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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78732 ***
+
+
+                                   AN
+                            UNMARRIED FATHER
+
+                                _A Novel_
+
+
+                                   By
+                               Floyd Dell
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                         GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+                            COPYRIGHT, 1927,
+                       BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+                           AN UNMARRIED FATHER
+                 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+                        BOOK ONE: The Discovery
+
+     I. The Letter                                                     9
+
+    II. Legal Advice                                                  16
+
+   III. The Way of the World                                          24
+
+    IV. Post Mortem on a Dead Romance                                 32
+
+     V. Encounter                                                     41
+
+    VI. Dr. Zerneke                                                   46
+
+   VII. Flowers                                                       58
+
+  VIII. Isabel                                                        60
+
+    IX. The Baby                                                      72
+
+     X. Art Alone Endures                                             77
+
+    XI. Common Sense                                                  81
+
+   XII. Bad Dreams                                                    87
+
+  XIII. En Route                                                      91
+
+   XIV. Homecoming                                                   100
+
+    XV. Family Breakfast                                             106
+
+   XVI. Aubade                                                       111
+
+  XVII. Flight                                                       120
+
+
+                           BOOK TWO: In Exile
+
+     I. The Prodigal                                                 125
+
+    II. A Man Has Some Rights                                        136
+
+   III. An Ambassador from Vickley                                   143
+
+    IV. Speech to the Jury                                           157
+
+     V. The Older Generation                                         163
+
+    VI. J. J. Overbeck                                               169
+
+   VII. Home                                                         176
+
+  VIII. Apron Strings                                                185
+
+    IX. It Was Bound to Happen                                       195
+
+     X. Mrs. Case                                                    202
+
+    XI. Paradise Lost                                                205
+
+   XII. Out of a Job                                                 209
+
+  XIII. The Dreamer Wakes                                            215
+
+
+                      BOOK THREE: The Dominant Sex
+
+     I. Vita Nova                                                    225
+
+    II. Waste Not Your Hour                                          229
+
+   III. His Mother                                                   235
+
+    IV. ’Ware Women!                                                 239
+
+     V. As Usual                                                     244
+
+    VI. Night Thoughts                                               248
+
+   VII. A Letter                                                     255
+
+  VIII. A Sociological Interlude                                     260
+
+    IX. On Taking a Girl at Her Word                                 268
+
+     X. Which?                                                       277
+
+    XI. As Luck Would Have It                                        281
+
+   XII. The Fugitive                                                 284
+
+  XIII. Conversation in a Taxi                                       288
+
+   XIV. A Farewell                                                   291
+
+    XV. The Inevitable                                               296
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK ONE
+
+                              The Discovery
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I: The Letter
+
+
+THAT April morning Norman Overbeck drove his father to the station and
+put him on the early train for Springfield. The elder Overbeck--J. J.
+Overbeck--was going to argue a case before the supreme court. Norman,
+his unworthy son, as he felt himself to be, drove on to the office.
+Parking his car in front of the Overbeck building until he should want
+it again that afternoon, according to the leisurely custom of Vickley
+on the Mississippi, he went up the dingy, old-fashioned stairway to the
+Overbeck and Overbeck offices. In the hall he glanced up for a moment
+at the new sign with the name repeated, replacing the old one of “J.
+J. Overbeck, Attorney-at-Law.” It was less than a year since Norman
+had been admitted to the bar and been made a member of the law-firm.
+When his father wasn’t with him he sometimes glanced up at that sign,
+expecting to find in it some reassurance, something that would make him
+feel in himself the dignity and power which were associated with his
+father’s name. He never quite got it. Most of the time it seemed to
+him that all he had so far done was to make costly mistakes.
+
+“Good morning, Miss Patterson,” he said to the stenographer. “Is my
+mail ready?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said the girl. “It’s on your desk.”
+
+She looked at him, when he turned away, with admiration: for he was
+tall, handsome enough with his thoughtful brown eyes and light wavy
+hair--and he was the son of J. J. Overbeck.
+
+He did not go to his own office immediately. He lingered in the outer
+office, staring at the rows of law-reports, bound in musty calf and
+newer buckram. He was pursuing a line of private psychological inquiry,
+not easily to be conducted when his father was there. His father
+would have asked, “What are you looking for?” and he would have had
+to give some sensible answer.... Perhaps it wasn’t the books, they
+were only law-books. He looked at the old leather-upholstered mahogany
+furniture.... He was trying to confront something about this office
+which obscurely intimidated him, made him feel foolishly young and out
+of place. It was absurd to feel that way, when he had won his first
+important case yesterday.... He turned to his office.
+
+As he passed Miss Patterson, he reflected that she obviously thought of
+him as grown up....
+
+He was sitting at his desk a minute or two later when the telephone
+rang. He lifted the receiver. “Yes?” he said. It was Miss Patterson.
+
+“Your sister just called up,” she said. (Doris? he thought.) “She
+didn’t want to disturb you and asked me to give you the message.”
+
+No, that wouldn’t be his kid sister Doris. She wouldn’t care whether
+she disturbed him or not. That was Lucinda. He frowned slightly, as the
+picture of that futile, pathetic, rather old-maidish sister came before
+him.
+
+“All right, what is it?” he asked patiently.
+
+“She wanted me to remind you that you promised to go and look at a dog
+for her. Out at Schwartz’s. It’s a Scotch terrier puppy. The one she is
+thinking of taking has a black spot over the left eye. She thought you
+might have forgotten.”
+
+It was true, he had forgotten, though she had spoken of it last night
+and again at breakfast this morning.
+
+“Thank you, Miss Patterson. If my sister should call up again, tell her
+I said I wouldn’t forget about it.”
+
+Why did he have to go and look at that dog? But that was just like
+Lucinda.... If Doris had wanted a dog, she’d have gone and bought it,
+without asking any advice.
+
+Whenever he thought of Lucinda, he consoled himself by thinking of
+Doris. An historical epoch seemed to have intervened between them. It
+was strange to think of them as being sisters. Families were queer
+things. Lucinda at thirty-five belonged to a decaying world; Doris at
+sixteen to another, a feverish and jazzy, but certainly a healthier
+one.... But families are not always pleasant things to think about.
+
+His mind went back to its interrupted thoughts about himself.
+
+--Yes, he reflected, he was grown up in everybody else’s eyes. Why
+not, then, in his own? He was twenty-five years old, and engaged to be
+married. He and Madge were going to be married in June. He had won that
+Harrington case. His future was secure. Why should he feel as though he
+were merely pretending to be what he was--and as though the pretense
+were likely to be found out at any moment, and he himself swept out
+into chaos like a scrap of paper in a high wind? What was he afraid of?
+There was nothing to be afraid of. He could cope with any situation
+that would arise. He was building himself securely into the solid
+structure of--of Vickley. He would be what his father had been. There
+was no doubt of it.
+
+He turned to his mail. He sorted it through rapidly, and finding
+nothing outwardly attractive and unbusiness-like to distract him, he
+opened the letters in turn. His day’s work had begun.
+
+The first two letters he made notations upon and put aside.
+
+The third letter puzzled him.
+
+It was from a Martha Zerneke, in Chicago--a person quite unknown to
+him, but, according to a small printed inscription in one corner of her
+letterhead, “Medical Director, St. Thecla Child Adoption Society.” The
+letter began pleasantly by hoping that he was coming, or could arrange
+to come to Chicago to attend the Springer exhibit at the Steinbach
+Galleries, April 4th to 18th, and preferably during the following week,
+when--as the letter went on strangely to say--she would like to have
+him call at her office concerning a matter of personal interest to him
+which it would not be so convenient to take up in correspondence. “Very
+truly yours.”
+
+After reading it, at first idly and then very carefully, he laid it
+aside as incomprehensible, and went on with his other mail. But having
+glanced at several letters, he took it up again, sat back in his chair,
+lighted a cigarette, and considered it thoughtfully.
+
+The reference to the Springer exhibit suggested that the letter was
+based upon some knowledge of his habits, for he made a point of running
+up to Chicago to see the most interesting of the picture shows; he had,
+in fact, planned to go to see this one, for he had been interested in
+Springer ever since he had seen him and his pictures back in Boston a
+year ago. So far the suggestion was of art matters. But the rest of the
+letter didn’t go to that tune. Indeed, the casual familiarity of the
+opening appeared to be a diplomatic disguise--as if for the benefit
+of any one else who might happen to open his mail in his absence! “A
+matter of personal interest to you which it would not be so convenient
+to take up in correspondence.” There was a veiled threat in that....
+What sort of matter was there that could not “conveniently” be taken
+up in correspondence? A matter of personal interest to him! And this
+from a doctor--a woman doctor. The Medical Director of a Child Adoption
+Society. Why, it was preposterous! Absurd!
+
+Perhaps he was reading into it some meaning that wasn’t there. He
+studied it carefully, and shook his head. If not that, what could it
+mean?
+
+His acquaintance with girls in Chicago was of the most casual sort.
+There was no one-- He had an impulse to throw the thing into the
+waste basket.... But if he ignored it, and this Dr. Zerneke did take
+up the matter in correspondence, it might become embarrassing. There
+was certainly some mistake; but that would be no protection if the
+thing--whatever it was--got into the newspapers. After all, appearances
+were against him. He had made trips to Chicago from time to time, and
+people would quite readily believe that it hadn’t all been for the
+sake of art. It would be a difficult position for the most innocent
+of men. And there was Madge to be considered. She might think there
+was something to it, and break off the engagement! And his father--oh,
+his father would believe him; but he would think he had made a fool of
+himself in some way, and that it was his fault that such a thing should
+ever have come up. Nobody had ever written a letter like that to J.
+J. Overbeck!... Doubtless because he attended strictly to the law,
+and did not waste his time prowling about art-galleries and studios.
+Perhaps it _was_ his own fault. Perhaps his father’s way of life was
+the only correct one, if he were to build himself into the solid
+structure of Vickley....
+
+It occurred to him that this was the sort of thing he had been
+awaiting, without knowing what it was--some accident that would crash
+down his life about him, and whirl him out like a scrap of paper on
+the wind.... Well, not so bad as all that! He was taking this much too
+seriously. But it did need thinking about.
+
+Under these circumstances--he smiled to himself--the proper thing to
+do was to consult a lawyer.... His father, of course, was the obvious
+person to consult, but he dismissed that idea instantly. Nor would he
+be likely to take up a thing like this with Medway, the chief clerk of
+Overbeck and Overbeck. Nor with any other lawyer in Vickley ... except,
+perhaps, old Gilbert....
+
+He considered a moment longer, and then abruptly put out his cigarette
+and took up the telephone.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II: Legal Advice
+
+
+GILBERT RAND--old Gilbert--was sitting, large and ruddy and cheerful,
+at a table in the corner of Henschel’s when Norman came in at
+twelve-thirty.
+
+There are various ways in which an elderly lawyer of repute may show
+consideration for a young and untried one, if he is so disposed. Old
+Gilbert had been so disposed on various occasions during the past year,
+for he liked the boy. He didn’t know what Norman wanted of him now
+except that it was something legal and personal, which nevertheless
+could be disposed of at lunch. Norman had suggested a quiet place
+where they could talk without interruption, and Gilbert had said that
+Henschel’s would do.
+
+He congratulated Norman on his victory in the Harrington case
+yesterday, to which Norman replied in a preoccupied way.
+
+“Now,” he said to Norman, when the luncheon was under way, “what’s on
+your mind?”
+
+Norman took the letter from his pocket and handed it over. “What do you
+think of this?” he said.
+
+Gilbert put on his glasses and read the letter; then he read it again.
+
+“A very clever piece of writing,” he said thoughtfully; “evidently
+intended to look as little like blackmail as possible.”
+
+Blackmail!
+
+“So you think so, too!” said Norman. “Well, what do you think I ought
+to do about it? Ignore it? or--what?”
+
+“That depends,” said Gilbert gravely. “If I’m to advise you, I’ll
+have to know something about the situation. Who the girl is--her
+circumstances and character: you’d better tell me the whole story. Then
+we’ll know where we’re at.”
+
+Norman was rather taken aback. But he saw the humor of it, and smiled.
+“Aren’t you taking a good deal for granted?” he said.
+
+Old Gilbert smiled back at him. “Oh,” he said, “the alibi part
+comes later. I realize, of course, that you are not necessarily the
+responsible party in this matter. Girls are sometimes unscrupulous
+about that sort of thing. The man who is in a position to pay gets
+saddled with the responsibility every time. You remember that case here
+in Vickley last winter, in Magistrate Cooley’s court--I saw you there,
+I remember.”
+
+“Look here,” said Norman. “You seem to accept it as a matter of
+fact--that I’m involved with some girl!”
+
+Gilbert glanced at the letter. “I thought,” he said, “that was what
+the letter was about. If I’m on the wrong track, you’ll have to set me
+right. What _is_ it about?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Norman. “But when I read it, I thought the same
+thing you did. It seemed like a veiled threat of blackmail. That’s
+what puzzles me. You see, I’ve never heard of this Dr. Zerneke--and as
+for the girl, if that’s what it hints at, as you also seem to think,
+I don’t know who she’s supposed to be. The whole thing comes out of a
+clear sky. I haven’t the least idea what it’s all about.”
+
+“That’s curious,” said Gilbert. “Let’s have another look at it.” He
+took it up, readjusting his glasses. “There _is_ something queer about
+this letter,” he said.
+
+“Damned queer!” said Norman.
+
+“I mean,” said Gilbert, “that it has an air of--well, of quiet
+certainty.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean,” said Norman, uncomfortably. Did old
+Gilbert think he was lying?
+
+“To begin with, you are known by the writer to be interested in art.
+That in itself is nothing much. But the fact is put forward in a
+rather suggestive way. The reference to the Springer exhibit and the
+Steinbach galleries looks as though it were intended to remind you of
+something.... Does it suggest anything to you--a girl you met at the
+Steinbach galleries, for example?”
+
+“I have not been in the habit of meeting girls at the Steinbach
+galleries--or any other galleries,” said Norman, a little on his
+dignity. “I know practically no girls in Chicago--and I certainly have
+made love to none of them.”
+
+“Well,” said old Gilbert, “there are hysterical girls who make strange
+accusations, upon slight or no provocation.”
+
+“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Norman. “It must be something like
+that.”
+
+“There’s some explanation for this letter,” said Gilbert. “Let’s see
+what we can make out of it. A girl in Chicago ... no, not necessarily
+in Chicago; she may have come there from somewhere. She goes to a
+doctor; we know nothing about this doctor, but presumably she knows her
+business. So we have to assume for the moment that the girl is actually
+in trouble. The doctor, apparently, is sympathetic. Money is evidently
+needed. The doctor undertakes to write to you.”
+
+“Yes--but why to me?”
+
+“Come, Norman; you are twenty-five years old, and so far as I know you
+have never taken any vows. How can you be sure that there’s no girl in
+the whole United States who couldn’t accuse you of having got her into
+this scrape?”
+
+Norman flushed. “I don’t want to pretend that I’m a saint,” he said.
+“But I’m not a cad, either; I’ve been engaged to Madge for six months,
+and I swear I haven’t looked at another girl in that time.... In fact,”
+he added, “you’ll see how absurd it is to think that I could be mixed
+up in such a thing, when I tell you that there’s been nothing of that
+sort in my life since I left Cambridge. There was a waitress there--but
+that was fully four years ago.”
+
+“Well, Norman, you ought to know. But the trouble with this matter is
+that it is so vague. If it mentioned a name, you would know where you
+are at. As it is, of course, you may have overlooked some trifling
+incident of no consequence to you at the time.”
+
+Norman laughed. “I’m not such a devil of a fellow as all that. I’d not
+be likely to forget such an incident.”
+
+“I hope you’re right. It might prove rather embarrassing to you if
+you went to this doctor in Chicago, indignantly convinced of your
+innocence, and then found you had made a little slip of memory.”
+
+“You think, then, that I ought to go and see this doctor?” Norman asked
+in surprise.
+
+“Somebody ought to go, and find out what it’s all about. There’s
+something that needs to be straightened out.... Mistaken identity,
+possibly.”
+
+“Yes--there’s that,” said Norman. “There may be some very simple
+explanation.”
+
+“In any case,” said Gilbert, “I don’t think it’s ordinary blackmail.
+A doctor, and especially one connected with a child adoption society,
+would hardly mix herself up with anything like that. And the whole
+tone of her letter shows a due consideration for your position. It’s
+written in such a way as not to make trouble for you if it fell into
+the wrong hands. And at the same time--or so it seems to me, though
+I’ve apparently stumbled into a mare’s nest--it attempts to remind you
+who the girl is.... That reference to the Steinbach Galleries--”
+
+“I said I knew no girls in Chicago,” Norman interrupted.
+
+“You might take a wider range,” suggested Gilbert.
+
+Norman made an impatient movement.
+
+“I’m only trying to help you,” said Gilbert.
+
+“I know, and at my own request,” said Norman. “But I thought we had
+cleared up the possibility of it’s being me who is involved.”
+
+“I suppose we have,” said Gilbert. “Well, I was going to propose this
+to you. I’m going to Chicago to-night, to see some people in connection
+with the Ostrander case; and I’ll go and see this doctor to-morrow
+if you like. I’ll be home Sunday, and your mind will be set at rest
+without undue delay.”
+
+“That’s damned good of you, Gilbert.”
+
+“Oh, it’s nothing.... Only you see, if I’m to act for you, I’d like to
+be quite sure of my facts.”
+
+“You can be quite sure the facts are as I’ve stated them,” said Norman
+comfortably.
+
+“Then I’ll take this letter with me,” said Gilbert. He folded it up and
+put it in his pocket. “However, there’s one more angle on this thing
+still to be checked up on.”
+
+“What angle is that?” asked Norman.
+
+“The Cambridge angle,” said Gilbert. “Nothing like being prepared for
+the worst, you know.”
+
+“But that,” said Norman, “is all ancient history now.”
+
+“Just the same, I’d better know something about it. When did these
+Cambridge incidents occur and what was the nature of them?”
+
+“Well, besides the waitress, there was just one incident, really,” said
+Norman. “It was just before I came home.... It seems ages ago.”
+
+“Actually, however,” said Gilbert, “it’s been something less than a
+year. Late June to early April--”
+
+“Ten--” said Norman, and then stopped, with a shock of dismay.
+
+“Ten months,” said Gilbert, “or to be exact, nine months and some
+days.” He looked at the young man questioningly. “Does that letter
+begin to mean anything to you now?”
+
+“It couldn’t be Isabel,” said Norman wonderingly. “And yet--”
+
+“Isabel?” said Gilbert inquiringly--suppressing a smile.
+
+Norman spoke with an effort. “Springer’s pictures.... It was with her
+that I first saw them. At his studio in Boston. She took me there.”
+
+Gilbert nodded. “And now,” he said, “this Isabel seems to be in
+Chicago, under the care of a doctor. It looks suspicious, doesn’t it?”
+
+“Oh, but that--it’s impossible!” said Norman.
+
+“For a girl to have an unexpected baby? I’m afraid not,” said Gilbert
+dryly. “Though this is rather late in the day for her to let you know
+about it.”
+
+“My God!” said Norman.
+
+The waiter appeared, and recommended the Mocha tarte.
+
+“I don’t think I want anything more,” said Norman faintly.
+
+“You’d better have some coffee. No? Then nothing for me either. Bring
+the check.”
+
+When the waiter was gone, he said: “There’s no occasion to look so
+upset. Girls have had by-blown babies before. And respectable Vickley
+citizens have been the fathers of them.”
+
+Then he added, more kindly: “We’ll go to my office, thresh the whole
+thing out, and decide what’s to be done.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III: The Way of the World
+
+
+GILBERT RAND, in his office, considered the boy sympathetically. “How
+do you feel now?” he asked.
+
+“Still in a sort of a daze,” Norman confessed.
+
+Gilbert took from his desk drawer a bottle and glasses. “A little shot
+of this will help steady your nerves.” He poured and they drank.
+
+“You realize,” said Gilbert, “that all this is merely a guess; there
+may be nothing to it whatever.”
+
+Norman shook his head. “It’s only too damned true,” he said. “I’m not
+going to try to fool myself about that.”
+
+“At any rate, we have to face it as a possible truth just now,” said
+Gilbert, “and think of ways and means to handle it. And if I seemed
+to take it lightly, it isn’t that I don’t understand the seriousness
+of the situation for you. You have a career ahead of you; you’re your
+father’s son; and you’re going to be married. This thing will have to
+be fixed up very quietly. But that’s not so difficult as you might
+think. I want you to know that I’m with you in this, and I’ll see you
+through it.”
+
+“It’s awfully good of you,” said Norman. “But what is there to do? You
+must forgive me if I seem stupid. I feel as though the roof of the
+world had fallen in.”
+
+“The first thing we have to do is to go over the facts of the case.
+With them in my mind, I will be able to deal with the situation,
+whatever it is, in Chicago. And I’ll be back here day after
+to-morrow--probably with everything all straightened out. All you have
+to do in the meantime is to keep smiling, and behave as if nothing had
+happened.... Now what’s the matter?”
+
+“I just remembered,” said Norman, “that I’ve got to see Madge to-night.”
+
+“Yes, that may be a little difficult,” said Gilbert.
+
+“I’m sorry to be such a fool,” said Norman. “But I don’t see how I can
+face her.”
+
+“Now don’t lose your nerve, my boy,” said old Gilbert kindly. “Just sit
+tight and keep mum--that’s all you have to do.”
+
+“That’s just the trouble,” said Norman.
+
+“I know how you feel,” said Gilbert. “But you won’t come wearing
+your secret on your face. You can easily invent some discouragement
+in your law practice to account for your jumpiness. Besides, it’s
+getting very near the time of your wedding; she’ll have her mind on a
+thousand other things besides your state of nerves. Women aren’t such
+good thought-readers as you might imagine.” Then, when Norman remained
+silent, he said sharply: “You wouldn’t be such an idiot as to tell her?”
+
+“I was thinking that I ought to,” said Norman. “She’ll have the right
+to know--a thing like this.”
+
+“Nonsense!” said Gilbert, and secretly cursed these modern ideas of
+frankness. Aloud he said: “There’ll be plenty of time to consider what
+there is to tell--if anything. There may be nothing, you know. You
+wouldn’t want to upset her needlessly.”
+
+“Oh, I’m sure you’ve guessed it right,” said Norman dully. “It will be
+only a question of sooner or later when she’ll have to know. I simply
+couldn’t get married with a thing like that hanging over us. It would
+come out some time--and I’d rather know the worst at once. If things
+are going to smash, it had better be before we are married.”
+
+“Now, now,” said Gilbert soothingly. “Nothing is going to smash. You’re
+all worked up and incapable of seeing things clearly. Everything is
+coming out all right, I tell you.”
+
+“You mean that this thing can be hushed up, I suppose.”
+
+“Yes, if there’s anything to hush up.”
+
+“That’s all very well. So far as the world at large is concerned,
+perhaps it could be hushed up. But--why should two people be married,
+with a secret like that between them? What kind of marriage would that
+be?”
+
+“Why, not so unusual a kind of marriage, I should say,” replied Gilbert
+coolly. “You don’t think men have to tell their wives everything, do
+you? By the way, have you told your fiancée anything at all about this
+Cambridge girl?”
+
+“No, I haven’t.”
+
+“You see, you’ve kept your little secret so far without any difficulty.”
+
+“But it didn’t really concern her--or it didn’t seem to--until now. It
+was only a part of my past, then--but now it affects our whole future.”
+
+“It won’t affect her future, if you keep a decent silence and let me
+attend to it,” said Gilbert. “Why didn’t you tell her anything about
+the Cambridge girl?”
+
+“Because it didn’t seem of any great importance,” said Norman. “And
+because she might be supposed to take something of that sort for
+granted. Perhaps I should have told her. It would make it easier now.
+But it would have hurt her feelings. I suppose that’s the reason why I
+didn’t.”
+
+“And a very good reason, too,” said Gilbert. “You did as any lover
+would do. And you still love her, don’t you?”
+
+“Madge? Of course I do!”
+
+“Yet now you seem to think the proper way to treat her is to inflict
+pain on her. I’d hate to believe you were that kind of moral weakling.”
+
+“I’m doubtless all sorts of moral weakling,” said Norman, “but I don’t
+know what you mean. It would take courage to tell her the truth.”
+
+“It will take more courage to keep your mouth shut,” said Gilbert.
+“It’s only the coward, the man who can’t bear the burden of his own
+sins, that has to go and blab them to his wife or sweetheart. If
+they’re his sins, he ought to be the one to suffer for them--not she.”
+
+Their minds, Norman realized, didn’t meet in this talk. There was a
+gulf of years between them. Old Gilbert was thinking of property and
+respectability, and not of human rights. And now he was talking about
+“sins.” No doubt if one believed that an illegitimate child was a sin,
+one repented it--and forgot it. But it wasn’t a sin to him; it was a
+fateful fact that had somehow to be faced.
+
+“Why,” old Gilbert was asking, “should a man want to drag the girl he
+loves into a thing like that--unless he wishes to hurt her?”
+
+“I don’t wish to hurt Madge. But she has a right to know what she’s
+getting into,” Norman insisted.
+
+“And if she decided not to marry you--as she easily might, if you came
+blurting it out like that--?”
+
+“That would be her privilege,” said Norman, tonelessly.
+
+“A nice privilege,” Gilbert commented. “A choice between a humiliation
+and an outrage--a marriage broken off at the last moment, or a secret
+scandal.”
+
+“It’s something she’ll have to decide about in any case, sooner or
+later,” said Norman. “And until she knows, the thing will be on my mind
+every moment. I shall feel like a dog, keeping it from her. She’ll go
+on making plans for our marriage--and all the while there’ll be this
+secret holding us apart.”
+
+“Do you think it would bring you together if you told her?” Gilbert
+asked ironically.
+
+“I don’t know. That’s what I don’t know. And I’ve got to find out....
+Perhaps not ... not unless she loved me a very great deal--more than I
+deserve. More than I’ve any right to expect.”
+
+“You’d like to give her a chance to prove how noble she is--how much
+she does love you: is that the idea? You’d throw her love for you
+into the gutter, to see whether she’d stoop and pick it up. I’m no
+psychologist, but I’d call that vanity.”
+
+Norman was silent.
+
+“Or else mere inexperience,” Gilbert went on. “You’ve just found out
+that some secrets are hard to keep. And because it hurts to keep a
+secret from the girl you love, you want to turn the world’s morality
+upside down.” That stab seemed to go home to its mark and Gilbert added:
+
+“Misery loves company. You’d like to share your unhappiness. Natural
+enough, perhaps. But heroic? No. Selfish.”
+
+“Oh, you’re probably right,” said Norman, suddenly weary. “I suppose it
+wouldn’t do to tell her....”
+
+Gilbert waited.
+
+“Everything seems to me--smashed,” said Norman. “But maybe something
+can be saved out of the wreck.”
+
+“If you’ll follow my advice, quite a number of things can be saved out
+of the wreck,” said Gilbert. “Your marriage, your career, your father’s
+pride.”
+
+“All right,” said Norman quietly. “I’ll do what you say. Just tell me
+what to do.”
+
+“I’m glad that you realize that you’re in no state of mind to decide
+on anything final right now,” said Gilbert. “I’ll be very glad to take
+charge of your destinies for a few days. Then you’ll feel differently.”
+
+“I’ve no doubt I shall. And I’ll be able to thank you properly. Just
+now it seems scarcely to matter....”
+
+“That’s all right. The thanks can wait. We’ll proceed to the other
+aspects of the case--if it’s settled that you are to be guided by me,
+and will say nothing about this to your fiancée till I get back from
+Chicago?”
+
+“Yes, that’s settled,” said Norman. “You’ve made it clear to me what a
+lie and sham marriage is. The trouble with me, I guess, is that I’ve
+not quite grown up; I seem to have some remnants of boyish idealism
+left in my mind. I had thought that this marriage was going to be
+real--that we weren’t going to have to lie to one another. I can see
+it’s nonsense.”
+
+“Men,” said Gilbert, “have lied to women since the dawn of history. The
+more they love them, the more they lie to them. You’ll be surprised to
+find how easy it comes. But just the same, I don’t think I had better
+trust that boyish idealism of yours too far right now. If I leave you
+here while I go to Chicago to straighten things out, you’ll have got
+them into some frightful mess by the time I’m back. I think I’d better
+take you along with me and keep an eye on you.”
+
+“I think that would be a good idea,” said Norman. “I’ll know the worst
+sooner. And if we could take the early train, I wouldn’t have to see
+Madge to-night.” In a shamefaced way he explained:
+
+“We were going to go over to see our new house that my father’s
+building for us: it’s nearly finished. I don’t think I could stand it.”
+
+“Very well,” said Gilbert. “Make your apologies by telephone, and we’ll
+take the six o’clock train this afternoon. Legal business in connection
+with the Ostrander case. I’ll reserve a compartment, and we can talk
+all the way. There’s still a lot to be gone over. And now you had
+better go home and pack.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV: Post Mortem on a Dead Romance
+
+
+“NOW,” said Gilbert Rand, in their compartment that evening, “do
+you want to tell me about this Cambridge girl, or shall I ask you
+questions?”
+
+“You’d better ask me questions. It’s never seemed quite real to me. I
+haven’t readjusted myself to it as a reality even yet.”
+
+Gilbert took out a pencil and paper.
+
+“What was her name? I think you referred to her as Isabel.”
+
+“Yes, Isabel Drury.”
+
+Gilbert wrote it down.
+
+The porter opened the door and looked in. “Did you ring, sir?”
+
+“No, but we could do with a little more air.”
+
+The porter opened the upper air-vents and went away.
+
+Gilbert went on with the inquisition.
+
+“Her age?”
+
+“Twenty-five.”
+
+“And yours was twenty-four. Well,” said Gilbert with satisfaction,
+“that clears up the matter of responsibility, at any rate. What was
+she? Stenographer, salesgirl, or what?”
+
+“I suppose,” said Norman slowly, “you’d call her an art student. She
+was studying art in Boston.” He was finding it difficult to put this
+matter in objective terms. Isabel had been to him a romantic mystery
+and a psychological puzzle and a symbol of the strangeness of life. But
+that wasn’t what old Gilbert wanted to know....
+
+“Art student.” Gilbert wrote it down. “Where did she come from, do you
+know?”
+
+Something of the satisfaction of old Gilbert’s tone reached his mind.
+He began to see Gilbert’s game. Isabel was to be made out as scarcely
+respectable. A Bohemian encounter. And, though that had in truth been
+the spirit of the affair, some perverse desire for fair play made him
+block that simple interpretation with some contrary facts.
+
+“Her father was a professor of Latin in a boys’ school. They had a
+place on the edge of Cambridge. Poor but terribly respectable.” And he
+added: “I was a guest at their home, more or less, when it happened.”
+
+Gilbert frowned. “How did you come to know her?”
+
+“The Drurys were neighbors of a classmate of mine. I spent a good many
+week-ends at his home. There were neighborhood parties, and Isabel was
+often there. We saw a good deal of each other that last winter and
+spring.”
+
+“What was your classmate’s name?” Gilbert asked casually.
+
+“Hal Sibley.” Then Norman looked suspiciously at his questioner. “See
+here, you mustn’t get him mixed up in this!”
+
+“Why do you say that?” Gilbert inquired blandly. “Was he interested in
+her too?”
+
+Norman flushed. “We were both romantic about her. But leave Hal out of
+this.” A disgust for these vulgar necessities of self-defense rose in
+him like nausea, and he said: “I couldn’t forgive myself if I thought
+you were trying to do that!”
+
+“Trying to do what?” asked Gilbert coldly.
+
+“Shield me by dragging in my friend.” Old Gilbert needn’t pretend he
+didn’t know what he was up to. “No, no--it won’t do. I’m not that kind
+of coward.”
+
+“I only wanted, my boy,” said Gilbert softly, “to take into account all
+the possibilities of the situation.”
+
+“Just the same, we’ll leave Hal out of this discussion.” A flicker of
+amusement in old Gilbert’s eyes made him feel a little ridiculous, and
+he added defensively: “He wouldn’t have dragged me in, if it had been
+he that was in this mess.”
+
+“You prefer not to consider that possibility?” asked Gilbert smoothly.
+
+Norman had the feeling of having mismanaged this matter. He had made it
+look as though he were quixotically shielding his friend. “Oh, go into
+it if you insist,” he said impatiently. “Only it’s a waste of time. I
+merely wanted to make it clear that I’m not going to try to--sneak out
+of my responsibility.”
+
+“Very well,” said Gilbert, “we’ll leave it at that for the present. Now
+as to the girl’s family: any brothers?”
+
+“No. An only child.” And Norman reflected that a girl’s brothers were
+her traditional protectors. That should please old Gilbert. He smiled;
+it was odd to think of Isabel as the menace against which he was being
+protected. He? His respectability, rather. The thing was out of his
+hands. Vickley was protecting itself. His career, his marriage, his
+reputation--these things belonged to Vickley. And old Gilbert had
+promised to guard them....
+
+“And the girl--” Gilbert was asking, “beautiful, I suppose?”
+
+Her image came powerfully before him--her slight figure, her pointed
+face with its grey-green eyes and shock of auburn hair. Beautiful? “In
+a sullen, discontented way: yes.” That, he thought, was sufficiently
+objective.
+
+“And you fancied yourselves hopelessly in love with one another?”
+
+“Not exactly.” He must try to explain it to old Gilbert. “I had been
+crazy about her all year--ever since I met her. Hal had talked to me
+about her. His favorite word for her was ‘elusive.’ And she was just
+that. She played with us in an imaginative sort of way. But she seemed
+emotionally untouched. She was scornful of the idea of love.”
+
+“Yes?” said Gilbert.
+
+“But when I was going away that summer, she seemed sorry we weren’t
+going to see each other any more. I stayed over a couple of weeks, at
+the Sibleys, before I came home. We saw more of each other. She told me
+things about herself--her ambitions. And she took me to see Springer’s
+pictures one day, just before I left. Coming back to her home that
+night, we lost ourselves in the woods. That was when we became lovers.”
+
+“You lost yourselves in the woods?”
+
+“We pretended we were lost. You see, everything had to be play between
+us. We always pretended all sorts of things. That night we pretended it
+was a wood near Athens.”
+
+“A wood near Athens?”
+
+“Midsummer-night’s-dream stuff. Perhaps you’d understand it if you knew
+her.”
+
+“Was there ever any question of marriage between you?”
+
+“There hadn’t been, up to then. I had--well, I had wanted to have a
+love affair with her. That was all. But in the woods, afterward, I
+was rather frightened about what we had done, and I said we must get
+married. I suppose I meant it. But fortunately she didn’t take me
+seriously. She laughed at me.”
+
+“She laughed at you?”
+
+“You see, love wasn’t a serious reality to her. It was just something
+to play at in idle moments. The only reality, to her, was art. She
+wanted to be a painter--a great painter.”
+
+Old Gilbert rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Sort of Rosa Bonheur, eh?”
+
+“I think she would have despised Rosa Bonheur. Gauguin was more in her
+line.”
+
+“And so that was how it began?”
+
+“Yes--and how it ended. I saw her for the last time the next day,
+before I went back to my rooms in Cambridge to pack. I didn’t get a
+chance to talk with her. She seemed to avoid that deliberately. She was
+more distant, more elusive, than ever.”
+
+“Did you tell your friend Hal what had occurred?”
+
+“Of course not.”
+
+“And then you came home to Vickley.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did you write to her?”
+
+“Three times. She didn’t reply.”
+
+“You were not under the impression that you were her first lover?”
+
+Norman hesitated. “I really know nothing about that. But for some
+reason I assumed that she had had lovers.”
+
+“She seemed sophisticated?”
+
+“In her talk, yes.”
+
+“You didn’t ask her about her previous experiences?”
+
+“One couldn’t have asked her a thing like that. But I think she wanted
+it to be taken for granted.”
+
+Old Gilbert looked puzzled. “She wanted to have it taken for granted
+that she was not a virgin?”
+
+“Yes. But afterward--I wasn’t so sure. I’m not, now. Or rather--I think
+I was really her first lover, in spite of the way she talked.”
+
+Old Gilbert considered that helplessly, shook his head, and changed the
+subject.
+
+“As to Springer,” he asked, “was he married?”
+
+“Not at that time. He’s been married since then.”
+
+“How did Springer behave when she brought you to his studio?”
+
+“Springer is a great clumsy bear. He’s friendly with everybody, unless
+he’s in one of his suspicious moods. He was very friendly that day.”
+
+“How well do you know him?”
+
+“I’ve seen him only that once. Isabel told me a great deal about him.”
+
+“Does he make much money with his painting?”
+
+“Not yet, I’m afraid. What are you getting at?” Norman demanded.
+
+“Were Isabel and Springer very great friends?”
+
+Norman smiled. “She admired his work very much.”
+
+“Do you think they had been lovers?”
+
+“That idea had never occurred to me.”
+
+“Let’s see,” said Gilbert. “The girl was elusive for a long time--and
+then suddenly friendly. The day she took you to Springer’s studio was
+the day she made love to you. Do you make anything out of that?”
+
+“Nothing at all.”
+
+“You thought of her as a mysterious and incalculable creature; but
+let us supply the _x_ and see how the problem works out. She had
+been Springer’s sweetheart. But Springer threw her over for another
+girl--the one whom he afterwards married. And so she consoled herself
+with you--perhaps trying to make him jealous. Doesn’t that clear up the
+strangeness of her behavior?”
+
+Norman tried hard to be objective. “It might be true. It merely doesn’t
+fit in with my conception of Isabel.”
+
+“I’ve described a very human sort of girl,” old Gilbert went on. “You
+had your romantic ideas about her, to be sure. Why shouldn’t she be
+elusive, with Springer for her lover? Until he got himself another
+girl. Then she turned to you. I admit that this explanation is not
+calculated to appeal to a young man’s vanity.”
+
+“After all, what does it matter?” said Norman.
+
+But Gilbert seemed to think it did matter. “You offered to marry
+her,” he pursued, “but in spite of what had occurred between you, she
+refused--because she was still in love with Springer. You wrote letters
+to her. It wasn’t you she was thinking about; it was Springer. And when
+she found she was pregnant, it wasn’t to you that she’d write, but to
+him. Now, does it look,” asked Gilbert, “as though she thought it were
+your child?”
+
+“But, Good Lord--!” said Norman in bewilderment.
+
+“Then Springer married the other girl; evidently refused to have
+anything more to do with her. And now at last she remembers you. In
+this emergency, your money would be a great convenience, no doubt.”
+
+Norman shook his head. “I can’t believe that she’d lie to me,” he said.
+
+“If you had gone to see her,” said old Gilbert with a tolerant smile,
+“she wouldn’t have had to lie. She’d only have had to remind you of
+that night in the woods, and your guilty conscience would have supplied
+the rest.”
+
+“I wish to God I could believe it,” said Norman.
+
+“Would you rather,” asked Gilbert, “believe yourself the father of her
+child?”
+
+“What I wish,” said Norman, “is that I could wake up and find that this
+was only a bad dream.”
+
+“That’s the way it will seem to-morrow night,” answered Gilbert
+cheerfully.
+
+Norman turned toward the window, and stared out at the dark, flying
+landscape. Every moment was bringing him nearer to the truth. To-morrow
+he would know the truth. But--he wished he could see Isabel himself.
+This wasn’t something that old Gilbert could handle for him.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V: Encounter
+
+
+IT wouldn’t, he realized fully, be sensible to see Isabel. And besides,
+it would be unfair to old Gilbert. He had promised to leave his
+destinies to his friend’s charge. He had better leave things as they
+stood.
+
+When Gilbert left the hotel after breakfast to keep his appointment
+with the lawyers representing the other interests in the Ostrander
+case, it was with the understanding that they were to meet again at
+lunch for a final conference before Gilbert’s visit to Dr. Zerneke.
+
+When Norman was left alone in their suite at the hotel, he wondered
+what to do with himself in the meantime.
+
+He went out and strolled up Michigan Boulevard.
+
+He passed the Steinbach Galleries.
+
+Strolling back, he passed the Steinbach Galleries again.
+
+Springer might be there, getting ready for his exhibit.
+
+Norman turned and went in.
+
+The place seemed to be empty. But as he went from one of the rooms to
+another, passing the little office, he heard young Steinbach’s voice,
+and then Springer’s.
+
+He stopped, and sat down on a cushioned bench in the middle of the
+room, staring unseeingly across at a painting of a Pueblo Indian dance.
+
+He supposed what he was doing was foolish. But he had to hear what
+Springer had to say--about him and Isabel.... For Springer would know
+about it all. Springer was her friend.... And if he could not go to see
+this doctor, if that must be left to Gilbert, yet here was something he
+could do, while he waited.... All Gilbert’s carefully-built-up edifice
+of caution and secrecy melted into mist, in his mind.
+
+He had been there three minutes when Springer came out of the office.
+Norman well remembered that dark bushy head and great lumbering frame.
+Norman rose.
+
+Springer paused, glanced at him idly, and took out his watch and looked
+at it in a bored way.
+
+There had been no recognition in that glance. Norman was disconcerted.
+He would have to introduce himself.
+
+“Mr. Springer,” he said.
+
+Springer looked at him inquiringly. “Yes?”
+
+“My name is Overbeck--Norman Overbeck.” And, since that seemed to mean
+nothing to Springer, he added: “I met you a year ago in Boston.”
+
+Springer offered his hand with the embarrassment of one who had a
+bad memory in social matters. “Ah, yes,” he said, with an effort at
+cordiality. “How are you?”
+
+It wasn’t at all what Norman had expected. It was quite obvious that
+Springer didn’t know who he was at all. So Isabel hadn’t told him!
+Norman readjusted his mind to that.
+
+“Well, how did you find Italy?” asked Springer absently, misled by some
+_ignis fatuus_ gleam of false recollection.
+
+Norman, ignoring this mistaken reference, said firmly: “Isabel Drury
+took me to your studio.”
+
+“Oh, yes!” said Springer. “You wrote a play. I remember now.”
+
+“No, I didn’t write a play,” said Norman indignantly. “I am a lawyer
+down in Vickley. I was at Harvard at the time, and”--he added--“a
+friend of Isabel’s.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” said Springer, confused and chagrined at his blunder. “I
+remember your face quite well. So you are one of Isabel’s friends. Have
+you heard of her good luck?”
+
+“Good luck?” Norman repeated, baffled.
+
+“Yes, she’s going to Paris. Some rich woman is subsidizing her for a
+year’s study--isn’t it fine!”
+
+“Yes,” said Norman. “But--”
+
+He scarcely took in the news about Isabel’s going to Paris.
+
+Was it possible that Springer didn’t know about what had happened
+to her? Or was he keeping that secret? Yes, naturally enough, a
+secret from an outsider.... That, Norman realized, was what he was to
+Springer--an outsider! Because Springer didn’t know. Isabel hadn’t told
+him that part of it. Maybe he didn’t know anything about it at all!
+
+“How is Isabel?” Norman asked abruptly.
+
+“Oh,” said Springer, “she’s all right.”
+
+“All right?”
+
+Why should he say that? Did he mean anything? Did he know anything?
+
+“I suppose,” said Norman, as casually as possible, “that you keep in
+touch with her?”
+
+“Well, yes,” said Springer.
+
+“I understand,” said Norman, “that she’s here in Chicago now.”
+
+“Why, yes, she is,” said Springer reluctantly.
+
+So it was true!
+
+“I’d like to see her,” said Norman. His heart was beating heavily.
+“Where is she?”
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact, she’s--not seeing anybody. She’s just
+recuperating from an operation for appendicitis.”
+
+The usual lie! Springer said it with an air of protecting her from
+intrusive acquaintances. And Norman couldn’t say: “You mean she’s just
+had a baby!” No, he had to accept what Springer told him. He was an
+outsider.
+
+“Is that so?” he said, and his voice mechanically took on the proper
+tone of sympathy and courteous interest.
+
+Springer, having got past that point, spoke more fluently and easily.
+“She’s going to Michigan to rest up for a few weeks, and then go on to
+Paris,” he said.
+
+Norman wanted to ask him at what hospital she was. But he felt that
+Springer would evade that question.
+
+“I’d like to see her before she goes,” he said.
+
+“Are you going to be in town long?” asked Springer.
+
+“No--a day or two.”
+
+“I’m afraid there’s no chance,” said Springer.
+
+“I suppose not,” said Norman.
+
+The subject seemed closed.
+
+“I’m having a show here next week,” said Springer.
+
+“Yes, I would like to see it,” said Norman.
+
+Springer held out his hand.
+
+“Well, I may run into you here again,” he said.
+
+Norman was dismissed.
+
+He was conscious of two emotions--of annoyance with Springer, and,
+strangely enough, of an enormous relief. It was all true! He hadn’t
+doubted it, really, but something in his mind accepted this new
+evidence with gratitude. It was as though an unendurable tension had
+been relaxed. So Isabel had had a baby....
+
+And then it occurred to him that he didn’t know whether her baby was
+alive or dead.
+
+He had to go to see Dr. Zerneke.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI: Dr. Zerneke
+
+
+HE went to a telephone booth. He did not need to look in the book: Dr.
+Zerneke’s phone number was fixed in his mind.
+
+A girl’s voice answered the telephone. He gave his name.
+
+“Yes, Mr. Overbeck,” said the girl. “Dr. Zerneke is expecting you. Can
+you come right over?”
+
+“I’ll be there immediately,” he said.
+
+The taxi stopped in front of an apartment building on the North Side.
+The name, Dr. Martha Zerneke, was on a plaque in one of the front
+windows. He rang the bell, and a young woman admitted him.
+
+He gave his name.
+
+“Oh, yes,” she said. “Just wait in here a moment, please.”
+
+She opened the door of the reception room, and went back to her desk.
+
+He began to wonder why he had come. He ought to leave this part of it
+to Gilbert!
+
+There were three women in the room. One by one they were called into an
+inner office by the office nurse.
+
+Then it was his turn.
+
+As he walked across the room, his mind whirled. But part of his mind
+didn’t care. He would know the whole truth, now.
+
+A small dark woman seated at a desk rose and held out her hand.
+
+“How do you do, Mr. Overbeck.”
+
+“Dr. Zerneke?”
+
+“Yes. You received my letter?”
+
+“You asked me to come to see you.”
+
+“It is very good of you to come. Sit down, please.”
+
+Norman took the chair at the corner of the desk.
+
+“My letter,” said Dr. Zerneke, “wasn’t very explicit, I’m afraid. But
+possibly you guessed something of its meaning. If you didn’t, I can
+make the situation clear to you.”
+
+Norman had an impulse to delay matters, by pretending ignorance. If
+he had not talked with old Gilbert--if he had not met Springer--if he
+had walked in here unsuspectingly--what would she have said? She had
+offered just now to make the situation clear to him.
+
+“Please do explain,” he said.
+
+“I’m sorry if my letter appeared unduly mysterious, Mr. Overbeck.
+You’ll understand in a moment why I felt obliged to write as I did. The
+fact is that I need your assistance in a small technical matter.”
+
+So that, thought Norman, was how she would have begun!
+
+“You said, I believe,” he remarked, still keeping to his rôle of
+ignorance, “that it was of personal interest to me.”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, “sufficiently so that I feel sure you will go to
+some little trouble to oblige us in the matter.”
+
+“I should be glad to do anything I can,” he said. This, at least, was
+a way of postponing the inevitable for a few moments. He felt like a
+shipwrecked man who is holding to a plank and keeping his head above
+water while in the distance a great wave is sweeping down upon him. And
+at the same time he felt strangely calm.
+
+“I am confident that you will, when I explain,” said the doctor. “Your
+name has been given me by one of my patients under circumstances which
+oblige me to ask for your assistance and coöperation. The matter is
+a little unusual: that is why I go at it in this somewhat elaborate
+manner. And because of its character, I think I ought to begin by
+assuring you that the question of money is not involved. I want to make
+that plain first of all.”
+
+“I see,” said Norman.
+
+“Very well,” said the doctor. “Now as to my patient. A year ago, Mr.
+Overbeck, if I am rightly informed, you were going to law school at
+Harvard.”
+
+“Yes,” he said. The great wave hung overhead, about to fall.
+
+“At that time you were acquainted with a girl named Isabel Drury.
+Recently she has come under my care, and--”
+
+Enough of this farce of ignorance!
+
+“I know,” said Norman, “she has had a baby.”
+
+“Oh--you know that?”
+
+“It’s true, then!”
+
+“Yes. And for certain reasons, Mr. Overbeck--”
+
+“It’s--alive?”
+
+“Oh, yes.”
+
+“A--a boy or girl?”
+
+“A boy. And for certain reason which I’ll explain in a moment, it is
+desirable to have a record of the paternity in these cases. It is
+for this purpose only, that Miss Drury has consented to allow me to
+communicate with you.”
+
+“Tell me,” said Norman impatiently, “when did it happen?”
+
+“What? Oh, the baby was born eleven days ago.--The matter,” she
+went on, returning to her argument, “is entirely a private one, you
+understand....”
+
+“How did she--come through it?” Norman asked.
+
+“The delivery,” said the doctor, “was a somewhat difficult one, but she
+stood it very well.”
+
+“She’s all right now?” Norman persisted.
+
+“Oh, quite all right. She’ll be able to leave the hospital within a
+week or so.”
+
+“And the baby?” asked Norman.
+
+“The baby is a very healthy child. No physical defects. Six pounds at
+birth, now about six and a half.”
+
+“Isn’t that rather small?” Norman asked anxiously.
+
+The doctor smiled. “Not at all,” she said, “especially not for a first
+child. A very good weight, in fact. And now as to yourself.”
+
+“Yes?” said Norman anxiously.
+
+“Do you mind my asking you a few questions?” She drew a sheet of paper
+toward her. “How old are you?”
+
+“Twenty-five,” said Norman in surprise.
+
+“Have you recently had a thorough medical examination?”
+
+“I took out some insurance recently,” he said, wondering what this was
+all about. “I was examined then.”
+
+“Will you take off your coat and vest, please?” she asked firmly.
+
+He obeyed with some inward astonishment, and followed her into an
+inner office, where he was weighed on her scales, seated on a kind of
+trestle, and thumped and listened to in chest and back.... “Am I all
+right?” he asked haughtily when they went back into the other office.
+
+The doctor smiled. “You seem to be. Don’t put on your coat yet. Have
+any of your family ever had tuberculosis?”
+
+“No,” he said.
+
+“Epilepsy?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Insanity?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Roll up your sleeve, please.”
+
+He did so, obediently.
+
+“This will only take a moment.” She put a tourniquet around his upper
+arm and tightened it. She took out a queer shaped instrument of glass,
+partly wrapped with cotton, and with a needle on the end.
+
+“What is that?” he asked curiously.
+
+“A Kiedal tube,” she replied. She sterilized the needle, and dabbed
+with alcohol a spot on the skin of his upper arm. “Double up your
+fist--hard.”
+
+She skilfully thrust the needle point into a swollen vein, and pressed
+upon the cotton about the tube, which immediately filled with blood.
+She withdrew the needle, took off the tourniquet, and dabbed again at
+his arm with alcohol.
+
+“What is that for?” he asked.
+
+“For a Kahn blood test,” she replied. “Now you may put on your coat and
+vest. Can you give me a statement from your family doctor about your
+family history--as to the hereditary diseases I asked you about?”
+
+“Why--I suppose so. Yes, I’m sure I can. But why do you want to know
+these things?”
+
+“Oh--I thought I had explained that, Mr. Overbeck. It is always
+desirable in these cases, when possible.”
+
+“But what is it all about?” he asked. “You see, I am engaged to another
+girl. Do you think I ought to marry Isabel, in order to legitimate the
+child? Is that why you sent for me?”
+
+The doctor looked surprised. “Apparently I have not yet made the
+situation quite clear,” she said. “No, that wasn’t why I sent for you.
+It is, as I told you, merely a technical matter. With a medical record
+of paternity, showing that the child is free from hereditary disease,
+a more desirable adoption can be effected. There was no intention of
+embarrassing you further. As for these medical records, they will be
+sealed and filed with the St. Thecla Child Adoption Society, of which
+I am the medical director. These records are secret, and can’t even be
+brought into court. Under these circumstances, I felt sure you wouldn’t
+mind giving us this assistance.”
+
+“I--no; I mean yes,” said Norman weakly, as with that word “secret”
+ringing in his mind the world righted itself from topsy-turviness and
+settled down about him--familiar, solid, secure.... He could marry
+Madge, his career would not be affected, everything would be just as
+old Gilbert had prophesied....
+
+“And I thank you very much,” said the doctor, rising and holding out
+her hand.
+
+“Then--that’s all?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, that’s all--except for the family medical history that you
+promised to send me. You won’t forget that?”
+
+“No, I won’t forget. But if you can spare the time--a moment or
+two--I’d like to know something further about what’s going to be done
+with the baby.”
+
+“Certainly,” said the doctor, resuming her seat. “I’ll be glad to
+explain that to you. Just what is it you want to know?”
+
+“Well,” said Norman uncomfortably, “I really don’t know--but I don’t
+quite like the idea of adoption!”
+
+“Yes,” said the doctor, “some people feel that way. It offends them
+to think of the child being separated from its natural mother.” And
+she went on, in an impersonal manner to speak of the different laws of
+different states--something about the mother having to keep her babies
+herself....
+
+“This,” Dr. Zerneke commented, “is supposed to be good for the girl’s
+character. In some cases, no doubt it is. And it at least makes it
+rather unlikely that those girls will have any more illegitimate
+babies. That, I sometimes think, is the real reason for putting that
+burden on them.”
+
+Norman felt confused by these generalizations. This wasn’t exactly what
+he wanted to know....
+
+“Social workers believe, theoretically,” the doctor went on, “that
+both parents should be held as strictly as possible to their
+responsibilities for children born out of wedlock. But in actual
+practice that means compelling the girl to take care of the baby, with
+some inadequate financial aid, if any at all, from the man....”
+
+Norman would have felt indignant, except that she seemed to have
+forgotten that he was one of those men she was talking about.... Yes,
+she was ignoring his personal interest in the question altogether. She
+was treating him as though he were some visitor who had inquired about
+the work of her society.... It was queer....
+
+“The fact is,” she was saying, “that there isn’t any right solution of
+the problem of illegitimacy. If we had a decent civilization, any baby
+would be legitimate. To have babies is a natural function of women.
+But the penalties for having them outside of marriage are still pretty
+severe; and when there are homes where these children are wanted,
+there seems to be no reason for penalizing the children. That’s why we
+undertake to get these children adopted.”
+
+“Yes, but--who is going to take Isabel’s baby?” Norman made himself ask.
+
+“The Society has a large waiting list,” said the doctor. “The
+applicants are thoroughly investigated.”
+
+“Do you mean that you can’t--or won’t tell me?”
+
+“I shouldn’t think of telling you,” said the doctor.
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“It makes trouble in the future,” said the doctor. “The adoptive
+parents want to be assured of untroubled possession of the child. The
+girl sometimes changes her mind and tries to get her child back.”
+
+“Then Isabel isn’t to know who they are, either?”
+
+“No more than you. If there were any chance of a parent turning up
+later to reclaim the child, they would refuse to take it. You can see
+that, Mr. Overbeck.”
+
+“And Isabel agrees to this?”
+
+“She trusts us to do the best for the child.”
+
+“Has she--signed over the child yet?”
+
+“Not yet. If you have any doubts of the Society I represent, Mr.
+Overbeck, its record is easily looked up. In fact, Mr. Overbeck, since
+you are a lawyer, I wish you would make an investigation, and advise
+Miss Drury accordingly. The one thing we are anxious to avoid is the
+charge of exerting undue influence upon the mothers of these children.”
+
+Norman was conscious of a feeling of frustration which he could not
+quite understand.
+
+“I shall certainly make inquiries about the Society,” he said. “But I
+might remind you that there are my rights, as well as the mother’s, to
+be considered.”
+
+“I’m sorry to have to correct you on a legal point,” said the doctor
+drily, “but the fact is that you have no legal rights to or over Miss
+Drury’s child.”
+
+“Is that true?”
+
+“You’ll find it to be quite true, Mr. Overbeck.”
+
+Norman was silent for a long moment. Then he looked up and said:
+
+“I must see her--Isabel. Can I?”
+
+“Certainly,” said the doctor, “as far as I am concerned. If she wishes
+to see you.”
+
+“Why shouldn’t she wish to see me?” Norman demanded.
+
+“She may feel that the fact that you are her child’s father gives you
+no special claim upon her.”
+
+“Why do you say that?”
+
+“She was quite unwilling for me to communicate with you at all. She
+particularly said that she did not wish to see you.”
+
+“She said that?”
+
+“But she may feel differently about it now. I am only warning you.”
+
+“I’ll call her up and ask her,” said Norman grimly.
+
+“I’ll call up for you, if you like, right now, and find out.”
+
+“Do, please,” said Norman coldly.
+
+“Do you wish to see her this morning?”
+
+“The sooner the better.”
+
+The doctor lifted the receiver and called the number.
+
+“Obstetrical B, please.... Miss Higginson? This is Dr. Zerneke. Please
+send word to Miss Drury in Room 37 that Mr. Norman Overbeck would like
+to visit her this morning.... Yes, Over-beck.”
+
+Norman waited.
+
+“Yes.... She will? Thank you.”
+
+Dr. Zerneke turned to Norman. “It’s all right. You can go at eleven.
+But I will have to remind you that emotional scenes are not good for
+nursing mothers. And don’t stay longer than fifteen or twenty minutes.”
+
+“Very well,” said Norman, and rose impatiently.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII: Flowers
+
+
+HIS taxi passed a florist’s shop, and he leaned forward and pounded on
+the window. “Stop a minute. Yes, right here.”
+
+It might be ridiculous-- But why should it be ridiculous? A girl who
+had a baby, a girl in bed in a hospital, would like to have flowers
+brought by a visitor, surely. Any girl!
+
+In the shop, he looked about at the banked flowers in uncertainty.
+
+“We have some very nice American Beauty roses,” said the salesman,
+leading him toward the glass fronted refrigerator. He took out
+a bunch of long stemmed buds. “Fifteen dollars a dozen.” Norman
+felt uncomfortable. He was vaguely apprehensive of the emotional
+inappropriateness of American Beauty roses for this occasion.
+
+Something yellow caught his eye. “Jonquils,” he said. “Let me see
+those.”
+
+“A dollar a dozen,” said the salesman, without enthusiasm.
+
+Norman hesitated. A husband, a lover, a dear friend, might give the
+yellow flowers she liked. But what was he? Isabel had always that power
+of making him feel at a loss. From a moment of intimacy she could
+withdraw herself until he felt infinitely remote, the most casual of
+acquaintances, almost a stranger.
+
+He bought the roses.
+
+In the taxi, he had a disconcerting picture of himself, with stick and
+gloves and tissue-wrapped bouquet. It seemed altogether too jaunty.
+He felt like a silly-ass character in a story by P. G. Wodehouse.
+Vindictively he accused himself of being really that--a superficial
+person, with no capacity for dealing with the serious aspects of life.
+Yes, what should a P. G. Wodehouse young man be doing in a Tolstoian
+situation? But real life seemed to be like that.
+
+Abruptly he knocked on the glass window. “Drive back to that
+florist’s,” he ordered.
+
+The driver turned the corner, rounded the block, and drew up at the
+florist’s shop again.
+
+“Give me two dozen jonquils,” said Norman to the salesman.
+
+When they were wrapped up and paid for, he handed back the other
+bouquet. “You can keep these,” he said, and walked out.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII: Isabel
+
+
+THE taxi brought him to the hospital a few minutes after eleven. He
+went up to Obstetrical Ward B. To a nurse who sat at a desk in the
+corridor he gave his name. “I would like to see Miss Drury in room
+thirty-seven.”
+
+“Just a minute,” said the nurse, and pressed a button on her desk.
+Presently another uniformed young woman appeared. “Take this visitor to
+room thirty-seven, Miss Paget.”
+
+He accompanied the young woman down the corridor.
+
+She tapped at a door, opened it slightly, and glanced in. “A visitor
+for you,” she said, and ushered Norman in.
+
+On a small high bed lay Isabel, her pointed face framed in loosely
+strewn locks of short auburn hair against her pillow. She raised her
+head a little as the door closed behind him.
+
+“Oh,” she said, and smiled, “it’s you.” A thin arm was withdrawn
+languidly from under the coverlet, and a hand was offered to him. It
+seemed strangely frail for her hand. She seemed queerly thin and white.
+He put his hat, stick and bouquet upon the little table by the bed, and
+bent over her hand. A sudden emotion flooded him so that he could not
+speak for a moment. He held her thin hand to his lips. He would have
+dropped on his knees beside the bed--but that would have been awkward,
+the bed was so high. His sense of the ridiculous helped him to recover
+his self-possession.
+
+“Isabel!” he said.
+
+“Yes, here I am,” she said. “Who would have thought it would come to
+this?” Her face was lit up by one of her amused ironic perceptions. How
+well he knew that look!
+
+“The wood near Athens,” he said.
+
+“Yes--the wood near Athens! But do sit down, Norman.”
+
+He drew the chair up close to her bed.
+
+“I hope you understand,” she went on, “that it really isn’t my fault
+you’ve been dragged into all this. Dr. Zerneke explained everything to
+you, didn’t she?”
+
+He nodded, not quite able to trust himself to speak.
+
+“I didn’t think I’d see you at all,” she said. “I thought it would be
+simpler not to. But when you called up, that seemed to me rather silly.”
+
+“Why didn’t you want to see me?” he asked.
+
+“Well--everything was settled, and I didn’t want things upset.
+I haven’t got my strength back yet, and I didn’t feel equal to
+arguing with you. I remembered you as being rather controversially
+conventional, you know.”
+
+“I suppose I am rather conventional,” he said humbly. “But what did
+you think my attitude would be, about this?”
+
+“Oh, I thought you might be shocked at the idea of my deserting my
+child. I thought you might preach the duties of motherhood to me--that
+sort of thing. You remember, we once had an argument about it. You
+thought woman’s destiny after all was the home. I suppose it is, for
+most of them. But I’ve got to paint, Norman. I can’t give up my life to
+a baby. Please don’t think I’m heartless. But I’m not going to let a
+biological accident change my whole life.”
+
+“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” Norman asked abruptly.
+
+“Well, I didn’t know for a long time.”
+
+“You didn’t know!”
+
+“At least I wouldn’t believe it. I was an awful fool, Norman. You
+see, I’d always thought of myself as an artist--not a woman. I simply
+couldn’t admit the possibility of such a thing as my having a baby. You
+remember, when you were afraid this might happen, and I laughed and
+said oh, it would be all right? That was just my sublime egotism!” She
+laughed. “I thought it _couldn’t_ happen to me.”
+
+“But you found out you were a woman after all,” he said solemnly.
+
+She stirred restlessly beneath the coverlet. “I found out that my body
+is a woman’s body,” she said. “And that still seems queer to me. Yes,
+apparently it’s true that this body of mine is a baby-factory, just
+like other girls’ bodies. And what a strange and cumbersome process
+it is, Norman! I’ve a good chance to observe it, you see. I was under
+ether during the final crisis, so I can’t speak of that. But I saw and
+felt enough to make me wonder at women--why they stand for it, being
+made use of this way as baby-producers. I suppose Nature traps them
+into it--and then they accept their fate. But I’m not going to! My body
+has been used nine months for a purpose that I never consented to--used
+and occupied and then torn and mangled--but I’m free now at last, and
+I’m going to stay free. My body may be a woman’s body, but my thoughts
+are not a woman’s thoughts. I have something else to do than take care
+of a baby! And even my silly body seems to know that at last.--I’m
+supposed to be a milk-producing animal now, a kind of contented cow
+with bloated udders. But my milk is drying up. Dr. Zerneke says it is
+because of my mental conflict. My mind, you see, is resuming possession
+of my body. Soon it will be all mine again. And then I shall be a
+painter once more, and never a woman again, Norman.
+
+“And yet,” she continued, “there has been one good thing about it. It
+has set me free from my family. They’ve repudiated me, thank God!--let
+me go my own way at last. I suppose that was why I could be so calm
+about it, and practically think nothing about it for so many months. I
+had nothing to lose when the truth came out--except my respectability.
+Nothing to lose but my chains, and a world to gain, as the soap-box
+orators say. And it was worth it. I comforted myself with that thought,
+Norman, when the pain came--that I was giving birth to a bastard child,
+and my shocked family would never lay loving hands on me again to drag
+me back into the fold. I was buying my freedom at last by going through
+that torture.”
+
+“Don’t!” said Norman involuntarily.
+
+“I’m sorry!” she laughed and reached out a white hand and patted his
+bent head as though he were a child. “I shouldn’t have talked that way.
+Poor boy, I’ve shocked you again. I suppose you came here to see a
+Madonna. I never could live up to your romantic expectations, Norman.
+You’d better stop trying to understand me. There’s no reason why you
+should be bothered. It’s no concern of yours.”
+
+“It seems to me,” said Norman, choking a little as he tried to speak,
+“that it--is--a concern of mine.”
+
+“I didn’t intend that it should be. Did it upset you when you heard
+about it?”
+
+“Naturally it upset me. But Dr. Zerneke’s letter was so diplomatic that
+at first I didn’t know what it was all about.”
+
+“That’s my fault. I made her promise to write very diplomatically. I
+thought of you in the bosom of your family there in Vickley--you might
+have forgotten the girl who led you astray back in Cambridge. I told
+her to say that I was the girl who took you to Springer’s studio.”
+
+“She mentioned Springer,” said Norman, and he thought of all
+the trouble that mention had caused--old Gilbert’s surmises of
+double-dealing. How far away that coil of respectability seemed now!
+
+“I saw him at Steinbach’s this morning,” he said.
+
+“Springer? Yes, he has a show on at Steinbach’s next week. He’s done
+some very fine things. You ought to see them.”
+
+“He spoke of you.”
+
+“He and Roberta have been very good to me. I don’t know what I’d have
+done without them. It’s nice, too, his being in Chicago now. I have
+somebody to talk to. And he’s got me a place to stay, in Michigan,
+until I’m able to stand the trip across. You’ve heard of my luck, I
+suppose? I’m going to study in Paris! I owe that to them, too. They’ve
+found me the sort of patron every young artist dreams about. A rich
+woman in Boston is giving me my traveling expenses and fifteen dollars
+a week for a year. With three hundred francs a week in Paris, I shall
+feel that I own the world!”
+
+“Does Springer approve of--your plans?”
+
+She frowned. “Springer is a dear,” she said, “but he can’t forget that
+I am a woman, and he doesn’t believe that women _can_ be artists in a
+serious way. See what he’s done to Roberta--”
+
+“Roberta is his wife, I take it?”
+
+She nodded. “Roberta had a great deal of promise as a painter. But
+she’s settled down to just being a painter’s wife. I think that’s why
+she has done all these things for me--to give me my chance.”
+
+“Then _he_ doesn’t think you ought to go to Paris?”
+
+“He doesn’t say anything about it. But he’s not very enthusiastic.”
+
+“What does he want you to do?”
+
+“I don’t know. Secretly, I suppose, he thinks I ought to give up my
+career and live for my child. Something of that sort.”
+
+“And you consider that--quite out of the question, I suppose.”
+
+“Yes, Norman. I’ve tried to tell you why. And I don’t think any sort
+of compromise would do--such as keeping the baby and going on with
+my career. I’d not be a good mother. It just wouldn’t work out. It
+wouldn’t be good for the child to have a mother like that. The only
+sensible thing is to have the baby adopted by people who do want one.”
+
+“Even if you know nothing of these people, Isabel?”
+
+“Dr. Zerneke knows them. And I’m sure they couldn’t be worse parents
+than I should be!”
+
+“Suppose,” said Norman, “they should be conventional people--and the
+boy should inherit your talent. They wouldn’t understand him. They’d
+try to discourage him.”
+
+“If he were an artist, that wouldn’t keep him from being one.” Then
+Isabel smiled. “But why not suppose that he will inherit your traits,
+Norman? That’s quite as likely. And then he’d get along perfectly well
+in his bourgeois environment.”
+
+“So that’s what you think of me--as a perfectly bourgeois person,” said
+Norman.
+
+“You’ve managed to make terms with the world you live in,” she said, “I
+thought you got along with it very comfortably.”
+
+“So I did,” he said, “until yesterday--when this thing came up. This
+has knocked the foundations of my old life to pieces.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” said Isabel. “I hope it’s not as bad as that. This needn’t
+affect your life.”
+
+“It does,” said Norman. “There’s no use pretending. Isabel, won’t you
+marry me?”
+
+She took his hand between both of hers for a moment. “It’s terribly
+sweet of you to want to, Norman. But we’ve already discussed that, back
+at Cambridge. You remember.”
+
+“I remember that you didn’t want to marry a bourgeois young lawyer and
+settle down to a life of teas and bridge in Vickley,” he said. “But
+now--I’m afraid you’d not be marrying a prosperous lawyer in Vickley,
+Isabel. You’d be marrying”--he smiled--“a ruined man and an outcast.”
+
+“You make it very attractive, Norman,” she said. “It’s a temptation to
+marry you, just to ruin you. But the trouble is, the marriage which
+would be your ruin would make me a respectable woman again. I can’t
+venture that. I’ve too recently escaped from prison to give up my
+freedom. I won’t marry you, Norman.”
+
+“Is that your real reason?” he asked.
+
+“Marriage is marriage, Norman. I’m going to Paris to paint. You want to
+keep me here, looking after your baby. No, thank you.”
+
+“Is that the real reason?” he repeated.
+
+“What else? Oh, I suppose you mean, do I love you?”
+
+“Perhaps that’s what I do mean. But I suppose I know the answer
+already.”
+
+“If I weren’t going to be a painter, I could love you, Norman. If I
+were a real girl, I’d be proud to have your babies. I’m sorry, for your
+sake--and perhaps for my own--that I’m such a queer monster as I am,
+and--and not a nice girl for you, Norman.”
+
+She turned her head away from him and flung her arm up to cover her
+face. She was crying.
+
+“Go away,” she said, after a moment.
+
+He thought with a thrill that this wild girl might yet be conquered....
+And then he remembered that he mustn’t upset Dr. Zerneke’s patient.
+
+He rose, contritely.
+
+She found a handkerchief under her pillow, and wiped her eyes, and
+turned toward him. He was fumbling with the tissue wrappings of the
+bouquet.
+
+“Oh, flowers!” she cried. And then, as he unwrapped them: “Jonquils! I
+love them! How nice of you to remember!”
+
+She is a girl, after all! thought Norman.
+
+“Put them in the water pitcher,” she told him.
+
+He did so.
+
+“And now come here and kiss me.”
+
+He bent over her, and their lips touched. What did that kiss mean?
+Gratitude, to be sure. A lonely girl in a hospital.... He wished he
+could believe it was more.
+
+“Norman, dear,” she said softly, “will you forgive me for being--what I
+am?”
+
+“But are you that, really?” he asked. “I wish I knew!”
+
+“Yes--yes--yes!” she cried, raising herself up from her pillow. “Don’t
+be fooled by a few silly tears, Norman. The real me is in Paris now,
+sitting before an easel in a paint-smeared smock. You’ve found me weak
+and helpless, but I’ve that hope. And if I didn’t have it, as God knows
+I mightn’t have--if I didn’t have Paris to look forward to and three
+hundred francs a week for a year and no questions asked--if I had been
+penniless and scared, I might have married you, Norman. But you’d only
+have had my woman’s body--my thoughts would never have stayed with you.
+That’s the truth, and we’re both lucky to have escaped such a trap.
+Think! if you’d given up everything for me, and then found you could
+never really have me--and if I had given up my dreams for food and
+shelter--we’d have hated each other, Norman.”
+
+“It isn’t just us,” he said. “Isabel, it’s our son. Couldn’t we--”
+
+She bit her lip and shook her head.
+
+“Besides,” she said, “you’re engaged to another girl. Hal told me so.”
+
+“What does that matter, now?”
+
+“She’ll give you another son.”
+
+“Doesn’t,” he asked desperately, “doesn’t it mean anything to you?”
+
+“Why,” she asked wonderingly, “should our child mean so much to you?
+You’ve never even seen him.”
+
+“I want to see him.”
+
+“You can. But don’t you understand--”
+
+“I understand that he would interfere with your career, yes,” said
+Norman harshly.
+
+“Hate me if you want to. But I am what I am. And if I’ve nursed this
+baby at my breast, and still think of myself as an artist and not as
+a mother--” She paused.... “Norman--I fought out this wife and mother
+business once before--when I was eighteen. I was engaged. And I was
+really in love ... more than I ever will be again. But I saw what
+marriage would do to me, and I wouldn’t go through with it. My mother
+tried to make me. But I wouldn’t--I couldn’t. I settled it for myself
+then that I was going to be an artist, and not a wife and mother. I
+don’t suppose you’ll ever understand. But there’s no use arguing with
+me. I’ve my own road to go.”
+
+“But to give your child away to strangers--!” he protested bitterly.
+
+She sank back on her pillow. “I can’t talk to you any more,” she said
+wearily. “You’d better go.”
+
+“I want to see my son,” he said stubbornly.
+
+“The nurse will show you.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. And--I’ll try to
+understand your point of view....”
+
+“Good-by,” she said. “And thank you for the flowers.”
+
+There was a tap at the door.
+
+“Yes?” said Isabel. “I think,” she said to Norman, “that’s the baby
+now.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX: The Baby
+
+
+THE door opened, and an angular, old-maidish-looking nurse entered with
+a baby in her arms. “Feeding time,” she said.
+
+She went to the bed and laid the baby down beside Isabel. “I’ll bring
+the bottle,” she said, and went out.
+
+“It’s a good thing,” said Isabel, “that this is a bottle feeding. I’m
+not supposed to go through scenes like this--it’s not good for my milk.”
+
+Norman looked down at the baby in a kind of terrified curiosity. It was
+a very tiny thing, with a round face, and some blond hair like his own
+on the queer-shaped skull. The blue eyes blinked up at him sleepily.
+
+“Yes,” said Isabel, “this is what we have been rowing about.” She
+turned to the baby. “This man thinks I ought to take care of you,”
+she said. “But you know better, don’t you? I’m a very poor mother, I
+haven’t even enough milk for you, and the little I have is not up to
+standard. You won’t be sorry to see the last of me.” She smiled at
+Norman. “Well,” she said, “he’s a healthy little bastard, isn’t he?”
+
+Norman flinched at the word.
+
+“Well, he is, you know,” said Isabel. “And he’s too young to have his
+feelings hurt by mentioning it. You and I ought to be able to face the
+fact. After all, Norman, it’s the sort of thing that happens quite
+regularly and inevitably in every civilized country on the globe. Do
+you happen to know the statistics for illegitimacy? I made Dr. Zerneke
+give me something to read about it. It’s very interesting. It seems
+that in the United States about one in every forty-two births is
+illegitimate. I’ve been figuring it out. Sixty thousand illegitimate
+births a year comes to about a hundred and sixty-four a day, or seven
+an hour, or one every eight minutes and twenty seconds. Statistics are
+very consoling. They take away the uniqueness of one’s discomforts.”
+
+He was looking at the baby. Gradually it had become thoroughly awake.
+It stretched its arms, and yawned magnificently. Its lips began to make
+sucking movements. Its face grew red, and broke into a wrinkled grimace
+of anger.
+
+Isabel went on talking. “Every year--you see, I’ve had nothing to
+do for days except to study statistics--out of every hundred and
+fifty-nine unmarried females of childbearing age, one gives birth to an
+illegitimate child. This year it so happened that the lot fell to me.”
+
+A loud wail came from the little bundle.
+
+“I’ve nothing for you,” said Isabel. “You’ll have to wait for your
+bottle.”
+
+“Why is his head such a queer shape?” asked Norman.
+
+“You ought to have seen it at first. It was pulled out of shape getting
+into the world. It’s getting to look all right now.”
+
+The baby’s wails grew more insistent.
+
+“Just a minute, young man,” said Isabel.
+
+“Have you--named him?” asked Norman.
+
+“Well,” said Isabel, a little embarrassed, “it really makes no
+difference--the people who are going to have him will never know, and
+they’ll name him all over again. But when I first saw him, he did look
+so much like you! Do you mind?”
+
+“You named him Norman?”
+
+“When the doctor was making out the birth certificate, she told me
+I’d have to give him some sort of first name--the first one that came
+into my head would do, she said. And that was the first one that came
+into my head. I know I shouldn’t have done it. But it doesn’t really
+implicate you, Norman.”
+
+“Why the devil,” asked Norman, “should you be so considerate of _me_?”
+
+“Because it wasn’t your fault, Norman. You didn’t know you were going
+to be let in for anything like this. You’ve your own life to live. It
+wouldn’t be fair.”
+
+“If--for any reason--” he said, “you had decided to keep the baby, what
+would you have done then--about me?”
+
+“I’d never have told you anything about it at all. It would have been
+my baby. I don’t see why you should be asked to support it, in any
+case.”
+
+“But I think that’s silly,” said Norman. “Because I could support
+it--and you couldn’t.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I could. Girls do, you know. And I’ll tell you this. I didn’t
+intend to, but I will.... You see, when a girl is going to give up
+her baby for adoption, she doesn’t nurse it at all, and never sees
+it--except just once, before she signs the papers. They manage it that
+way for fear of arousing the maternal instinct. Because usually, after
+a girl has nursed a baby, she wants to keep it. But that seemed to me
+a cowardly thing to do. I told Dr. Zerneke I’d nurse my baby, and take
+my chances of my maternal instinct being aroused. I didn’t explain to
+her, but I can tell _you_--it was a kind of test of myself: whether
+I was destined to be a mother or a painter. I decided that if I felt
+like keeping the baby, I would--I’d get a job of some kind and give
+up my year in Paris and everything--stop painting, and be a regular
+female.... Well, you see, my milk is drying up! And I don’t feel at all
+like a mother--I still want to paint! So that’s why--”
+
+“I see,” said Norman.
+
+Yes, he thought bitterly, if she were a real mother, she’d be
+interested in comforting that crying baby, instead of explaining her
+psychology!
+
+The spinsterish-looking nurse came in efficiently with the bottle.
+
+“I think your visitor has been here long enough,” she said firmly.
+
+“I’m going,” said Norman.
+
+He gathered up his hat and stick. “I’ll see you again, if I may.”
+
+“Yes, do,” said Isabel.
+
+“Here, precious!” said the nurse, cooingly, “here’s your itsie
+bottsie-wottsie.”
+
+Norman heard her crooning over his child as he went out the door.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X: Art Alone Endures
+
+
+OUTSIDE of the hospital he hailed a taxi, and gave the name of his
+hotel.
+
+Coming out of some reverie too deep to remember, he looked out of the
+window and saw that he was on Michigan Boulevard, passing the Art
+Institute. On an impulse, he stopped the taxi, and went in.
+
+He climbed the wide stair to the large room in which the treasures of
+the place were on view--a miscellaneous lot of treasures: some of them,
+like Bougereau’s bather, cheapened by time’s changes in the realm of
+taste; none but the ignorant now stopped to admire the high lights on
+those perfect and polished toe-nails. And poor Gilbert Stuart--what
+an irony for a painter to be cherished because of the historical
+importance of one of his subjects! But here was, at least, a Van Dyck.
+Norman paused in front of it.... And from somewhere out of a memory
+whose leisure hours for some years had been given to connoisseurship
+in the art of painting, there leaped out the irrelevant fact that Van
+Dyck had had an illegitimate child in the Netherlands; the mother being
+unknown to history.... He passed on.
+
+He did not know what he was looking for.... Possibly for some proof
+that art was as important as he had always taken for granted that
+it was. These artists starved and painted, attained--if they were
+lucky--the heights of fame, and left pictures that eventually found
+their way to some American gallery. That seemed to be the final, ironic
+goal of all their striving. It was, no doubt, very improbable that
+this willful girl would ever achieve any sort of fame. But if she did,
+beyond her wildest dreams--then, some day, a troubled young man would
+stand in front of some picture of hers, and remember that she was said
+to have had an illegitimate child in America.
+
+“The father,” he murmured half aloud, “being unknown to history.”
+
+Yes, times were changing. Women were taking the privileges of men. And
+that careless masculine privilege of leaving behind an illegitimate
+child or so in the course of one’s career--that, too. Van Dyck hadn’t
+been stopped in his painter’s progress by a mere illegitimate child:
+why should Isabel Drury be?
+
+Oh, no doubt there was something to be said for her attitude. And it
+was important, doubtless, that she have her chance to paint a picture
+that would be bought after her death for a fabulous sum by an American
+millionaire. Just why it was important he could not at the moment
+seem to be able to tell himself. But he had always known that it was
+important....
+
+A fragment of a poem of Gautier’s flickered into his mind. “_Tout
+passe. La vers souveraine demeurent._” That had impressed him greatly
+when he read it at college. All passes; sovereign verse--or, as in this
+case, painting--lasts....
+
+To be sure. Children grow up; become old; die. Paint on canvas stays
+young. More or less. Less rather than more, to tell the truth. Paint
+ages, too. The gloom into which Whistler’s paintings are already
+fading.... An accident, perhaps. Isabel didn’t use that kind of a
+palette. She was a post-Impressionist.... But styles decay, too.
+_Pointillisme_--how quaint it looks already! Picasso--will he and all
+his manners seem to another generation as futile as Meissonier?... This
+whole age: was it perhaps afflicted, as some said, with a spiritual
+sickness? Was it because of something morbid in his own mind that he
+had ever been drawn to it?... A bourgeois thing to think!
+
+But then, he was a bourgeois: no doubt of that. What did he know about
+art? He had enjoyed the belief that he knew a great deal. And that did
+no harm--it would encourage him to buy some poor devil’s pictures; and
+if he guessed right, he could present them to a museum. That was his
+function--to buy pictures.... Some day he might have the privilege of
+buying some of Isabel’s.
+
+When he was dead, his widow would call in an expert and ask, “Are these
+worth anything?” If they weren’t, she would burn them up as trash--the
+mere record of a girl’s vain dreams. If the expert said, “Oh, yes,
+indeed, madam, those are very fine early Drurys!”--then they would
+pass into the possession of some millionaire. They would fetch a good
+price.... But the man who bought them wouldn’t know how cheap they were
+at any price.... He would be getting, not just paint and canvas and a
+name, but the milk that had dried up in Isabel’s breasts, the love that
+she had kept from her baby, the hope that she had refused to squander
+on a mere living child--all that she had saved up and put into her
+masterpieces rather than waste in motherhood: that’s what he would be
+getting for his money. And when after dinner he took his guests for a
+stroll through his gallery, and-- But this was mere sentimentality....
+
+Norman awoke from his reverie, in front of Millet’s picture of the
+new-born calf being brought home by two peasants on a straw-covered
+litter, the mother cow following along and licking her baby.... Silly
+sentimentalists, cows. Didn’t they know their real business was to
+produce cream for the tables of the bourgeoisie? And Millet--a damned
+sentimentalist, himself. Any post-impressionist would say so....
+
+Norman remembered suddenly his luncheon engagement with old Gilbert.
+They were to meet at the hotel.
+
+He hurried out.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI: Common Sense
+
+
+“WELL,” said old Gilbert, at the table in the corner of the hotel
+dining room, “how have _you_ been spending your morning?”
+
+“I went to see Dr. Zerneke,” said Norman. “I couldn’t wait.”
+
+Old Gilbert stopped wiping his mouth and threw his napkin violently on
+the table.
+
+“I’ll be damned!” he said. “I suppose I ought to have known it.”
+
+“I couldn’t stay away,” said Norman. “I had to know.”
+
+“Well, and what did you find out?”
+
+“Your guess was true, of course. It’s Isabel Drury. She had her baby
+eleven days ago.”
+
+“I’ve had time to find out that much myself,” said Gilbert. “I had some
+one call up all the hospitals in town for me. What I want to know is
+what kind of mess you’ve got yourself into.”
+
+“If I haven’t got myself into a mess,” said Norman, “it’s not my fault,
+I’m afraid. I didn’t try to deny anything. But all that this doctor
+wanted--”
+
+“Yes, what did she want?”
+
+“She wanted to find out whether the baby has a healthy father. The
+people who are planning to adopt the child wished to be sure of that,
+it seems.”
+
+“Yes--and what else?”
+
+“That appears to be all. She was at great pains to assure me that I had
+no further responsibility in the matter. When I’ve furnished her with
+some more medical data, I can dismiss the matter from my mind entirely,
+I gather.”
+
+“The girl makes no claim on you?”
+
+“None at all.”
+
+Old Gilbert looked immensely relieved.
+
+“Tell me,” said Norman, “have you ever heard of the Thecla Child
+Adoption Society?”
+
+“Yes,” said Gilbert. “I’ve looked that up too.”
+
+“Is it a reputable organization?”
+
+“Perfectly. And I had Dr. Zerneke looked up, too.”
+
+“You found her to be all right?” asked Norman.
+
+“Professional reputation unimpeachable, it seems. Why?”
+
+“Well--about the adoption matter.”
+
+“That’s all right. They’ll handle it in the right way. I found out
+something about their work. And if you’ve been assured that your secret
+will be kept, you’ve nothing to fear from them.”
+
+“I didn’t mean that, precisely.”
+
+“What, then?”
+
+“I was thinking--of the child.”
+
+“They know their business. The child will be put in good hands. You
+needn’t worry about that.”
+
+Old Gilbert once more gave to his lunch the attention it deserved. “You
+see,” he said comfortably between mouthfuls, “things have turned out
+all right after all--just as I said they would. And now that you’ve had
+your mind put at ease, I think you’d better go right home. There’s no
+point in your hanging around Chicago.”
+
+“Why do you want me to go home?” asked Norman.
+
+“Because I think well enough is best left alone,” said Gilbert.
+“Everything is all right now, and that’s a good way to leave it.”
+
+“You mean that you’re afraid I might go to see Isabel?”
+
+“You’re safer, I think, back in Vickley.”
+
+“Well--I might as well tell you that I saw her, too. And the baby.”
+
+“You _have_ taken this case into your own hands, with a vengeance,”
+said old Gilbert in discouragement. “I was a damned fool ever to bring
+you here. Well, tell me the worst at once. Did you offer to marry her?”
+
+“I asked her to, and she refused.”
+
+“You asked her to!--and she refused? You certainly have fool’s luck.
+But why did she refuse you?”
+
+“For the same reasons as before. It would interfere with her career.”
+
+“That’s beyond me. But I suppose she has her reasons. Lord, what a
+tight squeak! You don’t know how lucky you are! But I suppose you
+thought that was the noble thing to do--offer to marry her! You didn’t
+happen to remember, I suppose, that you were engaged to another girl.”
+
+“It didn’t seem to make any difference.”
+
+“Boy, she might have taken you up. You were putting your head into the
+lion’s mouth!”
+
+“Oh, I knew what I was doing. And it wasn’t just a noble gesture. I was
+quite ready to let everything else go to hell.”
+
+“Good Lord, you’re as much infatuated with her as all that?”
+
+“No. I’m not even sure that I love her at all.”
+
+“Do you mean to say that you offered to marry her just to make an
+honest woman of her?”
+
+Norman laughed. “Nothing like that.”
+
+“Then why in the name of God did you offer to marry her? Can you tell
+me that?”
+
+“That seemed the simplest thing to do,” said Norman.
+
+“I think you’re a little mad,” said old Gilbert.
+
+“I don’t know,” said Norman. “I suppose it was foolish. Any way, she
+wouldn’t.”
+
+“Fortunately,” said Gilbert, “she seems to be just as crazy as you are!
+What would your father think of me if I took you here to Chicago and
+let you get into a mess like that, right under my nose!”
+
+“Well, you needn’t worry about it,” said Norman.
+
+“I shan’t ask her again.”
+
+“I should hope not!” said old Gilbert.
+
+“I saw Springer this morning.” And then Norman was sorry he had
+mentioned it. Gilbert would commence again on his suspicions.
+
+“What is _he_ doing here?” asked Gilbert.
+
+“Getting ready for his exhibit.”
+
+“Oh, you went to see him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, what did _he_ say?”
+
+“He didn’t know me. He said Isabel had appendicitis. His wife has found
+her a rich patron, and she’s going to Paris to study.”
+
+“I’ve been wondering who was paying her expenses,” said Gilbert.
+
+“I suppose you still wish to think that Springer is mixed up in this
+affair,” said Norman, “and that something is being put over on me. But
+I am convinced that you are wrong. And I have acknowledged the child as
+my own.”
+
+“I’ve only been trying to act as your friend in this matter, Norman. Of
+course, if you are convinced that the child is yours, there’s nothing
+more to say on that score. The only question is, what do you propose
+to do about it? Publish the fact from the housetops? I appreciate
+your honorable scruples. They seem to me excessive, I must admit. But
+you have acted upon them--you have offered to marry the girl; and she
+has declined your offer. The question of money does not seem to be
+involved. If it were a matter of paying the girl’s expenses--or if
+she wanted to keep the child herself--I’m sure you would wish to be
+generous. As it is, there seems to be nothing more that you can do. Dr.
+Zerneke will find a good home for the child. The girl will go ahead and
+paint pictures. And you will go back to Vickley and resume the practice
+of law. That is the situation as I see it. The matter is closed. It has
+been very exciting, and no doubt instructive. But it’s all over.”
+
+“Yes,” said Norman, and sighed. “I suppose it is all over.” All except
+remembering, and thinking, and wondering--and he’d have the rest of his
+life for that.
+
+A picture flashed into his mind. An absurd picture--a melodramatic
+picture. He was older, and driving a car slowly through a Chicago
+street at night. A young man, with a revolver in his hand, stepped in
+front of the car and called, “Stop!” But he bent his head and stepped
+hard on the gas. A bullet grazed his cheek like a knife, and then
+he became aware that the car was dragging a dead, mangled body. And
+somehow he knew that it was his son’s....
+
+He pulled himself back to reality, and smiled wanly at the absurdity of
+his fancies.
+
+“Well,” old Gilbert was saying, “this business has turned out
+remarkably well, considering everything. We can go back to the status
+quo ante without a qualm. We take the eleven o’clock train to-night.
+You’ll be here at ten ready to go?”
+
+“Yes,” said Norman, “I’ll be ready.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII: Bad Dreams
+
+
+BUT what could he do that afternoon?...
+
+Two o’clock found him back in Dr. Zerneke’s waiting room.
+
+“Have you looked us up?” asked Dr. Zerneke cheerfully, when he was
+admitted to her office.
+
+“If I were a poor devil of a soda-fountain clerk,” said Norman, “and
+Isabel a stenographer I had got into trouble--what would you do?”
+
+“Just what I have done in this case,” said Dr. Zerneke. “The rest, so
+far as I am concerned, would be up to you and her. Did you ask her to
+marry you?”
+
+“Yes,” said Norman. “And she refused.”
+
+“I thought that was what would happen,” said the doctor. “She’s a very
+determined young woman. And all women are not to be forced into a
+single mold. She wants her career. So we must find the child a proper
+home.”
+
+“Yes, I understand that,” said Norman. “But what I object to is this
+business of turning the baby over to strangers!”
+
+“They are not strangers to the Society,” said Dr. Zerneke. “We have
+more applicants than we have babies, and as I told you, they are very
+thoroughly investigated. We know all about them.”
+
+“But I don’t,” said Norman stubbornly.
+
+“I’m afraid that can’t be helped,” said Dr. Zerneke. And then she
+repeated her question: “Have you made inquiries about the work of our
+Society?”
+
+“Oh,” said Norman, “I’ve no doubt your Society is all right. But--” He
+paused helplessly.
+
+“I was sure you would come to that conclusion,” said Dr. Zerneke. And
+then, as he sat there, silent and troubled, she added: “I don’t wish to
+take advantage of your situation, Mr. Overbeck, but if it would help to
+ease your feelings the Society would be glad to accept a check to help
+carry on its work.”
+
+“Yes,” he said, “I’ll be glad to do that.”
+
+He took out his check-book and his fountain-pen, and started to write.
+But suddenly he laid down his pen.
+
+“No,” he said, “I can’t buy them off that way.”
+
+He spoke softly, as if to himself, but Dr. Zerneke asked sharply:
+
+“Buy who off?”
+
+“The bad dreams--the pictures,” he said. “The things that come into my
+mind.”... A frightful vision had visited him as he held the pen poised
+over the check. It was like the one that had come to him at lunch, with
+Gilbert--only worse, this time. Its misty fringes still clung to his
+mind and afflicted him with horror.
+
+The doctor seemed to understand. She reached out and put her hand for
+a moment on one of his stooped, miserable shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she
+said. “What do you want to do?”
+
+“I--I don’t know,” he said.
+
+That vision-- No, of course nothing like that would ever really happen.
+But was he to be tormented with such pictures all his life? In every
+handcuffed youth being taken to prison--in every poster offering a
+reward for a young murderer--was he to seek for the features of his
+unknown son?
+
+“If you have any practical alternative to offer--” the doctor was
+saying.
+
+His mind was still grappling with the thought of a life haunted by such
+visions.... His wife would say, “Dearest, you’re positively morbid
+about crime-news!” He would have legitimate sons. “Dad, don’t you think
+I’m old enough to have a car of my own?” And then he would have to
+think about his other son, the one nobody knew about--a tramp, perhaps,
+freezing on the rods of a freight-train. He would be like a man haunted.
+
+“Do you think your own family would care to adopt the child?” Dr.
+Zerneke asked. “Is that what you would like to do?”
+
+“I hadn’t thought of that!” he said. “Of course--that’s what I’ll do!”
+
+“Well,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “you can consult them about it,
+and let me know.”
+
+Some dim apprehension of the actualities of that proposal came to
+him, clouding his relief. “Yes,” he said, “I’ll have to put it up to
+them....”
+
+“Of course,” said the doctor, “they may not take kindly to the idea.”
+
+“They’ll--_have_ to do it!” said Norman.
+
+“We’ll see,” said the doctor. “But I hope there will not be too much
+delay in settling the matter, one way or another.”
+
+“I’ll go back home to-night,” said Norman.
+
+“And do you think you’ll be able to give me the decision within, say,
+two weeks?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” he said.
+
+She rose. “I’ll expect to see or hear from you in a fortnight, then.”
+
+“In two weeks from to-day,” he said, “I shall come here to get my son,”
+and he walked out like some one in a dream.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII: En Route
+
+
+THERE was no use in waiting for old Gilbert. He would take the next
+train to Vickley.
+
+He packed, and left a message, and caught a train which would get him
+home at midnight.
+
+The train had barely left the environs of Chicago when he realized
+abruptly the folly of his errand. What! Propose to his father and
+mother that they should adopt and bring up his illegitimate child! It
+was too preposterous.
+
+He felt an impulse to get up and jump from the slowly moving train. He
+would go to Dr. Zerneke and ... And what? Give her a check?
+
+He sank back in his chair. The train slid more swiftly out past the
+little towns, gathered momentum, hurled itself on toward Vickley. The
+song of the wheels on the rails was a mocking one. It seemed to say,
+over and over, “You’re in for it now! You’re in for it now!”
+
+He could get off at Aurora, of course.
+
+No, he’d have to see it through, somehow.
+
+Was it so preposterous? He wished he had asked Dr. Zerneke for some
+statistics about this situation! Was it often done? He smiled, after a
+fashion, at the thought of saying to his father: “Every year, in the
+United States, six hundred respectable families (or sixty, or whatever
+it might be) take a son’s illegitimate child to raise. You see, this
+has plenty of precedent.” Yes, doubtless it did sometimes happen in the
+United States: but not in Vickley. Not with people like the Overbecks.
+
+He simply couldn’t involve his family in a thing like that.
+
+(Well, nobody asked him to! Why didn’t he get off at Aurora--go back
+and sign the check which let him off scot-free?)
+
+The train stopped presently at Aurora. Here was his chance. He’d better
+take it.
+
+But he was still in his chair when the train pulled out of Aurora.
+
+He simply couldn’t decide this thing by himself. It was too
+overwhelming--too full of lifelong consequences. It needed a wiser head
+than his own. And his father was the wisest man he knew.
+
+He would tell his father. His father might know what to do.
+
+He envisaged in imagination that interview with his father.
+
+“Did you seduce this girl under promise of marriage?”
+
+And “Was she a virgin?” Yes, that would be terribly important to his
+father. If she had been a virgin, if he had seduced her, if he had
+promised marriage, his father’s stern sense of justice might prevail
+though the heavens fell.... But it wasn’t a question of marrying
+Isabel. It was a question of what should become of her child.
+
+There had been a time, many years ago, when Norman not merely admired
+and feared his father, but loved and trusted him. When he was in
+trouble he could come to his father, though in fear and trembling, and
+tell the truth. He wished he could be that little boy again.
+
+“What is it, Son? Tell your father.”
+
+“I--I had a sweetheart at college, Father, and now she has a baby, and
+doesn’t want to keep it, and I don’t want it given away to strangers,
+and I don’t know what to do!”
+
+“Was she a good girl?”
+
+“Yes, Father.”
+
+“Then you’d better marry her, Son. It will hurt us all, but you must do
+what is right.”
+
+“But she won’t marry me, Father.”
+
+“Send her to me. I’ll talk with her about it. She’ll _have_ to marry
+you, Son.”
+
+Norman smiled. It would be wonderful to believe again in his father’s
+omnipotence.
+
+Well, what would his father say to Isabel? He imagined that, in the
+same boyish mood.
+
+“How old are you, Isabel?”
+
+“Twenty-six, sir.”
+
+“You were a year older than Norman when this happened. You can have no
+cause for resentment against him such as would justify you in refusing
+to marry him.”
+
+“But I want to be a painter!”
+
+“We cannot always have what we want. My son wanted to be a lawyer. Now
+he can’t be--and you must take your punishment along with him. I will
+buy a pants-pressing establishment for the two of you, down on Commerce
+Street. By faithfully pressing creases in the trousers of our best
+citizens for the rest of your life, you will expiate your sin. And now
+off to the preacher with you!”
+
+“Yes, sir!” (Exit Isabel, crying.)
+
+He frowned, and imagined it again, in a slightly more realistic vein.
+
+“You seem to be a well-brought-up young woman. I really can’t
+understand this at all.”
+
+“I’m afraid nothing I could say would make it any clearer to you, Mr.
+Overbeck.”
+
+“Well, we won’t go into that. The fact is that you and Norman have
+brought a child into the world. I have told him that he must marry you.”
+
+“And I have told him that I won’t marry him.”
+
+“Nonsense! Why not?”
+
+“Because I am going to Paris to paint.”
+
+“You can paint just as well in Vickley. The landscapes here along the
+Mississippi are as beautiful as any in the world. I have traveled,
+and I know. I’m sure Norman would have no objection to your doing
+water-color sketches in your spare time.”
+
+“I’m afraid that wouldn’t do, Mr. Overbeck. I’ve already explained to
+your son how I feel about it. It’s very good of you to trouble yourself
+in the matter, but quite unnecessary. My mind is fully made up.” Very
+cool Isabel was, in this interview. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I
+have another engagement.”
+
+No, it wouldn’t be like that _at all_. His father had emotions--and
+so had Isabel. There would be a battle. He would almost crush, almost
+overwhelm her--but not quite. She would be defiant, stubborn to the
+last. It would be rather a magnificent spectacle, that struggle between
+them--between the world as it always had been and the world as it was
+perhaps coming to be--between the old dispensation and the new.
+
+(Why was he so sure his father would want them to marry? He might take
+old Gilbert’s practical and cynical view of the situation.... No, he
+wouldn’t do that. He was a good man, in his stern way. And in that
+thought there was some obscure comfort for Norman.)
+
+He rose restlessly and went into the smoking compartment.
+
+In all his experience of smoking cars and smoking compartments, he had
+never heard there what was known as a “typical smoking-car story.” But
+this time, as it chanced, one was being told. It was just finished as
+he entered, and there was a burst of laughter. He recognized the story
+from the final lines. It was the one about the young couple who had
+been caught in the storm while driving in the country, and had stayed
+overnight at a farmhouse. His entrance put a damper on the others, and
+they shifted self-consciously to the subject of automobiles. Norman
+sat down in a corner, lighted a cigarette, and picked up a discarded
+magazine that lay on the leather seat beside him. It was an obscure
+magazine devoted to the more humorous aspects of sex. Norman reflected
+that the aspects of sex with which he was now becoming personally
+acquainted rather took the humor out of stories about casual sexual
+encounters. He had once thought they were funny, too; but just now it
+seemed to him that these things were too serious to laugh about. Some
+time he might recover his sense of sexual humor, but just now it was at
+a low ebb.
+
+The world, however, had not changed because of an incident in the life
+of Norman Overbeck. Sex continued to seem funny to other people. The
+three other men in the smoking-compartment, encouraged by his apparent
+absorption in his reading, verged closer to that delectable topic, and
+presently one of them began to tell another story. “If I had secretly
+committed a murder,” thought Norman, “I suppose I would find them
+talking about murders!” For by a painful coincidence this story was the
+one about the eight girls in Scotland who had illegitimate children
+and all named the same boy as the father. The doctor’s curiosity was
+aroused, and he went to see the boy to find out how it could happen....
+
+Norman, feeling a little sick, threw down his cigarette, dropped his
+magazine and went out. As he went, he heard, in bad Scotch dialect,
+the tag line, “Wull, ye see, doctor, Oi’ve a bicycle!” And the robust
+laughter of the three followed him into the corridor.... Was he never
+going to be able to listen to a dirty story again with normal masculine
+gusto?
+
+The porter came through the car. “First call for dinner!”
+
+The man sitting across from him at the little table in the dining-car
+was a salesman. Norman roused himself and they talked about
+automobiles. If it had been anything else, he might have lost himself
+in the conversation for a few minutes at least. But one can talk about
+automobiles without having to think of what one is saying....
+
+He stopped in the smoking-compartment for a cigarette. The magazine
+devoted to funny stories about sex was gone. In its place was a copy
+of the New Republic. He turned the pages. At another time he would not
+have noticed it, but there staring him in the face was an article on
+“Unmarried Mothers.” The illegitimacy rate for Scotland, he noted, was
+66 per thousand births, for England and Wales 42, for France (before
+the war) 88, the United States 23.8.... He studied the tables guiltily.
+Isabel had found these statistics comforting, so she said. He did not
+find them so. “A considerable proportion of the mothers are girls
+in their teens, while what data is available indicates that a large
+majority of them are working in unskilled or semi-skilled occupations,
+with an undue proportion in factory work and domestic service.”
+
+But there wasn’t anything about girls who wanted to go to Paris and
+paint, and wouldn’t marry the fathers of their children....
+
+“Contrary, however, to prevalent ideas on the subject, European
+statistics show that illegitimacy rates tend to increase rather than
+decrease with the spread of education; they are lower in cities than
+in rural districts; and comparisons of the poorest parts of London
+with certain well-to-do parts show the richer districts as having an
+illegitimacy rate of nearly six times the poorest districts.”
+
+Well, there was a grain of comfort in that....
+
+But why must he, now, find the subject of illegitimacy everywhere he
+turned?
+
+Damn these coincidences!
+
+He took one more glance at the article, and read: “In Austria, about a
+quarter of all births are illegitimate; in some rural districts nearly
+a half.”
+
+Yes--but why had _Isabel_ had a baby? Perhaps simply because, after
+all, she was a girl. It seemed to be the sort of thing that quite
+generally happened to girls, in or out of marriage. Mere ignorance
+couldn’t account for all those illegitimate babies! Girls must _want_
+to have babies, in spite of the frightful penalties that are attached
+to having them except in accordance with the rules. Nature laughs at
+the solemn rules of marriage, and the babies come at her bidding. Not
+accident, not carelessness, but some profound wish, deeper than their
+conscious fears, for this fulfillment of their natural destiny! In
+Isabel, too? He had to believe that. The woman in her had wanted--not
+merely that hour of delirium in the woods--but motherhood. Yet her
+nature was divided against itself. Something else in her was in revolt
+against being a woman. She was running away from her fate. That was the
+truth.... And he, in this internal battle between woman and artist,
+was the victim, along with her child. The woman that was in Isabel had
+chosen him to be her child’s father. The artist that was in Isabel
+was deserting them both with a brutal indifference. But here they
+were, father and child, made so at her deep wish, the wish she now
+repudiated. Nothing she might do could destroy the bond she had created
+between him and her child. She had given him a son. Let her run away
+to Paris, and forget. He couldn’t forget. He was caught in a trap of
+Nature’s. It was real. It was damnable. But it was true. He had a son.
+And what was he going to do about it?
+
+He looked at his watch. Still an hour and a half from Vickley.
+
+Would his father understand?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV: Homecoming
+
+
+HE decided to walk home from the station. A soft breeze tossed him its
+faint, acrid, earthy scents. The stars were hidden and revealed by
+the fleecy scud of clouds. The moon, dwindling to its last quarter,
+had just lifted itself above the hills. Back in those hills, among
+the trees, was his home. All was peaceful there. They didn’t know the
+trouble he was bringing them....
+
+The moon had been large and low when he and Isabel had gone together
+into the wood, last year. What was there about the moon that made
+people think they had to make love? And afterward the moon sailed
+on serenely, not giving a damn, leaving them to worry about the
+consequences. Usually, though, it was the girl who did the worrying....
+
+If he were a girl--would his folks understand? Better, perhaps, than as
+it was now. They’d have to take the baby....
+
+He had passed the old brick building where he used to go to school as
+a boy. And here was the house where the Snyders had lived. He had not
+noticed the house for years. He had forgotten the mystery that it once
+contained for him. But now he remembered. The little boy playing about
+the Snyder yard was really (it was whispered on the way home from
+school) not Sally Snyder’s little brother but her own bastard child.
+Norman had occasionally caught a glimpse of Sally Snyder--a tall, pale,
+quiet girl. She never went anywhere, it was said....
+
+That secret hadn’t been very well kept. And now Norman wondered how the
+little Snyder boy had got along in school. He himself had gone on to
+high school, ceasing to pass the house, and had forgotten the story.
+But had the other boys referred to Sally’s son, behind his back, as
+a bastard? (Or to his face?...) Norman counted up the years. Sally’s
+boy would be about eighteen now. Did he still live here? Did this dark
+house still shelter him and his tall, pale, silent sister-mother? Or
+had the family moved to some other town, where the story wasn’t known?
+
+That was one good thing about being poor. Poverty gave you, in a
+new town, a kindly obscurity.... But it wouldn’t be any use for the
+Overbecks to move away. (Or so it seemed to Norman, accustomed as he
+was to being a member of one of the chief families of Vickley.) They
+would have to stay and face what they would call their shame....
+
+He turned the corner. There was a light in his father’s study. Was his
+father waiting up for him? That would not be unlikely, if his father
+had known he was coming to-night. Anyway, it would be a good chance to
+tell his father everything. The sooner the better.
+
+He ran up the steps and went in. His father’s voice from the study
+asked in surprise and disapproval: “Who’s that?”
+
+So he wasn’t expected. But who of the family could be out at this
+hour? “Early to bed” was a rule strictly enforced in the Overbeck
+household. “It’s me,” he answered, and went into the study, where his
+father was sitting at a table, somewhat ostentatiously waiting. He sat
+stiffly in his chair, with an upright, severe bearing. People spoke
+with admiration of the old man’s soldierly carriage. Well, he had been
+a soldier, back in the years before Norman was born, in the Spanish
+war. But anybody else would have forgotten that. Not that that had
+anything to do with it. He must always have been a martinet--born with
+discipline in his blood. Here he was, the General, seeing that the
+little Overbeck army got safely to bed.
+
+“Oh,” said his father, “it’s you. I am waiting up for Doris.”
+
+Doris? Oh, yes, of course. This was the night of the spring “hop” of
+her high-school sorority. She had a new frock for the occasion. She had
+brought it in to show him the other day while he was packing to go to
+Chicago....
+
+“There she is now,” said his father, as a car stopped noisily at the
+curb.
+
+Doris! He hadn’t taken her into his calculations at all.... No, he had
+simply not thought of her--and his baby here in the house. Would they
+talk at school about her being the aunt of a ----? Or (Good God!)
+would they think it was really _hers_? His fists clenched, and his
+forehead was suddenly wet with perspiration....
+
+Out on the porch Doris and her boy friend were giggling....
+
+No--that was absurd. But just the same she would be involved in the
+scandal. It would poison her friendships, humiliate and hurt her. It
+might spoil her whole life. Oh, it was altogether out of the question.
+He couldn’t inflict that on her....
+
+“Good night, Peter!”
+
+“Good night, Doris!”
+
+Young voices....
+
+The front door opened and shut, and Doris came straight to the lighted
+room, saying in exasperated protest: “I _do_ wish, Father, you wouldn’t
+wait up for me! I can--”
+
+She paused in the doorway, seeing her brother. “Oh, _you’re_ home!” she
+cried. Then she walked in, with a little self-conscious swagger. She
+was showing herself off in her new frock to her big brother.
+
+“You look,” he said, “like a million dollars! How was the dance?”
+
+“I had a swell time,” she answered.
+
+There was a time when Mr. Overbeck would have reproved any child of his
+for using such vulgar expressions. But not even J. J. Overbeck could
+sweep back the rising tide. All he said was: “Doris, go up to bed. It’s
+nearly one o’clock.”
+
+“Oh, all rightie!” she replied, and swaggered out.
+
+“How did you come out with the supreme court?” asked Norman.
+
+“I think my arguments may have impressed them,” his father admitted.
+And then he asked: “How did you come to go to Chicago so suddenly?”
+
+Now, if ever, was the time to confess. But what was the use?
+
+And so Norman repeated what he had already told Medway to tell his
+father: “Old Gilbert got it into his head that I could help him--seeing
+some people in a will case. I didn’t think I’d really be of much use,
+but he insisted on my going along.”
+
+His father nodded. “That’s all right,” he said. “It won’t do you any
+harm to work with Gilbert Rand. There’s a good deal you can learn from
+him.”
+
+Norman’s chance had passed....
+
+“I’ll lock up,” said his father.
+
+“Good night,” said Norman.
+
+“Good night.”
+
+Upstairs, a door opened as he passed, and a whisper called him.
+“Norman!”
+
+It was his sister Lucinda, in wrapper and archaic curl-papers. He
+paused.
+
+“I just wanted to ask you--did you look at my puppy for me?”
+
+“Your puppy?” said Norman, wrenching his mind loose from his own
+thoughts.
+
+“Yes--you know you promised to go and look at him yesterday--the one
+with the black spot over his left eye. And I wasn’t here when you came
+home to pack, so I didn’t know whether you had or not.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was so rushed I couldn’t get around to
+Schwartz’s. I’ll go to-morrow if you want me to.”
+
+“Oh, I wish you would, Norman! I just can’t decide by myself!”
+
+How, he asked himself, as he went into his room, could he bring the
+truth into such a world as this? It couldn’t be done!
+
+But what was he going to do?
+
+He felt suddenly very tired--too tired to think.... He would decide
+to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV: Family Breakfast
+
+
+AT eight o’clock a bell sounded through the Overbeck house, to tell
+everybody to get up. At eight-thirty it would sound again, telling them
+to come to breakfast.
+
+It had been so as long as Norman could remember--except that on
+week-days the bell sounded an hour earlier. And that bell, like the
+voice of J. J. Overbeck himself, had always been obeyed. But this
+morning, though the bell struck into his sleeping consciousness, he
+did not want to wake up. He wanted to hold fast to the dream he was
+dreaming.... Something about being off on a ship, alone....
+
+Ten minutes later his mother shook him gently by the shoulder, saying:
+“Norman, you’d better get up. It’s eight-forty. And you know how Father
+feels about having us all at the breakfast table.”
+
+“All--right!” he said reluctantly, opening his eyes.
+
+He watched her go out of the room--the little, sensible, practical wife
+of the great J. J. Overbeck....
+
+What was that dream? It had vanished completely.
+
+He sprang out of bed. And then he remembered yesterday--Isabel--the
+baby--Dr. Zerneke--his errand here. It seemed unreal.
+
+He shaved hurriedly, so as not to be late to breakfast.
+
+Doris came down a little late, sleepy and petulant. “I don’t see why
+I can’t be allowed to have my sleep out when I’m at a party the night
+before,” she said, as she dug her spoon into her grapefruit. “Everybody
+else sleeps on Sunday morning!”
+
+“You should have thought of that last night,” said Lucinda vindictively.
+
+“You know,” said her mother placatingly, “that Father likes us all to
+be at the breakfast table with him.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” said Doris, “but I don’t see the sense of it. It’s a
+darn silly rule, if you ask me.”
+
+They all waited for J. J. Overbeck’s quiet thunders and lightnings to
+descend upon the rebel.
+
+“If that’s the effect that late hours have on your temper,” said her
+father gravely, “I think perhaps this had better be the last of them,
+until you are old enough to have learned some self-control.”
+
+Doris struggled with her tears for a moment, and then jumped up and ran
+crying from the room.
+
+Norman looked down at his plate, ashamed. What a home!...
+
+It was always like this--meaningless tyrannies, with which they all
+made such terms as they could. Their mother didn’t seem to notice it.
+Lucinda had been crushed by it into what she was. He himself had
+learned how to get along with his father. Doris was stubborn, but she
+would have to learn.... And he had taken it all for granted.
+
+He had known that other homes were not like this. But as a boy he
+had accepted it as one accepts the climate. Away at college, he had
+preferred to forget it. But coming back to Vickley again, he had begun
+to take it for granted once more.
+
+His way of getting along with his father was to acquiesce publicly
+in his authority, but to retain a secret independence of opinion.
+It occurred to him now that this was rather cowardly. Even Doris’s
+undignified outbreaks were more honest. He had always sympathized with
+her in silence. Now he wanted to break that pattern and speak up in
+her defense. And so he said abruptly in the silence that followed his
+sister’s departure from the room:
+
+“I think Isabel is quite right.”
+
+He realized the slip of his tongue as they stared at him.
+
+“Who’s Isabel?” asked Lucinda.
+
+He flushed. “I meant Doris. She should be allowed to sleep after a late
+party. Especially on Sunday.”
+
+“Who is Isabel?” Lucinda repeated.
+
+His defiance, such as it was, had been completely spoiled by that silly
+slip of the tongue. They would all be wondering who Isabel was....
+
+He ignored Lucinda’s question and spoke sharply, forgetting his
+accustomed dignity:
+
+“Father has no right to punish her that way--for a mere trifle!”
+
+His father was surprised, and for a moment or two said nothing at all.
+At last he remarked quietly:
+
+“Late hours don’t seem to agree with you, either, Norman.”
+
+Lucinda’s lips were framing the question: “Who--?”
+
+“Well,” Norman demanded of his father belligerently, “are you going to
+send _me_ to bed at ten o’clock?”
+
+“Norman!” said his mother in sensible, practical disapproval of such
+nonsense.
+
+“If you are going to behave like a child,” said his father, “I ought to
+send you from the table like one.”
+
+“I’d prefer to go,” said Norman. He rose and marched out of the
+room--feeling as though he were ten years old.
+
+In the hall he saw Doris coming downstairs. He waited for her.
+
+“What are you going to do?” he asked.
+
+“Oh, I’m going back and apologize,” she said lightly. “It’s the only
+thing to do.”
+
+Their mother’s practical voice floated out from the breakfast room.
+
+“Norman, if you’re going out, take your overcoat.”
+
+“Where are you running off to?” asked Doris.
+
+She was helping him on with his overcoat. “To see Madge, I suppose!”
+
+“Madge? Oh--why--yes.”
+
+He had managed to forget Madge....
+
+“Wait a moment,” said Doris. “I’ll bring you a fresh handkerchief.” She
+snatched the old one out of his breast pocket, ran up the stairs, came
+back and tucked the clean one in. “There!” she said.
+
+Outside, he glanced over next door at the new frame building--the home
+his father was building for him and Madge--almost finished.... That was
+just like his father--to put them next door, where he could run their
+affairs for them, as if they were children.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI: Aubade
+
+
+MADGE! Yes, he had to go to see her. But--could he tell her? What was
+the use! He couldn’t bring his son to Vickley. He realized that now....
+Perhaps he ought to be sensible about the thing.
+
+He wished Hal were here. Hal, at Cambridge, was the first real friend
+he had ever had since childhood. Hal wouldn’t argue with him, wouldn’t
+tell him what he ought to do. Hal would listen to him. That was what
+he needed. Maybe if he could talk to somebody--somebody who didn’t
+represent Vickley--he would feel better.
+
+At any rate, there was no sense in telling Madge. Old Gilbert had been
+quite right about that.... He would have to act a part.
+
+He would just behave as if nothing had happened.
+
+As Gilbert had said, she would be thinking about other things.... She
+would never need to know....
+
+His life stretched out in front of him--a long vista of bridge-parties,
+as it seemed at this moment, with Madge as a handsome young matron
+presiding over them. He would live all his life with that pretty
+stranger--for so now she seemed. She would be called his wife. Perhaps
+people would speak approvingly of their happy marriage....
+
+Here he was, already, at the Ferris house.
+
+He hadn’t thought what he was going to say.
+
+Just behave naturally--that was it.
+
+He gave the bell his customary long ring followed abruptly by two short
+ones--the signal that Madge said sounded like “_O_-ver-beck!”
+
+No one came immediately, and he had to fight an impulse to go away. He
+rang again, and waited.
+
+A sound of feet running down the stairs quickly. Madge! He felt a
+sick qualm in his stomach. Madge calling to the maid who came tardily
+hurrying from the back: “I’ll answer the bell, Katie!”
+
+She opened the door. “Hello, Toodles!” she said. In the hall she flung
+herself into his arms.... It seemed queer to be so passionately kissing
+a stranger....
+
+“Let little me help him off with his overcoat,” she said.
+
+She led him into the “den” off the hall. It was a place of memories of
+their courtship. But these memories seemed curiously alien to him now.
+Was it he that had read poetry to her, sitting on that sofa? Was it he
+who had asked her, one winter night, to be his wife?
+
+“She’s not dressed,” she said, drawing her flowery negligée about her,
+and bending her bobbed golden head toward him. “Her hair’s not dry!
+When your imperious ring came, she was just finishing her bath!”
+
+These childish mannerisms of speech had once enchanted him.
+
+“When did the old bum get home?” she demanded, drawing him down on the
+couch beside her.
+
+“Last night--late,” he said.
+
+“How late?”
+
+“My train got in at midnight.”
+
+“That’s not late. She was waiting for you--hoping you’d be back. She
+couldn’t get to sleep, thinking of you. And she had a queer dream....”
+
+He asked, with a pang of superstitious dread: “A dream--about me?”
+
+“Never mind,” she said. “She never tells her dreams before breakfast.”
+And then: “Why doesn’t he act as if he were glad to see me?”
+
+He kissed her again.
+
+“What’s the matter, Norman?” she asked abruptly, drawing away from him.
+“Has anything happened?”
+
+“Yes,” he said. (Why did he say that?)
+
+“What is it, dear?” she asked anxiously.
+
+He must not tell her.... And he spoke at random, saying the first thing
+that came into his mind--just to be saying something: “I looked at our
+house....”
+
+“Yes, Norman?”
+
+“It’s much too close to my father’s....”
+
+“I’ve known that all along,” she said quietly.
+
+“Did you?” That little remark of hers astonished him infinitely. He
+realized that he had never known this girl at all. “I didn’t,” he said,
+“until this morning.”
+
+“What happened this morning? Have you been quarreling with your family?”
+
+“Yes,” he said. “How did you know?”
+
+“What were you quarreling about?” she asked.
+
+“Why--nothing, really. About getting up on Sunday.” He laughed
+nervously. “You’d have to get up at eight on Sunday--if you lived
+there!”
+
+“You think I’d let your family run _me_?”
+
+“I don’t know how you’d help yourself.” (But why were they talking
+about that house?)
+
+“Trust me!” she answered. “Norman--we haven’t talked about it: but you
+and I are going to live our own lives, when we are married. We can live
+anywhere we like.”
+
+He didn’t say anything.
+
+“Have they been criticizing me?” she demanded.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Well--your sister Lucinda.”
+
+“Oh, no--of course not!” he said. But the stream of memory began to
+flow back into its old channels. And he could remember that there had
+been a time, months ago, when Lucinda had been spiteful about Madge.
+She had called her “frivolous” and “giddy.” Nor, what was somewhat more
+important, had Madge’s Aunt Julia approved at all of him. She had
+thought of him, for some reason, as irresponsible. He and Madge had
+enjoyed all the sensations of being misunderstood, of defying their
+families, of being leagued together in love and faith against a hostile
+world.... And then the criticisms had changed to blessings. Within a
+few months, all their world was anxious to get them married and settled
+down. But to Madge, it would seem, their romantic defiance of the world
+was still real. That was the only thing she could imagine as shadowing
+their happiness--the opinion of his family.
+
+“Then what’s the matter?” she was asking.
+
+He couldn’t bring realities into that doll-world of hers.... “Nothing,”
+he answered--too evasively.
+
+“I know there is,” she insisted.
+
+It would be like hurting a child.... But he ought to give her some
+warning....
+
+“Madge,” he said, “I may have to give up my position in my father’s
+office--and go away--” He stopped. He hadn’t intended to say that....
+
+“Norman!”
+
+The trouble was that he kept forgetting his purpose. A purpose implies
+a conviction, and a stable sense of realities. His world fluctuated and
+changed about him from moment to moment....
+
+This puzzled, incredulous girl at his side--she wasn’t a child, but a
+woman. It was he who felt like a child.
+
+“I’m in trouble, Madge,” he said.
+
+Her arms were around him. “What is it, Norman?” she asked quietly.
+
+He wanted terribly to tell her. There was some reason why he
+shouldn’t--but he couldn’t remember exactly what it was.
+
+“I never told you,” he said, “about a girl I knew at Cambridge. We
+were--sweethearts. And--I didn’t know until the other day--when she
+sent for me--in Chicago--there’s a baby.”
+
+“You mean--yours?” Her voice was very cool, remote, far away. He didn’t
+look at her. But he was aware that her arms had slipped away from him,
+that her body no longer touched his.
+
+“Yes, mine,” he said.
+
+She rose, slowly. “I’m glad you told me,” she said.
+
+He didn’t look at her face, but he saw her body convulsed by a shiver,
+and her hands were fumbling together. Then a ring dropped to the floor.
+
+He stooped to pick it up, and rose. Now he remembered the reason why he
+must not tell her. She wouldn’t want to marry him--of course.
+
+“You’re free now,” she said, “to go to her.”
+
+They were struck silent in their tableau by a sense of people coming.
+The maid. And footsteps descending the stair. That would be Aunt Julia.
+
+But the maid came first.
+
+“Mr. Overbeck is wanted on the telephone.”
+
+“Me?”
+
+“It’s your sister, Miss Lucinda, Mr. Overbeck. It’s something about a
+dog.”
+
+It was too absurd.... “Yes--please ask her to wait one moment.” He
+would have to greet Madge’s aunt.
+
+The maid went away....
+
+Then Aunt Julia.
+
+“Good morning, Norman.” She offered her cheek to be kissed. “You’d
+better go and put some clothes on, Madge. I’ll entertain Norman while
+you dress. You’ll stay to breakfast, Norman.”
+
+Madge went out, and slowly up the stairs.... He hadn’t had a chance to
+explain anything to her. Why did Aunt Julia have to interrupt them just
+now? He smouldered with helpless anger.
+
+“When did you get back from Chicago?” Aunt Julia asked affably, seating
+herself on the sofa.
+
+“Last night.” Damn this silly woman!
+
+“Don’t walk up and down the room, Norman. Sit down. And tell me what’s
+the matter.”
+
+Oh, he’d have to tell her something.
+
+“Madge,” he said, “has just broken our engagement.” And as he spoke he
+seemed to realize for the first time what he had done. Of course she
+wouldn’t marry him. He had smashed everything....
+
+“What!” said Aunt Julia, in amused incredulity. “No, not really? You
+mustn’t take these lovers’ quarrels too seriously, Norman.”
+
+“Lovers’ quarrels! I wish that were all!” he said bitterly.
+
+“Oh, is it so bad as all that, really?”
+
+“Yes, Mrs. Ferris.”
+
+Her face took on an expression of sympathy, and after a moment’s
+thought she said reassuringly:
+
+“I know, Madge is a very high-spirited girl. But it’s a little late in
+the day to change her mind. If you’ll only tell me what the trouble is,
+I’ll be glad to talk with her. An older woman, you know, Norman, has a
+more reasonable point of view. If it’s really so serious, it must be a
+question of--well, another girl. Have you been philandering, Norman?”
+
+He saw what she was thinking, and reluctantly answered:
+
+“No--not exactly.”
+
+“Not exactly? But she thinks so! I see. Has it anything to do with your
+Chicago trip?”
+
+“Yes--in a way,” he said evasively.
+
+“Don’t you want to tell me about it, Norman? I’m sure it’s nothing that
+can’t be smoothed out. I know Madge will be reasonable when she’s had a
+chance to think things over.”
+
+Norman felt a sudden unreasonable anger. She was so comfortable--so
+sure that nothing could go seriously wrong in her little world. He
+wanted to shatter that complacency of hers....
+
+But it was not necessary for him to speak. At that moment they both
+heard a sound of sobbing upstairs. It was like no woman’s crying that
+he had ever heard. It had a strange note of animal pain in it.... Then
+silence.... Norman felt himself transfixed by pity as by a spear thrust
+through his body. He realized what he had done to Madge.... Aunt Julia
+rose, startled.
+
+The maid returned to say: “Miss Lucinda is still on the wire, Mr.
+Overbeck.”
+
+“Oh, yes. Excuse me.” What a nightmare!
+
+Lucinda’s voice. “Oh, Norman, Mr. Schwartz called up, and said that
+somebody else wants to buy that puppy. He wants to know whether I want
+it. Won’t you go and look at it right away, and tell me what you think?
+It’s the one with the black spot over his left eye!”
+
+“All right. I’ll go.”
+
+When he came back, the room was empty. Aunt Julia had gone upstairs to
+comfort Madge. He listened, and he heard the sound of voices....
+
+_Why_ had he done it? But it was too late to ask that....
+
+Anyway, he _had_ done it....
+
+It was all over....
+
+He stood there irresolutely for a moment, then took his things from the
+hall, and went quietly out of the house.
+
+Madge had been a good sport about it. But it was a little too much like
+committing murder.
+
+And _now_ to face the folks at home....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII: Flight
+
+
+BUT he did not go home. He walked down town.
+
+He had keys to the Overbeck building. He would go there and think.
+
+Why had he told Madge? There wasn’t any sense to it. Yes, why?...
+
+But that wasn’t the question, either. The question was what to do
+now--now that he had told Madge....
+
+He walked up and down in the outer office, trying to think. It was no
+use. His mind wouldn’t work.
+
+He lay down on one of the leather-upholstered benches, exhausted, and
+fell asleep.
+
+When he woke up it was dark. He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. Had
+he slept all day?
+
+He had certainly made a frightful mess of things.... He reached for a
+cigarette.
+
+When he had smoked all his cigarettes, he went out for more. He had not
+been able to make any decisions at all.
+
+On an impulse, he stepped into the telephone booth at the cigar store,
+and called up Madge’s house. He was going to ask how she was. But when
+he heard her voice answering him, he lost his nerve. What could he say
+to her?
+
+“Sorry,” he muttered, and hung up the receiver.
+
+After a moment’s thought, he reached for his pocketbook. It wasn’t
+there, and he remembered that he had left it in the bureau in his room.
+
+He came out of the booth, and went up to the counter, taking out his
+check-book. “Jack,” he said, “how’s your cash to-night? Can you let me
+have twenty-five dollars?”
+
+“Fifty, if you like, Mr. Overbeck,” said Jack.
+
+“All right--I could use fifty. Or a hundred. Could you let me have a
+hundred?”
+
+“I’ll see, Mr. Overbeck.”
+
+He looked in the cash-register, and took some bills from his pocket.
+“I’m afraid I haven’t got a hundred here. I could let you have seventy.
+Or, if you don’t mind taking some silver, I could give you--let’s
+see--eighty. Eighty-five. Would that do?”
+
+“That will be fine.”
+
+Norman wrote out a check, pushed it across the counter, and stuffed the
+money in his pocket. “Do you happen to know what time the St. Louis
+train leaves?”
+
+Jack thought there was just about time to make it.
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK TWO
+
+                                In Exile
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I: The Prodigal
+
+
+ON a certain Saturday afternoon, Norman Overbeck called up Dr.
+Zerneke’s office, asking if he might see her. The girl answered without
+hesitation, “Come right over, please!”
+
+When he arrived, the girl gazed at him curiously. He looked quite the
+same as she remembered him, with his little stick, his soft hat, his
+light wavy hair, his polite manner--and his courteous voice, by now
+familiar to her from hearing it daily over the telephone. It had been
+her duty during the last two weeks to send a telegram to Gilbert Rand
+in Vickley, saying, “Telephoned to-day as usual.” For this young man
+had called up every day, refusing to give any name, and imperiously
+demanding news of the health of Isabel Drury’s baby. At first she had
+argued with him about it; but when she had referred the matter to Dr.
+Zerneke, the doctor had smiled and said: “It’s all right. Tell him. He
+happens to be the baby’s father.” This week he had shown some anxiety
+when he heard that the baby had been sent to a “boarding home.” She had
+assured him that there was nothing to worry about....
+
+The waiting-room to-day was full of women patients, but Norman was
+ushered immediately into the doctor’s office.
+
+Norman felt rather like a fool--and at the same time quite pleased
+with himself. Dr. Zerneke, he felt, if anybody, would understand. At
+any rate, he hoped she would!...
+
+“Well!” said Dr. Zerneke, shaking hands with him. “What have you been
+doing, these last two weeks?”
+
+“I--why--I’ve been here in Chicago, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Has
+anybody been looking for me?”
+
+“Everybody has been looking for you,” said Dr. Zerneke. “Your friend
+Gilbert Rand is here in town looking for you right now. And I’ve been
+bombarded with telegrams about you. The police would have been looking
+for you, if you hadn’t turned up pretty quick. What do you mean by
+disappearing from the world like that?”
+
+“I’m sorry,” said Norman. “Were my family worried?”
+
+“Of course they were worried. They didn’t know whether you were alive
+or dead.”
+
+“But I sent a letter--”
+
+“So I heard. And it seems to have sounded to your family as if you were
+intending to commit suicide.”
+
+“Good Lord!” He had left Vickley out of his calculations. In fact, he
+had managed to keep from thinking very much of the folks at home during
+these two weeks. It was just like them to act as though he were a
+runaway child! Why couldn’t they let him alone for once?
+
+“But what have you been up to, all this time?”
+
+“Why, I’ve been getting a job.” He masked his secret pride with an air
+of casualness.
+
+“A job here in Chicago?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Really!”
+
+“Yes. In an advertising office. Wilkins and Freeman.”
+
+“So that’s what you’ve been doing!” She looked at him curiously.
+
+“Well--as a matter of fact that only took me a week. But I wanted to
+see whether I could hold the job before I said anything to any one
+about it. And you gave me two weeks, you know.”
+
+That was by way of reminding her of her promise. He had told her he
+would be back in two weeks. He hadn’t known, then, what it would mean
+to come back--over what débris of a wrecked career he would have to
+clamber.... But here he was.
+
+“The two weeks are up to-day,” he added.
+
+Dr. Zerneke said reflectively: “As I remember, I gave you two weeks to
+find out if your family would take the baby.”
+
+“Well, you see--I made rather a mess of that,” he confessed.
+
+“I was afraid you might find it difficult to persuade them.”
+
+“To tell you the truth, I didn’t really try. I saw it would be no use.
+I decided that I’d have to take care of the baby myself.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“Certainly. That’s why I came here and got a job.”
+
+He took out a cigarette, tapped it, and put it back in the case....
+
+“But you must realize,” said Dr. Zerneke, “that this is an entirely new
+proposal. Last week, it was a question of having the child adopted by
+a responsible family. Now you make it a question of turning the child
+over to an irresponsible young man of very uncertain prospects.”
+
+“I don’t think my prospects are so bad, really, Dr. Zerneke,” he
+protested.
+
+“Would you mind telling me--it’s a question you oblige me to ask--what
+you are now making, Mr. Overbeck, at your new job?”
+
+“I’m starting in at thirty dollars a week. I know that’s not very much.
+But it’s merely while I’m on trial. As soon as I show that I can do the
+work, I’ll get a raise to fifty or sixty. And so on. If I’m any good at
+all, I’ll be getting eighty-five or ninety in the course of the year.
+And the rest is up to me.--I’m repeating what my boss told me when I
+got the job. And, if you can take my word for it, I have some real
+ability at this kind of work. I ought to be getting my raise within a
+month or so.”
+
+“It’s not entirely a question of money,” said Dr. Zerneke. “It’s partly
+a matter of character.”
+
+He hadn’t expected to have to argue about it like this. But he would
+defend himself if he had to....
+
+“Yes--I know you called me irresponsible. Because I changed my job,
+I suppose. But you make it sound as if I were a drunkard or a thief.
+Haven’t I a right to stop being a lawyer if I want to?”
+
+“Look at the thing impersonally for a moment, Mr. Overbeck. Do you
+really think it is a recommendation of a young man’s character and
+stability, that he disappears from home for two weeks, allows his
+family to think him dead--”
+
+“But I didn’t know they were going to think any such idiotic thing.”
+
+“Well, why did you do it? That’s what I don’t understand.”
+
+“Because it was the only way I could be free to--to go ahead with this.
+I _had_ to cut loose from my family.”
+
+“You wish to acknowledge the child as your son?”
+
+“I do, certainly.”
+
+“And make him your heir?”
+
+“Yes, of course.”
+
+“I should think you could do that without so much melodrama, Mr.
+Overbeck. You do not need to have left home for that, surely. Your
+family would have had to reconcile themselves to the fact. If they
+refused to do so, that would be another matter.”
+
+“But--that isn’t all. I want to have my son with me.”
+
+“You are hardly in a position to take care of him, are you? You have
+no home at present--I take it that on thirty dollars a week you are
+living in a furnished room. And you have no one to look after the
+baby--you’re not married,--and you can scarcely afford to set up an
+establishment with a housekeeper and nurse. We don’t turn babies over
+to bachelors, Mr. Overbeck.”
+
+“Is that a rule, Dr. Zerneke? Even when the bachelor happens to be the
+baby’s father?”
+
+“I admit that precisely such a situation has never come up before in my
+experience. But there’s another thing--it wouldn’t be fair to the child
+to pitch him into the middle of a family row. A baby is a baby, Mr.
+Overbeck. He needs regular meals and sleep, in an atmosphere of peace
+and affection. He is getting that now. We’ve put him in a boarding
+home, as it’s called--a private family.”
+
+“Yes, so I heard. What’s--become of Isabel?”
+
+“She has left town.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+He wouldn’t let himself think about Isabel.... That was all over....
+
+With an effort he put his attention on what Dr. Zerneke was saying:
+
+“If you want to act for the best interests of your child, Mr. Overbeck,
+you will go back home and straighten things out with your family. And
+then you will make a will acknowledging the child as your son and
+naming him as your heir. There is no reason why he should not inherit
+your share of your father’s estate some day. That is why I suggest
+that you make up with your family--so that you, and consequently your
+child, will not be disinherited. Now that you have a child, you must
+think of such things, and behave sensibly. This is not a matter for
+histrionics--defiance of your family, and all that.” She paused.
+
+“Yes, I can see your point of view,” said Norman doubtfully.
+
+“In the meantime--I assure you that the Society is glad enough to turn
+over its financial responsibilities--you can pay for the child’s care.
+You will be able to see him whenever you like. And later, when you
+marry, your wife will be prepared to take the child into your home. I
+believe that I have heard something about your being engaged?”
+
+“Yes, but that’s off. I told her about the baby, and she broke the
+engagement.”
+
+“No doubt it would be a shock to a girl, coming without warning. Well,
+if she won’t marry you, some other girl will. Then you can have your
+child to bring up.”
+
+“Not until then?”
+
+“Certainly not now. What would you do with a four-weeks-old baby, Mr.
+Overbeck?”
+
+Norman realized with a shock of surprise that the part of his mind
+which had been taking some satisfaction in the thought of having a son
+at his side, was picturing this son sometimes as a boy of eighteen
+and sometimes as a boy of five. His fantasies had all concerned the
+future, not the present....
+
+“I--I hadn’t worked all that out,” he said.
+
+“I thought not. Tell me, Mr. Overbeck--if you saw a roomful of babies,
+could you pick out your own child?”
+
+Norman reflected. “I think so,” he said. “He has light hair, like mine,
+and a queer-shaped head.”
+
+Dr. Zerneke smiled. “Would you like to see him again?”
+
+“Yes. I would.”
+
+“If I can feel safe that you’re not going to do something idiotic, I’ll
+let you see him.”
+
+“What do you mean, idiotic?”
+
+“Such as trying to kidnap him....”
+
+“Oh, but really--you don’t think I’m as crazy as all that!”
+
+“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m going to let you see him. And as soon as
+the situation clears up satisfactorily, as I trust it will, we can take
+the next step.”
+
+“I ought to tell you, Dr. Zerneke, that I have no intention of trying
+to make up with my family,” said Norman firmly.
+
+“Well, perhaps they will do the making up,” said Dr. Zerneke easily.
+“And in the meantime the child can stay with Mrs. Czermak. I’ll give
+you a note to her.”
+
+She took pen and paper, and wrote. Looking up, she said: “You’ll find
+her a very capable foster-mother. She has an interesting story that
+I’ll tell you some time. This is the third baby she’s taken care of for
+me.”
+
+“What,” asked Norman, “happened to the others?” His tone was anxious.
+He had heard of “baby-farms.”...
+
+Dr. Zerneke smiled. “They came back to their mothers fat and rosy. You
+needn’t worry about what happens to babies in Mrs. Czermak’s care.”
+
+She handed him the note.
+
+“And by the way,” she said, “we must make up a story for you.”
+
+“A story for me?”
+
+“To account for the baby. You don’t want everybody in Chicago to know
+the peculiar state of your affairs, do you?”
+
+“No. I’ve had enough of trying to explain it in Vickley.”
+
+“Now when a girl has a fatherless baby, we always advise a wedding ring
+and a dead husband to simplify matters. But I don’t think you ought to
+be a widower, Mr. Overbeck.” She paused thoughtfully. “A widower with
+a baby is the natural prey of womankind. You’ll have a hard enough
+time as it is. You ought to have a wife, even though an absent one, to
+scare them off. Now how should we account for her absence? She might be
+ill--but then people would be sympathetic and inquiring. Can you think
+of a good story--simple, convincing, and not too interesting?”
+
+“It does seem a rather difficult problem, doesn’t it?” said Norman,
+trying hard to think.
+
+“T.B. is the only thing I can think of.”
+
+“T.B.?”
+
+“Yes. Your wife has been ordered to Colorado for the sake of her
+health. She’s in a sanitarium--you can be vague about that: or you can
+say Dr. Rublee’s sanitarium--there isn’t any such place, but there
+might be. She’ll have to stay there six months or a year. Yes, I think
+that will do. You understand just why I advise this story, don’t you?
+It’s simply to keep you from being married off to the first unattached
+woman you come across.”
+
+“Do you really think there’s any great likelihood of any one being
+willing to marry me?”
+
+“My dear man, you don’t know what you’re up against. Well, you can
+start in practicing your story on Mrs. Czermak, if you like. I told her
+the mother was ill. You can elaborate it. She’ll be glad enough of the
+prospect of keeping the baby longer.”
+
+The telephone rang, and Dr. Zerneke turned to answer.
+
+“Yes, connect him, please.... Mr. Rand?... Yes, indeed--your young
+friend is right here. I’ll let you speak to him.”
+
+She handed the telephone to Norman.
+
+“Hello, Gilbert.”
+
+“Good God, is it really you, Norman?”
+
+“It’s all right, Gilbert. Where are you?”
+
+“At the Annex. What the devil have you been doing?”
+
+“I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll be with you in about an hour.... Keep
+your shirt on. Good-by!”
+
+He turned to Dr. Zerneke. “You don’t quite realize what I’m in for,” he
+said.
+
+Dr. Zerneke smiled. “I don’t know your family,” she said, “but I’ve
+been in communication with your friend Mr. Rand, and you’ll find him
+quite reasonable, I think.”
+
+“Just the same, I want to make my first visit to--my son. Before I see
+any one from Vickley.”
+
+“If that will make you feel better, go ahead,” said Dr. Zerneke.
+
+She dismissed him with a warm hand-shake.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II: A Man Has Some Rights
+
+
+MRS. CZERMAK’S address was on the North side, not far away.... He
+really couldn’t afford a taxi. But this was a special occasion--and
+Gilbert was waiting. He hailed one.
+
+One in a row of dingy three-story brick houses. He rang the bell. A
+young woman came to the door.
+
+“I want to see Mrs. Czermak.”
+
+“I’m Mrs. Czermak. Did you want a room?”
+
+She was younger than he had expected Mrs. Czermak to be--not a
+responsible-looking middle-aged matron, but a girl in her middle
+twenties--not at all what he had pictured as a child’s nurse.... And
+her speech did not have the foreign accent that her name suggested.
+
+“No--I--here’s a letter from Dr. Zerneke,” he said.
+
+She stood there, leaving him waiting on the doorstep, while she opened
+and read it. Then she looked up quickly.
+
+“Oh--so you’re my baby’s father?” and she opened the door wider to
+admit him. “Do you want to see him now? He’s asleep. You can look at
+him, though.”
+
+“I’d like to,” said Norman.
+
+She led him upstairs, through a bedroom, very clean and orderly, into
+a small room which was the nursery. There was the crib. They went up to
+it, and she drew back a coverlet.
+
+Norman felt no particular emotion at the sight of the sleeping child.
+He wondered why. He was moving heaven and earth to have that child for
+his own. He had broken Madge’s heart. It would make his family terribly
+unhappy. He had thrown away a career. And here was what it was all
+about--a baby with soft fair hair, and a queer-shaped head. No--the
+head wasn’t so queer-shaped to-day. And the face was pinker.... He was
+a little disappointed at his lack of any deep feeling....
+
+The baby stirred in its sleep, and flung up a tiny fist.
+
+Mrs. Czermak put back the coverlet, and Norman turned away. As they
+went back into the larger room, the picture of that small fist lingered
+in his mind.
+
+He realized that Mrs. Czermak was expecting him to say something. He
+felt embarrassed--as if it were somebody else’s baby he were being
+called upon to praise.
+
+“It’s awfully little, isn’t it!” he said awkwardly.
+
+“He’s a fine baby!” said Mrs. Czermak defensively.
+
+Norman was conscious of having said “it” instead of “he.” Was she
+offended by that? Did she think he didn’t appreciate the baby?
+
+“If you come just before six, you can see him awake,” she said.
+“That’s his feeding time. Or on Sundays you could come at a little
+before two.”
+
+Well, that was all. What had he expected? He had come to see his son.
+And he had seen him. Now he would go.
+
+Gilbert was waiting for him....
+
+Somehow, he had expected something more--something to fortify him
+against Gilbert’s reproaches--Gilbert’s news of the havoc he had
+left behind him in Vickley. He had run away from Vickley. He hadn’t
+permitted himself to think about what he had done to Madge--to his
+family. He’d hear about it all. And Gilbert would have some new, slick,
+plausible scheme.
+
+“Sundays at two, you say?” he asked.
+
+“Yes. That’s when he gets his bottle. You might come a little before
+then--fifteen minutes before.”
+
+He’d never get acquainted with his son, at that rate.... It was more
+of a job than he had realized. First he had to get reconciled to his
+family--and then, apparently, get married! Good Lord! And meanwhile the
+baby would stay here....
+
+As he started to leave, an idea came brilliantly. Yes, why not? He
+turned to Mrs. Czermak.
+
+“You say you have rooms for rent here?”
+
+She hesitated, and then answered reluctantly:
+
+“Sometimes.”
+
+He vaguely sensed some opposition to his plan. But he asked in a
+determined way:
+
+“Have you any vacant now?”
+
+Again she hesitated. “Not any suitable for two.”
+
+“I don’t want a room for two. I want a room for one.” He had the
+feeling of putting something over on Dr. Zerneke. Wait until he was
+married, to be with the baby? He would show her!
+
+“Oh!” said Mrs. Czermak. “Well, I have a hall bedroom on the next
+floor.”
+
+“May I see it?”
+
+“Is it for yourself or your wife?” asked Mrs. Czermak.
+
+He remembered abruptly what Dr. Zerneke had told him to say.
+
+“My wife has been ordered to Colorado for her health. She started
+to-day.”
+
+“Oh--and without the baby!”
+
+“It will be quite out of the question for her to have the baby with her
+for another six months--possibly more,” said Norman solemnly. “She’s
+going to Dr. Rublee’s sanitarium.”
+
+“Where is that--in Denver?”
+
+“Yes,” he said. He was anxious to get off a subject on which further
+questions would be embarrassing. “May I see the room?”
+
+Her manner, which had become hostile for a minute or two, had changed
+to friendliness again. “Now that I come to think of it,” she said,
+“there’s the large front room downstairs. It was promised, but the
+people haven’t come. I’ll show it to you.” She took him there.
+
+He looked around. It was much larger, lighter, cleaner, than the one he
+had been living in.
+
+“How much is it?” he asked.
+
+She thought a moment. “We could let you have it for eight dollars, I
+guess.”
+
+Remarkably cheap! He had been paying eight for the hole he had been
+living in.
+
+“I’ll take it,” he said.
+
+Yes, if a baby couldn’t live with a bachelor father, there was nothing
+to keep a bachelor father from coming to live with his baby! Norman
+smiled, with a sense of triumphing over a hostile universe.
+
+Then he looked about the room again, with a practical glance. He went
+to the center-table. It was rickety under his touch, like the one
+upon which during his evenings for two weeks he had been computing
+and recomputing the statistics of illegitimate parenthood--a peculiar
+consolation which he had learned from Isabel. With the figures he
+had found at the Crerar library, and the further assistance of the
+population tables in the World Almanac, all sorts of interesting things
+could be worked out....
+
+“Could I have a small, solid table to write on? An unpainted kitchen
+table would do.”
+
+“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Czermak. “When do you want to move in?”
+
+“I’ll move to-night.” There wasn’t, as a matter of fact, anything to
+move, except his overcoat and his alarm clock. And the two weeks for
+which he had paid in advance were about up. He might as well make the
+change without delay, and get settled. He took out some bills.
+
+“By the way,” he said, “how much has Dr. Zerneke been paying you for
+taking care of the baby?”
+
+“Ten dollars a week. With Grade A milk, and clothes, it comes to about
+twelve dollars, not counting extras.”
+
+Norman calculated silently. Twelve dollars for the baby; eight for his
+room; nine, say, for his meals; a dollar for laundry; that was exactly
+thirty dollars, and left him nothing for carfare or cigarettes. But he
+would manage somehow--and it would be only a few weeks until he got a
+raise.
+
+“I’ll take care of that from now on,” he said.
+
+“Suppose I pay a week in advance for the room, and a week for the
+baby,” he said. “Will that be all right?”
+
+He handed her the money.
+
+She looked at it. “There’s supposed to be a deposit for the keys,” she
+said, “but we won’t bother about that.”
+
+“Why not?” he said, and offered her another dollar.
+
+“No,” she shook her head. “You’ll need every dollar you can save. With
+a sick wife in Colorado.”
+
+He somewhat guiltily put the dollar back in his pocket.
+
+“I’ll get you your keys,” she said, turning to go.
+
+“Never mind,” he said, “give them to me to-night. I’m in a hurry now.”
+He looked at his watch.
+
+“I’m afraid I can’t promise the table till Monday,” she said.
+
+“That’s all right.”
+
+“We’ll try to make you comfortable.”
+
+Well, that was settled! And now for old Gilbert....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III: An Ambassador from Vickley
+
+
+GILBERT was standing in the door of his room. “You crazy loon,” he
+cried. “My God, I’m glad to see you.” He threw his arms around Norman,
+and pulled him inside the door. “You’ve aged me ten years in the last
+two weeks, you son-of-a-gun.”
+
+“I’m sorry I’ve given you so much trouble, Gilbert,” said Norman
+stiffly.
+
+“Oh, it’s all right,” said Gilbert. “Now that it’s turned out this way,
+it’s perfectly all right. Couldn’t be better. But tell me just one
+thing--what have you been doing these last two weeks?”
+
+“Looking for work.” And he told Gilbert briefly of his new job.
+
+Gilbert slapped him on the shoulder. “I thought so. That’s exactly what
+I’ve been telling them. Sit tight, I said, and trust me.--But I tell
+you, if you hadn’t shown up to-day or to-morrow, my hair would have
+gone white. Two weeks is a long time to wait.”
+
+“But I wrote in my letter to my mother, from the station, not to
+worry--”
+
+“I know what you wrote. And that there’d be news of you in two weeks.
+That’s what I counted on. That’s been my job--getting them to wait,
+instead of notifying the police.”
+
+“But really--why all this nonsense about suicide? Perhaps my letter
+wasn’t as tactful as I thought it was--but after all--”
+
+“Oh, that’s all right,” said Gilbert. “The suicide part and everything.
+It fitted in fine. You did everything just right.”
+
+“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I thought I had done everything just
+wrong. I’ve realized that my behavior must have seemed very queer to
+the folks at home. But even so--suicide!”
+
+“That’s just the point, my boy. People can forgive anything to a
+man who’s probably committed suicide. And when it turns out that
+you haven’t, they’re so glad, that nothing else matters. You framed
+the thing just right--that quarrel with your father, the mysterious
+references to the unknown girl, everything down to cashing that check
+at the cigar store and asking about the St. Louis train. Couldn’t have
+been better.”
+
+These remarks were evidently intended to be reassuring; but they
+reminded Norman uncomfortably of what a fool he had behaved like in
+Vickley.
+
+“I suppose you think I did it on purpose?” he said. “Well, I didn’t. I
+was in a state of mind. I hardly knew what I was doing, Gilbert. But I
+still don’t understand why you’re so happy about it all.”
+
+“I’m happy, you son-of-a-gun, because you’re alive. Here, have a drink.”
+
+Gilbert opened his suitcase and took out a bottle. “No? Well, I will.
+My nerves have gone to pieces over this.” He poured some whiskey into
+a tumbler, and drank.
+
+“You know, Norman, you let me down something awful. That’s no way to
+treat your lawyer. You ought to have told me what you were going to do.
+Here I arrived in Vickley with the thing all settled--and when I called
+up your house Sunday afternoon, hell was popping. I had to think fast.”
+
+“Gilbert--I know. I should have told you. I suppose I was afraid to.
+The truth is, I wasn’t capable of reasonable thought.”
+
+“I gathered that something had gone wrong, so I went over to your
+house. And there I was, sweating blood while the thing came out bit by
+bit that evening.”
+
+Norman felt uncomfortable. He had expected Gilbert to scold him. He had
+been prepared for that.... But he wasn’t prepared to hear all about
+just what had been happening in Vickley.... He really didn’t want to
+know.... But Gilbert would want to tell him. He would have to listen.
+There was no way of getting out of it....
+
+“I didn’t know exactly what you’d done, Norman, but I knew you were
+running amuck somehow,” Gilbert went on, with a smile.
+
+“You knew I had told Madge, at least,” said Norman unhappily.
+
+“Not at first. In fact, when I arrived, all that was known was that
+you hadn’t come home to dinner, and that you had quarreled with your
+father at the breakfast table. If I hadn’t been on the inside of your
+affairs, I should have thought they were damned fools to be making so
+much fuss about nothing. And then they asked me if I had ever heard you
+mention a girl named Isabel!”
+
+“But didn’t Madge--or her aunt--tell them anything about--about the
+engagement being broken?”
+
+“I’ve no doubt they supposed your family knew. And a silly thing
+happened there. It seems that your sister Lucinda had called up the
+Ferris house three or four times that morning, asking for you--”
+
+“I know--about a dog.”
+
+“Yes. About a dog. I imagine that Madge made some reference to what had
+happened, but Lucinda didn’t take it in. She kept talking about the
+dog. And at last Madge said, ‘Oh, damn your dog!’ So Lucinda cried, and
+wouldn’t let your mother call up the Ferrises any more, even to ask
+about you. The first any of us in the house heard about the engagement
+being broken was when some kind neighbors came in to inquire if it
+were true. Your sister Lucinda seemed to rather hope it was, but she
+wouldn’t let your mother call up and ask. I was the only one who had
+any notion of what had happened. All they were worried about was that
+their darling boy hadn’t come home to dinner. Even when the neighbors
+said that Madge’s aunt had taken to bed with nervous prostration, they
+didn’t begin to suspect anything serious might be the matter--anything
+that would affect them. And there was I, knowing the dynamite you were
+carrying around, and surer every minute that you had set it off.”
+
+Norman sighed. Must Gilbert go into all these painful details? Why not
+let the dead past be forgotten?
+
+“I tell you,” said Gilbert, “I was sweating blood!”
+
+“It didn’t occur to you, I suppose, to tell them the truth?” Norman
+asked with some asperity.
+
+“There’s where you do me an injustice, my boy. I’m more versatile than
+you think. I figured it all out--and this seemed to be one of those
+rare situations in which the truth might be better than the best lie
+that the mind of man could invent. Of course, I didn’t want to do
+anything rash. If I gave the show away, and then you walked in with
+some other story--that _would_ be a pretty mess! But I had a hunch that
+you weren’t going to walk in. My hunches were mostly right, that day. I
+didn’t understand what you were up to, all at once--not, in fact, till
+next day, when I got an answer to my wire to Dr. Zerneke. But I wasn’t
+far wrong in my first guess.”
+
+“What _was_ your first guess?” Norman asked, as patiently as he could.
+Of course, all this was interesting to Gilbert. The least he could do
+was to listen....
+
+“I thought you had come back in good faith, intending to keep your
+mouth shut and preserve the status quo--but that your damned honesty
+had got the best of you, and you had told Madge about the baby, and
+then lit out for Chicago when she threw you over. Not a bad guess,
+either. And for my purposes it was as good as the whole story. The
+point was that you had probably spilled the beans. They say a good
+lawyer is one that can take advantage of a defeat. Well, I was
+defeated, all right. My plans were all smashed to hell--and there
+wasn’t any use trying to patch them up. So I made new plans then and
+there. This has been one of the most interesting cases I ever handled,
+Norman--and if it had been tried in court I’d have made a great
+reputation on it. I figured that the whole town was my jury, or would
+be in twenty-four hours. There was no use trying to frame up any more
+alibis for you. I had to get the truth before the jury, and get you
+off that way. That’s what I was thinking when the clock commenced to
+strike midnight. We all knew what time it was, but we sat still and
+listened--your mother and father, Lucinda and I. It finished striking.
+You hadn’t come. And then there was a ring at the bell. We knew you
+wouldn’t have rung, you’d have walked in. It might be anything--your
+dead body. Waiting under an emotional strain for somebody for a few
+hours will do that to people’s minds! Well, it was your special
+delivery letter. Your mother was afraid to open it. Your father opened
+it. In that atmosphere, you see, your words weren’t as cheerful as you
+intended them to be. News of you in two weeks!--Not news _from_ you,
+but news _of_ you. It sounded like grim death itself.”
+
+Norman twisted uncomfortably in his chair.
+
+“I never thought of that, Gilbert. But _you_ knew--”
+
+“What did I know? Nothing. I didn’t guess until next day, when I heard
+from Dr. Zerneke about what you came home for. All I could think of
+then was that you were going to Chicago and make that girl marry you.”
+
+“Of course--you didn’t know,” Norman murmured.
+
+“But you were out of town--I knew that. And then we heard more about
+that. Somebody told the clerk at the cigar-store that your girl
+had jilted you. And he got worried, and confided to a policeman
+what he knew--the check, and the St. Louis train. And then some one
+recalled seeing a light in the Overbeck building. The police and the
+nightwatchman had gone to your office, and found cigarette stubs all
+over the floor. So along towards one o’clock we heard from the police.
+Then your father called up the Ferrises. Madge answered the telephone.
+Yes, she said, it was true that she’d broken the engagement that
+morning. No, she hadn’t seen you since. But she’d had a telephone call
+from you at about eleven o’clock. You’d said something about being
+sorry, and hung up. No, she’d prefer not to say why she had broken the
+engagement. She was cool enough about it.”
+
+“Cool?” Norman asked in surprise.
+
+“Your sister Lucinda called it heartless. She kept on talking about how
+heartless Madge Ferris was. Finally she came out with something about
+poor Norman possibly lying dead at this very moment. Your mother ssh’d
+her, and told her not to be silly. But the thing had been said--the
+thing that was in everybody’s mind. After all, when a man disappears
+like that, one of the possibilities _is_ suicide.”
+
+“You keep harping on that, Gilbert. It’s not a pleasant thought.”
+
+“I’m telling you just what happened.”
+
+“Of course. Go on.”
+
+“As a matter of fact, I was glad it had come to that. It put your
+family where I wanted them. It made the possibility of your being alive
+the only thing of any importance. And my mind was made up. You had told
+Madge about the baby, I was sure of that. The whole thing would come
+out. And now was the time to spring the truth. At the time, you see,
+I thought you were going to try to pull off a marriage with the other
+girl. It would be a sort of happy ending. But I looked at your sister
+Lucinda, and I thought again. I didn’t want my effect spoiled by any
+discordant notes. And I didn’t think she’d take so kindly to a happy
+ending that involved the mysterious Isabel. Your mother--it wouldn’t
+hurt her to do a little worrying. Your father--he was the one that had
+to be told. Only not in that house. There was something else, if it
+came to that, I was going to remind him of. So I suggested that he and
+I go down to the office where you had been camping all day. You might
+have left something there that the police hadn’t found--a letter, or
+something of the sort. He was glad to go. Norman, if you ever had any
+doubt whether your father loves you-- He was nearly crazy with anxiety.
+He had been trying to keep up a front with his women-folk, but alone
+with me in the office he was beginning to break down. He commenced to
+blame himself for a thousand things--including the way he had persuaded
+you against your wishes to go into the law.... Well, I told him the
+whole story.”
+
+“So he knows....”
+
+“Yes.” Gilbert looked into his empty glass, and poured himself another
+drink. “Everybody knows. That’s what I’m coming to. The whole damn
+town. And I’m the one that told them. Oh, I had good reasons. In the
+first place--you know what a lot of nonsense gets around--there was
+talk of your having embezzled some of the firm’s money. I wanted to put
+a stop to that. But that’s getting too far ahead. The next person I
+told the truth to was your fiancée.”
+
+“Madge? But she knew!”
+
+“She knew what you told her, which wasn’t much, I gather. Enough to
+give her the wrong slant on the whole thing. Well, somebody had to talk
+to her--and your sister Lucinda had taken to bed over what I had told
+your father the night before. Your mother was busy looking after her.
+And your father was pretty much shot to pieces. So that left me, to
+attend to all these little things. The impression your sister Lucinda
+got of what I had told your father was that you were eloping with an
+artist’s model. And, of course, with my connivance. The baby she simply
+didn’t believe in. She would have it that you had been victimized by
+some designing female. Well, I didn’t argue with her. I went to see
+Madge.”
+
+He would rather not hear that part of it. But he felt obliged to ask:
+
+“What did Madge say?”
+
+“At first she practically told me it was none of my business why
+she had broken the engagement. I said I could guess why it was, and
+reminded her that I had been with you in Chicago. She said, if I knew,
+there was no use discussing it. I admit I was pretty much stumped by
+her coolness. I wondered if she were really heartless, as your sister
+Lucinda said. But that wasn’t it. She was really trying to be a good
+sport, as I found out afterward. She was trying not to hate the girl
+who had taken you away from her. She wasn’t thinking about a baby at
+all. In fact, she didn’t know about it.”
+
+“But I told her about the baby!” he protested.
+
+“You didn’t get it straight, Norman--or she didn’t hear it. Or maybe
+her aunt mixed her up about it. You seem to have talked to her, too.”
+
+“Not about the baby, I think,” said Norman, making an effort to
+remember these things that seemed to have happened so many thousands of
+years ago.
+
+“So Madge said. But between what you told the girl and what her aunt
+imagined, she got it wrong.”
+
+“What in the world did she think I had told her?”
+
+“She didn’t say in so many words. But I realized that I knew more about
+it than she did, so I started in to tell her the whole thing. And she
+was surprised from beginning to end. She was under the impression that
+you had been carrying on an affair with the other girl while being
+engaged to _her_.”
+
+“I didn’t have a chance to go into details. But I’m sure I told her
+about the baby!”
+
+“Not that the baby was already born. You neglected that detail. And so
+naturally she thought of a pregnant girl that you had to marry.”
+
+“So--that’s what she meant.... She told me I was free--to go to her!”
+
+“Exactly. I tell you, Norman, she’s a good sport!”
+
+“I see that I blundered the thing frightfully.”
+
+“You made it seem even worse than it was. But that’s a good way of
+breaking bad news. She’d already suffered the worst. And what I told
+her--it took the poison out of the wound, so to speak.”
+
+“She’ll think a little more kindly of me, perhaps,” said Norman
+wistfully.
+
+“She’s sorry for you. And she’s interested in your wanting the baby.
+I told her why you had come home--to see if your people would take
+it. I had learned that from Dr. Zerneke over the long-distance. ‘Well,
+Madge,’ I asked, ‘can you hate him for a thing like that?’ And she
+said: ‘How could I hate him? I feel very humble.’”
+
+“Humble!”
+
+“To tell the truth, Norman, she thinks of you as a kind of saint.”
+
+“Gilbert, don’t razz me.”
+
+“Women are queer, Norman. Of course, there’s some credit due me as
+your advocate. I didn’t neglect my opportunities. And it _is_ rather
+dramatic, you know--your throwing up a career and respectability, for
+the sake of your son. It’s the sort of thing women can understand.”
+
+(Perhaps--but how did old Gilbert understand?)
+
+“The only trouble is,” Gilbert went on, “it leaves her out. She’d
+rather be the other girl, I think. She can’t understand Isabel--why she
+won’t marry you. But then, as I told her, I don’t either.”
+
+“You told her I had offered to marry Isabel?”
+
+“Yes--and that you didn’t love her. That’s correct, I think?”
+
+“Yes. How did Madge take that?”
+
+“She seemed to understand it perfectly. It made you all the more
+saintlike.”
+
+“Please lay off that, Gilbert.”
+
+“If you depart from the beaten track, Norman, you have to take the
+consequences. You can’t do what you’ve done without being regarded
+either as a scoundrel or a saint.”
+
+“I was prepared to be regarded as a scoundrel.”
+
+“Well, I’ve fixed that up for you, too. A saint to the women.... All
+except your mother and sister, Norman. They both, in their different
+ways, regard you as a child.”
+
+“You haven’t mentioned my kid sister--Doris. I was really trying to
+protect her.”
+
+“So did we all. She was sent away to the neighbors or up to bed during
+all the family conferences, and told some sort of transparent fib about
+your being called out of town on business. But she strolled into our
+conference Monday night--I had just got through telling them my revised
+story about you--and announced with a bored air that we needn’t trouble
+to keep the secret from her any longer. She knew all about Norman’s
+baby, she said. As a matter of fact, she heard this new story before
+the family did. It appears that the news, coming from some girl friend
+of Madge’s, had spread like wildfire among the younger generation. They
+all knew it by evening.”
+
+“Do you think it will--hurt her much?” Norman asked anxiously.
+
+“Doris? On the contrary, she’s quite a heroine on account of it. Times
+are changing, Norman!”
+
+“In Vickley!” said Norman incredulously.
+
+Gilbert looked at him gravely.
+
+“I haven’t intended to deceive you, Norman. You know perfectly well
+that you’ve cooked your goose, as far as the law business goes. If you
+wanted to set up as a romantic poet, it might be all right for you to
+come back. But not as a lawyer. You knew that, didn’t you?”
+
+“Thank God for that!”
+
+“Well, be that as it may, Norman, your career in Vickley is gone
+completely and absolutely to smash. There’s not a moment’s doubt about
+that. And there’s not a thing I or anybody else can do about that. You
+had me beaten there. The only thing I could gain was what is called a
+moral victory. And since that’s all I have to boast of, Norman, I’m
+boasting of that. Let me go ahead and tell you about my speech to the
+jury!”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“But first I’ll help myself to another drink.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV: Speech to the Jury
+
+
+“AND now,” said Norman, “what about this alleged moral victory? You
+didn’t by any chance tell people the real truth about me?”
+
+Gilbert put his feet up on a chair. He, at any rate, was enjoying these
+reminiscences.
+
+“Yes. This business of telling the truth is like any other drug habit.
+It grows on you. That same Monday night, after I left your house, I
+dropped in at Sam’s place for a drink. There were half a dozen men
+there--and Sam, behind the bar. One of the men was Davis of the Herald
+and another was Quinn of the Whig. I won’t name the others, but they
+are pillars of Vickley society. Well, Quinn came up to me and asked
+if I had heard the rumor that you were in financial difficulties when
+you left town--not that they would print anything about it, unless
+something came up so that they would be obliged to. Well, I had an
+inspiration. ‘Boys,’ I said, ‘I’m going to tell you the truth about the
+disappearance of Norman Overbeck. You can decide for yourself whether
+it can be printed.’--And not a word has been in the papers since. They
+couldn’t have printed the story anyway--not in Vickley. But it was a
+magnificent gesture. ‘This is for all of you to hear,’ I said. And so
+I made my speech to the jury right there at Sam’s bar. The doors were
+locked--Sam saw to that--so there wouldn’t be any interruptions. I’d
+had two or three rehearsals of my speech already, between your family
+and Madge, but this time it was for a different audience. These men
+were hard-boiled guys, and not in love with you....”
+
+“You--you didn’t--I mean--all that stuff about it’s being somebody
+else--some other man--you didn’t suggest that?” Norman asked painfully.
+
+“I cast no doubts on the paternity of your son, Norman, if that’s
+what you mean. I wasn’t out to make a fool of you. On the contrary. A
+scoundrel. It came to me in a flash. A saint--that was all very well
+for the women. But men don’t like saints. I had to make you out a
+villain--but a magnificent villain, such as men secretly envy. And I
+had learned something, Norman. I had learned that the paternal passion
+is repressed in our polite species--repressed, I believe, is the
+word--but not extinct. I was depending on that. I looked at my jury,
+and I said: ‘It isn’t embezzlement, gentlemen. It’s a baby.’ One fellow
+snickered. I thought: ‘All right--I’ll have _you_ crying before I’ve
+finished!’ And I did, too....”
+
+“What in God’s name did you tell them, Gilbert?”
+
+“The story of a respectable man and his illegitimate son. I must admit
+that I embroidered it a little. You know you dropped that hint about
+St. Louis--and several people saw you get on that train. Which shows
+the value of evidence. Well, I followed up that hint--saying that it
+was only a guess of mine. I said you had been talking to me about
+South America. I said I thought you had gone there. And why South
+America? Because it’s a Man’s Country. I’d been reading a story about
+it in Mencken’s Mercury, and I laid in on thick. There a man begets
+his children by all the girls he takes a fancy to. And he doesn’t have
+to sneak out of his responsibilities--the country isn’t run by a lot
+of old-maid Sunday-school teachers. When he gets tired of a girl he
+gives her a present and tells her to get out. But she leaves her baby
+behind. A South American gentleman, I gave them to understand, has a
+dozen bright and happy illegitimate children, and a big house in the
+country where he raises them, and visits them, and plays with them--and
+everybody, including the lawful wife, knows all about it. I pictured
+you, Norman, as a fellow that wasn’t going to be bluffed out of his
+natural feelings by our hypocritical civilization. If you couldn’t
+have your son with you in Vickley, you were going to South America,
+where such things are understood. Mind you, I said, I’m not defending
+the young man, I’m only trying to explain him. But I could see that
+the idea appealed to the crowd. There’s something of the Turk and the
+Mormon in us all. The truth is, we’d like not only to go to bed with
+all the pretty girls we take a fancy to, but we’d like to have them
+go right ahead and have their babies. And you needn’t tell me the
+girls don’t feel the same way about it. If polygamy wasn’t so damned
+expensive, that’s the way we’d do it, too. The aristocracy has always
+had its bastards without shame and apparently to the satisfaction of
+all concerned. It’s only our middle-class economy that has made us a
+race of hypocrites.”
+
+Norman looked at old Gilbert in astonishment. “I hope you don’t expect
+me to live up to your romantic stories!”
+
+“But, Norman--don’t go back on me now. You’re planning to adopt the
+boy, aren’t you? I made sure of that when Dr. Zerneke said you were
+calling up every day about him.”
+
+Norman flushed. “Of course I’m going to adopt him. But I don’t feel in
+the least like a Mormon or a Turk. Or a saint either.”
+
+“Well, you’ve made a good start in both directions. Norman, my boy”--
+Gilbert emptied the bottle into his tumbler--“you’ve done what every
+man at some time in his life wishes he dared to do--and what every
+woman feels instinctively that a real man ought to do.”
+
+“Gilbert--all this excitement has gone to your head. You’re talking
+bosh. Every man in America doesn’t beget a child out of wedlock. You
+see, I happen to know the statistics. It comes to only about--I’ve
+figured it out for Vickley: let me think. If Vickley runs true to
+statistical averages, there are only about twenty new illegitimate
+fathers there per year. And there are nearly twelve thousand males in
+Vickley between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five. So you see it’s
+really quite the exception, Gilbert.”
+
+“Your statistics, my boy, apply only to the illegitimate children
+that are actually born. I’m talking of the others. There may be men
+in Vickley who have never in all their lives sent a girl to the
+abortionist--but I’d not bet on any of them being there at Sam’s bar
+that night. And that’s what they were all thinking of--the girls who
+had cried because they couldn’t go ahead and have their babies--the
+girls whose abortions they had paid for--the girls who, as they
+damn well knew, despised them for being the dirty cowards that we
+respectable men have to be!”
+
+Norman looked at him curiously--wonderingly.... What did old Gilbert
+know about such things?
+
+The telephone rang. Gilbert took up the receiver.
+
+“A telegram? Yes, send it up.”
+
+He turned to Norman. “That will be from your father. I wired him that
+the lost was found and in good shape.”
+
+They waited. There was a knock at the door, and the boy with the
+telegram. Gilbert read it and handed it to Norman.
+
+In the stiff, reticent phrases that were so like his father, it read:
+
+  PLEASED AND GRATEFUL WILL ARRIVE CHICAGO SUNDAY MORNING AS PLANNED
+
+                                                              OVERBECK
+
+Ten words.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V: The Older Generation
+
+
+LATE that evening they were talking in Norman’s new room.... They had
+dined together, going over the whole situation. Gilbert wasted no time
+in vain regrets. He accepted the new state of Norman’s affairs, and
+was anxious to help him make the best of his Chicago career. He took
+Norman’s job seriously, and discussed its future possibilities. And
+Gilbert had readily come with him to see the baby. He remarked upon its
+resemblance to Norman. They met Mrs. Czermak’s mother, whose name was
+Mrs. Case, and another daughter named Monica, a young stenographer.
+Also Mr. Victor, an elderly violinist, one of the boarders, just then
+out of a job.... Everybody, it seemed, was interested in the baby....
+
+“You know,” said Norman awkwardly, “he was named for me--by his mother.”
+
+Gilbert nodded. “Queer girl!” he said.
+
+They talked of Isabel. She had left town, said Norman; had probably
+gone to Michigan, he thought. It was just as well, he said coldly. He
+hadn’t wanted to see her again....
+
+Then they talked of Norman’s father--of whom Norman had been secretly
+and painfully thinking all the while....
+
+It was all very well to have gained what old Gilbert called a moral
+victory over the hard-boiled reprobates at Sam’s bar; over romantic
+Vickley matrons who wished to believe in a remarkable young male
+saint engaged in expiating his youthful sin by self-sacrifice; over a
+sensation-loving younger generation: over even that girl whose love and
+pride his destiny had driven him to trample upon so cruelly: but there
+remained J. J. Overbeck. No moral victory was possible over him!
+
+His father simply would not be able to understand what had happened.
+How could he? A man like that! No, this sort of thing might be
+comprehensible to a cynical philosopher like old Gilbert. But it would
+be outside the range of his father’s imaginative sympathy. That was
+what was going to make this meeting so hard. He couldn’t help wanting
+to make his father understand. And that would be impossible.
+
+“Still afraid of the old man?” asked Gilbert, smiling, as he read
+Norman’s thoughts, so plain to see in his troubled face.
+
+“I can’t help it,” said Norman. “No, it’s not exactly that I’m afraid
+of him. But I know that he won’t be able to understand this at all.”
+
+“No?” said Gilbert. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you.”
+
+“His whole life,” said Norman, “has gone to building up his family.
+He thinks in terms of the family. You say he loves me--but it’s just
+because I’m part of the family. I was to take his place in Vickley.
+I’ve hurt him in a way he never can forgive.”
+
+“Norman,” said Gilbert, “maybe I know your father better than you do.
+We were in Cuba together, you know. Before you were born.”
+
+“Are you hinting at something, Gilbert?” Norman asked in astonishment.
+
+“I never hint, Norman. I’m going to tell you a story. Because I think
+you ought to know it before your father comes. He won’t say a word to
+you about it. But he’ll know I’ve told you. He couldn’t do it. Just as
+I couldn’t tell my own son. But I know he’d like you to know.”
+
+“My--father!” Norman whispered incredulously.
+
+“Listen, Norman. That Sunday night, after midnight, when your father
+and I sat in his office--after I’d told him about your baby--he broke
+down. And ... well, you see I’ve known something about your father for
+a long time. He didn’t know I knew it. I’d never have told you, but
+it’s all right now. So I’ll begin with that.--You think of your father
+as an old man, don’t you? Just as you think of me as ‘old Gilbert.’
+Yes, it’s true he’s fifty-five and wears side-whiskers.... It’s hard to
+go on, Norman, with you looking at me like that. I know how you feel.
+But he’s not _my_ father--so it didn’t so much shock me to learn, as
+I did a good many years ago by accident, that he had--well, a secret
+life. Don’t look so God-damn’ solemn. It all happened before you were
+born. A rather plain woman in her thirties. A widow. I knew her name,
+but that meant nothing to me at the time. She is dead, now. This is
+all ancient history. She left Vickley about the time you were born,
+went out West to visit some relatives; and, as I learned the other
+night, came back to Vickley some years later--but it was all over
+then--and died.... Well, are you wishing I wouldn’t tell you?”
+
+“I--it does upset me, rather,” Norman confessed. “I’ve no right to feel
+like that, I know. But--”
+
+“Of course. One’s own father. And that’s the true origin of our
+conventional morality, my boy. I hear stuff about the hypocrisy of the
+older generation. It’s true enough--but whose fault is it? Who puts us
+up on a pedestal? Who refuses to believe that we are merely human? You
+wait! You’ve a son now. He’ll have an ideal of you--and you won’t dare
+shatter it. You’ll lie, like all the rest of us. You’ll be a hypocrite,
+too. Oh, it’s a joke!...
+
+“Well, I knew this thing about your father. And I smiled a little.
+But I didn’t know the real story till that night.... It goes back to
+the time we were in Cuba together, in the Spanish war. I don’t know
+why your father enlisted. He was married, and had a child. I guess
+your mother was all taken up with the child--your sister Lucinda. I
+know that I went for fun. I was married, too. Anyway, we were both old
+enough to know better, but there we were.
+
+“Well, there was another Vickley boy in our company, named Tom. Tom
+had never been any good at making money. Some new scheme he had put
+his hopes in went to smash--I guess he couldn’t bear to face his wife.
+He thought he was a failure, so he enlisted. And Tom and Jim--your
+father--got to be great friends in the army. Chums was the word in
+those days. I knew about their friendship. But I hadn’t thought of poor
+Tom in all these years....
+
+“Your father, that night, began to talk about Tom. And he began to cry.
+Then I remembered about their being chums. But all the rest was new to
+me, as your father told it. I never had known about Tom’s wife....
+
+“Jim and Tom were both wounded at El Caney--Tom badly. He was going
+to die, and he knew it. And there on the battlefield where they lay
+together he talked to Jim about Sally. Would Jim look after Sally when
+he got back? And Jim promised his chum that he would. And Tom died in
+the hospital, and Jim came home to Vickley.
+
+“That was twenty-eight years ago, Norman. Sally must have been about
+thirty, then. Tom had written her a lot about Jim, and she was prepared
+to like him. And of course she must have been terribly grateful for the
+help he gave her. But Jim didn’t tell his wife about it. And he went
+to see Sally in the evenings when he was supposed to be working at the
+office. He would bring something for a late supper. She was a jolly
+little woman, and her house was comfortable. He got to be more at ease
+there than at home. And so it began.
+
+“And so it went on. As such things do. Till you were born, and then he
+sent Sally out West, and that was the end of it. She came back later,
+and died.
+
+“That’s all. Except ... You belong to a hard, unsentimental generation,
+Norman. It will seem silly to you.... But there’s her grave, in a
+Vickley cemetery. He sometimes visits it alone. He goes at night. Do
+you--do you get the picture, Norman?”
+
+Norman saw, in the moonlight, a cemetery with its marble memorials of
+Vickley’s respectable dead. And over in an unkempt corner, a place that
+meant nothing except to the one who kept its secret tight-locked in
+his breast. And thither he saw that old man come, stealthily, with a
+posy--an old man, looking down at his lost youth, buried there in that
+secret grave. And Norman saw him slink away furtively in the moonlight,
+back to his home, his family, his career, his respectability, home from
+that secret, ridiculous, pitiful tryst. Symbol of an age that passes....
+
+“Yes--I get the picture,” said Norman.
+
+“He’ll know I’ve told you,” said Gilbert. “He wants you to know. But
+he’ll not want anything said about it--not a word.”
+
+“Of course not,” said Norman.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI: J. J. Overbeck
+
+
+HIS father was due to arrive on an early train Sunday morning, and
+Norman, having forgotten his alarm clock, had asked Mrs. Case that
+night if there was one about the house he could borrow. He explained
+that he had to meet his father at seven. “Rose will be up at six to
+give the baby his bottle,” she told him. “She’ll knock on your door
+at half-past six, and leave you a cup of coffee, if you like.” Norman
+protested that he couldn’t think of putting her to that trouble. But
+Mrs. Case said it would be no trouble; she made it for herself anyway.
+
+When the knock came, he sleepily answered “Yes.” And not Mrs. Czermak’s
+but her younger sister’s voice answered cheerfully: “Here’s your
+coffee, Mr. Overbeck. And would you like to have me call you a taxi?”
+
+“Yes, please do!” he said.
+
+“All right. It’ll be here when you’re ready.”
+
+He opened the door when she had gone, and brought in the tray she had
+left on the floor.
+
+There was toast, too!
+
+“What a nice family!” he thought gratefully.
+
+He was at the station in plenty of time. Gilbert, it was agreed, would
+stay at his hotel until called for, or they would all meet for lunch.
+Norman watched the gate, and the stream of passengers. There was his
+father.... Gilbert’s story seemed perfectly incredible.
+
+“Well, Father,” he said.
+
+“Well, Norman.”
+
+“Let me take your grip. Did you manage to get any sleep?”
+
+“I slept pretty well. Where are you taking me?”
+
+“We’ll have breakfast, and then I’ll take you to my room.”
+
+“It’s not breakfast time for me yet. This is Sunday, you know. You’d
+better take me to your room first.”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+In the taxi he said: “Does your job permit of your taking taxis like
+this?”
+
+It was his kind of humor.
+
+“Only for very distinguished visitors,” said Norman.
+
+“I don’t know why Chicago is supposed to be such an ugly city,” said
+Norman’s father, presently. “I think it can hold up its head.”
+
+“Michigan Avenue isn’t bad-looking,” said Norman.
+
+They passed the Art Institute.
+
+“Been buying any more pictures?” asked J. J. Overbeck.
+
+That was probably humor, too.
+
+“Not on my present salary. I get thirty a week at present,” said Norman.
+
+“Thirty a week is not bad to start with,” said J. J. Overbeck. “I know
+young lawyers in Vickley who make less.”
+
+There was a silence.
+
+“What are you working at? If you don’t mind my knowing.”
+
+“Not at all. Advertising. Wilkins and Freeman.”
+
+“I’ve heard of them.”
+
+Silence again.
+
+“You neglected to pack a trunk when you left home. Your mother attended
+to it last night. It ought to be here to-morrow.” He took a stub out of
+his vest pocket and gave it to his son.
+
+“Thanks.”
+
+He would have liked to have his father say something more about his
+mother, and how she felt about all this. But he would not ask. And his
+father made no further reference to the family.
+
+“All right,” thought Norman, “who cares?”
+
+The taxi drew up presently at the curb.
+
+“Here’s where I live.”
+
+He took his father to his room. The bed had been made, and there was
+a vase of flowers on the table. To be sure, a visit from the baby’s
+grandfather was an important occasion. They were being damn’ nice to
+him, these people.... Tears came into his eyes.
+
+Father and son sat down.
+
+“Comfortable place,” said Norman’s father.
+
+“Yes. Very.”
+
+“And--where do you keep the baby?”
+
+So his father assumed--for Gilbert hadn’t told him--that the baby would
+be here! Of course--since that was what Norman had left home for....
+Well, he was right....
+
+“Upstairs,” said Norman. “I’ll find out if we can see him now.”
+
+He went out in search of Mrs. Czermak. The younger sister was in the
+hall, apparently waiting.
+
+“Is he ready to see the baby now?” she asked eagerly.
+
+“Yes, if he may.”
+
+“He’s in our room--the big room. You can go on up, any time.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+He went back. “We can go right up,” he told his father.
+
+He led the way to the upstairs room. Outside the door he started to say
+something, in an ordinary tone of voice, but his father silenced him
+with an abrupt, authoritative gesture. “You’ll wake him up,” he said in
+a low tone.
+
+J. J. Overbeck opened the door quietly, and went in. Mrs. Czermak was
+there, with a white cap and apron on. She came forward pleasantly, but
+J. J. Overbeck ignored her. He went past her straight to the crib,
+stooped over and looked at the sleeping baby. The morning sunlight,
+pouring in, lighted up his pink face with its grey side-whiskers, bent
+over the crib. Norman came closer. His father remained stooped in that
+way for a full minute. Then he uncovered the baby’s plump hand, and
+felt of it. Then the feet, in their tiny socks. Norman looked up to see
+whether Mrs. Czermak approved of these liberties. Apparently she did.
+She was looking on with quiet satisfaction. Her mother, and the younger
+sister, who had slipped into the room, were beaming.
+
+Then, deliberately and with assurance, J. J. Overbeck lifted the baby
+from the crib and held it in his arms. It slept on. J. J. Overbeck, not
+paying any attention to the others, marched slowly around the room,
+twice. Then he went back to the crib, and laid the baby down gently,
+and covered it up. Then he turned and walked quietly out of the room.
+
+Norman followed him.
+
+In Norman’s room, his father took out a cigar, and offered one, saying:
+“Not that it’s good for any one’s digestion, to smoke before breakfast.”
+
+“I’d rather have a cigarette, if you don’t mind,” said Norman.
+
+They sat down.
+
+“Have you made a new will?” his father asked.
+
+“Why, no,” said Norman,--remembering what Dr. Zerneke had told him as
+to the sensible way of proceeding in this affair.
+
+“You’d better, right away. That’s the thing to do. We can get Gilbert
+Rand to help us draw it up to-day.”
+
+Yes, Dr. Zerneke had said that he was to make up with his father, and
+then make the child his heir....
+
+“I suppose I’d better,” he said.
+
+“Have you named him?”
+
+“His mother--named him Norman.”
+
+Doubtless it would be politic to suggest calling him James Norman....
+But he wasn’t going to.
+
+“Norman.” His father nodded thoughtfully.
+
+There was a long silence, while J. J. Overbeck smoked.
+
+“I’m not going to change the firm name,” he said, with an air of
+finality.
+
+Norman frowned in a puzzled way.
+
+“I’m not expecting to come back,” he said.
+
+“I wasn’t suggesting that precisely,” said his father. “I hope you will
+find the advertising business agreeable. But I still think I shall let
+the firm name stand as it is. To do otherwise would seem a concession
+to vulgar prejudice.”
+
+As he spoke, he glanced thoughtfully over Norman’s head. At the
+ceiling, one would have said. But Norman’s mind followed that glance
+through plaster and flooring to the upstairs room and the cradle. Was
+that what his father was thinking of? A day in the future when, if he
+lived that long, he should see another Overbeck in the firm?
+
+(“Not if I know it!” thought Norman.)
+
+“Now, as to financial arrangements,” said his father. “Of course, I
+expect you to take care of yourself. But for the child--and for any
+emergencies--there’ll be a thousand dollars in the bank that you can
+draw on this year if you should need it. It will be put in a savings
+account, in your son’s name, you understand.”
+
+Norman resolved never to touch it.... But he must not offend his father.
+
+“It’s very good of you,” he said stiffly.
+
+J. J. Overbeck rose. “It’s time for breakfast,” he said. “We’ll go to
+the hotel and rout out Gilbert Rand.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII: Home
+
+
+HIS father had gone, taking the night train for Vickley. Gilbert Rand
+had gone with him. Norman went back to his room on the elevated.
+
+Now that it was all over, he could permit himself to realize what
+a frightful strain his father’s visit had been.... Old Gilbert’s
+romantic yarn about him still seemed incredible. Oh, no doubt it was
+true enough--but it hadn’t changed his feelings about his father.
+Nothing, it seemed, could change those feelings--not even his father’s
+extraordinary generosity about the baby.... Gilbert had thought that
+his story of that lonely grave in the moonlight was a touch of nature
+which would make him feel that his father was made of the same human
+stuff as himself. It should have done so, but it didn’t. The gulf of
+generation was between them. His father was still--his father. And he
+was tremendously glad that it was all over.
+
+Things had gone to the satisfaction of everybody concerned--except,
+perhaps, of Norman himself. A will had been drawn up; even a codicil to
+J. J. Overbeck’s will, leaving Norman’s share of his father’s property,
+in case of Norman’s death, to “my grandson, Norman Overbeck, the
+natural son of my son Norman.” They visited Dr. Zerneke at her office;
+she said that of course the Society would be glad to have the child
+adopted by its father; it would be formally arranged within a few days,
+she promised. And J. J. Overbeck made out a check to the Society which
+far more than covered the expenses to which it had been put in this
+matter. He also offered casually to pay any outstanding surgical or
+hospital bills....
+
+This was the only reference to Isabel’s part in the matter. And for
+some reason that fact gave Norman an inward satisfaction. He had been
+treated that way on his first visit to Dr. Zerneke’s office--as a mere
+biological instrumentality connected with the production of a child!
+Now it was her turn. And she deserved it, he thought vindictively. Yet
+it did not escape him that he was still being treated, himself, in
+something of the same impersonal fashion. The interests of the child
+alone were being considered--which was quite all right. Yet he vaguely
+felt it as a conspiracy to fasten upon this child the network of
+Vickley.... True, they were only doing, with a generosity which he had
+not expected, and a practical care exceeding his own impulsive efforts,
+what he himself had sought to do by marrying the child’s mother. They
+were undertaking merely to secure to his son, in so far as that could
+be done by legal means, all those rights which would otherwise be
+lost by the accident of birth outside of marriage. It was damned fine
+of them! Why, then, must he feel all the while as though there were
+something sinister in these proceedings? He remembered that glance
+of his father’s at the ceiling.... Oh, doubtless he was being unduly
+sensitive! His feelings as a parent were not being taken sufficient
+account of. It was too abrupt a change from the heroic and rebellious
+rôle he had been playing for two weeks! It was as if Vickley said:
+
+“A child is the tribe’s concern. Either a child does not officially
+exist for us, or it does. It would have been simpler for you to have
+let this child remain, so far as we are concerned, non-existent. But if
+you force the matter upon our attention, we shall take your child into
+the tribe. But it is we who give sanction to its existence--not you.”
+
+Well, it was over, for the time being. It now remained only for the
+Adoption Society to take formal action. The child would be his.... He
+wondered if Isabel knew.... But there was no reason why she should
+know. It was a matter of indifference to her what happened to the
+child.... So long as she didn’t have to bother with it herself....
+
+Norman abruptly realized that he was at his station.
+
+He would try to put these legalistic matters out of his mind. After
+all, he was living in the same house with his son.... Dr. Zerneke had
+been rather surprised when he told her that. But they couldn’t take
+that privilege away from him.
+
+He had just entered his room when there was a knock at the door. It was
+the elderly musician, Mr. Victor.
+
+“Pardon me,” he said with a smile, “but I’d like to hear the news, if I
+may.”
+
+“The news?”
+
+“You see, we can’t help all being interested in the little drama. We’d
+like to see it turn out right--for the sake of the little fellow.”
+
+“Oh--come in.”
+
+Of course--it would be a drama to them. They had seen his father--quite
+evidently somebody of consequence in his own world--they couldn’t help
+seeing that. And a son in evident poverty and disgrace. The family
+hadn’t approved of the marriage, they would think. But the sight of
+the baby conquers the grandfather’s stony heart--Abie’s Irish Rose, in
+fact. Well, they ought to be satisfied with the dénouement. That glance
+of his father’s at the ceiling had been a promise (or a threat, if one
+were so unreasonable as to take it so!) that this child should be one
+of the lords of Vickley! He might tell this romantic old bird that.
+It was what he wanted to hear--what every one, including Dr. Zerneke,
+seemed to be hoping for....
+
+“Won’t you sit down,” said Norman. “And as to the little drama, I think
+I can say that I have received assurances that my own follies will not
+be held against the child.” That was sufficiently nineteenth-century to
+suit the occasion, he thought.
+
+“The girls will be pleased,” said the old man. “They are very fond of
+the baby.”
+
+There was another knock at the door.
+
+“I think it’s them,” said Mr. Victor, with a smile. “Wanting to hear.”
+
+Norman opened the door. It was the younger sister, Monica.
+
+“Excuse me, Mr. Overbeck,” she said eagerly. “But what did he think of
+the baby?”
+
+Norman was touched at her interest, but he replied casually:
+
+“Well--he seemed favorably impressed. Didn’t you think so?”
+
+“Yes! we both thought so. Did he say anything?”
+
+Norman smiled. “My father doesn’t say much,” he told her. “I mean, when
+he’s pleased. One has to judge by the way he acts.”
+
+“He certainly acted pleased.”
+
+“Won’t you sit down?”
+
+“No--I just came in to ask. You don’t mind my asking? We couldn’t help
+being anxious.”
+
+“Well, it’s all right,” he said reassuringly.
+
+“I’m so glad!” she said, and was about to go when he remembered:
+
+“I haven’t thanked you for the flowers--and the coffee. It was terribly
+nice of you.”
+
+“Oh--the coffee,” she said. “We’d be very glad to bring you your coffee
+every morning, if you’d like it. You get to work at eight, don’t you?
+We’re having our own at seven, and it would be no trouble at all!”
+
+“Then you must let me pay you for it,” he said.
+
+“Oh, I don’t think my sister would want that,” she said.
+
+“We’ll discuss that later, then,” he said.
+
+“Good-night, then.”
+
+“Good-night.”
+
+“A nice family,” he remarked to Mr. Victor.
+
+“Yes,” said Mr. Victor. “A very nice family. Not the usual type of
+people who keep rooming-houses. I know.”
+
+“They’ve been so friendly,” said Norman. “I don’t feel as though I were
+among strangers at all.”
+
+“We tried to make it homelike,” said Mr. Victor ingenuously. “I may say
+that the idea of Mrs. Czermak wearing her nurse’s costume was my own
+contribution, or suggestion. I thought it would help to impress your
+father favorably.”
+
+“Has Mrs. Czermak been a nurse-maid?” asked Norman.
+
+“Yes. Babies of her own--that’s what she needs,” said Mr. Victor wisely.
+
+“She’s not a widow, is she?” asked Norman.
+
+“No. But she isn’t living with her husband, you know.”
+
+“I didn’t know.”
+
+“Well, it’s not exactly a secret. He ran away.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“I might as well tell you,” said Mr. Victor. “He was a very young man,
+and a poet. Vladimir Czermak was his name. He also tried to write
+music. Very modern music.” Mr. Victor shook his head. “As to his
+poetry, I am perhaps not so well qualified to judge. But I have read
+some of it....”
+
+“He wrote in English?”
+
+“Yes. If it could be called English. He used to show me his things. He
+had a room here. That was how it began. But he looked like a genius.
+She has his picture--you must get her to show it to you some time.
+The Irish, if you have noticed, have a tenderness for genius. Mrs.
+Case allowed him to get behind in his rent. And then he married her
+daughter. She was a nurse-maid then. To tell you the truth, I think
+what she wanted was a baby of her own. But that wasn’t his idea at all.
+He was afraid of the responsibility. As a matter of fact he couldn’t
+very well afford to have a family. A young genius who is an unskilled
+worker and odd-job man is a poor stick as a husband and father. He
+wanted her not to have the baby, and when she went ahead having it he
+cleared out.”
+
+“And what happened to her baby?”
+
+“It was prematurely born, and it died very soon afterward.”
+
+“Hard luck,” said Norman.
+
+“I don’t think she or the baby had the right kind of care,” said Mr.
+Victor. “Poor people go to poor doctors. But Dr. Zerneke has been very
+good to her. She performed some kind of operation that was needed, and
+she gave her a baby to nurse. Your child is the third she has taken
+care of for Dr. Zerneke. She gets very much attached to them, and feels
+very bad at having to give them up. I understand,” he added, “that you
+may leave your baby here for some time.”
+
+“I probably shall,” said Norman.
+
+“She’s hoping so,” said Mr. Victor. “She’s devoted to it.”
+
+“And she hasn’t heard from her husband since he went away?”
+
+“No. She’s going to get a divorce shortly.”
+
+“The family isn’t Catholic, then?”
+
+“Their father was Protestant Irish, and the girls have broken away from
+the Church. And Dr. Zerneke seems to have persuaded the mother that it
+wasn’t a real marriage in the Catholic sense, on account of his not
+wanting to have a baby--something like that. At any rate, her scruples
+have been more or less overcome. She isn’t sure it’s quite right, but
+she’s making no protest. She realizes that Rose ought to be married
+again and having her own babies.”
+
+“How old is she--Mrs. Czermak?”
+
+“Twenty-seven. That was one of the difficulties about her marriage. The
+boy was three or four years younger.”
+
+“And her sister--how old is she?”
+
+“Monica is twenty.”
+
+“A nice kid,” said Norman, thinking of his sister Doris, and
+remembering Monica’s offer to bring him coffee every morning. He
+couldn’t help being moved by the sisterly kindnesses he was finding in
+his new home.
+
+“It’s a very pleasant place here,” he said.
+
+“Your wife is in Colorado for her health, I understand?” said Mr.
+Victor.
+
+They discussed the state of health of Norman’s alleged wife.
+
+“You mustn’t be discouraged,” said Mr. Victor encouragingly.
+“Everything will come out all right.” He rose to go.
+
+“Thank you,” said Norman, “I’m sure it will.”
+
+“That’s the right spirit!” said Mr. Victor.
+
+It was a little embarrassing to be sympathized with on such fictitious
+grounds. Nevertheless, after old Mr. Victor had taken his friendly
+leave, Norman found himself wondering why all homes couldn’t be as
+pleasant and comfortable as this one.
+
+He said to himself that his new life had really begun.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII: Apron Strings
+
+
+DURING that protracted Sunday conference Dr. Zerneke had suggested
+to Norman that he come to her home some evening that week, to clear
+up the situation in a talk of a less formal and legalistic sort. The
+engagement had been made for Monday evening.
+
+But on Monday morning, when Monica brought his coffee, he was up, and
+they conversed for a moment at the door; and she reminded him that this
+was the baby’s birthday. At that age, it appeared, birthdays came every
+month, and this was his first. It was to be a sort of special occasion;
+and it would be the first time (not counting that time at the hospital)
+that he had seen his son awake.
+
+He called up the doctor that afternoon and, explaining his reasons,
+postponed the engagement. It was arranged that he should call Wednesday
+evening instead.
+
+Junior’s birthday party--for now the girls called the baby by that
+name--was the pleasantest sort of contrast to Isabel’s impersonal
+indifference that day in the hospital. It was infinitely agreeable to
+Norman, the sight of these girls bending over his child--cooing to him,
+and triumphantly eliciting his smile. They knew every dimple by heart.
+And unquestionably the baby was rosier, plumper, happier, than he had
+been with that unnatural mother of his. It ministered to some deep need
+in Norman’s heart, the picture of maternal solicitude which these girls
+presented--Rose with her grave motherly preoccupation, and Monica with
+her joyous young excitement over every detail of this budding life.
+It made him very happy. He sat in the room on those evenings with his
+child and its young nurses, enchanted. Their mother, Mrs. Case, was
+there, too, sometimes--and occasionally he felt a little embarrassed by
+her Rabelaisian comments on babies and some of their natural functions;
+but the girls paid no attention, and he soon learned not to mind
+her way of talking.... Mr. Victor would drop in, too, to enjoy the
+spectacle.
+
+“You can see him bathed Sunday morning,” said Monica enthusiastically.
+
+And on Tuesday evening, after the ceremony of the bottle was over,
+and Mr. Victor was chatting with him in his room, Monica came in.
+“My sister doesn’t like to ask,” she said, “but you see--she and Ma
+have to be out to-morrow evening. It’s about Rose’s divorce. There’s
+some witnesses we have to see. Of course, I could stay and look after
+the baby, but I’m the one who has been talking to the lawyers, and I
+really know more about it than they do. I ought to go along. And we
+wondered--I wondered--if you were going to be in that evening. Because
+if you were, I thought you wouldn’t mind staying up in our room, next
+to the nursery. Of course, if you’re going to be out, I can stay at
+home just as well. It’s only for a couple of hours. We’ll be home in
+time to give him his ten o’clock bottle. I thought maybe you’d like to!”
+
+This was an occasion much too important to be sacrificed to a mere
+conference with Dr. Zerneke.
+
+“I’d be very glad to,” he said.
+
+He called up Dr. Zerneke the next day, and the engagement was postponed
+until Friday.
+
+On Friday evening, then, a little before ten, not without regrets at
+having to miss the important occasion of the day, he walked over to Dr.
+Zerneke’s home.
+
+It was an apartment some blocks away from her office, in a less
+imposing building. He had been told to ring the janitor’s bell, and “if
+I’m not there, the key’s on the lintel above the door.” Having passed
+the inspection of the janitress, he climbed the stairs, to the top
+floor. There was no answer to his knock, so he let himself in according
+to instructions.
+
+The ceilings at the front were low, with a garret-like slant. There
+were easy chairs, a large couch heaped with cushions, a little table
+with a coffee-bulb and cups set out, large bookcases filled with books.
+The rest of the wall space was occupied with etchings, lithographs,
+and oils. Here was one of Nordfeldt’s New Mexico etchings--he had
+several of that series himself. A lithograph by Picasso. And here was
+a Springer.... He hadn’t gone to Springer’s exhibit. Well, he was a
+workingman now. Not an art patron any more....
+
+Dr. Zerneke entered, carrying her medicine case.
+
+“You let yourself in--good. I’ll make some coffee in a moment.”
+
+Norman asked: “Can I do anything?”
+
+“No. Sit down.”
+
+Dr. Zerneke went into another room, put away her things, and came back.
+She carried the coffee-bulb into the kitchen, returned with it filled
+with water, and lighted the alcohol lamp.
+
+“Why,” she asked, “didn’t you consult me before going to live at Mrs.
+Czermak’s?”
+
+“It didn’t occur to me that it was a matter to consult anybody about,”
+Norman answered, a little defiantly. After all, he had not left home to
+take orders on every little thing from Dr. Zerneke.
+
+“Is there,” he asked, “any reason why I should not live there?”
+
+“It’s merely,” said Dr. Zerneke, “that it will make it more difficult
+for her to give up the baby.”
+
+“That won’t be necessary for some time, I presume,” said Norman.
+
+“I had not planned to leave the baby there more than a few weeks,” said
+Dr. Zerneke.
+
+“But why?” asked Norman in surprise. “I thought it was a fine place.”
+
+“It has its merits. But I should prefer to put your baby in another
+boarding-home, where there are other children, so that he won’t be
+spoiled by too much devotion. And you can see that your being there
+makes it unnecessarily embarrassing.”
+
+“Yes, I can see that. But what I can’t see is why the baby should be
+taken away.” It really seemed to him as though Dr. Zerneke were saying
+that to annoy him.
+
+“I think,” he added, “I might be allowed to be the judge of that. I was
+going to ask you if the Adoption Society hadn’t passed on the matter of
+the adoption, by the way.”
+
+“And I was going to tell you that the Society has decided that the
+proper procedure in this case would be for the mother to turn over the
+child to you herself.”
+
+“But she’s already given it up to the Society!” said Norman.
+
+“That would be cancelled. It may be a legal quibble, but for some
+reason this procedure is preferable. I’ve written to your father about
+it.”
+
+“Where is Isabel--in Paris?”
+
+“No--she doesn’t sail till the eleventh of May, according to her plans.
+She’s still in Michigan, resting. There won’t be much of a delay. As
+soon as she signs the papers we’ve sent her, the child will be your
+own. And for that reason, I think I ought to explain to you why you
+should not leave him at Mrs. Czermak’s indefinitely. The atmosphere of
+the place is all wrong. That kind of neurotic devotion is all right for
+a few weeks, but you don’t want the child to get too accustomed to it.”
+
+“Would you call them neurotic?” Norman asked defensively. “I should
+have said they were a very healthy lot.”
+
+“It’s the situation that is unhealthy. I’m thinking particularly of
+Mrs. Czermak herself. The obvious thing to say is that she needs babies
+of her own--and it’s quite true. She let her maternal instincts be
+exploited for a long time in a nurse-maid’s job. Then, when she did get
+married, it was to a no-account young genius who wanted to be the baby
+of the family himself. And since her baby died, I’ve been exploiting
+her for the benefit of other women’s babies. No, I don’t call it
+healthy to break her heart over children that don’t belong to her.
+Just because it’s your child that she’s in love with doesn’t mean that
+everything’s all right. And when she does have to give him up, you can
+thank yourself for making it worse for her.”
+
+“But how have I made it any the worse?”
+
+“A man around the house--her baby’s father--why, it’s almost like
+being married! I’m not suggesting that she’s necessarily in love with
+you, Mr. Overbeck--and if she were, it would not be so much a tribute
+to your own charms as to the fact that you are the baby’s father. Her
+baby’s, as she wishes to feel.”
+
+“Am I to take this as a warning?” Norman asked coldly.
+
+“Stranger things have happened. Of course, if you wish to settle down
+there permanently”--Dr. Zerneke smiled--“you’d find her an excellent
+wife in many respects.”
+
+“Good heavens!” said Norman, horrified. “I never realized that these
+things were so frightfully complicated. I only wanted to get acquainted
+with my son. I’ve only seen him five times--awake, that is.”
+
+“And to-night it was my fault that you were dragged away from the happy
+scene, wasn’t it?” said Dr. Zerneke. “Thoughtless of me!”
+
+The boiling water plunged upward through the glass tube furiously, and
+Dr. Zerneke put out the flame beneath.
+
+“Things came off very well Sunday, didn’t they?” she said.
+
+“My father,” he replied uncomfortably, “was more than kind.”
+
+“Yes--he was sensible, which is more to the point. When is your mother
+coming?”
+
+He hesitated. “No definite date has been set,” he told her.
+
+“Have you asked her?”
+
+“She knows where I am. She can come if she wants to.”
+
+“Have you written to her at all?”
+
+“No,” he said reluctantly.
+
+“Nor to any of your family?”
+
+“No. Why should I?”
+
+“You must remember that you repudiated them, when you left home without
+telling them about the baby. Don’t you suppose families have feelings?
+They won’t come to see the baby till you invite them.”
+
+“Oh, I suppose I should.”
+
+“Yes, I think you’d better. And I also think it might be just as well
+if you were living somewhere else when your mother and sisters come to
+see you, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
+
+He realized what she meant--they wouldn’t like his being so much at
+home there. And his sister Lucinda would be suspicious of Mrs. Czermak.
+It was perfectly absurd, but she would. She thought every woman had
+designs on him.... He sighed....
+
+“It’s been a very comfortable place,” he said. “I should be sorry to
+have to leave.”
+
+“Yes,” said Dr. Zerneke tartly, as she poured the coffee, “a man with
+a fond mother and sisters does get in the habit of letting women-folk
+wait on him. Sugar?”
+
+“Black, please,” he said, flushing. Had she heard of Monica’s bringing
+him his morning coffee? But that wasn’t his fault! They had all
+insisted on it. He couldn’t have refused without being rude....
+
+“I’ll stop scolding you,” she said, handing him the cup. “How is your
+work going?”
+
+“Not brilliantly, I’m afraid.”
+
+“Well, the adoption matter ought to be settled soon, and then you can
+settle down to a normal life.”
+
+Something in her tone made him ask: “What, exactly, is your idea of a
+normal life for me, Dr. Zerneke?”
+
+“Well, I don’t mind saying that it isn’t hanging over a cradle in your
+spare evenings. You ought to be having some kind of ordinary social
+life. You ought to be making friends. Men friends and girl friends.
+If I heard that you were caught drinking and dancing, I wouldn’t be
+shocked. Even if you were seen kissing a pretty girl. I know, this may
+seem precipitate to you. You’ve only been mooning over your baby for a
+week. Just the same, it’s time you began to form other habits.--Your
+habits would be admirable enough, if you were a husband, and one of
+those girls your wife. That’s how a home is built up. But you are a
+bachelor. And you ought to behave as such. It would be bad enough, the
+way you’re acting, if they were your own mother and sisters. I want you
+to snap out of it.... The truth is that something fell on you three
+weeks ago, and hit you like a ton of brick. Nevertheless, you’ve got to
+get over it. You can’t let time stop still for you at the moment when
+you found you had a baby. After all, staying in the cave and cooing
+to babies is a maternal occupation. Going out and killing bears is
+the paternal job. How long, if I may ask, are you going to work for
+thirty dollars a week? Or is your son going to be supported by his
+grandfather?”
+
+Norman set down his coffee cup and rose haughtily.
+
+“I’m sorry my conduct doesn’t please you,” he said. “Thank you for your
+advice. I will call on you when I want more of it.”
+
+And so saying, thoroughly outraged, he left Dr. Zerneke’s home abruptly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX: It Was Bound to Happen
+
+
+THAT was on Friday evening. And on Saturday morning he had a telephone
+call from Dr. Zerneke.
+
+“I’ve heard from Isabel,” she said. “The papers are signed. If you
+can get off this afternoon to go to the courthouse, the thing will be
+settled for good.”
+
+He would be at her office at two, he said.
+
+The legal red-tape would soon be unwound, now--his son would be all his
+own!...
+
+Going back to his desk, he found a note there, saying formally that Mr.
+Wilkins wished to see him.
+
+He walked buoyantly into Mr. Wilkins’ office, thinking to himself that
+this would be his promised raise.
+
+“My luck is with me!” he said to himself.
+
+Ten minutes later, he came out of Mr. Wilkins’ office saying to himself
+over and over:
+
+“Of course. It was bound to happen. I’ve had too easy a time. It was
+bound to happen.”
+
+He had in his hand an order on the cashier for his week’s pay, and
+another week’s in advance.
+
+Mr. Wilkins had observed his work carefully, he said, during these two
+weeks. Not everybody had the makings of an advertising man in him. He
+felt sure that Mr. Overbeck would do better in some other field. Et
+cetera.
+
+Fired!
+
+He tried to persuade himself to take it lightly. After all, there were
+other advertising agencies in Chicago. He had got this job without
+any experience at all. With what he had picked up of the lingo of the
+profession, he ought to be able to get a better job. Yes, he was no
+longer a mere beginner. He would strike the next place for sixty-five
+dollars a week at least....
+
+While he felt that way, as soon as he had cleaned up his desk and got
+his money from the cashier, he walked over to the H. H. Warner agency
+and asked for a job. He did not get it.
+
+Then he tried the Simpson agency. There was nothing there for him,
+either.
+
+Well, it had taken him some little time to get that first job. It would
+take more than a day to get another.... And in the meantime he had to
+go to see Dr. Zerneke.
+
+What an irony! That it should be at such a moment that he should be
+given his son!
+
+With Dr. Zerneke, in her office, he was stiff and formal. He had
+decided not to tell her about losing his job--until he had found
+another.
+
+She wasted no words, but pushed a document across her desk.
+
+“That is the mother’s consent. And here”--she glanced at another paper,
+and handed it over--“is your petition. Sign it before a notary, and
+take it to Judge Hummel in the County Court, at three o’clock; our
+legal representative will be there. His name is Starrett.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+He took his departure stiffly.
+
+There was a notary’s office down the street. He had noticed it in
+coming. He stopped there, signed his name, and held up his hand while
+the notary mumbled a formula.
+
+At the courthouse he found Mr. Starrett waiting for him. They went into
+Judge Hummel’s chambers. The judge looked at him curiously. It was not
+every day, it seemed, that a man adopted his illegitimate child....
+
+It was over at last. And now to look for a job.
+
+But no--he must wait till Monday for that....
+
+He would have nothing to do over Sunday except think.
+
+He remembered what Dr. Zerneke had said about the child’s being
+supported by his grandfather. It was as if she had known he was going
+to lose his job....
+
+It was true that he had been slack at his desk all week. Not like the
+week before, when he had been living by himself, and calling up Dr.
+Zerneke’s office once a day to see whether the baby was all right....
+He had been working for his son, then. Ever since he had come to
+Mrs. Czermak’s, he had been lapped in a soft, sentimental dream of
+fatherhood....
+
+He realized that he had had no lunch. He must eat, even if he was out
+of a job.
+
+He went home early in the evening and picked up a book to read, to keep
+his thoughts off his situation. He had decided he would say nothing to
+the people here about losing his job. Not until he had got another. He
+would go out early in the morning as usual, and keep looking for a job
+all day....
+
+The book was one that had been in the room when he rented it, a novel
+of Dumas’. He had read it when he was a boy. He started to read it
+again, with the hope that in this cheerful swashbuckling romance he
+would find something to take his mind entirely away from his problems.
+It was about Athos--and, as he presently noted, about an illegitimate
+son of that worthy. And Norman vaguely remembered, from his boyhood,
+the story of how it had all come about. The young man had found upon
+his doorstep a bassinet containing the newborn child--a souvenir sent
+by a young lady of quality in memory of the jocund night of love which
+they had enjoyed the year before. So, it appeared, were such matters
+handled in those romantic days. And, as Norman remembered, the young
+hero had suffered no pangs of conscience; he had taken it as a matter
+of course, and sent the child away to be nursed and educated. Such, as
+well as Norman could remember, were the origins and early circumstances
+of the Vicompte de Bragelonne....
+
+Norman threw the book aside fretfully. Dumas had played him false--had
+merely reminded him of his own troubles....
+
+He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. Time for the feeding. But
+he did not want to go to see it.... He would feel ashamed, knowing that
+he had lost his job....
+
+What was it that Dr. Zerneke had said about the clock stopping for him?
+When he found that he had a baby. Yes, he hadn’t thought of much else
+since then.
+
+When Dumas’ hero found that bassinet on his doorstep, he didn’t moon
+over it. He took it in his stride....
+
+Well, when he had another job, he would begin to live what Dr. Zerneke
+called a normal life. He would make friends. He would meet girls. He
+would not hang over his son’s cradle every evening. He would be a
+normal young bachelor....
+
+But first he had to find a job--and work hard to keep it this time.
+
+What a fool he had been, to lose that job! It might be hard enough to
+get another.... But he wasn’t going to let his son be supported by J.
+J. Overbeck....
+
+There was a knock at the door. It sounded like Mr. Victor’s. He ignored
+it. And Mr. Victor took the hint of his silence and went away. But
+presently there came another tap that sounded like Monica’s. He ignored
+that, too. He sat slumped in his chair, thinking of his inadequacies.
+He was sitting thus, with his head drooped on his chest miserably,
+when the door opened slightly, and Monica’s voice uttered a surprised
+and apologetic “Oh!”
+
+Norman did not look up even then. For he became aware of the tears of
+self-anger and self-pity in his eyes. He did not want this girl to see
+him crying.
+
+But girls are stupid about such things. She stayed there in the
+doorway, and said “Oh!” again, this time in a sympathetic tone. Then
+she came timidly into the room, approached him, touched his arm with
+her hand. “Please--is anything the matter, Mr. Overbeck? Have you--have
+you had bad news from Colorado?”
+
+She stooped over him in a kind sisterly way.
+
+Colorado?
+
+“No!” he said. And he added roughly: “Go away and leave me alone!”
+
+She fled.
+
+He shouldn’t have said that, he thought regretfully. She wasn’t his
+sister, to be talked to in such a fashion. She had a right to ask--she
+had thought his wife was dying or something. That was what any one
+would think, to see him sitting there crying.
+
+Stricken with remorse, he went to the door.
+
+“Monica!” he called, for she was not in sight. She appeared abruptly at
+the head of the stairs. “Yes, Mr. Overbeck?”
+
+“I--I’m sorry, Monica,” he said.
+
+“Oh, it’s all right.”
+
+She was coming down. She stood there before him, with a queer
+frightened look on her face.
+
+He didn’t know that he was holding out his arms to her in the doorway.
+He didn’t know until she melted into his clasp, and they were kissing
+one another.
+
+“Oh!” she said at last, “we mustn’t do this. Your wife--”
+
+“Of course,” said Norman, infinitely astonished at himself. “I forgot!”
+
+There they were, in the doorway; and at the head of the stairs, as they
+both suddenly became aware, was Monica’s mother. They released each
+other abruptly. Monica ran out into the hall. Norman closed the door,
+and sat down to think.
+
+Now what?
+
+He couldn’t imagine why he had done such a foolish thing.
+
+Fortunately, he was supposed to have a wife in Colorado. Monica
+wouldn’t expect him to marry her.
+
+But what would her mother say?
+
+He wasn’t left long in doubt. A firm rap at the door was Mrs. Case’s.
+He rose to let her in.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X: Mrs. Case
+
+
+“I’M very sorry, Mrs. Case,” he began, but she interrupted him.
+
+“That’s all right,” she said, “you would be, caught as you were, and
+I’m not worrying about what’s past. It’s the girl’s fault as much as
+your own, and natural enough on both sides, with small blame to either
+of you. It’s the days and nights to come I’m thinking of. A man with a
+wife away is bound to be kissing some girl, and if it’s not one it will
+be another, so another it shall be. We’ve trouble enough in our family,
+and it will be some other than my Monica that you philander with from
+now on. I’m not blaming you, Mr. Overbeck, you understand, but the way
+it is, with you a married man, I’ll just ask you to find another room,
+and take temptation out of harm’s way.”
+
+“It’s very kind of you to look at it in that way, Mrs. Case,” said
+Norman, much relieved. “I’ll move to-morrow.--I don’t know how it
+happened,” he began to explain.
+
+“Oh, I know how it happened,” said Mrs. Case. “There was you, and there
+was she, and that’s how it happened. I’m not saying a word against
+human nature. I can’t have it go on in _my_ house, that’s all. I’ll be
+sorry to see you go, but you know how it is. I can’t be staying awake
+all night to see that my daughter sleeps in her own bed.”
+
+Norman blushed. “I assure you,” he said, “that we--that I--”
+
+“You can save your assurances for your wife when she comes back, it’s
+then you’ll need them,” said Mrs. Case. “I know the world of men and
+women, and I’ve no great quarrel with the way they’re made. It’s all
+right with me, but you can just be leaving your door unlocked at night
+for the other girl at your new place, when it comes to that.”
+
+Norman, not quite following her meaning, asked in bewilderment and some
+indignation:
+
+“What other girl do you mean?”
+
+“Whatever one it chances to be, and I wish you good luck, too,” said
+Mrs. Case. “There’ll be one. You’re not the sort of young man the girls
+will let sleep single long, but I’d rather, as I say, it would be some
+other woman’s daughter that kept you company when the lights are out.”
+
+“Really, Mrs. Case,” said Norman in embarrassment. “You mustn’t think--”
+
+“Oh, it’s only human nature,” said Mrs. Case, “and nothing to apologize
+for. I think none the less of you, but I have to look after my own as
+best I may.”
+
+“I think you’re quite right, Mrs. Case,” said Norman.
+
+“We’ll all miss you, I say, and we’ll all be glad to see you when you
+come to visit your boy. You mustn’t think we’ve any grudge against
+you, Mr. Overbeck. That’s why I’m asking you to go now, before that
+happens which we’ll all be sorry for.”
+
+There was more to the same effect, and it was arranged that Norman
+should find another room and move to-morrow, on the excuse that he had
+to be nearer to his office.
+
+It was just as well all around, thought Norman; he would take a cheaper
+room while he was looking for work. He paid Mrs. Case two weeks in
+advance for the baby; that at least was secure....
+
+“I don’t mind saying I’ll sleep better when you’ve gone, and I don’t
+have to wonder is every creak a girl’s bare feet on the stairs,” she
+said, at which Norman blushed again.
+
+Was _that_--he wondered when she had gone--what everybody in this house
+thought of their brother-and-sisterly friendship?... Well--that kiss
+hadn’t been very brother-and-sisterly! After all, what did he know
+about himself? Or Monica? Perhaps this brassy-tongued old woman was
+right. Anyway, he gathered that these reflections upon his character
+were not intended by Monica’s mother as uncomplimentary.
+
+As he went to bed, he glanced at the lock on his door. Yes, perhaps
+it was just as well he was going to leave this place.... What did he
+really know about girls?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI: Paradise Lost
+
+
+ON Sunday morning he found a small room on the North side, not far
+away, a narrow hall bedroom on the top floor--a hole in the wall that
+cost him only four dollars a week.
+
+He went back to Mrs. Case’s to pack up. Mr. Victor came in. He had
+heard, he said, that Norman was leaving.
+
+Nobody else came in. They seemed to be avoiding him.
+
+He asked Mr. Victor to tell Mrs. Case that the corner expressman
+would come for his trunk. He looked around the room regretfully, and
+wondered again at that inexplicable kiss which had forfeited for him
+this comfort.... Well, unless he got a job right away, he couldn’t have
+stayed there anyway.
+
+“Say good-by for me to Mrs. Case, and Mrs. Czermak--and Monica,” he
+bade Mr. Victor. “Tell them how grateful I am and always will be to
+them, for the way they’ve looked after my child.”
+
+Mr. Victor raised his eyebrows. “But you’ll be coming here regularly to
+see the boy, won’t you?” he asked.
+
+Norman felt rather foolish. To Mr. Victor, of course, it was not a
+farewell to a lost paradise.
+
+“My work is going to keep me terribly busy for a while,” he said
+stiffly. “I shan’t be able to get here very often.”
+
+“You’ve been almost one of the family,” said Mr. Victor regretfully.
+
+Just a little too darned near, thought Norman.... That kiss still
+astonished him whenever he thought of it.
+
+But he didn’t like to go away as though he were sneaking off in
+disgrace. He wished he could see Monica for a moment.... An idea
+occurred to him.
+
+He unlocked his trunk. In the till were all sorts of trifles which
+his mother had collected from his chiffonier. He searched among them,
+looking for something appropriate.... Yes, girls wore cuff-links
+sometimes. He selected a handsome green jade pair with silver mountings.
+
+“May I entrust you with a little commission?” he asked Mr. Victor
+formally. “I would like you to give these to little Monica.”
+
+“She’ll be pleased as Punch,” said Mr. Victor, admiring them.
+
+“I don’t know when I’ll be here again,” said Norman, “so I’ll say
+good-by,” and shook hands with Mr. Victor.
+
+He went over to his new room and awaited the trunk. He was afraid at
+first that there would be no room for it. But he found that if it were
+set at the end of the narrow iron bedstead, it left space enough for
+the door to open half way--and that was enough.... He reflected that
+if the worst came to the worst, all those suits of clothes his mother
+had sent him ought to fetch something at a pawnshop.
+
+But that was no way to be thinking at a time like this....
+
+He dined as inexpensively as possible, and came back to his hole in the
+wall.... At Mrs. Czermak’s there had been a tree in front of the house.
+Here he looked out over a chaos of grimy roofs. Well, he might as well
+get used to it! This might be his life for some time now.
+
+All the rest of the day he stayed in his tiny room. He remembered that
+he had promised Dr. Zerneke to write to his mother. But he did not want
+her to come while he was out of a job. He would have to postpone that
+indefinitely.
+
+Well, what was he going to do? Look for a job, of course. But suppose
+he couldn’t find one?
+
+But he could. He would. He must!
+
+He hadn’t been discouraged when he started in to look for a job three
+weeks before. But this was different, somehow. Being a father, with a
+baby to support--that had been then a strange dream, a daring wish, a
+rebellious aspiration. Now it was a grim reality. He had to keep on
+paying that twelve dollars a week.... And he began with pencil and
+paper to figure out how long his money would last, computing his own
+expenses at the lowest rate. Less than three weeks! Scarcely more than
+two, in fact. He had that much time to find a job in. Then there was
+that trunkful of clothes to pawn.... Of course, his father’s money was
+there in the bank, waiting for such emergencies as this. But that would
+be a confession of failure....
+
+Why was he thinking of failure now? Three weeks ago he hadn’t worried
+about that possibility.... But three weeks ago he hadn’t just been
+fired from a job that he thought he was doing pretty well at.
+
+Yesterday he had formally adopted his and Isabel’s child. He, a man
+without a job, who could assure a child no more than three weeks’ food
+and shelter. What would Isabel think, if she knew? Would she be sorry
+she hadn’t given her baby to some well-to-do strangers?
+
+He found it difficult to get to sleep that night. The future stretched
+out before him, grim and frightening.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII: Out of a Job
+
+
+HE had intended to get up early Monday morning; but a troubled sleep,
+filled with a long, anxious, childish dream concerning an attempt to
+find the right train in a huge and bewildering railway station, held
+him fast in its grip. Apparently he was waiting for Monica’s knock to
+awaken him. But no knock came, and it was ten o’clock before he opened
+his eyes. A bad start! He would have to get an alarm clock.
+
+He called on an advertising agency that day, and was not surprised to
+be told that they needed no one.
+
+The rest of the day he spent in an aimless wandering about the streets.
+
+The next day, again rising late from the enthrallment of an
+anxiety-dream, he called on another advertising agency, and again used
+his further time in meaningless perambulation. The fact was that the
+experience of being refused a job robbed him of his courage for the
+rest of the day. And in addition there was a half-conscious conviction
+of the hopelessness of his search, which made him want to stretch out
+the effort over a period of days or weeks, and postpone as long as
+possible the inevitable conclusion of failure....
+
+What occupied his thoughts during these long days was a monotonous
+series of trifles which had assumed for him a heavy and grave
+importance. One, which took all week to decide about, concerned
+the buying of an alarm clock. He certainly needed one--there was
+no doubt of that. He was rising later and later from his poisonous
+fear-dreams.... But a clock cost money. He looked at clocks in the
+windows of drug stores as he passed, noted their prices, and figured
+out in his mind how many hours of his money the cheapest of them would
+set him back. For he had his money computed now in terms of hours.
+Every dollar, as he had calculated it, gave him and his child eight
+hours and some forty-eight minutes of food and shelter. A forty-five
+cent clock might seem cheap enough, but it robbed them of four hours’
+security! And figured in that fashion, its cost was so stupendous that
+its purchase must be postponed and reconsidered pro and con at great
+length.
+
+Again there was the matter of his meals. He had for this period set
+down the meager sum of fifty cents a day for food. That had seemed
+small enough, but when one ate only two meals a day at very cheap
+restaurants it was possible to cut down that figure. He could get a
+breakfast of doughnuts and coffee for ten cents, and a dinner of hash
+or spaghetti for thirty. The consideration of these items, and the
+sense of saving occupied much of his time and thought.... And yet,
+after a few days, when he came to balance his budget one evening,
+he found that he had spent more money than he should have done. Two
+dollars, or seventeen hours and a half, had vanished without trace....
+
+And there were items he had not reckoned on--cigarettes he could do
+without (he smoked a kind that went out, and he saved the stubs of
+his last box and had a luxurious puff or two from one of those before
+going to bed), but laundry was a necessity; and so, after butchering
+his face with his last dull blade, was a new supply of blades for his
+safety razor; though the soap on the washstand was as good for shaving,
+he found, as what comes in a tube. And even the small item of carfare
+seriously disarranged his estimates; at a minimum of ten cents a day
+for three weeks, it shortened his time of security by nineteen hours.
+And he had quite forgotten about having to pay for laundry.
+
+In truth, he knew these estimates were an absurd folly; yet he spent
+hours of time every evening going over his figures, working them out in
+decimals. There was this comfort in his preposterous mathematics, that
+it kept his mind precariously balanced on the edge of the abyss of fear
+along which he seemed to walk. It was as if he must keep his eyes fixed
+upon these figures, lest he should look down into that gulf and become
+dizzy....
+
+He did not go to see his child; he could not face the people
+there--yet. He called up every evening, and Mrs. Case or Mrs. Czermak
+reported that the baby was--of course--all right. Once it was Monica
+who answered the telephone; in a queer, constrained voice she gave him
+the information he wanted, and then, still in a reserved tone, thanked
+him for the cuff-links. (He had forgotten them.) He explained that he
+was very busy, but hoped to have time soon for a visit....
+
+Every day that week he went to an advertising agency. There were only
+two, besides the one from which he had been discharged, where he would
+have cared to work; one of them he had gone to last Saturday, and the
+other he held in reserve, going first to the smaller and negligible
+ones. On Saturday morning he would go to McCullough’s, the one he was
+holding in reserve.
+
+That day he rose early, having bought an alarm clock at
+last--recklessly paying seventy-nine cents for it. He indulged in the
+luxury of having his shoes shined. He bought a newspaper, and read
+about the preparations for the General Strike in England, and the
+sports news, so as not to be too out of touch conversationally with the
+outside world. Thus prepared, he went to McCullough’s.
+
+Mr. McCullough himself was not in, but somebody in charge told him
+flatly that there was no opening there just now for anybody....
+
+That afternoon, when going into a cheap restaurant to brace himself
+with another meal of doughnuts and coffee, he noticed a sign in the
+window: “Dishwasher Wanted.” He went up to the man at the cashier’s
+desk and asked about the job.
+
+The man looked at him doubtfully and said: “I don’t think it’s the kind
+of a job you want.”
+
+“How much does it pay?” asked Norman.
+
+“Go and see the boss. He’s in the back.”
+
+“Whom shall I ask for?”
+
+“Ask for the boss.”
+
+Norman went back into the greasy, steaming kitchen.
+
+“I want to see the boss,” he said to a fat man in an apron.
+
+“I’m the boss. What do you want?”
+
+“How about that dishwashing job?”
+
+The man looked at him. “My God, what next?” he said disgustedly.
+
+“Why, what’s the matter with me?” Norman asked.
+
+“You’d last about an hour,” said the man.
+
+“How much is the pay?” Norman demanded.
+
+“Twelve dollars and meals. You have the day shift for two weeks and
+then the night shift--seven to seven.”
+
+Twelve dollars--and meals. That was enough for the baby. And he could
+pawn his trunkful of clothes to pay for his room.
+
+“I’ll take it,” he said.
+
+“If you’re here at six-thirty to-morrow morning and nobody else has
+turned up, I’ll try you out,” said the man.
+
+“All right,” said Norman. “I’ll be here.”
+
+“The hell you will,” said the man doubtfully.
+
+As Norman went by the cashier’s desk the man there asked: “Get it?”
+
+“I think so,” said Norman.
+
+“Working for a paper?” asked the man. “Going to write us up?” And he
+smiled knowingly.
+
+Norman shook his head and went out. Why were they so suspicious of him?
+Just because of his clothes? Well, a week’s dishwashing would change
+that....
+
+He would have no time to call up Mrs. Czermak to-night. He’d better
+call up now.
+
+Monica answered the telephone.
+
+“Oh!” she said. “Dr. Zerneke wants very particularly to see you
+to-night. She said to go to her home at ten o’clock. Yes, Junior’s all
+right. When are you coming to see him?”
+
+“Soon, I hope,” said Norman vaguely.
+
+What did Dr. Zerneke want to see him about? Had she found out about his
+losing his job?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII: The Dreamer Wakes
+
+
+DR. ZERNEKE was not in when he arrived at her home at ten o’clock, and
+he let himself in as before.
+
+Waiting for her, he turned to the book-shelves. He caught the name
+of Freud on the back of certain imposing volumes.... Ferenczi....
+Flexner.... Frazer.... Fabre....
+
+All very informative, no doubt.... Sanger.... Spencer and Gillen....
+Stendhal’s _L’Amour_.... Stopes.... If he read all those large books,
+he might understand his own situation better. But it was a little late
+to begin his education. Perhaps a younger generation, that babbled of
+sex and psychoanalysis instead of nursery rhymes, as it was reputed to
+do, would find clear sailing. And maybe not. He had thought he knew
+something, himself. He had had a smattering of modern ideas. He had
+thought of himself as a liberal.
+
+Goethe.... Godwin.... Groos.... Remy de Gourmont. Guyot’s _Breviare
+de l’amour experimentale_.... All about sex, it seemed.... Janet....
+James Joyce.... Ernest Jones.... Jung.... Kammerer.... Kempf.... Ellen
+Key.... The Koran.... Krafft-Ebing.... An omnium gatherum of biology,
+sociology, psychiatry, poetry, plays, and what not.... Adler.... Grant
+Allen’s “The Woman Who Did”--a novel Norman vaguely remembered having
+read in his ’teens; it was about a woman who deliberately and on theory
+had an illegitimate child; the child, as Norman recalled, did not
+thank her mother for conferring upon her that heroic but embarrassing
+distinction.... Aretino.... The Apocrypha....
+
+Norman took down the Apocrypha, and looking into it at random was
+interested to see there the name Thecla. He had wondered who was the
+St. Thecla for whom the Adoption Society was named. He would read the
+Apocrypha some time and find out.... He put the book back at the sound
+of some one coming up the stairs.
+
+Dr. Zerneke entered, and greeted him cordially.
+
+“Well, Mr. Overbeck,” she said, “I suppose you are feeling pretty good
+about everything?”
+
+Norman was disconcerted.
+
+“What about?” he asked suspiciously. Was she making fun of him?
+
+“Why, you have your son,” she said. “That hasn’t palled already, has
+it?”
+
+“Oh,” he said. “I thought--”
+
+“You thought what?”
+
+“I hadn’t intended to tell you,” he said. “But the fact is, I’ve lost
+my job.”
+
+“That’s too bad,” she said sympathetically. “As a matter of fact,” she
+added, “I knew.”
+
+“Oh’you did?”
+
+“Yes. I happened to call up Wilkins and Freeman, and they said you
+weren’t there any more.”
+
+“Of course.... It was foolish to think I could keep it a secret.”
+
+“You haven’t another yet, I suppose?”
+
+“No,” he admitted. “I’ve been looking for another all week without any
+success. I--I seem to have lost my nerve. I’m frightfully discouraged.
+To tell the truth, I took a job of dishwashing to-day.”
+
+“Dishwashing?”
+
+“Yes. So as to keep up my payments to Mrs. Czermak, while I’m looking
+for a real job.... Oh, things will turn out all right, I know, but this
+week my prospects haven’t looked so cheerful. It was something of a
+shock, losing that job at Wilkins and Freeman’s. And looking for a job
+and being turned down every day--it’s hard to keep up one’s courage.”
+
+“So now,” Dr. Zerneke commented, “you know how a good many other young
+fathers feel. Well, it may be good for you.”
+
+“It may take me, of course,” said Norman, “several weeks to find
+another job.”
+
+“Or several months, even,” said the doctor. “Do you know Mr. Victor, at
+Mrs. Case’s rooming-house? He’s been out of work since New Year’s.”
+
+“How do they keep up?”
+
+“Some of them don’t. Others have a little money put by for hard times.
+When you were a prosperous lawyer, didn’t you save anything?”
+
+“I had a bank account, yes.”
+
+“Why not draw on it, then?”
+
+“It’s not really mine, any longer, since I’ve quit the firm.”
+
+“Suit yourself. But I hope you’re not going to be silly.”
+
+“I’ve broken with my life in Vickley. I’d rather stay broken--not go
+back for help. Is that so foolish?”
+
+“Are you engaged in some private quarrel with your father? Or are you
+trying to make a career for yourself here in Chicago? If your son, when
+he grows up, goes to New York to look for a job, don’t you think he
+will need some money to live on before he gets started? Of course, you
+can do dishwashing jobs in cheap restaurants if you want to. It may be
+good for your soul. But I doubt it. I think you’re ashamed of having
+lost your job.”
+
+“Why shouldn’t I be?”
+
+“Shame is a luxury no sensible person can afford. Do you want to stay
+in the advertising business?”
+
+“I do. Very much. That’s really what I’m afraid of--that I’ll have to
+fall back on something else.”
+
+“Would you consent to let me do you a favor?”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“I thought you might be too proud. Well--first of all, how much money
+have you in the bank at Vickley?”
+
+“Of my own--something like a thousand dollars. I was going to spend it
+on my honeymoon.”
+
+“Write out a check for it and deposit it in some Chicago bank. How much
+are you paying for your new room?”
+
+“Four dollars a week.”
+
+“Rent a small apartment. You can get one, furnished, for the summer, in
+this neighborhood, for fifty or sixty dollars a month. Give my name as
+a reference. You will need such a place to entertain your family in,
+anyway. Do that Monday.”
+
+“And what then?” Norman asked curiously.
+
+“You are fond of buying pictures, aren’t you?”
+
+“I’ve confined myself to etchings, chiefly. I have a small collection
+of moderns in Vickley.”
+
+“Send for them. Or go to the galleries and buy something new that
+you’ll want to put on your walls. Do that on Tuesday. Also, go to a
+department store and buy some cups and saucers or hangings that please
+you. Do you dance?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I will send you tickets for a ball next Wednesday, for which you will
+please remit ten dollars. If you don’t find a girl to take, come alone,
+and I’ll introduce you. It’s a masquerade, but evening clothes will do.”
+
+“Is that all?” Norman asked grimly.
+
+“Thursday I leave to your own devices. And on Friday go to see Mr.
+McCullough, of the McCullough Advertising Agency, and ask for a job.”
+
+“I was in there this morning. They haven’t got a job to give me.”
+
+“They will probably have one next Friday.”
+
+“Why should they have one next Friday?” he asked suspiciously.
+
+“Because there is such a thing in this wicked world as ‘pull,’ and I
+use unscrupulously the little I have for the benefit of my friends. How
+do you suppose people get jobs?”
+
+“But what do you know about my ability?”
+
+“Nothing. After you get the job, it will be up to you to keep it.
+That’s not my affair. All I promise you is a two weeks’ trial. But
+it just happens that the last young man I rashly recommended to Mr.
+McCullough turned out to be pretty good. If you’re a flop, I’ll merely
+lose my reputation for intuition, that’s all. Only, if I were you, I’d
+ask for sixty a week to start on. They’ll not respect you otherwise.
+Remember that you’ve a baby to support.... And don’t, please, be angry
+at me for keeping you from conquering the world by your own unaided
+efforts.”
+
+“I’ll be everlastingly grateful,” he said. “But--I thought poverty was
+supposed to be an incentive. Evidently you don’t think so. Why should
+you want me to pretend to myself that I’m rich?”
+
+“Because you’ve always been well-to-do. You are, still, as a plain
+matter of fact. Your poverty is a fake poverty--a neurotic lie, to
+please yourself.”
+
+“It didn’t feel so to me. It seemed real enough. And it wasn’t at all
+pleasing!”
+
+“It was an exercise of your imagination, nevertheless. A dream. I’ve
+merely waked you up.”
+
+“It was a nightmare,” he said.
+
+“A grim little poetic fantasy. Write a poem about it, and send it to
+the Daily Worker. It will all be true enough--for others. Not for you!
+Be honest about this, if you can.”
+
+“I admit I feel better than I did when I came in. But why--aside from
+the job you’ve more or less promised me--why should the _facts_ seem
+different now? Because they do!”
+
+“You’re facing realities now. Not fighting shadows any more. The
+question isn’t whether you can conquer the world with your bare hands.
+It’s merely whether you can succeed in the advertising business. Maybe
+you can’t, you know!”
+
+Norman laughed, and thanked her warmly.
+
+“Have you asked your mother to come to see you?”
+
+“Not yet.”
+
+“Well, the sooner the better.”
+
+As Norman walked back to his room, he had a startling apprehension
+of the fact that what she had said about keeping a job was a really
+important truth.... There had perhaps been something grimly romantic
+about the thought of washing dishes and pawning his clothes to pay that
+twelve dollars a week for his son’s care. This problem of keeping
+a job after it had been given him--there was, he knew, nothing very
+romantic about that. It was a quite realistic problem that he had to
+face now....
+
+“Am I,” he wondered, “a perfectly incorrigible ass?”
+
+If it would help to do the things that Dr. Zerneke advised--if it would
+keep him from flying off on some preposterous new emotional tangent (he
+had Monica’s kiss in mind) he would do as she said.
+
+He would get an apartment.... And then he would ask his mother to
+come....
+
+
+
+
+                               BOOK THREE
+
+                            The Dominant Sex
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I: Vita Nova
+
+
+HIS mother was coming. He had wired, inviting her, and she had wired
+back the date of her arrival....
+
+Ten days had passed since his talk with Dr. Zerneke, and in the
+meantime he had done most of the things outlined in her program. He had
+transferred his bank account to Chicago. He had rented a good-sized
+furnished apartment on the North side for the summer. He had even,
+according to instructions, picked up an etching, a satiric thing by
+Peggy Bacon, and put it on the wall, to make the place more his own....
+
+He had in other respects dutifully carried out Dr. Zerneke’s commands,
+day by day. He had obediently gone to the dance for which she had sent
+him tickets (he thought of taking Monica, but rejected that idea as
+distinctly out of place); and rather to his surprise, he had found on
+that occasion that he was capable of enjoying himself like anybody
+else....
+
+And finally, with some uneasiness and considerable doubt, he had
+applied to Mr. McCullough for a job--and had been taken on at forty
+dollars a week, which was all he had the nerve to ask.
+
+He ought, he knew, to feel at ease now, in his comfortable apartment,
+and with his new job. But he had lost his sense of security. His
+experience of being out of a job had taught him something he could not
+so quickly forget. Some time he might be able to feel again that the
+world was made for him; but it seemed still a difficult and dangerous
+place, and he a somewhat helpless stranger in it. He was determined
+not to lose his new job. Never did a young man work at his tasks more
+earnestly and humbly....
+
+He had been to Mrs. Czermak’s to see his son twice in those ten
+days--formal visits, different enough from the warm intimacy of his
+former association with the family. He felt under constraint, and so
+did the girls. Monica was distant and resentful, though she was rather
+obviously wearing his present--the cuff-links.
+
+Well, at any rate, he was being sensible. With his mother coming to see
+him, he must not get involved in any more messes. But he felt a little
+guilty about Monica.... It wasn’t quite the thing to do to kiss a girl
+and then drop her cold....
+
+When he was settled in his apartment, and at work on his new job, with
+no further excuse for delay, he had wired his mother the invitation to
+visit him. Her answering wire had said she would arrive Sunday morning;
+and this had been followed by a letter, a friendly and casual letter,
+taking everything as a matter of course. And Doris had scribbled a
+postscript saying that she’d love to see the baby.... Lucinda, it
+appeared, was still suffering from “nerves.” He gathered that she had
+taken it all pretty hard....
+
+And there had been a letter from Gilbert Rand, giving him the town
+gossip. They were still talking about him in Vickley. Nothing like that
+had ever happened there.... Considering everything, Norman thought it
+was pretty sporting of his mother to be so calm and matter-of-fact
+about it.
+
+Nevertheless, with the approach of his mother’s visit, he began to
+feel a sense of filial constraint. His new apartment was associated
+with the thought of her visit: it was not so much his own place, as
+one in which to entertain her. He felt that with her visit he would
+lose the liberty he had gained in leaving home and coming to Chicago.
+And he began to regret more keenly the pleasures of his stay at Mrs.
+Czermak’s, and to recall the delightful details of that period--the
+friendly midnight chats with old Mr. Victor, the morning coffee brought
+by Monica, and the delightful half hours with the girls in the nursery.
+Even Mrs. Case’s Rabelaisian conversation was something which he missed
+with regret.... Mrs. Case had not felt any of the constraint which had
+marked his visits since his departure from her roof; and last Sunday,
+when he had seen his son bathed, she had in her frank way commented
+upon one feature of the baby’s anatomy which is usually avoided in
+polite conversation. “Ah!” she had said, addressing the baby, “little
+do you know, young man, how much trouble you’re going to make in the
+world with that!” A realist, she.... Norman grinned, remembering.
+
+He had lived there only a week altogether. And he had been rather
+longer than that installed here in his apartment. Yet that week
+would always live in his memory, full of warmth and color and homely
+sweetness. This week in his apartment had been merely barren.
+
+Sitting there in his living room, he looked about with a vague
+dissatisfaction. Polite comforts evidently did not suffice a man. The
+fact was that he was lonely....
+
+And his mother was coming in four days.
+
+He really ought to make the best of those four days....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II: Waste Not Your Hour
+
+
+YES, he was lonely, that was the trouble.
+
+Dr. Zerneke had told him to make friends. But he had made friends
+already, and had had to drop them....
+
+Well, he must make some new friends.
+
+He took out his memo-book, in which he had written the names, addresses
+and telephone numbers of two girls he had met last week at that dance.
+
+They had been very interesting girls. One of them was a field-worker
+for some sort of agency which looked after delinquent children; she
+had snapping black eyes and curly black hair, and she had talked very
+interestingly about her work, in the intervals between dances. Her name
+was Jennie Michaelson; a very intelligent girl, whom he had been eager
+to know further. And she liked him. He wondered that he had let so long
+a time slip by--more than a week--without calling her up. He looked at
+his watch. It was only eight-thirty. She might be in from dinner, and
+they could go to a restaurant and talk. She lived on the West side....
+
+He hesitated, at the moment of going to the telephone, and sat there
+in the big chair beneath the bridge-lamp, looking at his memo-book.
+There was another new girl in it somewhere. Louise--he couldn’t
+remember her last name: a fine, healthy, lovely blonde, and a wonderful
+dancer. Yes--there she was: Louise Van Strohm. She was a student at
+the University of Chicago, majoring in biology. It was her idea of
+adventure to go around the world and down into deep seas seeing strange
+and curious forms of life, like Will Beebe. She would, too, some time,
+she said. She lived near the University. She was fond of music, and the
+concerts in Jackson Park were commencing. She had mentioned it herself.
+There was one to-night. Or they could go somewhere and dance--better
+still! He looked at her ’phone number....
+
+Again he hesitated, wondering whether what he most wanted to do
+was talk or dance. If he wanted to talk, Jennie would be the more
+interesting; if to dance, Louise danced like a dream. It was difficult
+to decide which girl he most wanted to see to-night....
+
+He sat there in his easy chair under the lamp, trying to decide between
+Jennie and Louise.
+
+The clock on the mantel chimed the hour of nine.
+
+Of course, he had no assurance that either Jennie or Louise would be in
+at this hour. Girls had other things to do with their evenings than sit
+around in a furnished room waiting for the’phone to ring--especially
+girls like these. It was no way to go about it, to call them up at that
+hour. Girls had to be dated up beforehand. He’d be a fool to think he
+could get them at a moment’s notice. In fact, he should have dated them
+up for some evening there at the dance. By now they had forgotten all
+about him. After all, if a man asked a girl for her telephone number,
+and then didn’t call up for a week, she would naturally conclude that
+he couldn’t be very much interested in continuing the acquaintance. It
+would be rather embarrassing to call up now....
+
+And if he did go to see one of these girls, what would he say to her?
+A year ago, at college, he’d have known what to say. But he was a
+thousand years older, now. Louise was twenty, Jennie twenty-two; Dr.
+Zerneke had told him their ages. They were only kids. He didn’t know
+how to get along with girls of that age any more....
+
+To be sure, he had got along with them well enough that night at the
+dance. But that was because of the stimulus of the music, the costumes,
+and the drink or two that everybody had under his and her belt. But
+to see these girls again in cold blood ... His spirit faltered at the
+frightful difficulties of talking to a strange girl....
+
+Well, no doubt it could be done. People did, somehow, get acquainted
+with each other.... And his imagination flew on to envisage a time
+when he and these girls might be better friends.... The trouble was,
+it would be awkward to be always pretending to have a sick wife in
+Colorado. Maybe they wouldn’t want to play around with a man who had
+a sick wife in Colorado. Of course, he could be a recent widower, if
+he preferred. Or a divorced man--one whose wife had run away: that was
+near enough to the truth.... And he speculated upon just what Jennie
+and Louise would think of a young divorced man with an infant child.
+When they knew him better, they would ask to see the baby. Girls seemed
+to be interested in babies--almost all girls. They might like him none
+the worse for having a baby.... But there was the rub. He couldn’t ever
+tell them the truth about that baby. There would be always an invisible
+barrier, in his relations with them, from the very beginning. It would
+spoil any friendship he might try to have with them.... Things would
+come up in conversation about illegitimacy--things like that did come
+up in conversation with girls nowadays!--and he would have to hide
+his own thoughts. Because he couldn’t go around telling everybody his
+story. And he would be ashamed of having to treat these girls as if
+they were enemies from whom his thoughts must needs be concealed. Their
+friendship would be a farce from the outset....
+
+The clock chimed the half-hour.
+
+It was really too late to call up those girls to-night. Besides, he
+didn’t want to go out. He wasn’t in the mood for girls. He would stay
+at home and read a book.
+
+He went to the book-case, took one down at random, glanced through its
+pages, and threw it aside. After a few restless turns up and down the
+room he abruptly put on his hat.
+
+It was too beautiful an evening to stay indoors. He would take a walk
+in the park.
+
+He found himself accidentally on the street where he had lived at Mrs.
+Czermak’s.... He walked past the house, looking at the lighted windows.
+His old room was dark. Had they rented it to somebody else yet? He
+hadn’t asked, and they hadn’t told him.... The upstairs room, next to
+the nursery, showed a glow of light at the edges of the curtains. That
+was the girls’ room--Rose Czermak’s and Monica’s....
+
+What did Monica think of him?
+
+He turned, and walked back, on the other side of the street, looking at
+the house.
+
+He could make some inquiry about the baby, as an excuse for coming.
+Yes, he hadn’t told them that his mother was coming. He ought to do
+that. He halted.... No, it wouldn’t be very sensible to go to see them
+in his present mood. Monica might be there. Better let well enough
+alone.... He could telephone them about his mother.... He went on....
+
+Walking through Lincoln Park, he reached the Lake front. The full white
+moon was lifting itself out of the waters of the lake. He stood and
+watched it....
+
+What was Monica doing?
+
+But he reminded himself that he was supposed to have a sick wife
+in Colorado. Monica wouldn’t be thinking of him. Besides, to a girl
+nowadays, a kiss meant nothing. She had doubtless forgotten all about
+it.
+
+And besides, his mother was coming in four days. He had best keep out
+of trouble....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III: His Mother
+
+
+IT was Saturday evening. His mother was coming in the morning. Norman
+looked anxiously about his apartment, and spent an hour emptying
+ash-trays, picking up cigarette stubs from the hearth, and getting his
+bureau drawers in order. He found that he had forgotten to send off his
+laundry this week. Well, he could buy some new shirts on Monday....
+
+He sat down, seeing his apartment with his mother’s eyes. She would
+probably find fault with the work of his cleaning-woman. She would
+smile when she saw that bureau drawer full of bright chintz which he
+had bought for curtains, forgetting that there was nobody he could ask
+to sew them for him.... Mrs. Case, it was true, had asked if there was
+anything they could do to help him get settled in his new place. But he
+couldn’t have asked them to make his curtains....
+
+He had telephoned Mrs. Czermak to let her know that his mother was
+coming, and would probably be over to see the baby in the morning. The
+news had seemed to upset her....
+
+Well, there was nothing else to do to-night. He would read a while and
+then go to bed and get some sleep. His mother was arriving on the
+early train....
+
+He had happened to see a copy of the Apocrypha in a bookshop window,
+and had bought it out of curiosity, to see who St. Thecla was. But for
+some absurd reason that apocryphal girl saint had reminded him in a
+perverse way of Isabel. He did not want to be reminded of Isabel....
+To-night he opened the book, read a little of the story of Thecla, and
+fell to wondering about Isabel. She had been going to sail for France
+on the eleventh. That was four days ago. (It was curious what a perfect
+calendar his mind unconsciously was in these matters: it was four days
+ago that he had bought this book, too.) Was she on shipboard now? Or
+had she impatiently gone long before, and was she in Paris at this
+moment?
+
+Not that it made any difference to him....
+
+But he had a queer troubled dream that night, in which both Isabel and
+Monica figured--Isabel as a dim figure in the background, hiding her
+face, and Monica, warm and near and dear, holding out her hands to him
+appealingly....
+
+The alarm clock sounded.... In an hour he must meet his mother at
+the station. An hour. Then he could go on sleeping for five minutes
+longer.... He wanted to finish that dream....
+
+He was awakened by an insistent ringing of the door-bell, and
+sprang up in confusion, looking at his watch. Good heavens!--he had
+overslept nearly two hours.... Was that his mother now? He threw on a
+dressing-gown and went to the door.
+
+“Mother!” he cried out contritely.
+
+“Good morning, Norman. You always were a sleepy-head.” She kissed him.
+“It’s nice to see you, my boy.”
+
+“And I didn’t meet you!” He seized her suitcase and packages. “How
+awful of me! Come in!”
+
+“That was all right,” she said. “What a nice place you have. As a
+matter of fact, I was rather glad you didn’t come. I went over to see
+the baby.”
+
+“Oh! You did?”
+
+“Yes. He’s a very nice baby, Norman. He looks exactly like you.”
+
+“You--you liked him?”
+
+“Of course. Now, Norman, go and have your bath and get dressed, and
+I’ll get some breakfast.”
+
+“I’m sorry, Mother--I’m afraid there’s not a thing in the house.”
+
+“I brought everything. I stopped at a delicatessen. Go along, I’ll find
+the kitchen. You’re still half asleep. You need a good cup of coffee.”
+
+It wasn’t quite the way he had expected it to be.... But then, nothing
+ever was, he reflected as he hurried through his bath and into his
+clothes. She had simply and calmly walked in and taken possession....
+
+“Are you almost ready?”
+
+“Yes, Mother. In three minutes.”
+
+He could smell the appetizing odors of bacon and coffee.
+
+“All right. I’ll put the eggs in.”
+
+That was just like her....
+
+He felt half admiring and half resentful of such a mother.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV: ’Ware Women
+
+
+AT breakfast, when Mrs. Overbeck had satisfied herself that her son’s
+stomach was being properly ministered to, they talked--Norman with
+some caution and embarrassment, but she with apparent ease. It gave
+Norman a queer feeling. One would not have thought from her manner that
+there was anything unusual, let alone irregular, in his situation. She
+inquired briefly and casually about Isabel (whom she referred to quite
+familiarly by that name, instead of by any hostile circumlocutions),
+and Norman was relieved to find that he need not make any further
+explanation in regard to her. His mother appeared to take Isabel’s
+going to Paris for granted.... She commented on Mrs. Case and her
+daughters. “They seemed rather flustered at my visit,” she said. “They
+are all very fond of the baby,” she added.
+
+“Yes, they are,” he said.
+
+“By the way,” she remarked, “they asked me something about your wife’s
+health.”
+
+To be sure--he hadn’t warned his mother of that protective fiction.
+
+“Oh,” he said, “I’m supposed to be married, you know--on account of
+the baby. I told them I had a sick wife in Colorado. You didn’t say
+anything that would give me away, by any chance?”
+
+“Why, no, I think not. I didn’t discuss you with them. I just pretended
+not to notice the question, and went on talking about the baby. But you
+might have told me, Norman. You didn’t write me anything. All I know is
+what Dr. Zerneke has told me.”
+
+“Oh--you’ve seen Dr. Zerneke too?”
+
+“Not yet. I mean what she wrote to me.”
+
+He might have known. Doubtless his mother and Dr. Zerneke had been
+in correspondence about him all along. He seemed to sniff a maternal
+conspiracy.
+
+“What did she say about me?” he demanded.
+
+“Oh, just that you were well, and about your work.”
+
+“What did she say about my work?”
+
+“She said you’d got a new job that paid more money. I was glad to hear
+that. I didn’t see how you could live on thirty dollars a week in
+Chicago.”
+
+She hadn’t known, then, about his losing that other job. He felt
+relieved.
+
+“How is Lucinda?” he asked. He had already inquired about the other
+members of the family.
+
+“Well, you know how Lucinda gets--in a state of nerves over every
+little thing. Her new puppy is lost.”
+
+“What!”
+
+“Yes, the new one she got from Schwartz’s. It just got out of the house
+about ten days ago and disappeared.”
+
+“I remember. It had a black spot or something.”
+
+So Gilbert Rand was mistaken! It wasn’t concerned with him and his
+baby, Lucinda’s state of nerves. Only her dog--of course....
+
+“She’s thinking of coming on while I’m here.”
+
+“No!” said Norman in helpless protest.
+
+“Oh, well, you might as well let her, Norman. There’s plenty of room
+here. And your baby will take her mind off her lost puppy.”
+
+“Oh, then, by all means let’s have her,” said Norman ironically. “If my
+baby can assuage her grief--!”
+
+His irony was lost on his mother--as usual. “Yes,” she said, “I think
+it would do her good.”
+
+She had brought along her sewing-kit, and after breakfast sat down to
+do the curtains, which she had somehow already discovered in his bureau.
+
+“Now don’t let me interfere with your usual program,” she said. “Just
+go ahead and do whatever you want to do. And don’t let me keep any of
+your friends away.”
+
+He didn’t like to tell her that he hadn’t made any friends.... Really,
+he ought to bring somebody home, or she would think he was hiding them
+from her.... He might bring Charlie Beckett here some evening. Charlie
+was the only one at the office that he knew at all....
+
+“I really don’t know many people yet,” he confessed. “I’ve been so
+busy. I did get acquainted a little when I was living over at Mrs.
+Czermak’s place--but that’s about all. And of course there’s Dr.
+Zerneke. I’ve invited her to go out to dinner with us to-night, by the
+way.”
+
+“Yes, I’d like to meet her. And now go on out somewhere if you want to.
+These curtains, and the dishes, will occupy me till dinner-time.”
+
+“But I can’t have you washing my dishes, Mother,” said Norman,
+scandalized.
+
+“It won’t be the first time I’ve washed your dishes,” she said.
+
+“I’ll do them myself,” he said. “You’re my guest.”
+
+“Don’t be silly, Norman. Run along and leave me alone here for a while.”
+
+And after some feeble protest, he did.... He went over to Mrs.
+Czermak’s.
+
+“Well,” he asked her, “what do you think of my mother?”
+
+She looked at him in a frightened way.
+
+“Tell me,” she begged, “is she going to take the baby away?”
+
+“Take the baby away!” Norman echoed. “Why, of course not!” And then he
+added, wonderingly: “I never thought of--such a thing.”
+
+No, but now that he did think of it, it didn’t seem so impossible. If
+she wanted to, she would be hard to stop.
+
+“Why, did she say anything--when she was here?” he asked.
+
+“It wasn’t what she said. But I’m afraid!” said Mrs. Czermak, and led
+the way to the nursery. She lifted the sleeping child from his bed and
+held him close in her arms. “I don’t want her to take him away!” she
+said.
+
+“Oh, well,” said Norman reassuringly, “I’m sure she hasn’t any such
+idea.”
+
+But that evening, at dinner with his mother and Dr. Zerneke in the
+quiet restaurant he had selected, he was troubled by that thought....
+
+Well, wasn’t it what he had once gone home to propose?--that she take
+his child to raise!... Yes, but that was ages ago. It was the last
+thing in the world that he wanted, now, to have his son brought up by
+his family in Vickley.
+
+He was a little shocked to realize how much he had changed his mind, in
+the last six weeks....
+
+And another thing, that evening at dinner, bothered him--the sense
+that his mother and Dr. Zerneke were already too well acquainted--that
+Dr. Zerneke was her friend and ally, rather than his.... There was an
+air of implicit secret understanding between them--an understanding
+concerning him.
+
+What were these two women up to?
+
+Yet it was the first time they had met, and they were of such different
+kinds! They were only trying hard to be polite to one another. All they
+had in common, after all, was a feminine conviction of his masculine
+helplessness when it came to babies....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V: As Usual
+
+
+WHEN Norman’s mother had been there less than a week, he had settled
+down to a somewhat fretful but unprotesting acceptance of her presence.
+She had got him an efficient cleaning woman; she had sewed buttons on
+his shirts, and bought him a needed supply of socks and handkerchiefs.
+She waked him in the morning to the kind of breakfast he had always had
+at home. It was no use trying to regard her as a guest. She slipped
+easily into the familiar, authoritative, useful and neglected rôle of
+mother.... When Charlie Beckett, at the office, suggested to Norman
+one day, as one bachelor to another, that they have dinner and go to a
+musical comedy together that evening, he called up his mother and said
+he wouldn’t be home till late--leaving her alone with no more thought
+than if he had been at home in Vickley.
+
+(One incident may be lightly touched upon. Norman was not much of
+a drinking man, but in Charlie Beckett’s genial company, at the
+place where Charlie took him to get some real old-fashioned beer
+after the show, he drank enough to become rather tearily and beerily
+confidential; though even then he presented his troubles in a somewhat
+fictional disguise. “M’ wife ran away. Lef’ me with a baby. Nice little
+kid, too!”--something like that, and so unlike Norman in his sober
+senses that he preferred to forget it....)
+
+His mother had written to Lucinda telling her she could come Saturday.
+“Just for a few days,” she explained to Norman.... She herself had not
+said how long she was going to stay; but on Monday she had brought
+home from the station a second suitcase which she had checked there
+on her arrival, and he guessed that she intended to remain at least a
+fortnight. Well, there was nothing to complain of, surely, in this;
+he had invited her to come--and he couldn’t say that she was in his
+way. She did make him comfortable. Nevertheless her motherly presence
+secretly and unreasonably irritated him. But that was no new thing,
+either. He had been secretly irritated at her for the last several
+years.... So that everything was much as it had always been.
+
+Once, only, there flashed into his mind the curious tale that Gilbert
+Rand had told him about his father. He hadn’t exactly doubted the
+story--he had taken its truth for granted; but in a certain sense he
+had not really believed it. How can one believe such things about one’s
+parents? He wondered, now, if his mother had guessed what was going on?
+And if she had guessed, had she sat there calmly, sewing buttons on her
+husband’s shirts, knowing that he would get over what ailed him sooner
+or later? Or had she never dreamed of such a thing? It was hard to make
+his mother out--impossible, now, to tell what she knew or thought....
+
+She saw the baby every day, and one evening they went together. If
+her alien presence exercised a constraint on Mrs. Czermak and her
+family, she appeared placidly unaware of it. She was friendly enough
+with them; they were formal with her--still suspicious, it seemed, of
+her intentions regarding the baby. Norman was ill at ease too, during
+this visit.... And thereby occurred a second and still more disturbing
+incident in Norman’s relations with Monica.
+
+It was a rainy evening, late in the week, and he had’phoned for a taxi
+to take them back home. As they were getting into the taxi, his mother
+remembered that she had left her bag in the nursery; and he went back
+to get it. Monica found it for him, and came down to the door with him.
+It was the first time they had been alone together since that night
+of the kiss, and they were both embarrassed. Doubtless it was this
+embarrassment which provoked him to a silly speech. As they passed the
+door of his old room, he remarked: “I suppose you’re bringing morning
+coffee to somebody else now?”
+
+She looked at him reproachfully, and they halted outside the room.
+“Do you think so?” she said. She turned the knob. “See--it’s still
+empty--waiting for you to come back.” And somehow or other they were
+there together in that empty room, with the door slowly swinging shut
+behind them. As it swung shut, the shadows closed in and obliterated
+the light from the flickering gas-jet in the hall. In the darkness
+Norman’s hand touched Monica’s hungrily. And this time he was not
+surprised that next moment they were in one another’s arms.
+
+No, he was not surprised. Monica no longer seemed to him a child. And
+he knew that he wanted this--her arms about him, her kisses on his
+mouth. He wanted it all so much that he couldn’t think of anything else
+at the moment.
+
+“Darling!” he whispered.
+
+Then, in the darkness, she whispered to him: “I can’t stand it, Norman!
+I want you too much! I don’t care if you _are_ married!...
+
+“Now you know!” And her mouth passionately met his again.
+
+“Do you want me?” she whispered.
+
+And what could a young man answer but--
+
+“Yes, of course I do!”
+
+“Then come back and live with us again--and don’t let her take the baby
+away!” she whispered pleadingly.
+
+“We’ll talk about it later,” he said, half brought back to sanity by
+this alien note ... half aware that this was all mad folly, until her
+kiss dizzied his senses again....
+
+“You must go, now, dear,” she said presently, pushing him gently out.
+
+“Good Lord!” thought Norman, as he ran down to the waiting taxi.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI: Night Thoughts
+
+
+HE could not get to sleep for a long time.
+
+Of course, he could not take Monica’s proposal seriously. They had both
+been a little mad. She hadn’t known what she was saying. She didn’t
+really mean it. He couldn’t take advantage of a young girl’s romantic
+emotions. It would be simply too caddish.... The best thing to do would
+be to ignore the incident. Yes, the next time they met he would just
+behave as though nothing had happened. No doubt she would be grateful
+and relieved....
+
+This mood of chivalry lasted for perhaps three quarters of an hour,
+when abruptly his thoughts took another turn. He had a sudden vision
+of her looking at him with scornful eyes. Women didn’t appreciate that
+kind of masculine chivalry. It would hurt her pride, and she would
+despise him....
+
+Well, what could he say to her? Not, after their kisses to-night, that
+he didn’t really care for her that much.... It would be a lie....
+
+Well, if he felt that way, why not take her up?
+
+The trouble was that it was impracticable. He couldn’t go to live
+there again. Mrs. Case would have something to say about that. She had
+foreseen this very situation. A realistic mother, Mrs. Case.... No, it
+wouldn’t do at all. Agreeable as Monica’s proposal was, as a young man
+of the world he had to realize that it must be foregone....
+
+To be sure, he had this apartment. And after his mother had gone back
+to Vickley--
+
+Yes, why not?
+
+Monica, he told himself, was old enough to know what she was doing. He
+wasn’t exactly seducing her. She had made the offer herself. And he
+would be a fool to say no....
+
+He played in imagination with the idea, and it was infinitely alluring.
+
+Of course, he must not let Monica enter into this relationship with any
+false romantic ideas of its seriousness. He would have to make it clear
+to her that it was just--well, a temporary and passing sort of thing....
+
+If Monica were older, and had had more experience in the ways of the
+world, she would take all this for granted. But that was not the case.
+And the thought of making these explanations to her was not very
+pleasant.
+
+As a matter of fact, it would all be terribly serious to her. She would
+be committing a sin, for the sake of their love. Because she thought he
+was a married man.... It was hardly fair to her....
+
+But if he told her the truth, she would want him to marry her....
+
+That, of course, was entirely out of the question. The deception
+would have to be kept up--or else, for that idea didn’t please his
+imagination, he would have to make clear to her why he didn’t want to
+get married....
+
+He could imagine her saying reproachfully: “You mean--you don’t want to
+get married to _me_!”
+
+Well, all right, take it that way. He supposed he would get married
+some day. But he had no intention of doing so for a long time....
+
+“But why don’t you want to marry me, Norman?”
+
+What could he answer to that? He might say that this wasn’t really
+love.... But she would indignantly deny that. And she would be right,
+so far as she was concerned. It really was love, with her.... And
+what was it with him? He remembered how he had walked up and down in
+front of her house, wanting desperately to go in and see her.... If
+he had felt that way about a young woman of his own social class,
+would he have doubted whether it was love?... Yes--that was why he was
+subjecting his emotions to so brutal an inquisition: because she was a
+stenographer and the daughter of a woman who ran a rooming-house! That
+was why he must not permit himself to think of this as love! Madness,
+folly, a young man’s casual amusement, a convenience, a chance not to
+be passed up--call it anything but love! But what was the truth?
+
+He wanted her. He liked her. He was happy in her presence. He thought
+about her all the time ... the curve of her mouth, the tilt of her
+chin, the steady look out of her eyes, the way she tossed back her
+bobbed hair, the smoothness of her arms, the poise of her young
+body--he knew these charms by heart.... Wasn’t that love?
+
+Oh, not so romantic and poetic as some sorts of love, perhaps. But it
+was real. Oh, it was real enough!
+
+And yet he didn’t want to marry her.
+
+Well, and why didn’t he? Simply because she wasn’t the sort of girl he
+had ever thought of marrying. Because she was a stenographer. Because
+her mother ran a rooming-house. Because her family was poor. Because
+she had none of the airs and graces of his own familiar middle-class
+world.... And because he was an Overbeck of Vickley.
+
+Perhaps it _was_ mere snobbishness.... But still--could he and a girl
+of such a different background get along together as man and wife?
+
+That, however, implied that he still belonged to Vickley. He reminded
+himself that he had actually left all that sort of thing behind him. He
+wasn’t his father’s son, any more. He could marry anybody he liked....
+And what could be a more appropriate wife for a struggling young man
+of uncertain prospects than a girl like Monica, able to take care of
+herself and make the best of narrow circumstances? It wasn’t at all a
+question of her fitting into his world, but of his fitting into hers!
+And the answer to that seemed to be the fact that he had been very
+happy living there at her house....
+
+He hastily summoned up in his mind the differences between them.
+Her lack of education.... He was interested in art and ideas, in
+abstractions which she would never be able to understand.... Not,
+indeed, that most girls cared much for art and ideas; but at least some
+girls knew how to talk about them....
+
+It did not seem to him, just now, to matter greatly. After all, one
+did not marry a wife for the sake of intellectual conversation. And
+Monica was no goose, either. She had a sensible little head on her
+young shoulders. And her own struggle with poverty had taught her what
+life was.... When she knew the truth about his child--she wouldn’t be
+shocked....
+
+His mother might not like such a match, but she would have to accept
+it.... He was running his life to suit himself, not his family.... If
+he and Monica could be happy together, what else mattered?
+
+Abruptly there flashed into his mind what his friend Hal would say
+about such a marriage. “_Nostalgia de la boue._” He had always chaffed
+Norman with having a common, earthy streak in him--just because,
+before he too had fallen under the spell of Hal’s ethereal inamorata,
+he had entertained a sufficiently realistic college-boy passion for
+a pretty young waitress in Boston.... Well, his affair with that
+girl had probably been healthier than his and Hal’s mooning over that
+art-struck vixen Isabel.... Homesickness for the mud? Possibly. If he
+hadn’t been an Overbeck from Vickley, he’d probably have married that
+waitress back in Cambridge. It was shame at finding that he couldn’t
+take that affair as lightly as the young-gentlemanly code demanded,
+that had made him break off with her. He had never told anybody but Hal
+how he really felt about that girl; and Hal had only laughed at him.
+But she had given him a taste of simple, earthy young love, reckless
+and sweet; and it was the memory, somewhere in the back of his mind,
+of her unhesitating and passionate surrender, that had made him so
+afraid of Monica. Well, he had been his father’s son at Cambridge;
+he couldn’t marry his waitress sweetheart. But he could marry Monica
+now--if he was really free from Vickley. _Nostalgia de la boue?_ Say
+rather homesickness for the honest, fragrant earth! In Isabel he had
+had enough dealings with the unattainable stars; and in his Vickley
+fiancée, with the middle region of respectable compromise....
+
+Vickley would hear about his marriage with Monica, of course; and
+Vickley would think it a final degradation. Vickley would take it as
+his surrender of any hope of ever making good and coming back. Well,
+let them! He did not want to go back to Vickley. And if marrying Monica
+prevented that, so much the better!
+
+There was nothing about Monica’s family that he really need be ashamed
+of. They were self-respecting, hard-working people. He had liked them
+all.... Something Dr. Zerneke had said, when she was scolding him, came
+into his mind: “If one of those girls were your wife, your behavior
+would be admirable.” Well, why shouldn’t Monica become his wife?
+
+Yes, why not tell her the truth and ask her to marry him?
+
+But he would rather wait until his mother had gone back to Vickley....
+And it wasn’t a thing to be decided on impulse. He would take the rest
+of the week to think it over....
+
+A week to think it over.... And he fell asleep to dream of happiness in
+Monica’s passionate young arms....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII: A Letter
+
+
+HE was unusually gay at breakfast, and went whistling to his office....
+Of course, he must not tell Monica just yet; but he might manage a
+reassuring touch or word when he went in the evening with his mother to
+see the baby.... His imagination was busy with thoughts of their life
+together....
+
+But something happened that day to disturb the happy tenor of his
+thoughts.
+
+In the afternoon there was a telephone call from Dr. Zerneke.
+
+“I’ve just had a letter from Isabel,” she said.
+
+“From Paris?” he asked.
+
+“No. From Michigan.”
+
+“But I supposed she had sailed a week or more ago!”
+
+“It seems that she hasn’t. And this letter concerns you. In fact,
+it’s really intended for you. I’m sending it special delivery to your
+apartment. It’s something you’ll probably want to discuss with your
+mother.”
+
+“But what in the world--?”
+
+“You’ll find out when you read her letter.” And that was all she would
+say.
+
+What could Isabel have to say to him? She 256 An Unmarried Father
+hadn’t decided that she wanted to keep the baby after all? Girls, he
+knew, did sometimes change their minds about such things. But it was
+too late--the baby was his, now. And it was going to stay his.
+
+But he did not allow himself to think about it. He was working with
+Charlie Beckett on the Pearson account--an important job--and it needed
+all his attention. Charlie seemed to like his ideas....
+
+“Here’s a letter for you,” said his mother, when he came home that
+afternoon.
+
+“Oh, thanks,” he said. “Something from Dr. Zerneke.”
+
+He went into his room, tore open the envelope nervously, put aside Dr.
+Zerneke’s accompanying note, and glanced rapidly through the sheets
+covered with Isabel’s tiny handwriting.... But it was a long and prolix
+letter, and this rapid survey told him nothing, so he dropped into
+a comfortable chair, lighted a cigarette, and began it again at the
+beginning in a more leisurely manner:
+
+“Dear Dr. Martha--
+
+“I’ve delayed my sailing for a few weeks, because I seem to need a
+longer rest before my ocean trip. I should have taken your advice and
+stayed another week in the hospital, I realize now. But I expect to be
+all right in another week or so.
+
+“In the meantime, since signing over the baby to Norman, I’ve had
+plenty of time to think about it, and I feel that perhaps I ought
+to make a suggestion. You will, of course, use your own discretion
+in passing it on. If it’s out of place, please throw this in the
+wastebasket and forget about it.
+
+“I hadn’t, of course, realized that Norman was as much interested in
+the baby as all that. When he didn’t come to see me at the hospital
+any more, I thought he had gone back to Vickley and dropped the matter
+entirely. It was really quite a shock to get those documents. I saw
+that I had done him an injustice. (It really makes me a little ashamed
+of my own lack of the proper parental instincts. Norman and my baby! It
+seems very odd, and rather sweet. He will make a nice father.)
+
+“I feel awkward about making my suggestion. Not knowing anything
+about any other plans he may have, I can’t be sure my idea is not an
+unwelcome impertinence. If the girl in Vickley, the one he was engaged
+to, is going to marry him anyway and take the baby, then of course
+you won’t say anything to him about this. But Roberta writes me that
+he is living in Chicago now, so perhaps the Vickley engagement is all
+off.--You see, I’m very much in the dark about it all. You didn’t tell
+me anything; and I suppose it’s really none of my business. But it
+occurs to me that it may be almost as embarrassing for a man to have an
+illegitimate baby as for a girl. And I can’t forget that under those
+circumstances he was generous and considerate enough to offer to marry
+me. I appreciated the offer, but since I wasn’t going to keep the baby
+there was no reason for accepting it. But now that he has the baby,
+perhaps I ought to make him a similar offer. It would be, of course,
+and you must make that clear to him, only a legal fiction for his and
+the child’s benefit. I would go on to Paris immediately, and he could
+divorce me for desertion; or if he wanted the divorce more quickly,
+so as to marry somebody else, then I could get a divorce in Paris as
+soon as I had established my residence there. And as a divorced man he
+would be in a less awkward position about the baby. I only make it as a
+suggestion.
+
+“I tried to paint when I first got here, but gave it up. I shouldn’t
+have attempted any work so soon. But it was a reaction from the
+hospital atmosphere, and the sense of being a failure when my milk gave
+out--I wanted to do something I was equal to doing. But I shall have
+to wait a while longer--Art is off me for the present. The truth is, I
+feel discouraged. But in Paris, I know, it will all come back.
+
+“I keep wondering about Norman and the baby. I had no idea he was going
+to be such a Tolstoian saint, and atone for the sin of his youth in
+that fashion! And did his family throw him out when the scandal broke,
+the way mine did? You might tell a fellow something about it all!
+Anyway, if my suggestion should be accepted, I’ll be glad to stop in
+Chicago for a day on my way to New York, and fix it up accordingly with
+him.
+
+“I’m not trying to thank you for all you’ve done for me--you and St.
+Thecla. I’ll try to say it with paint in Paris. I hope Norman won’t
+take too long to decide, so I can have it off my mind and go with an
+easy conscience.
+
+                                                “Faithfully yours,
+                                                   “Isabel Drury.”
+
+Norman laid down the letter and whispered bitterly to himself:
+
+“She can go to hell!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII: A Sociological Interlude
+
+
+DR. ZERNEKE had suggested that he would want to discuss this matter
+with his mother. But that was just what he did not want to do.
+
+“I’ve something to attend to,” he said. “Would you mind going to dinner
+and to see the baby alone this evening?”
+
+“Of course not. I’ll get myself a bite right here. Just run along.”
+
+He hurried out, saying that he would be back late that evening.
+
+He tried to get Dr. Zerneke on the telephone, but she was not in.
+Probably she would be, he reflected, at ten o’clock. He would go around
+to see her then.
+
+He did not want to go back to his apartment. His mother would notice
+his nervous manner, and wonder what was the matter. (Though she never
+asked any questions--that was one comfort.)
+
+He walked in Lincoln Park for an hour or two. What he felt like doing
+was to sit down and write Isabel a cold and decisive rejection of her
+proposal. He framed and re-framed that letter in his mind. In one of
+the versions it went like this:
+
+“Dear Isabel--Thank you for your kind offer. You had your own reasons
+for rejecting mine, and I have mine for rejecting yours. I wish you
+success in your artistic career. Sincerely yours.”
+
+Another version ran: “Dear Isabel--I have no desire to be made
+respectable. Your offer is declined.”
+
+As a matter of fact, none of these versions were as epigrammatic as he
+could have wished, or did anything like justice to his feelings.
+
+He was, of course, at a disadvantage. She had not addressed him
+directly. He might write an informal letter to Dr. Zerneke, and ask
+her to send it on. It might begin: “Dear Dr. Zerneke--You tell me that
+Isabel Drury has offered to marry me, in order to simplify matters in
+regard to my child. Well, a great deal of water has flowed under the
+bridge since I made a similar offer to her. In the meantime I have the
+child, and the marital farce seems quite unnecessary.” Something as
+casual and unemotional as that....
+
+But he ought to talk to somebody before he wrote to her. Not his
+mother--no. And Dr. Zerneke was the only other person he could talk to
+about it.
+
+Would she urge him--he wondered suddenly--to accept Isabel’s proposal?
+For the sake of the child? That had been her reason for everything so
+far. His own feelings were never considered in the least....
+
+Of course, marriage with Isabel _would_ (along with his acknowledgment
+of paternity) legitimate his son, according to the laws of the State
+of Illinois. He knew that. He had looked it up at the Crerar library.
+In California, subsequent marriage of the parents wasn’t necessary
+for legitimation; the child would be legitimated simply by his taking
+it into his home and treating it as if it were legitimate. In New
+Mexico a process in court sufficed. In New York, on the other hand,
+under English common law, subsequent marriage did not legitimate the
+child--though perhaps the original relationship could be legally
+construed as a common-law marriage. It was all helter-skelter and
+ridiculous--like the divorce laws. But he happened to live in Illinois.
+It _would_ make a difference.
+
+He wondered why his father hadn’t suggested it.... He had known, of
+course, that Isabel had refused. Had he taken that as final? It wasn’t
+like him, to let anybody’s wishes stand in the way of what he thought
+correct and proper. There must have been some other reason.... To be
+sure, now that the scandal was out, marriage with Isabel wouldn’t make
+the thing any more decent in the eyes of Vickley. But it would settle
+the legitimacy question. His son could never be called a---- Norman
+choked on the word even in his thoughts....
+
+Irrelevantly and bitterly, he reflected that it might have been kinder
+to his son to let him be adopted in the first place by some married
+couple. He would never, then, have known the secret of his birth. He
+would have considered himself the son of Mr. and Mrs.----whoever they
+were....
+
+But no, he would have found out, some time. And then he would always
+have wondered who his real father was.... Yes, and his mother, too, of
+course....
+
+It occurred to Norman that he mustn’t let his son grow up with a
+resentment against his mother for deserting him. A story would have to
+be concocted that wouldn’t hurt his feelings.... Norman remembered what
+Gilbert had said that time--about hypocrisy. Yes, that was the way it
+started. Well, there was a good deal to be said for hypocrisy, after
+all. It made things so much simpler.
+
+He looked at his watch. He hadn’t had any dinner, and it was nearly
+nine o’clock. That was silly. He would go and get something to eat.
+
+But instead, he went to the Crerar library.
+
+Some people, in their troubles, solace themselves with drink, others
+with statistics.
+
+Besides, Norman was a lawyer--or had been. What he had so far seen
+of the legal attempts to deal with the problems of illegitimacy only
+reënforced his secret contempt for Law. But in his recent reading he
+had come across approving references to recent legislation in Norway
+and Sweden, by which children born out of wedlock were given, entirely
+or almost, the same rights as others. He was thumbing over the card
+catalogue looking for information on this Scandinavian Utopia, when he
+came upon the title: “Marriage Laws in Soviet Russia.”
+
+“Well, let’s see how the Bolsheviks handle this thing,” he said to
+himself, and turned in a slip for the pamphlet.
+
+He glanced through its pages rapidly. Ah! Section 133. Note I.
+“Children descending from parents who are not married have equal rights
+with those descending from parents living in registered marriage.” He
+read on. Section 140 required an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant
+to give notice to the Bureau of Vital Statistics “not later than three
+months before the birth of her child,” together with the name and
+address of the father. Section 141 provided that upon receipt of the
+notice, the Bureau should issue a citation upon the man named, who
+would have two weeks in which to deny paternity. Further sections dealt
+with the court inquiry by which paternity should be established. The
+man held liable as father was to be held responsible for his share in
+the expenses of gestation, delivery, and maintenance of the child....
+
+Norman felt a little disappointed. This did not seem so frightfully
+revolutionary. A court process to determine paternity was no new
+thing in the history of the world. He remembered one in Vickley last
+winter--he had gone to Magistrate Cooley’s court out of curiosity. A
+girl had charged a neighboring storekeeper with being the father of her
+child. Under cross-examination she broke down and confessed that it was
+really not he but a young fellow out of a job. She wanted a father for
+her child who could support it properly.... Norman wondered if things
+like that happened in Soviet Russia. Human nature being what it was, he
+didn’t see why not!
+
+He turned the pages of the pamphlet idly, and his glance rested on this
+passage: “160. Children have no right to the property of their parents,
+nor parents to the property of their children. 161. Parents shall
+be bound to provide board and maintenance for their minor children
+and for children who are indigent and unable to work.” That reminded
+him--in Soviet Russia, he had heard, there was a different kind of
+economic system, which left nothing much for anybody to inherit. That,
+of course, would simplify this whole matter of legitimacy. It was
+in order to protect the inheritance rights of the legal family that
+illegitimate children had been so cruelly penalized the world over. He
+remembered a lecture to that effect at law school. And these Bolsheviks
+weren’t concerned with defending property rights. That was the real
+difference between Moscow and Vickley. If there weren’t any inheritance
+rights involved, there wasn’t any reason to deny their human rights to
+children born out of wedlock--nothing to make a fuss about at all!
+
+But he wasn’t living in poverty-stricken and revolutionary Russia. He
+was living in prosperous America, where the legal family had property
+rights to be defended against the claims of bastards. That was, it
+occurred to him, the real reason why he was now an outcast from Vickley
+respectability. If men were permitted to do what he had done, what
+would become of the Family, in its legal, sacred, property-inheriting
+sense? It would mean red ruin and the breaking up of close-corporation
+homes, to be sure.... And his father--Norman could appreciate now the
+old man’s grim idealism--he was battling stubbornly against his own
+respectable Vickley world, attempting to bring his grandson into that
+close corporation in spite of a bar sinister....
+
+“Board and maintenance”--that was all that Norman himself, set adrift
+from family protection, could seriously hope to offer his son: that,
+and his mere paternal love and companionship. He had no longer any
+illusions about the possibility of any great success in the advertising
+business--he would do well if he hung on to his job. And that was
+all he really wanted to give the boy, if the truth were told--an
+upbringing, and then freedom to make what he wanted to of his life!
+But J. J. Overbeck could offer his grandson the prospect not merely
+of a legal career, but of lordship in the small town of Vickley:
+a snug income from rents, mortgages, government bonds, and steel
+securities--and, with these, pride and power.
+
+Which would the boy choose?
+
+But at two months of age, the boy had no choice. Norman had to choose
+for him.... He might make it easy for his father, by marrying Isabel
+before she sailed for France. That, of course, was what Dr. Zerneke
+would want him to do. For the child’s sake.
+
+No!
+
+He would be damned if he would marry that girl--to make his son one of
+the little lords of Vickley.
+
+He looked up at the library clock.
+
+Five minutes of ten.
+
+He would tell Dr. Zerneke that there were limits to what a father
+should be asked to do.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX: On Taking a Girl at Her Word
+
+
+DR. ZERNEKE was in when he arrived, and the coffee was steaming.
+
+“How is your mother enjoying her visit?” she asked, pouring him a cup.
+
+“All right, I guess.” He drank his coffee at a gulp. “Well, I’ve read
+Isabel’s letter....”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I want to know what you think.”
+
+“What does your mother say?”
+
+“I haven’t asked her.... And I’m not going to.”
+
+Dr. Zerneke shrugged her shoulders. “I really don’t want to get mixed
+up in this,” she said.
+
+“But you can tell me what you think!”
+
+“And be blamed afterwards....”
+
+“I’ve got to talk it over with somebody!”
+
+“There’s your mother,” she reminded him.
+
+“But you know Isabel, and she doesn’t!”
+
+“Well, the only thing I feel like advising you is--not to do anything
+rash.”
+
+“Such as what?”
+
+“Such as taking Isabel at her word in a hurry, without having a chance
+to think it all over.”
+
+“You don’t want me to marry her?” he asked, in surprise.
+
+“I don’t care whether you marry her or not. That’s entirely up to you.”
+
+“I’m glad you feel that way about it,” he said. “I thought you’d say I
+_ought_ to do it.”
+
+His relief was so plain that she went on, with a smile: “We don’t
+advise girls, in similar circumstances, to marry the fathers of their
+children--not, I mean, just to be made respectable; I should think
+the same considerations would apply to a man. After all, you’ve gone
+through the worst of it, now.”
+
+“Of course,” he said, “it isn’t just me. Marrying her would serve to
+legitimate my son--and nothing else, in this state, will.”
+
+“That doesn’t matter so much,” said Dr. Zerneke. “In fact, I don’t
+think it matters at all, the way things have been arranged. It’s a mere
+legal quibble. Socially speaking, an illegitimate child is one whose
+father does not give him his name, support and protection. Your child
+is very well provided for in all those respects. He’s merely lacking a
+mother. But that is scarcely a reason for your marrying Isabel, when
+there are other girls in the world.”
+
+“Then what _would_ be a reason for my marrying her?” he asked.
+
+“If you were in love with each other, that would be a fairly good
+reason,” said Dr. Zerneke.
+
+Norman laughed, a little grimly. “Then it’s entirely out of the
+question,” he said. “Because we’re not. Not in the least. Besides, that
+isn’t the proposition to be considered. She says very plainly in her
+letter that it would be only a matter of legal form. A marital farce,
+she calls it. We would never live together. She would go on to Paris,
+and get a divorce.”
+
+The argument was not going quite as he had expected. In fact, it was
+almost as if he were arguing in favor of Isabel’s plan.
+
+“You would be quite willing that it should be only a matter of form?”
+Dr. Zerneke asked.
+
+“I certainly shouldn’t think of trying to persuade her to make it a
+real marriage--if _that’s_ what you mean!”
+
+“You wouldn’t?”
+
+“Of course not. We talked all that out, the time I went to see her at
+the hospital. She doesn’t want to be a wife and mother.”
+
+Dr. Zerneke opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper. “I came
+across the report of our psychiatrist on her,” she said, “and had some
+of it copied. Would you like to see it? It might amuse you. We go about
+these things in a very scientific fashion nowadays.”
+
+He read the typewritten sheet.
+
+_“Case H 15278. Unmarried mother who refuses to keep her child._
+
+_“Report of Dr. A. B. Fishwanger, psychiatrist (extract):_
+
+“Her feeling of hostility toward maternity is thus accounted for as a
+repression of the psychic conflict originating in her father-complex,
+and expressing itself in her artistic ambitions. She is convinced that
+if she allowed herself to accept the full rôle of motherhood, she
+would never get a chance to be an artist. Something might undoubtedly
+be said for this view on strictly realistic grounds. But it would be
+truer to say that if she allowed herself to become interested in her
+child, she might stop wanting to be an artist. This is what she is
+really afraid of. If her child had been born in wedlock, she would
+probably have rebelled a little at her fate, and then settled down,
+as the saying goes, and become a sufficiently devoted mother. But she
+has deliberately managed the affair so as to keep what she calls her
+freedom.
+
+“A thorough analysis, lasting over several months, would probably be
+required to resolve her psychic conflict, which appears to be of a
+very deep-seated nature. (To this conflict is probably due, in view of
+the absence of other findings, the premature drying up of her milk.) A
+briefer analysis might have some considerable value, but on account of
+the resistance of the subject even this is out of the question.”
+
+“Can’t you imagine Isabel being interviewed by that psychiatrist?” said
+Dr. Zerneke, smiling. “I must say I rather sympathize with her. Still,
+it does throw some light on her psychology.”
+
+“I suppose she was in a state of conflict about it,” said Norman.
+“Still, she made up her mind. You don’t think anything has happened to
+change it?”
+
+“I think she’s probably in a very difficult situation just now.
+Undoubtedly she is finding out that she is more of a woman than she was
+willing to admit. Having a baby does something like that--it starts
+all the glandular secretions that create tenderness and devotion.
+She’s done her best to fight those feelings down, but they’re there.
+She can’t escape them. After all, it’s nothing unusual. Sometimes
+girls think beforehand that they are going to hate their illegitimate
+babies--but they generally don’t. And it’s quite the ordinary thing for
+a girl who has given her baby away to be sorry she’s done it.”
+
+“But she doesn’t say she’s sorry,” Norman objected.
+
+“I think that might possibly be read between the lines.”
+
+“It never occurred to me. You think she wants her baby?”
+
+“I can’t pretend to speak for her. But that might be one explanation of
+her offer.”
+
+“Not if she were going on to Paris,” said Norman.
+
+“She might not go on to Paris, then.”
+
+“But she says definitely that she would!”
+
+“No doubt she means it. But how do you know what would happen to you
+two young people after you get married? You both have families. They
+would have something to say about it. You might find yourselves boxed
+up in a house together the rest of your lives. That’s why I suggest
+that you think twice about marrying her.”
+
+“I see what you mean. But if I went up to Michigan and we were quietly
+married there--who would know about it?”
+
+“All the newspapers in the United States, I expect. And your mother is
+here, as you seem to forget. You couldn’t marry without telling her.”
+
+“I could make some business excuse for my trip to Michigan. She
+wouldn’t know till it was all over, and Isabel on the boat. Then it
+would be too late for our families to interfere.”
+
+“Do as you please. But don’t expect me to be surprised if Isabel comes
+back with you from Michigan to meet your mother.”
+
+“Aren’t you rather cynical, Dr. Zerneke? I think I could trust her. I’m
+sure of it.”
+
+“I’m not suggesting that she has any intention of double-crossing you.
+That’s not the point. If she came back with you it would be because you
+had invited her to.”
+
+“But why should I do that?” he asked coldly.
+
+“You were in love with her once. And she’s your child’s mother. It
+would be the most natural thing in the world.”
+
+“You really think she’d stay with me if I asked her?”
+
+“Do you really want her to stay? Then the only way to find out is to
+ask her. If that’s what you want.”
+
+“It wouldn’t really mean giving up her career,” said Norman
+reflectively. “There would be time enough for that, later.”
+
+“It would be a decisive step, for her. I doubt if she’ll have any
+career, if she marries you now. But that is her own lookout. It’s
+nothing for you to worry about--except as it might mean having a
+discontented wife on your hands in Vickley.”
+
+“Why in Vickley?”
+
+“Can you support a wife on your present job?”
+
+“I suppose not. She’d have to work.”
+
+“Has she ever done any work?”
+
+“You don’t think I ought to marry her?”
+
+“I’m not trying to run your affairs for you, Norman. But I think you
+ought to understand what you may be getting into. Isabel is probably
+feeling much more like a mother than an artist, just now. If you want
+to capture her, this is undoubtedly your chance. And in justice to her,
+I don’t think you ought to accept her offer unless you are willing to
+urge her to make it a real marriage. But that is not a thing you can do
+out of mere generosity to her--nor is it really necessary to do because
+of the child. It all depends on how you feel about her. Do you want her
+as your wife?--That’s the real question, Norman. I don’t know how you
+feel about that.”
+
+Norman rose and walked up and down the room. “All this is new to me,”
+he said. “I can’t quite believe it.”
+
+“Take your time and think it over. Talk to your mother about it.”
+
+“That would mean taking the whole family into my confidence. I don’t
+want any more family conferences. And besides, it’s something that
+can’t be delayed indefinitely.”
+
+“She won’t go till she hears from you. I repeat that the only question
+is, do you want her for a wife?”
+
+Norman kept on walking back and forth unhappily.
+
+“She’s treated me atrociously,” he said.
+
+The doctor smiled. “Now you’ll have a chance to revenge yourself--by
+marrying her.”
+
+He paid no attention to that remark. “She doesn’t deserve to ever see
+her baby again,” he said bitterly.
+
+And, after a moment:
+
+“I ought to hate her!”
+
+“And instead, it seems, you still love her?”
+
+“Yes--damn her!”
+
+Dr. Zerneke laughed.
+
+“You think it’s funny, do you?” Norman said indignantly.
+
+“Promise me this,” said Dr. Zerneke, “that you’ll take a week to think
+it over.”
+
+“A week?”
+
+Something clicked in his memory. He realized that he had been going to
+take a week to think about marrying Monica....
+
+“Yes. Suppose you postpone your decision till next Saturday--or Sunday.
+And then tell me what you’ve decided.”
+
+“All right,” he said meekly.
+
+“Till next Sunday, then.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X: Which?
+
+
+HE walked in Lincoln Park for a while before going home.
+
+That damned letter from Isabel! Of course it had upset him....
+
+Anyway, he oughtn’t to put any confidence in Dr. Zerneke’s guesses as
+to Isabel’s feelings about marriage. He knew Isabel as well as Dr.
+Zerneke did--better! She was incapable of being in love with anybody
+or anything except her art. She meant just what she had said in her
+letter. If he married her, it would be a mere formality for the child’s
+benefit. Nothing more. Why should he suppose the marriage would mean
+more to her? She had expressed herself plainly enough in her letter.
+Why should he give her an opportunity to insult him again?
+
+She might be a little discouraged about her art just now--but it was
+all she really cared anything about. She wasn’t human. She wasn’t a
+woman at all. She was what Hal had said about her in a poem--she was a
+pixie ... or a leafy shadow in the spring moonlight that seemed like a
+girl until one tried to clasp it in one’s arms....
+
+Monica was real. Monica was a true flesh-and-blood girl. Monica could
+love....
+
+Why was he condemned still to be haunted by this ghost of his lost
+youth? Why couldn’t he forget her? Why wouldn’t she let him forget
+her? How like her this letter was!--in offering a stone for bread....
+
+Even if in the discouragement of the moment she should agree to
+try being his wife, that would mean nothing. That marriage would
+be foredoomed to failure. She had said it herself, that day in the
+hospital. She would never really belong to him. He would be clasping
+her body, but her thoughts, her soul, would be far away, in a world he
+could not enter.... They would come to hate each other....
+
+Unless--unless what Dr. Zerneke said about her was true....
+
+But it wasn’t true. He knew better than to believe that....
+
+It wasn’t quite fair to Monica--to think of marrying her with that
+ghost hovering in the background....
+
+And if he were going to moon over Isabel all his life, he might as well
+marry her and be done with it....
+
+Perhaps he was so cursed that he would rather be miserable with Isabel
+than happy with Monica....
+
+He would have to give her an answer, one way or the other, soon. If he
+said “no,” he might regret it all his life....
+
+If he said “yes,” he was throwing himself into a whirlpool of doubt and
+misery....
+
+But he didn’t have to decide right now. He ought to get some sleep. He
+had a job to go to in the morning.
+
+He entered the apartment quietly, so as not to wake his mother. But she
+came to his door in a dressing-gown, holding out a telegram.
+
+“Lucinda’s done such a fool thing,” she said. “Look at this! And I
+don’t want you to think it’s my fault, because it’s not.”
+
+He took the telegram. It read:
+
+  MADGE COMING TO CHICAGO WITH ME TO DO SHOPPING WILL BE AT ANNEX
+
+“Madge!” he said in astonishment. “And with Lucinda?”
+
+“Oh, yes--they’re great friends now. You know the way Lucinda is. But
+she ought to have more sense than to bring Madge with her. And Madge
+ought to have more sense than to come.”
+
+“Well,” said Norman, “I don’t expect Madge to stay away from Chicago on
+my account. Why shouldn’t she come with Lucinda, if she wants to?”
+
+“You know perfectly well why,” said his mother. “The shopping is only
+an excuse. Lucinda will take her to see the baby, and then somehow or
+other you’ll run into her.”
+
+“Well, what of it?” said Norman irritably. “Why shouldn’t we meet?”
+
+“Don’t talk like a fool, Norman. You know that girl’s still in love
+with you!”
+
+“No, I didn’t,” said Norman, disconcerted. “Is she, really?”
+
+His mother did not consider that worth a reply.
+
+She went back to her room, saying as she went:
+
+“Well, don’t blame me, is all I say!”
+
+“Good Lord!” said Norman helplessly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI: As Luck Would Have It
+
+
+A YOUNG man may expend anguished thought upon the question of which of
+two girls he ought to marry; but a third claimant breaks the spell of
+that dilemma. He no longer feels the sense of having to make a painful
+choice; his feeling is rather a bewildering one of having no choice at
+all. He loses in imagination the position of embarrassing masculine
+jurisdiction over the fate and happiness of the girls, and begins to
+feel a little like a hunted animal.
+
+Abruptly, when left alone by his mother, the color of the whole
+situation changed for Norman. He felt as though a horde of women
+were closing in upon him. It was not a dignified situation, and in
+self-defense he felt a burst of resentment against them all.
+
+What right had they to make demands upon him? They weren’t any of them
+in love with him, really. It was their damned maternal instinct. Even
+Monica had talked about the baby in the midst of their love-making....
+Everybody seemed to think that a man with a baby had to have a wife....
+Well, he would show them....
+
+He fell asleep in a mood of profound hostility to all womankind, and
+when he awoke it was with the grim resolve not to be bullied into
+marrying anybody.
+
+That Saturday afternoon, when he came back from lunch, there was a note
+on his desk. He knew when he saw it afar what it would say. That Mr.
+McCullough wished to see him.... And it did.... “Fired again!” thought
+Norman.
+
+He wasn’t surprised; he had thought he was doing damn good work on
+that Pearson account; but evidently McCullough knew better.... And it
+was just the time when a thing like this would happen, with his mother
+and sister looking on. He couldn’t keep it a secret from Vickley this
+time....
+
+But there was just one good thing about it: if he lost his job and
+became a bum on a park bench, maybe these women would let him alone....
+It would be a good excuse; he wouldn’t have to marry anybody.... Norman
+brightened, and went in cheerfully to get the ax from Mr. McCullough.
+
+But Mr. McCullough, as he somewhat gradually and rather incredulously
+discovered, had not sent for him in order to fire him--only to tell
+him that he seemed to be getting along pretty well, and that he could
+consider himself a regular member of the staff from now on. “Your
+salary check will be for seventy-five this week,” Mr. McCullough added
+casually. “And you can go on working with Charlie Beckett on the
+Pearson account.”
+
+“Thank you, Mr. McCullough,” said Norman, gulping down his emotions....
+
+Of course, one couldn’t be sorry that one hadn’t been fired.... But
+it took away his one avenue of escape from the embarrassing situation
+in which he found himself. It left him with no good excuse to make to
+those three girls....
+
+Those three girls--that was the way he put it in his conscious
+thoughts. But in reality it was only one of them that he had in mind.
+Isabel would not care--he knew that well enough. And reckless little
+Monica--she had offered her love and demanded nothing.... It was Madge
+that he was afraid of. Madge--and Vickley.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII: The Fugitive
+
+
+AS for Madge, he was determined to keep out of her way while she was in
+Chicago....
+
+Lucinda was at the apartment with his mother when he came home that
+afternoon. She had been taken to see the baby, and she expressed
+herself enthusiastically. Norman couldn’t help being touched. He had
+never heard her talk that way even about one of her pet dogs.... He was
+on the alert to ignore any reference she might make to Madge.... But
+she said nothing about Madge.
+
+At last, in impatience, he remarked: “I understood Madge was coming to
+Chicago with you.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” said Lucinda, and went on talking about the baby.
+
+Had Madge seen the baby? He was curious to know, but he was determined
+not to ask....
+
+Doubtless it was the part of a brother to show his sister about
+Chicago--take her to dinner and the theater, and so on. But when she
+had been so indiscreet as to come companioned by a girl he did not want
+to see, she would have to go without these brotherly attentions. He
+would let her look after herself.
+
+Lucinda seemed not to notice that she was being neglected.... After
+all, she had been in Chicago before; and she was accustomed to Norman’s
+brotherly indifference.
+
+But Norman suspected a plot. How could he not suspect it? Lucinda’s
+friendship with Madge, her bringing Madge to Chicago--doubtless she
+hoped to bring about a reconciliation. His mother, in spite of her
+protests, might be in on it. And so might even Dr. Zerneke. They all
+thought of him as a helpless male who needed a wife. It was all very
+well-meant--but he’d thank them just to leave him alone....
+
+To block any plans they might have for an “accidental” meeting at Mrs.
+Czermak’s, he invented business engagements for all his evenings which
+would prevent his going there to see the baby this week. (And besides,
+he didn’t want to face Monica, either.) And with the idea that Madge
+might be at the apartment with Lucinda when he came home, he stayed
+away every night until very late.... At least, he did this until
+Saturday; and that evening, having found nothing better to do than sit
+in the Crerar library, he revolted. After all, his apartment belonged
+to him. It was rather absurd for him to be kept out of it that way. He
+went home.
+
+All the week he had been having, in his thoughts of Madge, the same
+experience which he had had so often since his life ran off the smooth
+track of custom and habit into the jungle of uncertainty in which he
+had to find out for himself what things were like--the experience
+of seeing facts change their appearance before his eyes.... In this
+changing and surprising world, his feeling about Madge had remained
+fixed until now. He had been sorry to have hurt her--but glad
+nevertheless to have escaped from that marriage, because of what it
+would have meant. And now that certainty was being undermined. Since
+Madge had come to Chicago, he was remembering things about her--no, not
+things to make him regret that she had thrown him over, nothing to make
+him think himself still in love with her--nothing like that: yet sweet
+and brave and tender and funny little things, making of her a human
+girl and not a graven image of conventionality, an algebraic formula
+of bourgeois marriage. And in merely becoming in his imagination a
+person rather than a formula, she had upset him dreadfully--more than
+he was willing to admit to himself. For his campaign of life in Chicago
+was based implicitly upon an obscure but profound conviction that it
+represented a revolt against a system of respectability and hypocrisy.
+He wasn’t a theorist, and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t have wished to,
+put it in words. But there it was. And that obscure theory gave him
+courage and faith. But if it was not against the rock-walled citadel
+of Respectability that he had dealt his clumsy and cruel blows, but
+against the naked and defenseless breast of a girl--a girl who happened
+to be in love with him--then some of the meaning went out of his whole
+brave adventure. He didn’t want to face that possibility. He had
+tried to put aside these inconvenient and unsettling memories. But he
+wondered more and more what Madge was really like. Perhaps he would
+never be sure until he saw and talked with her again.
+
+Anyway, what was there to be afraid of? If she was at his apartment
+this evening, well and good. He would find out what that respectable
+young woman to whom he had once been engaged to be married was really
+like....
+
+But there was no one at the apartment.
+
+He waited impatiently for his mother to come home.
+
+She came at last, with Lucinda. They had been to the theater, they
+said. They did not mention Madge. But he knew quite well she had been
+with them. She must have gone on to the hotel alone to avoid meeting
+him. These elaborate evasions were rather silly, he thought....
+
+Lucinda, in her exasperating fashion, got started on an account of the
+musical comedy they had seen, and could not be stopped until she had
+described it all. It was the same one Norman had seen the week before
+with Charlie Beckett. He heard her wearily to the end--noting that she
+had picked up some slangy terms of speech from Doris--and when she
+started to go, he said: “I’ll take you to your hotel.”
+
+She seemed surprised at this offer--and indeed it was a trifle unusual
+for Norman voluntarily to act as her escort. “Oh, you needn’t bother,”
+she said. “I can get a bus over on the Avenue.”
+
+“I’ll take you,” said Norman firmly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII: Conversation in a Taxi
+
+
+IN the taxi he tried hard to think of something to talk about to his
+sister. He couldn’t seem to think of anything at all to say.
+
+They were going down Michigan Avenue. In another minute or two they
+would be at her hotel.
+
+“Has Madge seen the baby?” he asked abruptly.
+
+“Oh, yes,” said Lucinda. “She saw it the first thing.”
+
+“One look was enough, I suppose,” said Norman bitterly.
+
+“Oh, no,” said Lucinda. “She goes with us every day.”
+
+“Oh,” said Norman. “She does?”
+
+“There’s no reason,” said Lucinda, “why she should bear a grudge
+against the baby.”
+
+“I suppose not,” said Norman. “I’m the only one to blame. Of course,
+I couldn’t exactly help it--the way I treated her.... I had hoped she
+might understand that--and forgive me a little.”
+
+Lucinda said nothing.
+
+“Perhaps,” said Norman, “I ought to see her.”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Lucinda doubtfully. “Tell me, Norman--have you
+been carrying on with that little Monica Case?”
+
+“Why in the world should you think that?” asked Norman indignantly.
+
+“Well, she wears your jade cuff-buttons, and turns all colors when your
+name is mentioned.”
+
+“And what of it?” Norman asked defiantly.
+
+“Nothing. That’s just the sort of girl you _would_ get mixed up with,”
+said Lucinda. “Your tastes always were rather vulgar, Norman.”
+
+“We were speaking of Madge, I believe,” said Norman haughtily.
+
+“Well, that’s just it. I don’t think it’s very nice for Madge.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” said Norman, “but I can’t regulate my conduct to suit my
+ex-fiancée--or you either. Why did you bring Madge to Chicago?”
+
+“I didn’t bring her,” said Lucinda. “But I knew she wanted to see the
+baby--and I thought it might help her to get over it all.”
+
+“You’re lying, Lucinda,” he said. “You know you want Madge and me to
+make up. And so does Mother.”
+
+“Well,” said Lucinda, “I think we’d all rather you’d marry Madge
+than--that other girl.”
+
+“What other girl?”
+
+“The one who--deserted the baby. You don’t suppose I think you’d marry
+Monica Case, do you?” she added impersonally.
+
+“Why should I marry at all?” he demanded.
+
+“Oh, you’ll have to marry _somebody_. Because of the baby, you know.”
+
+He smiled. “And why not the baby’s mother, then?” he asked curiously.
+
+“Oh, Norman--that _would_ be the absolute limit! After the way she’s
+treated you! You wouldn’t be a--a doormat!” she said scornfully.
+
+“Anyway,” he said, “there’s no reason why Madge and I shouldn’t
+understand one another. I’ve no wish to hurt her feelings wantonly.”
+
+“Well, you can’t see her to-night,” said Lucinda. “She’s gone to bed by
+now. She went on to the hotel so as not to see you.”
+
+“I think it’s rather ridiculous,” said Norman, “all this artificial
+avoidance. Suppose you bring her over to the apartment for breakfast.
+About eleven. Will you?”
+
+“I’ll ask her,” said Lucinda.
+
+“Do.”
+
+The taxi stopped at the hotel.
+
+“I’ve told Lucinda to bring Madge around for Sunday breakfast,” he said
+casually to his mother, who was still puttering about the apartment
+when he returned.
+
+She frowned--in disapproval, Norman thought. But what she said was
+only: “I wonder if there are enough eggs.”
+
+She went into the kitchen, and came back. “Yes, there’s plenty of
+everything,” she said.
+
+If she saw any dramatic crisis imminent in her son’s life, she gave no
+sign of it....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV: A Farewell
+
+
+WHEN his mother had gone to bed, Norman sat up smoking and thinking.
+
+So Lucinda--and Vickley in general, no doubt--thought he ought not to
+marry Isabel!
+
+Well, perhaps Vickley was right, at that.
+
+Why should she be given another chance? Why should she be allowed to
+have the son she had deserted?
+
+“No, by God--he’s mine!” thought Norman, rocked with an emotion of
+jealous hatred.
+
+He went to bed. But presently he got up and turned on the light and
+brought back to bed with him the Apocrypha he had picked up. He turned
+to the story of Thecla.... This apocryphal girl saint was to him a
+queer parable. When he had first read its opening sentences he had been
+reminded of something Isabel had told him that day in the hospital--how
+she had broken her engagement, at eighteen, for the love of art.... St.
+Thecla here in the Apocrypha had broken hers for the love of God.... It
+was all different enough and yet as he read it had seemed to him that
+Isabel’s rebellious career was a queer, perverse, modern echo of that
+old tale. For “the gospel of Paul” one need only put “the gospel of
+Modern Art.”
+
+He read it again, now, to allay his hatred of Isabel. For when he
+thought of Isabel, it was with love or hatred, and both were torments.
+He was safer in hating her, safer from the danger of more pain; but
+hating her hurt him. And in this parable he found something to make him
+sorry for her....
+
+The story he read told of how when Paul was preaching in Iconium a girl
+named Thecla, who was betrothed to a young man named Thamyris, sat in
+the window of her mother’s house and listened to this new gospel; nor
+would she depart from the window. And her mother, when she could not be
+prevailed upon, sent for Thamyris, who came with exceeding pleasure, as
+hoping now to marry her. He said to her mother, “Where is my Thecla?”
+
+Her mother replied: “Thamyris, I have a strange thing to tell you. For
+the space of three days my daughter has not moved from the window, not
+so much as to eat or drink, but is intent on hearing the artful and
+delusive discourses of a certain foreigner. Thamyris, this stranger
+causes trouble throughout the whole city of the Iconians, for the
+young men and girls listen to him and will not marry. And my daughter
+too, caught as in a spider’s web at the window, is possessed by a new
+desire and a fearful passion. But go you and speak to her, for she is
+betrothed to you.”
+
+And Thamyris went to her, desiring her, and yet alarmed because of her
+strange ecstasy, and said: “Thecla, why do you sit thus? What strange
+passion holds you in its power? Turn to your Thamyris and be ashamed
+of yourself!” And her mother likewise: “Thecla, why do you look down
+and answer nothing, as if you had lost your wits?” And they mourned,
+Thamyris for his betrothed and her mother for her child, and Thecla
+paid no heed to them but listened only the while to the new gospel.
+
+And Thamyris leapt up and went away ... and brought officers with
+staves to arrest Paul, and had him led to the proconsul, saying: “This
+is the stranger who keeps girls from marrying.” And Paul was taken to
+prison.
+
+But Thecla that night took off her bracelets and gave them to the
+doorkeeper and went into the prison and sat at Paul’s feet and listened
+to his words, and kissed his chains.
+
+And they were brought before the governor, who asked: “Thecla, why will
+you not marry Thamyris, according to the law of the Iconians?” But she
+looked only upon Paul and answered not, and her own mother cried: “Burn
+the lawless one, burn her that will not be a bride, so that the women
+of Iconium may be made afraid to follow these new teachings!”
+
+And she was brought naked to the stake, but God had compassion on her,
+and sent a rain to quench the fire. And she was set free, and went to
+Paul and said: “I will cut my hair, and follow you wherever you go.”
+
+But he said: “The time is ill-favored, and you are comely. I fear a
+harder trial may come, which you will not be able to withstand.”
+
+But she cut her hair and went with him to Antioch. And there a
+magistrate named Alexander saw her and was enamored of her, and sent
+Paul presents....
+
+(Norman thought: “I became interested in pictures just to please
+Isabel.”...)
+
+But Paul said: “I know not this woman of whom you speak, neither does
+she belong to me.”
+
+And Alexander seized her in the street, but she rent his cloak and took
+the wreath from his head, and made him a laughing-stock before the
+whole town....
+
+“That’s me,” thought Norman.
+
+He did not go on to read the rest of Thecla’s triumphant career. He
+stopped there with poor Alexander, who had been made a laughing-stock
+before the whole town.
+
+Nobody, he reflected, would ever write the inglorious story of
+Alexander. The sympathies of storytellers were always with the girl.
+
+Not, to be sure, precisely with a girl like Isabel, though. They didn’t
+understand a girl’s being faithful to her art, in spite of a moonstruck
+moment in the woods--in spite of having a baby at her breast--in spite
+of confusion, complications, tormented and conflicting emotions.
+Legend, if she became famous, would simplify her story; and he alone
+would know what a troubled soul she had been....
+
+She was waiting now for her answer. She was trusting him to decide
+her life for her. Too tired, sick, discouraged, to know any more what
+she wanted, she was leaving it to him to say whether she should be an
+artist or a mother. He could take her in this moment of weakness. But
+he would never be content with what she had to give....
+
+No, he would trouble her no more with his human demands for love. He’d
+let her go on to her own destiny....
+
+It seemed to him that he had forgiven her. At least, he did not hate
+her now. And if he still, in a way loved her, yet he did not want
+her for his own. He had let her go. She was remote, now, in his
+imagination, above the reach of desire, shining from the abode where
+things that seem eternal find refuge.... And at the same time, it
+seemed to him that he had put aside his youth for ever.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV: The Inevitable
+
+
+SUNDAY morning dawned for Norman--if it could be said to dawn at about
+ten o’clock--with a sense of fatality. At first he didn’t know why.
+He lay in bed, hearing his mother stirring in the kitchen. Then he
+remembered. She was getting breakfast for Madge. Madge was coming....
+
+Suddenly in his imagination he saw the two of them left alone together.
+She would reproach him. Well, she had a right to. And he would feel
+sorry and ashamed. But he would defend himself--he would try to make
+her understand. It would be like one of their old-time quarrels. For
+they had quarreled--and made up. They had kissed and made up, always,
+and everything had seemed all right again....
+
+Well, perhaps it was inevitable. Everybody seemed to think he had to
+have a wife. Lucinda had said so. Dr. Zerneke had said so. His mother
+had as good as said so. A man with a baby was helpless.... And if Madge
+would marry him....
+
+He turned, as if for the last time, to the thought of Monica....
+Reckless little Monica--the rooming house--old Mr. Victor--the homely
+maternal airs of Mrs. Czermak--the Rabelaisian conversation of Mrs.
+Case.... He sighed. He knew now that those things weren’t for him....
+
+He rose to face the day and what might come of it.... After all, Madge
+would be a damned sight nicer wife than he deserved....
+
+Breakfast was getting ready. He walked slowly back and forth.
+
+The bell rang. He went to the door.
+
+Lucinda was there, alone.
+
+“Where’s Madge?” he asked.
+
+“She wouldn’t come,” said Lucinda. “She’s very much upset. I left her
+at the hotel, packing to go back to Vickley.”
+
+“I’ll go and get her,” said Norman.
+
+“Wait. She wrote this to you last night.”
+
+He took the letter and walked out.
+
+Lucinda ran to the banister and called down to him. “The room is
+314--you’d better go right up, Norman, if you want to see her!”
+
+In the street he opened the envelope, stopped short on the corner, and
+read:
+
+“Dear Norman Overbeck: I came to see your child, not to see you.
+Perhaps it was foolish of me to come; but I wanted to, and I’m not
+sorry I did. And I can tell you better in a letter how I feel about
+you, without seeing you.
+
+“I don’t blame you for what happened. I mean, about the baby. I love
+your baby. But you weren’t fair to me. You never told me about the
+other girl. It wasn’t fair to ask me to marry you when you were still
+in love with her. But I could forgive that, because maybe you didn’t
+know and thought you were over it. That isn’t what hurts most.
+
+“What hurts is that you should not have trusted me to understand about
+the baby. You never gave me a chance. You ran away before we could
+talk it over. You treated me as if I were a conventional little fool.
+That is what you thought of me. You never came back to explain. You
+didn’t try to make me understand. You didn’t let me have a chance to
+say whether I would take the baby or not. You just assumed that I was
+a certain sort of person. You didn’t trust me, and that’s what I shall
+never forgive you for.
+
+“I’m not what you think. I’ll tell you this. If it had been I that had
+had another sweetheart, and found I was going to have a baby when I was
+engaged to you--I’d have told you, I’d have trusted you, I’d have given
+you your chance.
+
+“No, I’m not what you think. You never knew me. I hate Vickley as much
+as you do--more. It’s you who are conventional at heart.
+
+“You never gave me my chance.
+
+“I would rather not see you. Some time I may feel differently, but it
+is too bitter a subject just now. I’m glad I’ve seen Norman Junior. I’m
+going back to Vickley in the morning, and I’m leaving with Lucinda some
+little things I’ve bought for him while I’ve been here.
+
+“Good-by.
+
+                                                         “Madge Ferris.”
+
+Norman stood there, with tears in his eyes. He hadn’t known she was
+like that.... He had been an awful fool. He didn’t understand girls at
+all....
+
+Well, if he got there before she left, it might still be all right....
+It was plain that she still cared for him....
+
+“Taxi?”
+
+“Yes!” He climbed in. “The Annex--quick!” In his imagination he could
+see Madge in the hotel room, packing.... He saw himself enter ... yes,
+and quarrel, and kiss. Oh, there was no doubt that they would make
+up.... And no doubt, either, that that would be the best thing all
+around....
+
+Only one thing bothered him. Madge wasn’t what he had thought, at all.
+She wasn’t a doll. She was a real girl, with a heart. She could love,
+and suffer. She wouldn’t mind being poor with him in Chicago. She would
+be a mother to his child. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be glad
+to marry her. And in spite of what she wrote, she would be hoping in
+her heart that he would come before she packed up and left the hotel.
+Only one thing stood in the way--and that was something a loving and
+tender wife could surely banish--the ghost of that girl who was so
+unaccountably the mother of his child ... Oh, he would forget Isabel in
+time....
+
+But he might as well settle that now. He looked out, and rapped on the
+glass. “Stop at that cigar store on the corner for a moment!”
+
+He would send her a telegram, and have that off his mind. He knew her
+address in Michigan.
+
+“Western Union, please....
+
+“I want to send a telegram....
+
+“To Miss Isabel Drury.... Yes.... Hawk Lake, Michigan.... Just a
+moment....”
+
+He had known what he was going to say. Something polite and final.
+But suddenly it was as if Isabel was at the other end of the wire,
+listening.... and the words went out of his head....
+
+“Just a moment,” he repeated, while the world rocked dizzily about
+him....
+
+Couldn’t he say the word that would free them both? Couldn’t he let
+that vain dream go?
+
+It seemed not. A new pattern of words was framing itself in his mind,
+forcing itself to his lips....
+
+Must he forever be a fool? Must he doom himself to endless unhappiness?
+It wouldn’t work out. He knew it. He had renounced her. Why couldn’t he
+take what life offered? Madge--and peace.... Madge--waiting now, ready
+to forgive him, cherish him, be patient with him....
+
+No.... But at least he could send a sane telegram.
+
+He spoke into the telephone to the impatient operator: “I have it, now.
+Here’s the message:
+
+“‘Call me McCullough Advertising Agency when you come Chicago this
+week preferably.’ Signed, ‘Norman.’
+
+“That’s all. How much is it?”
+
+He dropped in the nickels and dimes....
+
+And Madge?--he couldn’t help it, that was all....
+
+“I’ve changed my mind,” he said to the taxi-driver, and handed him a
+dollar bill.
+
+The taxi drove away, leaving him standing there on the corner.
+
+Yes, no doubt it was a crazy thing to do. But he didn’t care. He had to
+see this thing through with Isabel....
+
+He began to walk slowly back toward the apartment.
+
+
+                                [The End]
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78732 ***