. They would take her in rotation for six months at a time; she would spend half the year with each. This was odd justice in the eyes of those who still blinked in the fierce light projected from the divorce-court,—a light in which neither parent figured in the least as a happy example to youth and innocence. What was to have been expected on the evidence was the nomination in loco