I
His small son had really begun to usurp his entire horizon. Jerome was
about the proudest father ever seen. But the estrangement of Jerome and
Lili came to be a more or less openly recognized fact—which added a
sombre note.
Lili went about beaming in just the old, untroubled way. Except when the
baby was at her breast, one would never dream of associating her with
the supreme experience of motherhood. Whatever might happen to her—and
so much, in her short life, had happened already—Lili would never be any
different.
With Jerome, however, the case stood otherwise. He seemed slowly pulling
ahead; but those great facts of life, which made on him so enormous an
impression, appealed to Lili rather as episodes—objects to arrest a
moment as one flitted along through the vast lark of living.
As for the baby, it seemed to have fallen down very badly indeed in the
role of mediator; instead of feeling himself drawn back to Lili again,
Jerome appeared to have transferred bodily all the love he had once known
for her over to the little new life that bore his name. How strangely
things moved! He tried to understand it, and felt that he really
understood so little.
It was delightful to see them together, Jerome and the baby. He was
still content, for the most part, just to gaze down at the tiny fellow
as he lay in the cheap little cradle they had purchased in Australia.
So entirely and even ludicrously undemonstrative was this attitude
that the troupers accused the proud father of being secretly afraid of
his offspring. Much more convincing, beams and all, was the attitude of
Lili, who, in her impetuous way, knew how to make a fuss over a little
bundle of flannel and lace as successfully as over a man; so that the
more conventional picture of mother and child never failed to evoke an
abundance of enthusiastic appreciation.
“Look there—isn’t that sweet?” the touched impresario would exclaim.
And everybody else thought so too. Even the comedian was awed by the
picture.
Everybody thought her a delightful mother. However, the subtler picture
was Jerome, a now responsible and experienced man, sitting beside his
baby’s cradle, looking down into the tiny face as though he could never
look enough, and when no one was around, letting the fingers of a tiny
hand close about one of his fingers, thrust down so gently. And once he
cautiously stooped and kissed the baby, and felt a thrill the like of
which he had never known before in all his life.