The Lampasas Daily Leader (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 30, No. 153, Ed. 1 Saturday, September 2, 1933 Page: 2 of 4
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THE LAMPASAS LEADER
m
Human Documents of Married Life
By Virginia T„ Van tie Water „
Intimate and Human, Intensely Alive, Each Story Presenting a Problem
Which Might Occur to Any One of Us at Any Time
?
THE TIE THAT BINDS
PPOSITES attract each
^ lk other,” say those who
I|n would explain the mar-
Bfej I|i8 riage of two persons
IIP totally unlike in taste
W P' and temperament. They
may attract, but do they
hold each-other? When
the excitement and flush
of passion—mistaken for
2!U love—have subsided, the
two parties to an uncongenial union
remain distinct entities, together but
entirely separate.
Of course when people fancy them-
selves in love they will not believe
these facts. With the fine sophistry
born of that condition, they think they
know their own riiinds and that they
are right and all the skeptical world
is wrong.
So it was with Daniel Drayton and
Daisy, ■ his wife. Their Christian
names were not more unlike than
their characters. She was fond of so-
ciety, caring nothing for intellectual
pursuits—a butterfly of a girl. The
man she married was deep hearted
and affectionate, but grave and
thoughtful. When released from busi-
ness, he desired no other recreation
than that found in his library. Books
were his delight. —-
His wife was, by nature, a happy
little creature, lovely to look at and
ready to make friends with her hus-
band’s acquaintances in New York, to
which city she came as a bride. She
had a graceful, almost deferential
manner that won for her a ready
liking and admiration from all who
met her. She was delighted to find
herself invited to many places, and
would bring cards and invitations to
her husband with the joyous enthusi-
asm of a child.
“Dan!” she would exclaim, “you
will go to this dinner-dance, won’t
you?”
“But I don’t dance, Daisy,” he de-
murred on one occasion soon after
their marriage.
“But you can ‘sit out’ dances, and
you can always- talk when you want
to,” she added, archly.
He smiled affectionately. “I al-
ways want to talk to you,” he said,
"and I can do that to much better ad-
vantage in our own house than in a
great drawing room full of chattering
people for whom I care nothing.”
“But you ought to care for them,”
she insisted. • “I .do. And I love that
kind of thing—society, I mean—and I
wish you did. You see, I never have
had much of it, for I was at school un-
til last year. And I am interested in
knowing all about real life.”
Her husband shook his head. “That
is not real life, child. Don’t fancy
that. Society is the thing that people
go into to try to make them forget
that they have not jnade the most of
the real things, or that they do not
appreciate them.”
“And what are the real things?”
queried the woman.
“True human beings with souls
above dress and dances and silly
gossip; books that take one out of
one’s own narrow sphere and fill the
brain with big thought,” he declared
gravely.
“It’s queer," cbmmented the wife,
“that you care for dull, sober things
when I w&nt you to like what I am
fond of—pretty clothes and jolly
times. As for books, really, Dan, I
could live happily all my days without
them. I like a novel once in a while,
but those dull, books you have on
your shelves are the limit!”
She raised her eyes to his as she
spoke, and he noted with a thrill of
admiration how pretty she was.
“It is time we were dressing to go
to Mrs. Burton’s reception, Dan.”
He looked at her, appalled. “Mrs.
Burton’s reception! Is it tonight?”
His wife moved impatiently. “My
dear Dan, I reminded you of it this
morning and told you not to forget
it!”
“Well, I did forget it,” was the rue-
ful reply. “Don’t let’s go. Send some
one around with our cards.”
The pretty,face before him flushed
with vexation. “But I want to go,”
Daisy explained.
In spite of his distaste for the kind
of life that his wife loved, Daniel
Drayton appreciated that she was too
attractive a woman to be allowed to
attend 'evening functions unattended
by her husband, and, for the sake of
the conventionalities, he formed the
habit of acting as her escort to
theaters and dinner, to receptions and
soirees.
The second winter after their mar-
riage Daisy was pale and languid,
And Dan suggested that she consult
A physician.. This she refused to do,
declaring that she was “just tired.”
The Christmas holidays, with their
attendant festivities, had wearied her,
mused -her husband. She needed rest
and .change of air and scene. Such
being th,e case, he acquiesced readily
to her .proposal that she make a visit
to her mother, living in Chicago. The
husband urged her to refrain from too
much gaiety while absent.
“You know that your social life is
waiting, here for you when you re-
turn,” he reminded her, “so do take
care of vourrclf and get rested while
away”
Daisy’s letters showed him that she
had forgotten or disregarded his ad-
vice, for they were full of accounts
of the various functions she was at-
tending and the good times she was
having. Feeling powerless to inter-
fere any further, the husband shrugged
his shoulders and accepted philosophic-
ally his present life. But when shp
had been away for a fortnight he
was aroused from his placidity of
mind by a special-delivery letter
from his mother-in-law. It informed
him that Daisy had been taken sud-
denly ill, that the worst was now over,
but that she had asked that he come
and take her home as soon as she
was well enough to travel. The next
paragraph in the letter stunned the
reader:
“I-am "sorry,” it ran, “that neither
you nor Daisy thought it worth while
to inform me of the true condition
of affairs. Had you done so I would
have guarded the dear girl against
such over-exertion as has culminated
in her present illness. It followed
upon a long evening of dancing. I
find it hard to excuse your reticence
and hers when I consider that, had we
been more careful, I should by next
summer have held my first grandbaby
in my arms."
The husband gasped and dropped
the letter. How could he tell his
mother-in-law that he, himself, had not
known the truth? Yet, when he knelt
beside Daisy’s bed and felt her arms
about his neck, all resentment died
within him.
“Don’t be angry, Dan,” she . sobbed.
Of course he kissed her and told her
not to cry. “But,” he queried, “didn’t
you know you should be taking care
of yourself? Why didn’t you tell me
everything, darling?”
“Because,” she murmured, “I knew
you would stop my going out, and
make me stay stupidly at home for
months. And I didn’t want to do that
yet.”
“Didn’t you think of the baby that
was coming to make us happy, dear?”
suggested the husband.
“Yes,” she declared, “of course I
did! And," her eyes overflowing
again with tears, “I planned all about
the pretty things I would buy for it—
and now that’s all over!”
Pity for her evident distress kept
the man silent on the subject during
the weeks and months that followed.
It was this same motive that pre-
vented his uttering any objection
when, as soon as she was well again,
Daisy returned to the social world
of which she liked to feel herself a
part. It helped her forget her disap-
pointment, Dan reminded himself.
Yet, in her heart, the wife longed
for greater liberty than she possessed.
Once she tried to break away from
what she felt to be her husband’s
restraining influence and accepted an
invitation without waiting for his final
decision upon it. It was on a beauti-
ful spring morning more than two
years after her illness that she re-
ceived an invitation for herself and
Dan to spend the week-end at a coun-
try place on Long Island.
Daisy’s heart beat high with antici-
pation. Dan had already gone to his
office for the day—what about him?
He had said last fall that he hated
week-end parties, and that the last
one of which he wras a self-sacrificing
part, and at which Daisy had had “a
perfect time,” was “a miracle of stupid-
ity.” He did not play bridge, and
would not learn when asked to; he
did not dance, he had no small talk,
and in the huge house in which they
were guests there, was, he complained,
“nothing worth reading, even if the
people had been quiet long enough to
allow one to read.” No more of that
kind of thing for him! Daisy had
bitten her lip and said nothing. But
today she hoped he had forgotten his
decision. To make sure of it she
would call him up at once. His voice
at the other end of the wire was so
perfunctory and dry that his wife felt
little shivers run along her spine.
But, summoning her courage, she ex-
plained the situation. There was a
moment’s silence, then her husband’s
only reply was in the form of a ques-
tion:
“Well?”
“Oh, Dan, didn’t you hear what I
told you?” exclaimed the nervous wo-
man. “I said that this morning I got
a letter—”
“I heard all that!” interrupted Dan.
“But what do you want to know?”
“Why, if you will go, of course!”
came the tremulous answer.
The wife knew by her husband’s
tone that he was exercising all his
self-control to speak patiently. “My
dear, I really have no time to consider
any trifling matter of that kind this
morning. I am up to my ears in work
at present. We will talk the matter
over when I come home tonight. Is
there anything of any importance that
you wish to speak about just now?”
“Nothing else of any importance!”
snapped the wife.
“All right! Good-by!” and he was
gone.
For a moment the angry woman
held the receiver in her hand, her face
flushed, her eyes full of tears. Then
she made a sudden resolution and,
with a voice that still trembled, called
up the number of the friend from
whom she had received the alluring
invitation. She explained that per-
haps Dan would be detained in town
on business, but that she, herself,
would surely come if her hostess
would take her alone. Would it be
time enough if she let her know Dan’s
plans tomorrow?
When Dan heard the condition of af-
fairs that night he looked his aston-
ishment. “You accepted an invitation
without knowing whether I would go
or not!” he exclaimed.
There was a new note of defiance in
the wife’s tone. “I certainly did,” she
retorted. “I do not mean to miss the
things I enjoy just because of a whim
of yours.”
“But suppose I do not want to go?”
“Then I shall go without you,” de-
clared the woman firmly.
There was a dead silence for a
minute. Then Daisy went on with:
“I would, however, like to know, for
the sake of courtesy, what I am to
tell Mrs. Jackson. Common polite-
ness demands that you accept or de-
cline.”
“And uncommon politeness has
moved you to leave me out of your
arrangements,” affirmed her husband.
The wife laughed with forced mirth,
then grew grave. “See here, Dan,”
she urged, “do, for once, look at the
matter sanely and, if possible, unsel-
fishly. You like one kind of thing, I
like another kind. Why may not each
of us enjoy life in our own way? You
like to stay at home and read, and
I prefer to go out and have a good
time. Is not my right to live my
life as good as your right to live
yours?”
“You mean,” asked her husband,
“that you want me to say you may ac-
cept any invitations without consult-
ing me, and I am at liberty to decline
or accept them as I please?”
“Just that.”
For a moment the man knew that he
felt in his innermost soul a throb
of relief at the possibility that here-
after he need not go about to all kinds
of society affairs with his wife.
His wife’s voice checked his mus-
ings. “Really, Dan,” she was saying
tremulously, “when you remember
that in a few months 'I won’t be able |
to go out and have fun, I do not think ]
that you need grudge me the enjoy- i
ment of this little outing now.”
With a pang of remorse the husband
drew her to him. “Forgive me,
dear!” he pleaded. “I was a brute to
forget. Of course we’ll go to the
Jackson’s week-end party, and any-
where else you want to go, and you
shall have all the good times you
want now, for”—his voice softening—
“when you have a dear little child who
needs you, you will not want to go
away from home any more.”
His wife looked at him gravely. “I
am not so sure of that,” she said
calmly.
And her husband had the wisdom
to make no reply.
During the weeks of the following
summer when Daisy’s physical condi-
tion prevented her going into society,
Dan set aside, as often as was prac-
ticable, his work, his books, and all
his personal inclinations in order to
minister to her whims and fancies.
He walked with her and drove with
her, for they had taken a furnished
cottage in a quiet country place for
the heated term. He knew that she
was wearied by the monotony of their
daily life, for, as she cared little for
books, and was not well enough to
meet the few city people who were
summering in the nearby village/ one
day was much like another. He won-
dered sometimes whose fault it all
was. One day a man met on the train
was talking of marriage, and dropped
a sentence that lingered in Daniel
Drayton’s memory for months after-
ward.
“Married life,” affirmed his new ac-
quaintance, “must have something
more than love to hold two people to-
gether. A couple who are congenial
may be comparatively happy, even if
they do not feel a passionate love for
each other; but the most ardent love
will faint and die if it is not backed
by congeniality of taste and interests.
Were I a woman I would rather that
my husband were my friend than my
lover. A real man does not go back
on a friend, but husband and wife
who are not comrades and chums tire
of each other, and”—with an expres-
sive gesture—“smash something—the
marriage vows, or their own lives, un-
less, of course, there is the one great
tie which makes their smashing things
a crime.”
“And that tie,” queried Dan, “is?”
“A child or children, sir!”
“They do not always hold their par-
ents together,” Drayton reminded
him.
“No,” said the other bitterly, “they
don’t, except when the parents are too
decent to let the children pay for
their mistakes.”
In his own room that night, after
a dull evening with Daisy, Dan sat
by the open window, smoking and pon-
dering. He dwelt on the evening just
past, and recalled how Daisy had
talked a little of what some of her
friends were doing in the mountains
or at the seashore, of what the maga-
zines said of the fashions for the
coming autumn, of how she would like
to have her furs remodeled for next
winter. Dan had yawned, but not
openly, as Daisy did, for he did not
want to hurt her feelings. But he
sighed with relief when the clock
struck ten, and she said that she was
weary and wanted to go to bed. She
heard the sigh and turned on him
suspiciously.
“What’s the matter? Are you tired
of hearing me talk?” she demanded.
“Why, no,” he answered mendaci-
ously, “but the heat in town today was
very enervating.”
Now, alone, he whispered the truth.
“Heaven forgive me! I was bored to
death!”
He sat for some time trying to ap-
preciate what the condition of affairs
meant, how he and his wife would live
together through all the coming years,
each preying on the other. His soul
sickened at the thought. Did Daisy
appreciate it as he did?
Her voice calling him from the next
room came as an answer to his ques-
tion. He obeyed her summons prompt-
ly, carrying his cigar with him.
“Dan,” came the sweet but fret-
ful voice, “won’t tomorrow be the first
of September?”
“Yes, dear.” (That perfunctory
“dear”! How hard married couples
“work” it!)
“And we will surely go home the
fifteenth, won’t we?”
“Certainly.”
“Thank the Lord!” she murmured.
Daniel and Daisy Drayton had been
married five years when their son was
born. Daisy took the responsibilities
of motherhood as she took everything,
lightly. She was not to blame, for it
was her nature. A full pint-measure
is really just as full as is a gallon-
measure. The husband used to re-
mind himself of this fact when he
was tempted to be impatient with
what he called, when angry, her “shal-
low nature.” “Perhaps, after all,” he
would muse, “she is wiser than I.
Things don’t hurt her long. As for
me—well, I won’t let them hurt me.
She and I will just have to rub along
as other people do. And, thank God,
there’s the baby to keep life endur-
able!”
For the dissatisfied man soon found
that the knowledge that he had a son
to Jove and live for did much, toward
making the future bright.
As long as Daisy had her baby and
her social pleasures she looked no
deeper into conditions. She did not
neglect her child as the woman of to-
day terms neglect. She made time
each day to play with him, to rock him
in her arms and to listen to sugges-
tions from his nurse as to what was
needed to make his tasteful wardrobe
even more elaborate.
Familiarity with society and obedi-
ence to its many claims did not breed
contempt of it in Daisy. As she and
her husband grew farther apart, she
threw herself into the gay life more
enthusiastically than ever. As Dan
must be at his office all day he need
never be pressed into service for after-
noon engagements. But he still, with
such patience as he could muster, did
escort duty to evening affairs, except
on the one night of the week on which
Daisy attended the meeting of the
musical club to which she belonged.
To this club she went in a cab, re-
turning in one. She did not mention
to her husband that one of the men
members often accompanied her to her
front door. But-one evening, return-
ing home earlier than usual, she sug-
gested that Tom Nash, her escort,
come in for a few minutes. Dan,
hearing a man’s voice in the drawing-
room, left his book and came in, as
in duty bound, making an ennuye
third in the brief chat that ensued
before the guest took his departure.
The next morning at breakfast the
husband remarked, apropos of the con-
versation of the previous evening, that
“Tom Nash carried light guns.”
The wife flushed uncomfortably. “I
wish you would not criticize my
friends,” she demurred.
Dan raised his brows in suprise.
“Is he a friend of yours?” he queried.
“I thought of him simply as a chance
acquaintance.”
“He has been of service to me sev-
eral times,” insisted Daisy, too much
vexed to consider the admission she
was making, “in bringing me home
from the club.”
Her husband frowned. “I wish,” he
protested, “that you would not have
men bring you home at night.”
“Why, not?” queried the woman
petulantly. “I see no reason why I
should take that drive alone.”
“And if I am willing to leave at a
garage a standing order for a taxi for
you whenever you want one, I see no
reason Why any man need a^t as es-
cort to you.”
“Fortunately,” retorted the wife,
“other men have more regard for my
comfort and safety than you have.”
A hard look came into the man’s
eyes. Only last week he had received
a letter from his sister, who had been
paying a visit in Daisy’s former home-
town, and it had contained a sentence
that had rankled. “I wonder,” it ran,
“if you ever knew that Daisy was en-
gaged to another man when she met
you, and that rumor declares that she
did not break off her affair with him
until after she had accepted you.”
Dan had grown hot with indignation
when he read the sentence, but the
resentment was against his sister, not
Daisy. He did not believe the rumor.
Women were jealous; his wife was a
popular beauty, his sister an unattrac-
tive spinster. But, underneath, the
suspicion remained, not dead, but
smoldering. At his wife’s taunt it
flashed into a blaze.
“You seem to know a great deal
of other men’s regard for you,” he said
significantly. “Apparently you know
how to handle several of them at a
time, as you did at the time that we
became engaged.”
To the husband’s painful surprise
the shaft went straight home. The
woman paled slightly, and her eyes
widened in startled amazement.
“What do you mean?” she asked
quickly.
“Only that It is well to be off with
the c^ld love before one is on with
the new!” scoffed the man. “I happen
to know that you kept one man dan-
gling on your, string until you had
landed another, then dropped number
one.”
Daisy’s eyes flashed. “So you’ve
been listening to gossip about your
wife, have you!” she burst forth.
“And may I ask what business it is
of yours or of anybody’s what I did
before I was married?”
“It’s a good deal of my business
what you did after you were engaged
to me,” replied her husband, but the
woman rushed on, heedless of his re-
mark.,
“You taunt me with what you con-
sider the facts, and I’ll give you truth
as it was!” she declared hotly. “I
was at school. Then I met you, and
I accepted you, for I knew—or
thought”—with cutting emphasis—
“that I loved you. And I wrote at
once to the other fellow—he was hard-
ly more than a boy—and discarded
him. There, that is the truth, and
more of it is that I was a fool to do
it. He at least was a gentleman!”
With a sob of rage she fled from
the room. Her husband stood looking
at the door she had slammed behind
her. “It’s hell!” he muttered between
set teeth. “That’s what it is, hell!”
Then, with a sudden chill, he ap-
preciated that, though angry, he was
not wounded. Once such a scene with
Daisy would have wrung his heart.
Now he felt no tenderness of pity for
her. Was his love dead? he asked
himself. And was hers, too?
After that episode the shams of mu-
tual consideration which each had
reared during the past years were of-
ten down. Daisy liked her ease too
much to quarrel unnecessarily, and, as
it was more comfortable to be pleas-
ant than unpleasant, she did not, un-
less already angered, seek cause for
quarrel, and her husband followed her
lead. But only those who are bound
to each other by law and the church
know how many inescapable causes
of friction occur in the family life.
It is strange how certain traditions
hold when that for which they first
stood is gone, how those who deny
the spirit still cling to the form. This
is shown in nothing more strongly
than in the meaningless nightly kiss
exchanged in some households be-
tween the uncongenial heads. It
amused Dan that Daisy kept up this
custom. She, not being of an analytic
or introspective nature, retained the
habit of pausing each night long
enough to drop upon his unrespon-
sive lips the perfunctory percussion
that had replaced the wifely kiss.
The irony of the situation caused his
nature to revolt on a certain night on
which, as he had a cold, he had gone
to his room early. It was on the eve-
ning of the annual dinner of the
musical club, to which each mem-
ber was allowred to bring a guest. As
Dan had been the unwilling victim
upon several of these occasions, he
found himself reconciled to the slight
attack of bronchitis which made his
remaining at home on this particular
night advisable. Daisy declared that
she must go if he was well enough
to be left, and, she added as an
afterthought, if Dan did not mind.
Dan did not mind, he assured her, see-
ing in her unusual deference to his
wishes a happy mood produced by
pleasurable anticipation of an eve-
ning of gaiety undarkened by the
shadow of his compulsory presence.
At heart he knew that Daisy would
not let a little thing like his wishes
stand in the wray of the jolly dinner
at Delmonico’s with the set which she
enjoyed, and of wffiich he inwardly dis-
approved. He had voiced this disap-
proval long ago, but his remarks
were met with such outbursts of ve-
hement protest from his wife that
he had not, since then, ventured to
utter any further criticism on this
subject. He did not care enough to
court a scene by interfering.
So this evening, after he and his
boy, who was now over two years old,
had had their accustomed romp, Dan
took his solitary dinner, and went to
his room. He lay in bed reading
when his wife returned from the Del-
monico dinner at eleven o’clock and
stopped to tell him good night. As
she approached him the acrid odor of
cigarette smoke reached his nostrils.
“Whew!” he ejaculated, “what a
smell of tobacco! Have you had a
cigarette?” he demanded suspiciously,
for he was so old fashioned that he
disapproved of women’s smoking and
drinking in public places.
“No,” was the soft reply, “but all
the men were smoking, and I sat near
Tom Nash, wffio had an awfully strong
cigar. That’s wrhy my hair and dress
smell of it.”
Her eyes did not meet her hus-
band’s, and he knew she wras evading
the truth. To prevent further ques-
tioning she bent hurriedly and gave
him the usual good night kiss. He
laughed roughly.
"And I suppose Tom Nash had been
drinking, and the reason your breath
smells of liquor is because your lips
wrere so near his!” he mocked.
For a moment the wife was stag-
gered by the cool brutality of the
speech, then a wave of anger, made
more intense by the champagne she
had been drinking, swept away her
self-control.
“You brute!” she exclaimed.
“Only your husband, remember,”
suggested the man coldly.
“That’s as hard on me as it is on
you!” she retorted.
“You are overexcited, my dear,” re-
marked Drayton, still calmly. "The
wine you took at dinner has affected
you somewhat. By morning you will
be more sane.”
“Oh!” she gasped, striking her
palms together, “when you talk like
that I almost feel as if I could kill
you!”
With a yawn the man turned over
on his side, with his face from her. 1
closed his eyes, and settled himsell
as though to go to sleep.
“Perhaps,” he said colorlessly, “that
would be about the kindest thing you
could do and the simplest solution to
this whole damnable business.”
Then he switched off the light at
the head of his bed, leaving the wom-
an to find her way across the room
and into her own chamber by the
gleam of the hall chandelier.
It was a week later that Daniel
Drayton, opening his front door with
his latch-key on his return from
business one night, was arrested by
the sound of his wife’s voice speak-
ing at the telephone. The instru-
ment was in the rear of the hall and
not in sight from the front dor, but
the words reached the master of the
house in that moment in which he in-
stinctively paused:
“Yes, Tom, he’s going out at
eight-thirty. Come any time after
that.”
The husband slammed the front
door, and his wife, startled, hurried
toward him, where he stood under
the glaring ceiling light. A glance at
his grimly determined countenance
told her that her speech had been
overheard.
“Dan,” she tried to explain, “I was
only telling—” but her voice failed
her, trailing off feebly into silence,
and she sank down, trembling, on the
hall chair near her. “Well?” she
whispered, looking up at her hus-
band.
His voice was so unnatural that she
started violently when he spoke, but
her eyes did not leave his.
“Daisy,” he said, “this is the end!
I won’t stand this life any longer! I
said long ago in anger that it was
hell; now I say it in sober truth. It’s
hell for you as well as for me. You
do not love me; I sometimes think
that you hate me. We are tired of
each other. It’s got to stop! You
may go your way, and I’ll go mine.”
As he spoke he saw a gleam of
hope dawn in the frightened eyes into
which he looked. The pale lips trem-
bled a moment as if their owner were
about to cry, but she steadied them
and spoke quickly, almost eagerly.
“Dan, listen to me. I’ve been faith-
ful to you.”
He smiled drearily. “As if that
counted,” he said, "in a case like ours!
So far you’ve been what the world
calls faithful—I don’t say you haven’t.
But you’d always rather be with oth-
er men than with me; you make an ap-
pointment with a man on the only eve-
ning in weeks on which I happen to
have a business engagement, and you
telephone him that I’m to be away!
How long do you think that kind of
thing could go on and either of us
keep a spark of respect?”
Still the look of hope in the wom-
an’s eyes. The husband saw it with
a peculiar thrill and rushed on, his
voice rising as his excitement in-
creased.
“We made a mistake in marrying!
I’m tired of it, so are you! I say I
won’t stand for it any longer. Yes,
this is,the end!”
His wife shrank from him, her eyes
still on his face. “When?” she whis-
pered.
“Now!” he exclaimed. “I swear
I won’t—”
He caught his breath sharply. A
childish voice sounded from the land-
ing on the stairs above him.
“Daddy! Daddy!” came the high
treble. “Aren’t you cornin’ up?”
The man steadied his voice to an-
swer, though his face was contorted
with a spasm as of physical pain. “Yes,
son,” he called hoarsely. “In a min-
ute!”
But the baby voice came again,
“Daddy!”
There was a hurrying of feet in the
upper hall as the nurse hastened to
capture her small charge, who had
for the moment escaped her vigilance.
The nursery door closed behind the
pair. The man dropped upon the low--;:
er stair, his face buried in his hands,
“The boy!” he groaned.
His -wife sprang up and caught him
by the arm excitedly. “You won’t
let him make any difference!” she (
exclaimed imploringly. “His life is all
before him! Surely we have a. right
to ours!”
Her husband lifted his head and
looked at her, and again she shrank
from him, although her hand still
clutched his arm. He rose and faced
her.
“Listen!” he said sternly. “For
the moment I forgot him—God forgive
me! I forgot the child! Yours and
mine, remember—the child that for
our own pleasure we called from no-
where to suffer in this devilish world;
the child for whom we are responsible
to man and to God Almighty: Can’t
you see,” he exclaimed fiercely, “that
we have no right to punish him for
our mistakes?’
But his wife shook her head as if
dazed. The man made a hopeless ges-
ture.
“We’ve got to stand it!” he declared
savagely. “If there were only you
and I we could do as we pleased. But
we’re tied, tied, do you hear?—and
with a tie made of flesh and blood?
He didn’t ask to be born, did he?
We’ve got to pretend to live decent
lives until he needs us no longer. We
can’t get away! We can’t!”
The woman uttered a weak waiL
“And what about me? What about
me?”
The man pulled himself roughly
from her grasp on his arm, and she •
sank down again, tremblifig, upon the
chair, still looking up at him.
“You’re his mother, that’s all I
care!” he exclaimed. “And that’s why
we’ve got to play the game out till
death delivers us!”
He turned and, without another
glance at the crouching woman, went
heavily up the stairs toward the room
in which the child was waiting for
him.
(CoDyrieht by Moffat, Yard & Co.)
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The Lampasas Daily Leader (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 30, No. 153, Ed. 1 Saturday, September 2, 1933, newspaper, September 2, 1933; Lampasas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth895340/m1/2/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lampasas Public Library.