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9 American Sunday Monthly Magazine Section COMMOW LACE MAN had been engaged from the hotel; flowers ordered from the nearest town, and the dinner was to be, as my wife said, “a Christmas dream with red and green trimmings. ,, All through the day she was busy, attending to decorations, calling to me to fasten up a wreath or loop a garland of Christmas pine, and appealing to me for help and advice. Several times she stood on tip-toe to pull my face down to hers and kiss me and say, “How could I ever get on this day without you?” At last I laughed and asked, teasingly, “Why this day more than any other? ” “Why, I always need you,” she said. “But if anything happened to take you off to-day, the whole dinner would be a failure. I would just have to give it up, that’s all.” Again I laughed at her earnestness, telling her that she was “ a dear little goose,” as I had no inten tion of letting her attempt to get on without me. The dinner was as great a success as Kitty had hoped it would be, and she was content. As the last guests left, and their parting calls of “Merry Christmas!” floated back to us, my wife turned to me and held up her lips for a kiss. “A very merry Christmas, little wife!” I said. “ For this is really Christmas. It is after midnight.” “And a merry one to you, dear Rob,” she an swered. Then, as her eyes met mine, she looked away hastily, adding, “I’m sure I hope you will have a happy day,” and, without another word, went up to her room. We were at our late breakfast the next morning when I received a summons by long distance tele phone from my mother’s physician, saying that I must come at once as my mother was sinking rapidly. He said that when my sister had tele graphed, there had been hope of her recovery, but now there was none. “There is no train for two hours!” I groaned. “ What can have become of that telegram! Perhaps the clerk at the office neglected to send it!” I was too much excited to note my wife’s silence as I strode again to the telephone to demand an explanation, but as I took down the receiver, she caught hold of my arm. “Rob!” she gasped. “Stop! Don’t make a public fuss! The telegram came for you yesterday. I put it in your desk.” “Unopened?” I asked. Her eyes fell before my stern gaze. A lie would not have helped now. “No,” she muttered, sullenly, “I opened it.” I did not ask her what the message was. Half- dazed, I went to my desk. There lay the telegram dated thirty-six hours earlier. “Mother dangerously ill. Come.” Even now I am frightened when I think of the wave of rage and sorrow that swept over me. I remember clenching my hands to keep from seizing my wife by the shoulders. She began to cry. “Rob, don’t be so angry! I wanted to keep the news from you until you had had a good time last night.” “A good time!” I burst forth, “and mother dying! Have you no heart? In Heaven’s name, why did you do this?” Her temper flared up, although her tears still flowed. “Because I had the first right to you! And the biggest affair I ever gave would have been spoiled if you had known about your mother! And what good could you have done her? She was too ill to care if you were there or not. O! catching me by the arm as I turned away, “you are not going to leave me alone on Christmas, are you? I pushed her aside and went up to my room. I was actually afraid to let myself speak. Later as I passed her room on my way downstairs I paused long enough to say at the half-opened door: “Kitty, I am going now; I do not know when I shall return.” I remember that she cried out to me something about being “afraid to stay alone,” but I did not stop. I strode over to the commandant’s house, told him that my mother was dying, and did not even pause to thank him for his hand-clasp and his “Go on, my boy!stay as long as you wish!” I caught the train that I should have taken yesterday morning. When I reached my mother’s house she had been dead an hour. One of the strange, and yet fortunate things in life is that what seem to us as domestic tragedies often cause but a tem porary external upheaval, after which existence goes on in the same everyday jog trot. In our hearts things can never again be as they were; outwardly, there is no transformation. So, after a month or two, Kitty’s life and mine seemed to the world as if there had been no great upheaval, no tearing away of disguises, no period during which each soul knew and judged the other. Our son was born six months after my mother’s death. He brought us closer together for a while in our common interest in him. My wife was dis appointed that a daughter had not come to her in his place. But he was a beautiful child, and this fact made her who loved beauty proud of him. Dinah was installed as nurse, and a new maid took her place in the kitchen. At first Kitty planned to have Baby Bob with her at night, but she was a light sleeper and his nestlings and gruntings in the crib next her bed made her nervous, so it was suggested that Dinah take charge of him both night and day. The baby was a restless little creature, and he must cry loud and long before the weary colored girl heard him, and I fell gradually into the habit of having his crib put in my room at night so that I might give him my personal care. There are some men with whom fatherhood is a passion. Others may smile at this statement, but it is because they know nothing of it. The fact remains that the most ardent baby-lovers among men are those of large physical build and muscular strength. Perhaps it is because I am a great, awkward chap that little children appeal particu larly to me. When I held my own baby son in my arms I asked for no greater happiness. The child never was uninteresting to me. Kitty used to laugh at me and say that “new, green little babies” were “a bore” to her’ but that I liked them at any age. She was glad that I did, she confessed demurely, for it took a great weight of responsibility off her shoulders. For her part, while she loved the little chap, she meant to have a good time still, even if she was a mother. Why should she not? was the question I asked myself sometimes when I would see her go off with a party of young people to a hop or musicale. I told myself that since I cared so little for that kind “Rob!” she gasped. “Stop! Don’t make a public fuss! The telegram came for you yesterday ” of tiling was well she should it that do the social act for the fam- 1 ily. She could not have her friends at the house quite as freely as here tofore until the boy was old enough not to be disturbed by music, laughter and talking. Kitty had always had her own way, I argued. Since the boy and I were satisfied with each other, why need she give up her fun? I can hardly describe my wife’s attitude with regard to her son. I have never doubted that she loved him in her way. But she had grown more independent since the dreadful Christmas Day on which I saw her in all her self-interest, and she saw me in all my wrath. She had ceased to turn to me with confidence in my faith in her. She had never asked my pardon, although it was already hers. I am sure she never felt she had done me a wrong. She loved herself best, that was all. So, while outwardly we seemed to be as close as ever, we were drifting farther apart. The world took the place of home and husband for her; the boy compensated me for all that I had missed. The child’s heart was not very strong, although our doctor promised us that he would outgrow the irregularity as he got older. Yet when he had prieu- monia at three years of age all our fears were cen tered on the heart. The disease itself was con quered, the fever was gone, and the child breathed with seeming ease. Kitty was buoyant in her joyful relief from care and confinement and marveled that Dr. Clark should insist on keeping the child in bed for so many days after he was practically well. “It is nonsense!” she declared. “See how fine the youngster’s color is, and what a good appetite he has. Dr. Clark is an old alarmist. If / had my way, the dear little chap should get up, shouldn’t you, Bobby boy?” Later I explained to her that the physician said the lung trouble had put an extra strain on the {Continued on page 16) ' : % Vrrgima Terhune Van deWater