During the three years in which Jennie and Lester had been associated there had grown up between them a strong feeling of mutual sympathy and understanding. Lester truly loved her in his own way. It was a strong, self-satisfying, determined kind of way, based solidly on a big natural foundation, but rising to a plane of genuine spiritual affinity. The yielding sweetness of her character both attracted and held him. She was true, and good, and womanly to the very centre of her being; he had learned to trust her, to depend upon her, and the feeling had but deepened with the passing of the years.
On her part Jennie had sincerely, deeply, truly learned to love this man. At first when he had swept her off her feet, overawed her soul, and used her necessity as a chain wherewith to bind her to him, she was a little doubtful, a little afraid of him, although she had always liked him. Now, however, by living with him, by knowing him better, by watching his moods, she had come to love him. He was so big, so vocal, so handsome. His point of view and opinions of anything and everything were so positive. His pet motto, “Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may,” had clung in her brain as something immensely characteristic. Apparently he was not afraid of anything — God, man, or devil. He used to look at her, holding her chin between the thumb and fingers of his big brown hand, and say: “You’re sweet, all right, but you need courage and defiance. You haven’t enough of those things.” And her eyes would meet his in dumb appeal. “Never mind,” he would add, “you have other things.” And then he would kiss her.
One of the most appealing things to Lester was the simple way in which she tried to avoid exposure of her various social and educational shortcomings. She could not write very well, and once he found a list of words he had used written out on a piece of paper with the meanings opposite. He smiled, but he liked her better for it. Another time in the Southern hotel in St. Louis he watched her pretending a loss of appetite because she thought that her lack of table manners was being observed by near-by diners. She could not always be sure of the right forks and knives, and the strange-looking dishes bothered her; how did one eat asparagus and artichokes.
“Why don’t you eat something?” he asked good-naturedly. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“Not very.”
“You must be. Listen, Jennie. I know what it is. You mustn’t feel that way. Your manners are all right. I wouldn’t bring you here if they weren’t. Your instincts are all right. Don’t be uneasy. I’d tell you quick enough when there was anything wrong.” His brown eyes held a friendly gleam.
She smiled gratefully. “I do feel a little nervous at times,” she admitted.
“Don’t,” he repeated. “You’re all right. Don’t worry. I’ll show you.” And he did.
By degrees Jennie grew into an understanding of the usages and customs of comfortable existence. All that the Gerhardt family had ever had were the bare necessities of life. Now she was surrounded with whatever she wanted — trunks, clothes, toilet articles, the whole varied equipment of comfort — and while she liked it all, it did not upset her sense of proportion and her sense of the fitness of things. There was no element of vanity in her, only a sense of joy in privilege and opportunity. She was grateful to Lester for all that he had done and was doing for her. If only she could hold him — always!
The details of getting Vesta established once adjusted, Jennie settled down into the routine of home life. Lester, busy about his multitudinous affairs, was in and out. He had a suite of rooms reserved for himself at the Grand Pacific, which was then the exclusive hotel of Chicago, and this was his ostensible residence. His luncheon and evening appointments were kept at the union Club. An early patron of the telephone, he had one installed in the apartment, so that he could reach Jennie quickly and at any time. He was home two or three nights a week, sometimes oftener. He insisted at first on Jennie having a girl of general housework, but acquiesced in the more sensible arrangement which she suggested later of letting some one come in to do the cleaning. She liked to work around her own home. Her natural industry and love of order prompted this feeling.
Lester liked his breakfast promptly at eight in the morning. He wanted dinner served nicely at seven. Silverware, cut glass, imported china — all the little luxuries of life appealed to him. He kept his trunks and wardrobe at the apartment.
During the first few months everything went smoothly. He was in the habit of taking Jennie to the theatre now and then, and if he chanced to run across an acquaintance he always introduced her as Miss Gerhardt. When he registered her as his wife it was usually under an assumed name; where there was no danger of detection he did not mind using his own signature. Thus far there had been no difficulty or unpleasantness of any kind.
The trouble with this situation was that it was criss-crossed with the danger and consequent worry which the deception in regard to Vesta had entailed, as well as with Jennie’s natural anxiety about her father and the disorganised home. Jennie feared, as Veronica hinted, that she and William would go to live with Martha, who was installed in a boarding-house in Cleveland, and that Gerhardt would be left alone. He was such a pathetic figure to her, with his injured hands and his one ability — that of being a watchman — that she was hurt to think of his being left alone. Would he come to her? She knew that he would not — feeling as he did at present. Would Lester have him — she was not sure of that. If he came Vesta would have to be accounted for. So she worried.
The situation in regard to Vesta was really complicated. Owing to the feeling that she was doing her daughter a great injustice, Jennie was particularly sensitive in regard to her, anxious to do a thousand things to make up for the one great duty that she could not perform. She daily paid a visit to the home of Mrs. Olsen, always taking with her toys, candy, or whatever came into her mind as being likely to interest and please the child. She liked to sit with Vesta and tell her stories of fairy and giant, which kept the little girl wide-eyed. At last she went so far as to bring her to the apartment, when Lester was away visiting his parents, and she soon found it possible, during his several absences, to do this regularly. After that, as time went on and she began to know his habits, she became more bold — although bold is scarcely the word to use in connection with Jennie. She became venturesome much as a mouse might; she would risk Vesta’s presence on the assurance of even short absences — two or three days. She even got into the habit of keeping a few of Vesta’s toys at the apartment, so that she could have something to play with when she came.
During these several visits from her child Jennie could not but realise the lovely thing life would be were she only an honoured wife and a happy mother. Vesta was a most observant little girl. She could by her innocent childish questions give a hundred turns to the dagger of self-reproach which was already planted deeply in Jennie’s heart.
“Can I come to live with you?” was one of her simplest and most frequently repeated questions. Jennie would reply that mamma could not have her just yet, but that very soon now, just as soon as she possibly could, Vesta should come to stay always.
“Don’t you know just when?” Vesta would ask.
“No, dearest, not just when. Very soon now. You won’t mind waiting a little while. Don’t you like Mrs. Olsen?”
“Yes,” replied Vesta; “but then she ain’t got any nice things now. She’s just got old things.” And Jennie, stricken to the heart, would take Vesta to the toy shop, and load her down with a new assortment of playthings.
Of course Lester was not in the least suspicious. His observation of things relating to the home were rather casual. He went about his work and his pleasures believing Jennie to be the soul of sincerity and good-natured service, and it never occurred to him that there was anything underhanded in her actions. Once he did come home sick in the afternoon and found her absent — an absence which endured from two o’clock to five. He was a little irritated and grumbled on her return, but his annoyance was as nothing to her astonishment and fright when she found him there. She blanched at the thought of his suspecting something, and explained as best she could. She had gone to see her washerwoman. She was slow about her marketing. She didn’t dream he was there. She was sorry, too, that her absence had lost her an opportunity to serve him. It showed her what a mess she was likely to make of it all.
It happened that about three weeks after the above occurrence Lester had occasion to return to Cincinnati for a week, and during this time Jennie again brought Vesta to the flat; for four days there was the happiest goings on between the mother and child.
Nothing would have come of this little reunion had it not been for an oversight on Jennie’s part, the far-reaching effects of which she could only afterward regret. This was the leaving of a little toy lamb under the large leather divan in the front room, where Lester was wont to lie and smoke. A little bell held by a thread of blue ribbon was fastened about its neck, and this tinkled feebly whenever it was shaken. Vesta, with the unaccountable freakishness of children had deliberately dropped it behind the divan, an action which Jennie did not notice at the time. When she gathered up the various playthings after Vesta’s departure she overlooked it entirely, and there it rested, its innocent eyes still staring upon the sunlit regions of toyland, when Lester returned.
That same evening, when he was lying on the divan, quietly enjoying his cigar and his newspaper, he chanced to drop the former, fully lighted. Wishing to recover it before it should do any damage, he leaned over and looked under the divan. The cigar was not in sight, so he rose and pulled the lounge out, a move which revealed to him the little lamb still standing where Vesta had dropped it. He picked it up, turning it over and over, and wondering how it had come there.
A lamb! It must belong to some neighbour’s child in whom Jennie had taken an interest, he thought. He would have to go and tease her about this.
Accordingly he held the toy jovially before him, and, coming out into the dining-room, where Jennie was working at the sideboard, he exclaimed in a mock solemn voice, “Where did this come from?”
Jennie, who was totally unconscious of the existence of this evidence of her duplicity, turned, and was instantly possessed with the idea that he had suspected all and was about to visit his just wrath upon her. Instantly the blood flamed in her cheeks and as quickly left them.
“Why, why!” she stuttered, “it’s a little toy I bought.”
“I see it is,” he returned genially, her guilty tremor not escaping his observation, but having at the same time no explicable significance to him. “It’s frisking around a mighty lone sheepfold.”
He touched the little bell at its throat, while Jennie stood there, unable to speak. It tinkled feebly, and then he looked at her again. His manner was so humorous that she could tell he suspected nothing. However, it was almost impossible for her to recover her self-possession.
“What’s ailing you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied.
“You look as though a lamb was a terrible shock to you.”
“I forgot to take it out from there, that was all,” she went on blindly.
“It looks as though it has been played with enough,” he added more seriously, and then seeing that the discussion was evidently painful to her, he dropped it. The lamb had not furnished him the amusement that he had expected.
Lester went back into the front room, stretched himself out and thought it over. Why was she nervous? What was there about a toy to make her grow pale? Surely there was no harm in her harbouring some youngster of the neighbourhood when she was alone — having it come in and play. Why should she be so nervous? He thought it over, but could come to no conclusion.
Nothing more was said about the incident of the toy lamb. Time might have wholly effaced the impression from Lester’s memory had nothing else intervened to arouse his suspicions; but a mishap of any kind seems invariably to be linked with others which follow close upon its heels.
One evening when Lester happened to be lingering about the flat later than usual the door bell rang, and, Jennie being busy in the kitchen, Lester went himself to open the door. He was greeted by a middle-aged lady, who frowned very nervously upon him, and inquired in broken Swedish accents for Jennie.
“Wait a moment,” said Lester; and stepping to the rear door he called her.
Jennie came, and seeing who the visitor was, she stepped nervously out in the hall and closed the door after her. The action instantly struck Lester as suspicious. He frowned and determined to inquire thoroughly into the matter. A moment later Jennie reappeared. Her face was white and her fingers seemed to be nervously seeking something to seize upon.
“What’s the trouble?” he inquired, the irritation he had felt the moment before giving his voice a touch of gruffness.
“I’ve to go out for a little while,” she at last managed to reply.
“Very well,” he assented unwillingly. “But you can tell me what’s the trouble with you, can’t you? Where do you have to go?”
“I— I,” began Jennie, stammering. “I— have —”
“Yes,” he said grimly.
“I have to go on an errand,” she stumbled on. “I— I can’t wait. I’ll tell you when I come back, Lester. Please don’t ask me now.”
She looked vainly at him, her troubled countenance still marked by preoccupation and anxiety to get away, and Lester, who had never seen this look of intense responsibility in her before, was moved and irritated by it.
“That’s all right,” he said, “but what’s the use of all this secrecy? Why can’t you come out and tell what’s the matter with you? What’s the use of this whispering behind doors? Where do you have to go?”
He paused, checked by his own harshness, and Jennie who was intensely wrought up by the information she had received, as well as the unwonted verbal castigation she was now enduring, rose to an emotional state never reached by her before.
“I will, Lester, I will,” she exclaimed. “Only not now. I haven’t time. I’ll tell you everything when I come back. Please don’t stop me now.”
She hurried to the adjoining chamber to get her wraps, and Lester, who had even yet no clear conception of what it all meant, followed her stubbornly to the door.
“See here,” he exclaimed in his vigorous, brutal way, “you’re not acting right. What’s the matter with you? I want to know.”
He stood in the doorway, his whole frame exhibiting the pugnacity and settled determination of a man who is bound to be obeyed. Jennie, troubled and driven to bay, turned at last.
“It’s my child, Lester,” she exclaimed. “It’s dying. I haven’t time to talk. Oh, please don’t stop me. I’ll tell you everything when I come back.”
“Your child!” he exclaimed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I couldn’t help it,” she returned. “I was afraid — I should have told you long ago. I meant to only — only — Oh, let me go now, and I’ll tell you all when I come back!”
He stared at her in amazement; then he stepped aside, unwilling to force her any further for the present. “Well, go ahead,” he said quietly. “Don’t you want some one to go along with you?”
“No,” she replied. “Mrs. Olsen is right here. I’ll go with her.”
She hurried forth, white-faced, and he stood there, pondering. Could this be the woman he had thought he knew? Why, she had been deceiving him for years. Jennie! The white-faced! The simple.
He choked a little as he muttered:
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
The reason why Jennie had been called was nothing more than one of those infantile seizures the coming and result of which no man can predict two hours beforehand. Vesta had been seriously taken with membranous croup only a few hours before, and the development since had been so rapid that the poor old Swedish mother was half frightened to death herself, and hastily despatched a neighbour to say that Vesta was very ill and Mrs. Kane was to come at once. This message, delivered as it was in a very nervous manner by one whose only object was to bring her, and induced the soul-racking fear of death in Jennie and caused her to brave the discovery of Lester in the manner described. Jennie hurried on anxiously, her one thought being to reach her child before the arm of death could interfere and snatch it from her, her mind weighed upon by a legion of fears. What if it should already be too late when she got there; what if Vesta already should be no more. Instinctively she quickened her pace and as the street lamps came and receded in the gloom she forgot all the sting of Lester’s words, all fear that he might turn her out and leave her alone in a great city with a little child to care for, and remembered only the fact that her Vesta was very ill, possibly dying, and that she was the direct cause of the child’s absence from her; that perhaps but for the want of her care and attention Vesta might be well to-night.
“If I can only get there,” she kept saying to herself; and then, with that frantic unreason which is the chief characteristic of the instinct-driven mother: “I might have known that God would punish me for my unnatural conduct. I might have known — I might have known.”
When she reached the gate she fairly sped up the little walk and into the house, where Vesta was lying pale, quiet, and weak, but considerably better. Several Swedish neighbours and a middle-aged physician were in attendance, all of whom looked at her curiously as she dropped beside the child’s bed and spoke to her.
Jennie’s mind had been made up. She had sinned, and sinned grievously, against her daughter, but now she would make amends so far as possible. Lester was very dear to her, but she would no longer attempt to deceive him in anything, even if he left her — she felt an agonised stab, a pain at the thought — she must still do the one right thing. Vesta must not be an outcast any longer. Her mother must give her a home. Where Jennie was, there must Vesta be.
Sitting by the bedside in this humble Swedish cottage, Jennie realised the fruitlessness of her deception, the trouble and pain it had created in her home, the months of suffering it had given her with Lester, the agony it had heaped upon her this night — and to what end? The truth had been discovered anyhow. She sat there and meditated, not knowing what next was to happen, while Vesta quieted down, and then went soundly to sleep.
Lester, after recovering from the first heavy import of this discovery, asked himself some perfectly natural questions. “Who was the father of the child? How old was it? How did it chance to be in Chicago, and who was taking care of it?” He could ask, but he could not answer; he knew absolutely nothing.
Curiously, now, as he thought, his first meeting with Jennie at Mrs. Bracebridge’s came back to him. What was it about her then that had attracted him? What made him think, after a few hours’ observation, that he could seduce her to his will? What was it — moral looseness, or weakness, or what? There must have been art in the sorry affair, the practised art of the cheat, and, in deceiving such a confiding nature as his, she had done even more than practise deception — she had been ungrateful.
Now the quality of ingratitude was a very objectionable thing to Lester — the last and most offensive trait of a debased nature, and to be able to discover a trace of it in Jennie was very disturbing. It is true that she had not exhibited it in any other way before — quite to the contrary — but nevertheless he saw strong evidences of it now, and it made him very bitter in his feeling toward her. How could she be guilty of any such conduct toward him? Had he not picked her up out of nothing, so to speak, and befriended her?
He moved from his chair in this silent room and began to pace slowly to and fro, the weightiness of this subject exercising to the full his power of decision. She was guilty of a misdeed which he felt able to condemn. The original concealment was evil; the continued deception more. Lastly, there was the thought that her love after all had been divided, part for him, part for the child, a discovery which no man in his position could contemplate with serenity. He moved irritably as he thought of it, shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to and fro across the floor.
That a man of Lester’s temperament should consider himself wronged by Jennie merely because she had concealed a child whose existence was due to conduct no more irregular than was involved later in the yielding of herself to him was an example of those inexplicable perversions of judgment to which the human mind, in its capacity of keeper of the honour of others, seems permanently committed. Lester, aside from his own personal conduct (for men seldom judge with that in the balance), had faith in the ideal that a woman should reveal herself completely to the one man with whom she is in love; and the fact that she had not done so was a grief to him. He had asked her once tentatively about her past. She begged him not to press her. That was the time she should have spoken of any child. Now — he shook his head.
His first impulse, after he had thought the thing over, was to walk out and leave her. At the same time he was curious to hear the end of this business. He did put on his hat and coat, however, and went out, stopping at the first convenient saloon to get a drink. He took a car and went down to the club, strolling about the different rooms and chatting with several people whom he encountered. He was restless and irritated; and finally, after three hours of meditation, he took a cab and returned to his apartment.
The distraught Jennie, sitting by her sleeping child, was at last made to realise, by its peaceful breathing that all danger was over. There was nothing more that she could do for Vesta, and now the claims of the home that she had deserted began to reassert themselves, the promise to Lester and the need of being loyal to her duties unto the very end. Lester might possibly be waiting for her. It was just probable that he wished to hear the remainder of her story before breaking with her entirely. Although anguished and frightened by the certainty, as she deemed it, of his forsaking her, she nevertheless felt that it was no more than she deserved — a just punishment for all her misdoings.
When Jennie arrived at the flat it was after eleven, and the hall light was already out. She first tried the door, and then inserted her key. No one stirred, however, and, opening the door, she entered in the expectation of seeing Lester sternly confronting her. He was not there, however. The burning gas had merely been an oversight on his part. She glanced quickly about, but seeing only the empty room, she came instantly to the other conclusion, that he had forsaken her — and so stood there, a meditative, helpless figure.
“Gone!” she thought.
At this moment his footsteps sounded on the stairs. He came in with his derby hat pulled low over his broad forehead, close to his sandy eyebrows, and with his overcoat buttoned up closely about his neck. He took off the coat without looking at Jennie and hung it on the rack. Then he deliberately took off his hat and hung that up also. When he was through he turned to where she was watching him with wide eyes.
“I want to know about this thing now from beginning to end,” he began. “Whose child is that?”
Jennie wavered a moment, as one who might be going to take a leap in the dark, then opened her lips mechanically and confessed:
“It’s Senator Brander’s.”
“Senator Brander!” echoed Lester, the familiar name of the dead but still famous statesman ringing with shocking and unexpected force in his ears. “How did you come to know him?”
“We used to do his washing for him,” she rejoined simply —“my mother and I.”
Lester paused, the baldness of the statements issuing from her sobering even his rancorous mood. “Senator Brander’s child,” he thought to himself. So that great representative of the interests of the common people was the undoer of her — a self-confessed washerwoman’s daughter. A fine tragedy of low life all this was.
“How long ago was this?” he demanded, his face the picture of a darkling mood.
“It’s been nearly six years now,” she returned.
He calculated the time that had elapsed since he had known her, and then continued:
“How old is the child?”
“She’s a little over five.”
Lester moved a little. The need for serious thought made his tone more peremptory but less bitter.
“Where have you been keeping her all this time?”
“She was at home until you went to Cincinnati last spring. I went down and brought her then.”
“Was she there the times I came to Cleveland?”
“Yes,” said Jennie; “but I didn’t let her come out anywhere where you could see her.”
“I thought you said you told your people that you were married,” he exclaimed, wondering how this relationship of the child to the family could have been adjusted.
“I did,” she replied, “but I didn’t want to tell you about her. They thought all the time I intended to.”
“Well, why didn’t you?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“I didn’t know what was going to become of me when I went with you, Lester. I didn’t want to do her any harm if I could help it. I was ashamed, afterward; when you said you didn’t like children I was afraid.”
“Afraid I’d leave you?”
“Yes.”
He stopped, the simplicity of her answers removing a part of the suspicion of artful duplicity which had originally weighed upon him. After all, there was not so much of that in it as mere wretchedness of circumstance and cowardice of morals. What a family she must have! What queer non-moral natures they must have to have brooked any such a combination of affairs! “Didn’t you know that you’d be found out in the long run?” he at last demanded. “Surely you might have seen that you couldn’t raise her that way. Why didn’t you tell me in the first place? I wouldn’t have thought anything of it then.”
“I know,” she said. “I wanted to protect her.”
“Where is she now?” he asked.
Jennie explained.
She stood there, the contradictory aspect of these questions and of his attitude puzzling even herself. She did try to explain them after a time, but all Lester could gain was that she had blundered along without any artifice at all — a condition that was so manifest that, had he been in any other position than that he was, he might have pitied her. As it was, the revelation concerning Brander was hanging over him, and he finally returned to that.
“You say your mother used to do washing for him. How did you come to get in with him?”
Jennie, who until now had borne his questions with unmoving pain, winced at this. He was now encroaching upon the period that was by far the most distressing memory of her life. What he had just asked seemed to be a demand upon her to make everything clear.
“I was so young, Lester,” she pleaded. “I was only eighteen. I didn’t know. I used to go to the hotel where he was stopping and get his laundry, and at the end of the week I’d take it to him again.”
She paused, and as he took a chair, looking as if he expected to hear the whole story, she continued: “We were so poor. He used to give me money to give to my mother. I didn’t know.”
She paused again, totally unable to go on, and he, seeing that it would be impossible for her to explain without prompting, took up his questioning again — eliciting by degrees the whole pitiful story. Brander had intended to marry her. He had written to her, but before he could come to her he died.
The confession was complete. It was followed by a period of five minutes, in which Lester said nothing at all; he put his arm on the mantel and stared at the wall, while Jennie waited, not knowing what would follow — not wishing to make a single plea. The clock ticked audibly. Lester’s face betrayed no sign of either thought or feeling. He was now quite calm, quite sober, wondering what he should do. Jennie was before him as the criminal at the bar. He, the righteous, the moral, the pure of heart, was in the judgment seat. Now to sentence her — to make up his mind what course of action he should pursue.
It was a disagreeable tangle, to be sure, something that a man of his position and wealth really ought not to have anything to do with. This child, the actuality of it, put an almost unbearable face upon the whole matter — and yet he was not quite prepared to speak. He turned after a time, the silvery tinkle of the French clock on the mantel striking three and causing him to become aware of Jennie, pale, uncertain, still standing as she had stood all this while.
“Better go to bed,” he said at last, and fell again to pondering this difficult problem.
But Jennie continued to stand there wide-eyed, expectant, ready to hear at any moment his decision as to her fate. She waited in vain, however. After a long time of musing he turned and went to the clothes-rack near the door.
“Better go to bed,” he said, indifferently. “I’m going out.”
She turned instinctively, feeling that even in this crisis there was some little service that she might render, but he did not see her. He went out, vouchsafing no further speech.
She looked after him, and as his footsteps sounded on the stair she felt as if she were doomed and hearing her own death-knell. What had she done? What would he do now? She stood there a dissonance of despair, and when the lower door clicked moved her hand out of the agony of her suppressed hopelessness.
“Gone!” she thought. “Gone!”
In the light of a late dawn she was still sitting there pondering, her state far too urgent for idle tears.
The sullen, philosophic Lester was not so determined upon his future course of action as he appeared to be. Stern as was his mood, he did not see, after all, exactly what grounds he had for complaint. And yet the child’s existence complicated matters considerably. He did not like to see the evidence of Jennie’s previous misdeeds walking about in the shape of a human being; but, as a matter of fact, he admitted to himself that long ago he might have forced Jennie’s story out of her if he had gone about it in earnest. She would not have lied, he knew that. At the very outset he might have demanded the history of her past. He had not done so; well, now it was too late. The one thing it did fix in his mind was that it would be useless to ever think of marrying her. It couldn’t be done, not by a man in his position. The best solution of the problem was to make reasonable provision for Jennie and then leave her. He went to his hotel with his mind made up, but he did not actually say to himself that he would do it at once.
It is an easy thing for a man to theorise in a situation of this kind, quite another to act. Our comforts, appetites and passions grow with usage, and Jennie was not only a comfort, but an appetite, with him. Almost four years of constant association had taught him so much about her and himself that he was not prepared to let go easily or quickly. It was too much of a wrench. He could think of it bustling about the work of a great organisation during the daytime, but when night came it was a different matter. He could be lonely, too, he discovered much to his surprise, and it disturbed him.
One of the things that interested him in this situation was Jennie’s early theory that the intermingling of Vesta with him and her in this new relationship would injure the child. Just how did she come by that feeling, he wanted to know? His place in the world was better than hers, yet it dawned on him after a time that there might have been something in her point of view. She did not know who he was or what he would do with her. He might leave her shortly. Being uncertain, she wished to protect her baby. That wasn’t so bad. Then again, he was curious to know what the child was like. The daughter of a man like Senator Brander might be somewhat of an infant. He was a brilliant man and Jennie was a charming woman. He thought of this, and while it irritated him, it aroused his curiosity. He ought to go back and see the child — he was really entitled to a view of it — but he hesitated because of his own attitude in the beginning. It seemed to him that he really ought to quit, and here he was parleying with himself.
The truth was that he couldn’t. These years of living with Jennie had made him curiously dependent upon her. Who had ever been so close to him before? His mother loved him, but her attitude toward him had not so much to do with real love as with ambition. His father — well, his father was a man, like himself. All of his sisters were distinctly wrapped up in their own affairs; Robert and he were temperamentally uncongenial. With Jennie he had really been happy, he had truly lived. She was necessary to him; the longer he stayed away from her the more he wanted her. He finally decided to have a straight-out talk with her, to arrive at some sort of understanding. She ought to get the child and take care of it. She must understand that he might eventually want to quit. She ought to be made to feel that a definite change had taken place, though no immediate break might occur. That same evening he went out to the apartment. Jennie heard him enter, and her heart began to flutter. Then she took her courage in both hands, and went to meet him.
“There’s just one thing to be done about this as far as I can see,” began Lester, with characteristic directness. “Get the child and bring her here where you can take care of her. There’s no use leaving her in the hands of strangers.”
“I will, Lester,” said Jennie submissively. “I always wanted to.”
“Very well, then, you’d better do it at once.” He took an evening newspaper out of his pocket and strolled toward one of the front windows; then he turned to her. “You and I might as well understand each other, Jennie,” he went on. “I can see how this thing came about. It was a piece of foolishness on my part not to have asked you before, and made you tell me. It was silly for you to conceal it, even if you didn’t want the child’s life mixed with mine. You might have known that it couldn’t be done. That’s neither here nor there, though, now. The thing that I want to point out is that one can’t live and hold a relationship such as ours without confidence. You and I had that, I thought. I don’t see my way clear to ever hold more than a tentative relationship with you on this basis. The thing is too tangled. There’s too much cause for scandal.”
“I know,” said Jennie.
“Now, I don’t propose to do anything hasty. For my part I don’t see why things can’t go on about as they are — certainly for the present — but I want you to look the facts in the face.”
Jennie sighed. “I know, Lester,” she said, “I know.”
He went to the window and stared out. There were some trees in the yard, where the darkness was settling. He wondered how this would really come out, for he liked a home atmosphere. Should he leave the apartment and go to his club?
“You’d better get the dinner,” he suggested, after a time, turning toward her irritably; but he did not feel so distant as he looked. It was a shame that life could not be more decently organised. He strolled back to his lounge, and Jennie went about her duties. She was thinking of Vesta, of her ungrateful attitude toward Lester, of his final decision never to marry her. So that was how one dream had been wrecked by folly.
She spread the table, lighted the pretty silver candles, made his favourite biscuit, put a small leg of lamb in the oven to roast, and washed some lettuce-leaves for a salad. She had been a diligent student of a cook-book for some time, and she had learned a good deal from her mother. All the time she was wondering how the situation would work out. He would leave her eventually — no doubt of that. He would go away and marry some one else.
“Oh, well,” she thought finally, “he is not going to leave me right away — that is something. And I can bring Vesta here.” She sighed as she carried the things to the table. If life would only give her Lester and Vesta together — but that hope was over.
There was peace and quiet for some time after this storm. Jennie went the next day and brought Vesta away with her. The joy of the reunion between mother and child made up for many other worries. “Now I can do by her as I ought,” she thought; and three or four times during the day she found herself humming a little song.
Lester came only occasionally at first. He was trying to make himself believe that he ought to do something toward reforming his life — toward bringing about that eventual separation which he had suggested. He did not like the idea of a child being in this apartment — particularly that particular child. He fought his way through a period of calculated neglect, and then began to return to the apartment more regularly. In spite of all its drawbacks, it was a place of quiet, peace, and very notable personal comfort.
During the first days of Lester’s return it was difficult for Jennie to adjust matters so as to keep the playful, nervous, almost uncontrollable child from annoying the staid, emphatic, commercial-minded man. Jennie gave Vesta a severe talking to the first night Lester telephoned that he was coming, telling her that he was a very bad-tempered man who didn’t like children, and that she mustn’t go near him. “You mustn’t talk,” she said. “You mustn’t ask questions. Let mamma ask you what you want. And don’t reach, ever.”
Vesta agreed solemnly, but her childish mind hardly grasped the full significance of the warning.
Lester came at seven. Jennie, who had taken great pains to array Vesta as attractively as possible, had gone into her bedroom to give her own toilet a last touch. Vesta was supposedly in the kitchen. As a matter of fact, she had followed her mother to the door of the sitting-room, where now she could be plainly seen. Lester hung up his hat and coat, then, turning, he caught his first glimpse. The child looked very sweet — he admitted that at a glance. She was arrayed in a blue-dotted, white flannel dress, with a soft roll collar and cuffs, and the costume was completed by white stockings and shoes. Her corn-coloured ringlets hung gaily about her face. Blue eyes, rosy lips, rosy cheeks completed the picture. Lester stared, almost inclined to say something, but restrained himself. Vesta shyly retreated.
When Jennie came out he commented on the fact that Vesta had arrived. “Rather sweet-looking child,” he said. “Do you have much trouble in making her mind?”
“Not much,” she returned.
Jennie went on to the dining-room, and Lester overheard a scrap of their conversation.
“Who are he?” asked Vesta.
“Sh! That’s your Uncle Lester. Didn’t I tell you you mustn’t talk?”
“Are he your uncle?”
“No, dear. Don’t talk now. Run into the kitchen.”
“Are he only my uncle?”
“Yes. Now run along.”
“All right.”
In spite of himself Lester had to smile.
What might have followed if the child had been homely, misshapen, peevish, or all three, can scarcely be conjectured. Had Jennie been less tactful, even in the beginning, he might have obtained a disagreeable impression. As it was, the natural beauty of the child, combined with the mother’s gentle diplomacy in keeping her in the background, served to give him that fleeting glimpse of innocence and youth which is always pleasant. The thought struck him that Jennie had been the mother of a child all these years; she had been separated from it for months at a time; she had never even hinted at its existence, and yet her affection for Vesta was obviously great. “It’s queer,” he said. “She’s a peculiar woman.”
One morning Lester was sitting in the parlour reading his paper when he thought he heard something stir. He turned, and was surprised to see a large blue eye fixed upon him through the crack of a neighbouring door — the effect was most disconcerting. It was not like the ordinary eye, which, under such embarrassing circumstances, would have been immediately withdrawn; it kept its position with deliberate boldness. He turned his paper solemnly and looked again. There was the eye. He turned it again. Still was the eye present. He crossed his legs and looked again. Now the eye was gone.
This little episode, unimportant in itself, was yet informed with the saving grace of comedy, a thing to which Lester was especially responsive. Although not in the least inclined to relax his attitude of aloofness, he found his mind, in the minutest degree, tickled by the mysterious appearance; the corners of his mouth were animated by a desire to turn up. He did not give way to the feeling, and stuck by his paper, but the incident remained very clearly in his mind. The young wayfarer had made her first really important impression upon him.
Not long after this Lester was sitting one morning at breakfast, calmly eating his chop and conning his newspaper, when he was aroused by another visitation — this time not quite so simple. Jennie had given Vesta her breakfast, and set her to amuse herself alone until Lester should leave the house. Jennie was seated at the table, pouring out the coffee, when Vesta suddenly appeared, very business-like in manner, and marched through the room. Lester looked up, and Jennie coloured and arose.
“What is it, Vesta?” she inquired, following her.
By this time, however, Vesta had reached the kitchen, secured a little broom, and returned, a droll determination lighting her face.
“I want my little broom,” she exclaimed and marched sedately past, at which manifestation of spirit Lester again twitched internally, this time allowing the slightest suggestion of a smile to play across his mouth.
The final effect of this intercourse was gradually to break down the feeling of distaste Lester had for the child, and to establish in its place a sort of tolerant recognition of her possibilities as a human being.
The developments of the next six months were of a kind to further relax the strain of opposition which still existed in Lester’s mind. Although not at all resigned to the somewhat tainted atmosphere in which he was living, he yet found himself so comfortable that he could not persuade himself to give it up. It was too much like a bed of down. Jennie was too worshipful. The condition of unquestioned liberty, so far as all his old social relationships were concerned, coupled with the privilege of quiet, simplicity, and affection in the home was too inviting. He lingered on, and began to feel that perhaps it would be just as well to let matters rest as they were.
During this period his friendly relations with the little Vesta insensibly strengthened. He discovered that there was a real flavour of humour about Vesta’s doings, and so came to watch for its development. She was forever doing something interesting, and although Jennie watched over her with a care that was in itself a revelation to him, nevertheless Vesta managed to elude every effort to suppress her and came straight home with her remarks. Once, for example, she was sawing away at a small piece of meat upon her large plate with her big knife, when Lester remarked to Jennie that it might be advisable to get her a little breakfast set.
“She can hardly handle these knives.”
“Yes,” said Vesta instantly. “I need a little knife. My hand is just so very little.”
She held it up. Jennie, who never could tell what was to follow, reached over and put it down, while Lester with difficulty restrained a desire to laugh.
Another morning, not long after, she was watching Jennie put the lumps of sugar in Lester’s cup, when she broke in with, “I want two lumps in mine, mamma.”
“No, dearest,” replied Jennie, “you don’t need any in yours. You have milk to drink.”
“Uncle Lester has two,” she protested.
“Yes,” returned Jennie; “but you’re only a little girl. Besides you mustn’t say anything like that at the table. It isn’t nice.”
“Uncle Lester eats too much sugar,” was her immediate rejoinder, at which that fine gourmet smiled broadly.
“I don’t know about that,” he put in, for the first time deigning to answer her directly. “That sounds like the fox and grapes to me.” Vesta smiled back at him, and now that the ice was broken she chattered on unrestrainedly. One thing led to another, and at last Lester felt as though, in a way, the little girl belonged to him; he was willing even that she should share in such opportunities as his position and wealth might make possible — provided, of course, that he stayed with Jennie, and that they worked out some arrangement which would not put him hopelessly out of touch with the world which was back of him, and which he had to keep constantly in mind.
The following spring the show-rooms and warehouse were completed, and Lester removed his office to the new building. Heretofore, he had been transacting all his business affairs at the Grand Pacific and the club. From now on he felt himself to be firmly established in Chicago — as if that was to be his future home. A large number of details were thrown upon him — the control of a considerable office force, and the handling of various important transactions. It took away from him the need of travelling, that duty going to Amy’s husband, under the direction of Robert. The latter was doing his best to push his personal interests, not only through the influence he was bringing to bear upon his sisters, but through his reorganisation of the factory. Several men whom Lester was personally fond of were in danger of elimination. But Lester did not hear of this, and Kane senior was inclined to give Robert a free hand. Age was telling on him. He was glad to see some one with a strong policy come up and take charge. Lester did not seem to mind. Apparently he and Robert were on better terms than ever before.
Matters might have gone on smoothly enough were it not for the fact that Lester’s private life with Jennie was not a matter which could be permanently kept under cover. At times he was seen driving with her by people who knew him in a social and commercial way. He was for brazening it out on the ground that he was a single man, and at liberty to associate with anybody he pleased. Jennie might be any young woman of good family in whom he was interested. He did not propose to introduce her to anybody if he could help it, and he always made it a point to be a fast traveller in driving, in order that others might not attempt to detain and talk to him. At the theatre, as has been said, she was simply “Miss Gerhardt.”
The trouble was that many of his friends were also keen observers of life. They had no quarrel to pick with Lester’s conduct. Only he had been seen in other cities, in times past, with this same woman. She must be some one whom he was maintaining irregularly. Well, what of it? Wealth and youthful spirits must have their fling. Rumours came to Robert, who, however, kept his own counsel. If Lester wanted to do this sort of thing, well and good. But there must come a time when there would be a show-down.
This came about in one form about a year and a half after Lester and Jennie had been living in the north side apartment. It so happened that, during a stretch of inclement weather in the fall, Lester was seized with a mild form of grip. When he felt the first symptoms he thought that his indisposition would be a matter of short duration, and tried to overcome it by taking a hot bath and a liberal dose of quinine. But the infection was stronger than he counted on; by morning he was flat on his back, with a severe fever and a splitting headache.
His long period of association with Jennie had made him incautious. Policy would have dictated that he should betake himself to his hotel and endure his sickness alone. As a matter of fact, he was very glad to be in the house with her. He had to call up the office to say that he was indisposed and would not be down for a day or so; then he yielded himself comfortably to her patient ministrations.
Jennie, of course, was delighted to have Lester with her, sick or well. She persuaded him to see a doctor and have him prescribe. She brought him potions of hot lemonade, and bathed his face and hands in cold water over and over. Later, when he was recovering, she made him appetising cups of beef-tea or gruel.
It was during this illness that the first real contretemps occurred. Lester’s sister Louise, who had been visiting friends in St. Paul, and who had written him that she might stop off to see him on her way, decided upon an earlier return than she had originally planned. While Lester was sick at his apartment she arrived in Chicago. Calling up the office, and finding that he was not there and would not be down for several days, she asked where he could be reached.
“I think he is at his rooms in the Grand Pacific,” said an incautious secretary. “He’s not feeling well.” Louise, a little disturbed, telephoned to the Grand Pacific, and was told that Mr. Kane had not been there for several days — did not, as a matter of fact, occupy his rooms more than one or two days a week. Piqued by this, she telephoned his club.
It so happened that at the club there was a telephone boy who had called up the apartment a number of times for Lester himself. He had not been cautioned not to give its number — as a matter of fact, it had never been asked for by any one else. When Louise stated that she was Lester’s sister, and was anxious to find him, the boy replied, “I think he lives at 19, Schiller Place.”
“Whose address is that you’re giving?” inquired a passing clerk.
“Mr. Kane’s.”
“Well, don’t be giving out addresses. Don’t you know that yet?”
The boy apologised, but Louise had hung up the receiver and was gone.
About an hour later, curious as to this third residence of her brother, Louise arrived at Schiller Place. Ascending the steps — it was a two-apartment house — she saw the name of Kane on the door leading to the second floor. Ringing the bell, she was opened to by Jennie, who was surprised to see so fashionably attired a young woman.
“This is Mr. Kane’s apartment, I believe,” began Louise, condescendingly, as she looked in at the open door behind Jennie. She was a little surprised to meet a young woman, but her suspicions were as yet only vaguely aroused.
“Yes,” replied Jennie.
“He’s sick, I believe. I’m his sister. May I come in?”
Jennie, had she had time to collect her thoughts, would have tried to make some excuse, but Louise, with the audacity of her birth and station, swept past before Jennie could say a word. Once inside Louise looked about her inquiringly. She found herself in the sitting-room, which gave into the bedroom where Lester was lying. Vesta happened to be playing in one corner of the room, and stood up to eye the new-comer. The open bedroom showed Lester quite plainly lying in bed, a window to the left of him, his eyes closed.
“Oh, there you are, old fellow!” exclaimed Louise. “What’s ailing you?” she hurried on.
Lester, who at the sound of her voice had opened his eyes, realised in an instant how things were. He pulled himself up on one elbow, but words failed him.
“Why, hello, Louise,” he finally forced himself to say, “Where did you come from?”
“St. Paul. I came back sooner than I thought,” she answered lamely, a sense of something wrong irritating her. “I had a hard time finding you, too. Who’s your —” she was about to say “pretty housekeeper,” but turned to find Jennie dazedly gathering up certain articles in the adjoining room and looking dreadfully distraught.
Lester cleared his throat hopelessly.
His sister swept the place with an observing eye. It took in the home atmosphere, which was both pleasing and suggestive. There was a dress of Jennie’s lying across a chair, in a familiar way, which caused Miss Kane to draw herself up warily. She looked at her brother, who had a rather curious expression in his eyes — he seemed slightly nonplussed, but cool and defiant.
“You shouldn’t have come out here,” said Lester finally, before Louise could give vent to the rising question in her mind.
“Why shouldn’t I?” she exclaimed, angered at the brazen confession. “You’re my brother, aren’t you? Why should you have any place that I couldn’t come. Well, I like that — and from you to me.”
“Listen, Louise,” went on Lester, drawing himself up further on one elbow. “You know as much about life as I do. There is no need of our getting into an argument. I didn’t know you were coming, or I would have made other arrangements.”
“Other arrangements, indeed,” she sneered. “I should think as much. The idea!”
She was greatly irritated to think that she had fallen into this trap; it was really disgraceful of Lester.
“I wouldn’t be so haughty about it,” he declared, his colour rising. “I’m not apologising to you for my conduct. I’m saying I would have made other arrangements, which is a very different thing from begging your pardon. If you don’t want to be civil, you needn’t.”
“Why, Lester Kane!” she exclaimed, her cheeks flaming. “I thought better of you, honestly I did. I should think you would be ashamed of yourself living here in open —” she paused without using the word —“and our friends scattered all over the city. It’s terrible! I thought you had more sense of decency and consideration.”
“Decency nothing,” he flared. “I tell you I’m not apologising to you. If you don’t like this you know what you can do.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “This from my own brother! And for the sake of that creature! Whose child is that?” she demanded, savagely and yet curiously.
“Never mind, it’s not mine. If it were it wouldn’t make any difference. I wish you wouldn’t busy yourself about my affairs.”
Jennie, who had been moving about the dining-room beyond the sitting-room, heard the cutting references to herself. She winced with pain.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I won’t any more,” retorted Louise. “I should think, though, that you, of all men, would be above anything like this — and that with a woman so obviously beneath you. Why, I thought she was —” she was again going to add “your housekeeper,” but she was interrupted by Lester, who was angry to the point of brutality.
“Never mind what you thought she was,” he growled. “She’s better than some who do the so-called superior thinking. I know what you think. It’s neither here nor there, I tell you. I’m doing this, and I don’t care what you think. I have to take the blame. Don’t bother about me.”
“Well, I won’t, I assure you,” she flung back. “It’s quite plain that your family means nothing to you. But if you had any sense of decency, Lester Kane, you would never let your sister be trapped into coming into a place like this. I’m disgusted, that’s all, and so will the others be when they hear of it.”
She turned on her heel and walked scornfully out, a withering look being reserved for Jennie, who had unfortunately stepped near the door of the dining-room. Vesta had disappeared. Jennie came in a little while later and closed the door. She knew of nothing to say. Lester, his thick hair pushed back from his vigorous face, leaned back moodily on his pillow. “What a devilish trick of fortune,” he thought. Now she would go home and tell it to the family. His father would know, and his mother. Robert, Imogene, Amy — all would hear. He would have no explanation to make — she had seen. He stared at the wall meditatively.
Meanwhile Jennie, moving about her duties, also found food for reflection. So this was her real position in another woman’s eyes. Now she could see what the world thought. This family was as aloof from her as if it lived on another planet. To his sisters and brothers, his father and mother, she was a bad woman, a creature far beneath him socially, far beneath him mentally and morally, a creature of the streets. And she had hoped somehow to rehabilitate herself in the eyes of the world. It cut her as nothing before had ever done. The thought tore a great, gaping wound in her sensibilities. She was really low and vile in her — Louise’s — eyes, in the world’s eyes, basically so in Lester’s eyes. How could it be otherwise? She went about numb and still, but the ache of defeat and disgrace was under it all. Oh, if she could only see some way to make herself right with the world, to live honourably, to be decent. How could that possibly be brought about? It ought to be — she knew that. But how?
Outraged in her family pride, Louise lost no time in returning to Cincinnati, where she told the story of her discovery, embellished with many details. According to her, she was met at the door by a “silly-looking, white-faced woman,” who did not even offer to invite her in when she announced her name, but stood there “looking just as guilty as a person possibly could.” Lester also had acted shamefully, having outbrazened the matter to her face. When she had demanded to know whose the child was he had refused to tell her. “It isn’t mine,” was all he would say.
“Oh dear, oh dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Kane, who was the first to hear the story. “My son, my Lester! How could he have done it!”
“And such a creature!” exclaimed Louise emphatically, as though the words needed to be reiterated to give them any shadow of reality.
“I went there solely because I thought I could help him,” continued Louise. “I thought when they said he was indisposed that he might be seriously ill. How should I have known?”
“Poor Lester!” exclaimed her mother. “To think he would come to anything like that!”
Mrs. Kane turned the difficult problem over in her mind and, having no previous experiences whereby to measure it, telephoned for old Archibald, who came out from the factory and sat through the discussion with a solemn countenance. So Lester was living openly with a woman of whom they had never heard. He would probably be as defiant and indifferent as his nature was strong. The standpoint of parental authority was impossible. Lester was a centralised authority in himself, and if any overtures for a change of conduct were to be made, they would have to be very diplomatically executed.
Archibald Kane returned to the manufactory sore and disgusted, but determined that something ought to be done. He held a consultation with Robert, who confessed that he had heard disturbing rumours from time to time, but had not wanted to say anything. Mrs. Kane suggested that Robert might go to Chicago, and have a talk with Lester.
“He ought to see that this thing, if continued, is going to do him irreparable damage,” said Mr. Kane. “He cannot hope to carry it off successfully. Nobody can. He ought to marry her or he ought to quit. I want you to tell him that for me.”
“All well and good,” said Robert, “but who’s going to convince him? I’m sure I don’t want the job.”
“I hope to,” said old Archibald, “eventually; but you’d better go up and try, anyhow. It can’t do any harm. He might come to his senses.”
“I don’t believe it,” replied Robert. “He’s a strong man. You see how much good talk does down here. Still, I’ll go if it will relieve your feelings any. Mother wants it.”
“Yes, yes,” said his father distractedly, “better go.”
Accordingly Robert went. Without allowing himself to anticipate any particular measure of success in this venture, he rode pleasantly into Chicago confident in the reflection that he had all the powers of morality and justice on his side.
Upon Robert’s arrival, the third morning after Louise’s interview, he called up the warerooms, but Lester was not there. He then telephoned to the house, and tactfully made an appointment. Lester was still indisposed, but he preferred to come down to the office, and he did. He met Robert in his cheerful, nonchalant way, and together they talked business for a time. Then followed a pregnant silence.
“Well, I suppose you know what brought me up here,” began Robert tentatively.
“I think I could make a guess at it,” Lester replied.
“They were all very much worried over the fact that you were sick — mother particularly. You’re not in any danger of having a relapse, are you?”
“I think not.”
“Louise said there was some sort of a peculiar menage she ran into up here. You’re not married, are you?”
“No.”
“The young woman Louise saw is just —” Robert waved his hand expressively.
Lester nodded.
“I don’t want to be inquisitive, Lester. I didn’t come up for that. I’m simply here because the family felt that I ought to come. Mother was so very much distressed that I couldn’t do less than see you for her sake —” he paused, and Lester, touched by the fairness and respect of his attitude, felt that mere courtesy at least made some explanation due.
“I don’t know that anything I can say will help matters much,” he replied thoughtfully. “There’s really nothing to be said. I have the woman and the family has its objections. The chief difficulty about the thing seems to be the bad luck in being found out.”
He stopped, and Robert turned over the substance of this worldly reasoning in his mind. Lester was very calm about it. He seemed, as usual, to be most convincingly sane.
“You’re not contemplating marrying her, are you?” queried Robert hesitatingly.
“I hadn’t come to that,” answered Lester coolly.
They looked at each other quietly for a moment, and then Robert turned his glance to the distant scene of the city.
“It’s useless to ask whether you are seriously in love with her, I suppose,” ventured Robert.
“I don’t know whether I’d be able to discuss that divine afflatus with you or not,” returned Lester, with a touch of grim humour. “I have never experienced the sensation myself. All I know is that the lady is very pleasing to me.”
“Well, it’s all a question of your own well-being and the family’s, Lester,” went on Robert, after another pause. “Morality doesn’t seem to figure in it anyway — at least you and I can’t discuss that together. Your feelings on that score naturally relate to you alone. But the matter of your own personal welfare seems to me to be substantial enough ground to base a plea on. The family’s feelings and pride are also fairly important. Father’s the kind of a man who sets more store by the honour of his family than most men. You know that as well as I do, of course.”
“I know how father feels about it,” returned Lester. “The whole business is as clear to me as it is to any of you, though off-hand I don’t see just what’s to be done about it. These matters aren’t always of a day’s growth, and they can’t be settled in a day. The girl’s here. To a certain extent I’m responsible that she is here. While I’m not willing to go into details, there’s always more in these affairs than appears on the court calendar.”
“Of course I don’t know what your relations with her have been,” returned Robert, “and I’m not curious to know, but it does look like a bit of injustice all around, don’t you think — unless you intend to marry her?” This last was put forth as a feeler.
“I might be willing to agree to that, too,” was Lester’s baffling reply, “if anything were to be gained by it. The point is, the woman is here, and the family is in possession of the fact. Now if there is anything to be done I have to do it. There isn’t anybody else who can act for me in this matter.”
Lester lapsed into a silence, and Robert rose and paced the floor, coming back after a time to say: “You say you haven’t any idea of marrying her — or rather you haven’t come to it. I wouldn’t, Lester. It seems to me you would be making the mistake of your life, from every point of view. I don’t want to orate, but a man of your position has so much to lose; you can’t afford to do it. Aside from family considerations, you have too much at stake. You’d be simply throwing your life away —”
He paused, with his right hand held out before him, as was customary when he was deeply in earnest, and Lester felt the candour and simplicity of this appeal. Robert was not criticising him now. He was making an appeal to him, and this was somewhat different.
The appeal passed without comment, however, and then Robert began on a new tack, this time picturing old Archibald’s fondness for Lester and the hope he had always entertained that he would marry some well-to-do Cincinnati girl, Catholic, if agreeable to him, but at least worthy of his station. And Mrs. Kane felt the same way; surely Lester must realise that.
“I know just how all of them feel about it,” Lester interrupted at last, “but I don’t see that anything’s to be done right now.”
“You mean that you don’t think it would be policy for you to give her up just at present?”
“I mean that she’s been exceptionally good to me, and that I’m morally under obligations to do the best I can by her. What that may be, I can’t tell.”
“To live with her?” inquired Robert coolly.
“Certainly not to turn her out bag and baggage if she has been accustomed to live with me,” replied Lester. Robert sat down again, as if he considered his recent appeal futile.
“Can’t family reasons persuade you to make some amicable arrangements with her and let her go?”
“Not without due consideration of the matter; no.”
“You don’t think you could hold out some hope that the thing will end quickly — something that would give me a reasonable excuse for softening down the pain of it to the family?”
“I would be perfectly willing to do anything which would take away the edge of this thing for the family, but the truth’s the truth, and I can’t see any room for equivocation between you and me. As I’ve said before, these relationships are involved with things which make it impossible to discuss them — unfair to me, unfair to the woman. No one can see how they are to be handled, except the people that are in them, and even they can’t always see. I’d be a damned dog to stand up here and give you my word to do anything except the best I can.”
Lester stopped, and now Robert rose and paced the floor again, only to come back after a time and say, “You don’t think there’s anything to be done just at present?”
“Not at present.”
“Very well, then, I expect I might as well be going. I don’t know that there’s anything else we can talk about.”
“Won’t you stay and take lunch with me? I think I might manage to get down to the hotel if you’ll stay.”
“No, thank you,” answered Robert. “I believe I can make that one o’clock train for Cincinnati. I’ll try, anyhow.”
They stood before each other now, Lester pale and rather flaccid, Robert, clear, wax-like, well-knit, and shrewd, and one could see the difference time had already made. Robert was the clean, decisive man, Lester the man of doubts. Robert was the spirit of business energy and integrity embodied, Lester the spirit of commercial self-sufficiency, looking at life with an uncertain eye. Together they made a striking picture, which was none the less powerful for the thoughts that were now running through their minds.
“Well,” said the older brother, after a time, “I don’t suppose there is anything more I can say. I had hoped to make you feel just as we do about this thing, but of course you are your own best judge of this. If you don’t see it now, nothing I could say would make you. It strikes me as a very bad move on your part though.”
Lester listened. He said nothing, but his face expressed an unchanged purpose.
Robert turned for his hat, and they walked to the office door together.
“I’ll put the best face I can on it,” said Robert, and walked out.
In this world of ours the activities of animal life seem to be limited to a plane or circle, as if that were an inherent necessity to the creatures of a planet which is perforce compelled to swing about the sun. A fish, for instance, may not pass out of the circle of the seas without courting annihilation; a bird may not enter the domain of the fishes without paying for it dearly. From the parasites of the flowers to the monsters of the jungle and the deep we see clearly the circumscribed nature of their movements — the emphatic manner in which life has limited them to a sphere; and we are content to note the ludicrous and invariably fatal results which attend any effort on their part to depart from their environment.
In the case of man, however, the operation of this theory of limitations has not as yet been so clearly observed. The laws governing our social life are not so clearly understood as to permit of a clear generalisation. Still, the opinions, pleas, and judgments of society serve as boundaries which are none the less real for being intangible. When men or women err — that is, pass out from the sphere in which they are accustomed to move — it is not as if the bird had intruded itself into the water, or the wild animal into the haunts of man. Annihilation is not the immediate result. People may do no more than elevate their eyebrows in astonishment, laugh sarcastically, lift up their hands in protest. And yet so well defined is the sphere of social activity that he who departs from it is doomed. Born and bred in this environment, the individual is practically unfitted for any other state. He is like a bird accustomed to a certain density of atmosphere, and which cannot live comfortably at either higher or lower level.
Lester sat down in his easy-chair by the window after his brother had gone and gazed ruminatively out over the flourishing city. Yonder was spread out before him, life with its concomitant phases of energy, hope, prosperity, and pleasure, and here he was suddenly struck by a wind of misfortune and blown aside for the time being — his prospects and purposes dissipated. Could he continue as cheerily in the paths he had hitherto pursued? Would not his relations with Jennie be necessarily affected by this sudden tide of opposition? Was not his own home now a thing of the past so far as his old easy-going relationship was concerned? All the atmosphere of unstained affection would be gone out of it now. That hearty look of approval which used to dwell in his father’s eye — would it be there any longer? Robert, his relations with the manufactory, everything that was a part of his old life, had been affected by this sudden intrusion of Louise.
“It’s unfortunate,” was all that he thought to himself, and therewith turned from what he considered senseless brooding to the consideration of what, if anything, was to be done.
“I’m thinking I’d take a run up to Mt. Clemens tomorrow, or Thursday anyhow, if I feel strong enough,” he said to Jennie after he had returned. “I’m not feeling as well as I might. A few days will do me good.” He wanted to get off by himself and think. Jennie packed his bag for him at the given time, and he departed, but he was in a sullen, meditative mood.
During the week that followed he had ample time to think it all over, the result of his cogitations being that there was no need of making a decisive move at present. A few weeks more, one way or the other, could not make any practical difference. Neither Robert nor any other member of the family was at all likely to seek another conference with him. His business relations would necessarily go on as usual, since they were coupled with the welfare of the manufactory; certainly no attempt to coerce him would be attempted. But the consciousness that he was at hopeless variance with his family weighed upon him. “Bad business,” he meditated —“bad business.” But he did not change.
For the period of a whole year this unsatisfactory state of affairs continued. Lester did not go home for six months; then an important business conference demanding his presence, he appeared and carried it off quite as though nothing important had happened. His mother kissed him affectionately, if a little sadly; his father gave him his customary greeting, a hearty handshake; Robert, Louise, Amy, Imogene, concertedly, though without any verbal understanding, agreed to ignore the one real issue. But the feeling of estrangement was there, and it persisted. Hereafter his visits to Cincinnati were as few and far between as he could possibly make them.
In the meantime Jennie had been going through a moral crisis of her own. For the first time in her life, aside from the family attitude, which had afflicted her greatly, she realised what the world thought of her. She was bad — she knew that. She had yielded on two occasions to the force of circumstances which might have been fought out differently. If only she had had more courage! If she did not always have this haunting sense of fear! If she could only make up her mind to do the right thing! Lester would never marry her. Why should he? She loved him, but she could leave him, and it would be better for him. Probably her father would live with her if she went back to Cleveland. He would honour her for at last taking a decent stand. Yet the thought of leaving Lester was a terrible one to her — he had been so good. As for her father, she was not sure whether he would receive her or not.
After the tragic visit of Louise she began to think of saving a little money, laying it aside as best she could from her allowance. Lester was generous and she had been able to send home regularly fifteen dollars a week to maintain the family — as much as they had lived on before, without any help from the outside. She spent twenty dollars to maintain the table, for Lester required the best of everything — fruit, meats, desserts, liquors, and what not. The rent was fifty-five dollars, with clothes and extras a varying sum. Lester gave her fifty dollars a week, but somehow it had all gone. She thought how she might economise but this seemed wrong. Better go without taking anything, if she were going, was the thought that came to her. It was the only decent thing to do.
She thought over this week after week, after the advent of Louise, trying to nerve herself to the point where she could speak or act. Lester was consistently generous and kind, but she felt at times that he himself might wish it. He was thoughtful, abstracted. Since the scene with Louise it seemed to her that he had been a little different. If she could only say to him that she was not satisfied with the way she was living, and then leave. But he himself had plainly indicated after his discovery of Vesta that her feelings on that score could not matter so very much to him, since he thought the presence of the child would definitely interfere with his ever marrying her. It was her presence he wanted on another basis. And he was so forceful, she could not argue with him very well. She decided if she went it would be best to write a letter and tell him why. Then maybe when he knew how she felt he would forgive her and think nothing more about it.
The condition of the Gerhardt family was not improving. Since Jennie had left Martha had married. After several years of teaching in the public schools of Cleveland she had met a young architect, and they were united after a short engagement. Martha had been always a little ashamed of her family, and now, when this new life dawned, she was anxious to keep the connection as slight as possible. She barely notified the members of the family of the approaching marriage — Jennie not at all — and to the actual ceremony she invited only Bass and George. Gerhardt, Veronica, and William resented the slight. Gerhardt ventured upon no comment. He had had too many rebuffs. But Veronica was angry. She hoped that life would give her an opportunity to pay her sister off. William, of course, did not mind particularly. He was interested in the possibilities of becoming an electrical engineer, a career which one of his school-teachers had pointed out to him as being attractive and promising.
Jennie heard of Martha’s marriage after it was all over, a note from Veronica giving her the main details. She was glad from one point of view, but realised that her brothers and sisters were drifting away from her.
A little while after Martha’s marriage Veronica and William went to reside with George, a break which was brought about by the attitude of Gerhardt himself. Ever since his wife’s death and the departure of the other children he had been subject to moods of profound gloom, from which he was not easily aroused. Life, it seemed, was drawing to a close for him, although he was only sixty-five years of age. The earthly ambitions he had once cherished were gone for ever. He saw Sebastian, Martha, and George out in the world practically ignoring him, contributing nothing at all to a home which should never have taken a dollar from Jennie. Veronica and William were restless. They objected to leaving school and going to work, apparently preferring to live on money which Gerhardt had long since concluded was not being come by honestly. He was now pretty well satisfied as to the true relations of Jennie and Lester. At first he had believed them to be married, but the way Lester had neglected Jennie for long periods, the humbleness with which she ran at his beck and call, her fear of telling him about Vesta — somehow it all pointed to the same thing. She had not been married at home. Gerhardt had never had sight of her marriage certificate. Since she was away she might have been married, but he did not believe it.
The real trouble was that Gerhardt had grown intensely morose and crotchety, and it was becoming impossible for young people to live with him. Veronica and William felt it. They resented the way in which he took charge of the expenditures after Martha left. He accused them of spending too much on clothes and amusements, he insisted that a smaller house should be taken, and he regularly sequestered a part of the money which Jennie sent, for what purpose they could hardly guess. As a matter of fact, Gerhardt was saving as much as possible in order to repay Jennie eventually. He thought it was sinful to go on in this way, and this was his one method, outside of his meagre earnings, to redeem himself. If his other children had acted rightly by him he felt that he would not now be left in his old age the recipient of charity from one, who, despite her other good qualities, was certainly not leading a righteous life. So they quarrelled.
It ended one winter month when George agreed to receive his complaining brother and sister on condition that they should get something to do. Gerhardt was nonplussed for a moment, but invited them to take the furniture and go their way. His generosity shamed them for the moment; they even tentatively invited him to come and live with them, but this he would not do. He would ask the foreman of the mill he watched for the privilege of sleeping in some out-of-the-way garret. He was always liked and trusted. And this would save him a little money.
So in a fit of pique he did this, and there was seen the spectacle of an old man watching through a dreary season of nights, in a lonely trafficless neighbourhood while the city pursued its gaiety elsewhere. He had a wee small corner in the topmost loft of a warehouse away from the tear and grind of the factory proper. Here Gerhardt slept by day. In the afternoon he would take a little walk, strolling toward the business centre, or out along the banks of the Cuyahoga, or the lake. As a rule his hands were below his back, his brow bent in meditation. He would even talk to himself a little — an occasional “By chops!” or “So it is” being indicative of his dreary mood. At dusk he would return, taking his stand at the lonely gate which was his post of duty. His meals he secured at a nearby workingmen’s boarding-house, such as he felt he must have.
The nature of the old German’s reflections at this time were of a peculiarly subtle and sombre character. What was this thing — life? What did it all come to after the struggle, and the worry, and the grieving? Where does it all go to? People die; you hear nothing more from them. His wife, now, she had gone. Where had her spirit taken its flight?
Yet he continued to hold some strongly dogmatic convictions. He believed there was a hell, and that people who sinned would go there. How about Mrs. Gerhardt? How about Jennie? He believed that both had sinned woefully. He believed that the just would be rewarded in heaven. But who were the just? Mrs. Gerhardt had not had a bad heart. Jennie was the soul of generosity. Take his son Sebastian. Sebastian was a good boy, but he was cold, and certainly indifferent to his father. Take Martha — she was ambitious, but obviously selfish. Somehow the children outside of Jennie, seemed self-centred. Bass walked off when he got married, and did nothing more for anybody. Martha insisted that she needed all she made to live on. George had contributed for a little while, but had finally refused to help out. Veronica and William had been content to live on Jennie’s money so long as he would allow it, and yet they knew it was not right. His very existence, was it not a commentary on the selfishness of his children? And he was getting so old. He shook his head. Mystery of mysteries. Life was truly strange, and dark, and uncertain. Still he did not want to go and live with any of his children. Actually they were not worthy of him — none but Jennie, and she was not good. So he grieved.
This woeful condition of affairs was not made known to Jennie for some time. She had been sending her letters to Martha, but, on her leaving, Jennie had been writing directly to Gerhardt. After Veronica’s departure Gerhardt wrote to Jennie saying that there was no need of sending any more money. Veronica and William were going to live with George. He himself had a good place in a factory, and would live there a little while. He returned her a moderate sum that he had saved — one hundred and fifteen dollars — with the word that he would not need it.
Jennie did not understand, but as the others did not write, she was not sure but what it might be all right — her father was so determined. But by degrees, however, a sense of what it really must mean overtook her — a sense of something wrong, and she worried, hesitating between leaving Lester and going to see about her father, whether she left him or not. Would he come with her? Not here certainly. If she were married, yes, possibly. If she were alone — probably. Yet if she did not get some work which paid well they would have a difficult time. It was the same old problem. What could she do? Nevertheless, she decided to act. If she could get five or six dollars a week they could live. This hundred and fifteen dollars which Gerhardt had saved would tide them over the worst difficulties perhaps.
The trouble with Jennie’s plan was that it did not definitely take into consideration Lester’s attitude. He did care for her in an elemental way, but he was hedged about by the ideas of the conventional world in which he had been reared. To say that he loved her well enough to take her for better or worse — to legalise her anomalous position and to face the world bravely with the fact that he had chosen a wife who suited him — was perhaps going a little too far, but he did really care for her, and he was not in a mood, at this particular time, to contemplate parting with her for good.
Lester was getting along to that time of life when his ideas of womanhood were fixed and not subject to change. Thus far, on his own plane and within the circle of his own associates, he had met no one who appealed to him as did Jennie. She was gentle, intelligent, gracious, a handmaiden to his every need; and he had taught her the little customs of polite society, until she was as agreeable a companion as he cared to have. He was comfortable, he was satisfied — why seek further?
But Jennie’s restlessness increased day by day. She tried writing out her views, and started a half dozen letters before she finally worded one which seemed, partially at least, to express her feelings. It was a long letter for her, and it ran as follows:
“LESTER DEAR,
“When you get this I won’t be here, and I want you not to think harshly of me until you have read it all. I am taking Vesta and leaving, and I think it is really better that I should. Lester, I ought to do it. You know when you met me we were very poor, and my condition was such that I didn’t think any good man would ever want me. When you came along and told me you loved me I was hardly able to think just what I ought to do. You made me love you, Lester, in spite of myself.
“You know I told you that I oughtn’t to do anything wrong any more and that I wasn’t good, but somehow when you were near me I couldn’t think just right, and I didn’t see just how I was to get away from you. Papa was sick at home that time, and there was hardly anything in the house to eat. We were all doing so poorly. My brother George didn’t have good shoes, and mamma was so worried. I have often thought, Lester, if mamma had not been compelled to worry so much she might be alive today. I thought if you liked me and I really liked you — I love you, Lester — maybe it wouldn’t make so much difference about me. You know you told me right away you would like to help my family, and I felt that maybe that would be the right thing to do. We were so terribly poor.
“Lester, dear, I am ashamed to leave you this way; it seems so mean, but if you knew how I have been feeling these days you would forgive me. Oh, I love you, Lester, I do, I do. But for months past — ever since your sister came — I felt that I was doing wrong, and that I oughtn’t to go on doing it, for I know how terribly wrong it is. It was wrong for me ever to have anything to do with Senator Brander, but I was such a girl then — I hardly knew what I was doing. It was wrong of me not to tell you about Vesta when I first met you, though I thought I was doing right when I did it. It was terribly wrong of me to keep her here all that time concealed, Lester, but I was afraid of you then — afraid of what you would say and do. When your sister Louise came it all came over me somehow, clearly, and I have never been able to think right about it since. It can’t be right, Lester, but I don’t blame you. I blame myself.
“I don’t ask you to marry me, Lester. I know how you feel about me and how you feel about your family, and I don’t think it would be right. They would never want you to do it, and it isn’t right that I should ask you. At the same time I know I oughtn’t to go on living this way. Vesta is getting along where she understands everything. She thinks you are her really truly uncle. I have thought of it all so much. I have thought a number of times that I would try to talk to you about it, but you frighten me when you get serious, and I don’t seem to be able to say what I want to. So I thought if I could just write you this and then go you would understand. You do, Lester, don’t you? You won’t be angry with me? I know it’s for the best for you and for me. I ought to do it. Please forgive me, Lester, please; and don’t think of me any more. I will get along. But I love you — oh yes, I do — and I will never be grateful enough for all you have done for me. I wish you all the luck that can come to you. Please forgive me, Lester. I love you, yes I do. I love you.
“Jennie.
“P.S. I expect to go to Cleveland with papa. He needs me. He is all alone. But don’t come for me, Lester. It’s best that you shouldn’t.”
She put this in an envelope, sealed it, and, having hidden it in her bosom, for the time being, awaited the hour when she could conveniently take her departure.
It was several days before she could bring herself to the actual execution of the plan, but one afternoon, Lester, having telephoned that he would not be home for a day or two, she packed some necessary garments for herself and Vesta in several trunks, and sent for an expressman. She thought of telegraphing her father that she was coming; but, seeing he had no home, she thought it would be just as well to go and find him. George and Veronica had not taken all the furniture. The major portion of it was in storage — so Gerhardt had written. She might take that and furnish a little home or flat. She was ready for the end, waiting for the expressman, when the door opened and in walked Lester.
For some unforeseen reason he had changed his mind. He was not in the least psychic or intuitional, but on this occasion his feelings had served him a peculiar turn. He had thought of going for a day’s duck-shooting with some friends in the Kankakee Marshes south of Chicago, but had finally changed his mind; he even decided to go out to the house early. What prompted this he could not have said.
As he neared the house he felt a little peculiar about coming home so early; then at the sight of the two trunks standing in the middle of the room he stood dumbfounded. What did it mean — Jennie dressed and ready to depart? And Vesta in a similar condition? He stared in amazement, his brown eyes keen in inquiry.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Why — why —” she began, falling back. “I was going away.”
“Where to?”
“I thought I would go to Cleveland,” she replied.
“What for?”
“Why — why — I meant to tell you, Lester, that I didn’t think I ought to stay here any longer this way. I didn’t think it was right. I thought I’d tell you, but I couldn’t. I wrote you a letter.”
“A letter,” he exclaimed. “What the deuce are you talking about? Where is the letter?”
“There,” she said, mechanically pointing to a small centre-table where the letter lay conspicuous on a large book.
“And you were really going to leave me, Jennie, with just a letter?” said Lester, his voice hardening a little as he spoke. “I swear to heaven you are beyond me. What’s the point?” He tore open the envelope and looked at the beginning. “Better send Vesta from the room,” he suggested.
She obeyed. Then she came back and stood there pale and wide-eyed, looking at the wall, at the trunks, and at him. Lester read the letter thoughtfully. He shifted his position once or twice, then dropped the paper on the floor.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Jennie,” he said finally, looking at her curiously and wondering just what he was going to say. Here again was his chance to end this relationship if he wished. He couldn’t feel that he did wish it, seeing how peacefully things were running. They had gone so far together it seemed ridiculous to quit now. He truly loved her — there was no doubt of that. Still he did not want to marry her — could not very well. She knew that. Her letter said as much. “You have this thing wrong,” he went on slowly. “I don’t know what comes over you at times, but you don’t view the situation right. I’ve told you before that I can’t marry you — not now, anyhow. There are too many big things involved in this, which you don’t know anything about. I love you, you know that. But my family has to be taken into consideration, and the business. You can’t see the difficulties raised on these scores, but I can. Now I don’t want you to leave me. I care too much about you. I can’t prevent you, of course. You can go if you want to. But I don’t think you ought to want to. You don’t really, do you? Sit down a minute.”
Jennie, who had been counting on getting away without being seen, was now thoroughly nonplussed. To have him begin a quiet argument — a plea as it were. It hurt her. He, Lester, pleading with her, and she loved him so. She went over to him, and he took her hand. “Now, listen,” he said. “There’s really nothing to be gained by your leaving me at present. Where did you say you were going?”
“To Cleveland,” she replied.
“Well, how did you expect to get along?”
“I thought I’d take papa, if he’d come with me — he’s alone now — and get something to do, maybe.”
“Well, what can you do, Jennie, different from what you ever have done? You wouldn’t expect to be a lady’s maid again, would you? Or clerk in a store?”
“I thought I might get some place as a housekeeper,” she suggested. She had been counting up her possibilities, and this was the most promising idea that had occurred to her.
“No, no,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “There’s nothing to that. There’s nothing in this whole move of yours except a notion. Why, you won’t be any better off morally than you are right now. You can’t undo the past. It doesn’t make any difference, anyhow. I can’t marry you now. I might in the future, but I can’t tell anything about that, and I don’t want to promise anything. You’re not going to leave me though with my consent, and if you were going I wouldn’t have you dropping back into any such thing as you’re contemplating. I’ll make some provision for you. You don’t really want to leave me, do you, Jennie?”
Against Lester’s strong personality and vigorous protest Jennie’s own conclusions and decisions went to pieces. Just the pressure of his hand was enough to upset her. Now she began to cry.
“Don’t cry, Jennie,” he said. “This thing may work out better than you think. Let it rest for a while. Take off your things. You’re not going to leave me any more, are you?”
“No-o-o!” she sobbed.
He took her in his lap. “Let things rest as they are,” he went on. “It’s a curious world. Things can’t be adjusted in a minute. They may work out. I’m putting up with some things myself that I ordinarily wouldn’t stand for.”
He finally saw her restored to comparative calmness, smiling sadly through her tears.
“Now you put those things away,” he said genially, pointing to the trunks. “Besides, I want you to promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?” asked Jennie.
“No more concealment of anything, do you hear? No more thinking out things for yourself, and acting without my knowing anything about it. If you have anything on your mind, I want you to come out with it. I’m not going to eat you! Talk to me about whatever is troubling you. I’ll help you solve it, or, if I can’t, at least there won’t be any concealment between us.”
“I know, Lester,” she said earnestly, looking him straight in the eyes. “I promise I’ll never conceal anything any more — truly I won’t. I’ve been afraid, but I won’t be now. You can trust me.”
“That sounds like what you ought to be,” he replied. “I know you will.” And he let her go.
A few days later, and in consequence of this agreement, the future of Gerhardt came up for discussion. Jennie had been worrying about him for several days; now it occurred to her that this was something to talk over with Lester. Accordingly, she explained one night at dinner what had happened in Cleveland. “I know he is very unhappy there all alone,” she said, “and I hate to think of it. I was going to get him if I went back to Cleveland. Now I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Why don’t you send him some money?” he inquired.
“He won’t take any more money from me, Lester,” she explained. “He thinks I’m not good — not acting right. He doesn’t believe I’m married.”
“He has pretty good reason, hasn’t he?” said Lester calmly.
“I hate to think of him sleeping in a factory. He’s so old and lonely.”
“What’s the matter with the rest of the family in Cleveland? Won’t they do anything for him? Where’s your brother Bass?”
“I think maybe they don’t want him, he’s so cross,” she said simply.
“I hardly know what to suggest in that case,” smiled Lester. “The old gentleman oughtn’t to be so fussy.”
“I know,” she said, “but he’s old now, and he has had so much trouble.”
Lester ruminated for a while, toying with his fork. “I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking, Jennie,” he said finally. “There’s no use living this way any longer, if we’re going to stick it out. I’ve been thinking that we might take a house out in Hyde Park. It’s something of a run from the office, but I’m not much for this apartment life. You and Vesta would be better off for a yard. In that case you might bring your father on to live with us. He couldn’t do any harm pottering about; indeed, he might help keep things straight.”
“Oh, that would just suit papa, if he’d come,” she replied. “He loves to fix things, and he’d cut the grass and look after the furnace. But he won’t come unless he’s sure I’m married.”
“I don’t know how that could be arranged unless you could show the old gentleman a marriage certificate. He seems to want something that can’t be produced very well. A steady job he’d have running the furnace of a country house,” he added meditatively.
Jennie did not notice the grimness of the jest. She was too busy thinking what a tangle she had made of her life. Gerhardt would not come now, even if they had a lovely home to share with him. And yet he ought to be with Vesta again. She would make him happy.
She remained lost in a sad abstraction, until Lester, following the drift of her thoughts, said: “I don’t see how it can be arranged. Marriage certificate blanks aren’t easily procurable. It’s bad business — a criminal offence to forge one, I believe. I wouldn’t want to be mixed up in that sort of thing.”
“Oh, I don’t want you to do anything like that, Lester. I’m just sorry papa is so stubborn. When he gets a notion you can’t change him.”
“Suppose we wait until we get settled after moving,” he suggested. “Then you can go to Cleveland and talk to him personally. You might be able to persuade him.” He liked her attitude toward her father. It was so decent that he rather wished he could help her carry out her scheme. While not very interesting, Gerhardt was not objectionable to Lester, and if the old man wanted to do the odd jobs around a big place, why not?