|KENNETH GALT was now living the life of a recluse in his old home.
The tendency to this sort of existence belongs to rare and exceptional
temperaments. He kept assuring himself that it was to be only for a
time, that when Sylvester returned with his stately niece he would crawl
out of his morbid husk and bask in their genial hospitality. Of course,
he told himself, this gloomy period of solitary self-accusation simply
must not continue. He had taken steps which no living man could retrace
in his decision in regard to Dora's fate and the fate of her child, and
there was nothing left for him to do but to try to forget his part in
the tragedy. If he now feared that he might never again have complete
peace of mind in regard to the girl's condition, it was due to his
present unwise proximity to her, and to his queer, almost ecstatic,
pride in his son. Some men are coarse enough to have a contempt for
the rights, social and otherwise, of their own children of illegitimate
birth; but Kenneth Galt, in despising many of the laws of man, gave
little Lionel the credit of being the product of a law he himself had
made, and which, therefore, was worthy of consideration. In some States
the declaration by a pair that they intend to live together constitutes
a legal marriage, and it was with that broad view that Dora, blinded
by faith in the superior knowledge of her lover, had unquestioningly
delivered herself. He shuddered as the conviction struck into him that,
under the same temptation that had swerved him from fidelity to their
pact, _she_ would have remained firm. She was scarcely more than a child
when he deserted her. What, he asked himself, had she developed into?
Dearing said she was more beautiful than ever, and as for her advance
in strength of mind and soul, there were her pictures to witness. And as
he looked at them day after day their subtle, creative depth grew upon
him. He had made a fair financial success; but what he had done, he now
told himself, was only what butchers and cobblers had accomplished. What
she was doing, in her exile from her kind, was the work of deathless
inspiration. Dearing had once aptly said that God used Evil as the
fertilizer to the soil of Good, and if so, to carry the analogy further,
Galt, in his craving for the praise of the world, and in his cowardly
shrinking from Right, was the impure soil in which the flower of Dora's
genius was being nurtured. Yes, there was no denying it. Fate was
playing a sardonic game with him. Dora, cloaked in suffering frailty,
and championed by Truth and Spirit, was pitted against him, the carping,
sourfaced apostle of man's puny material rights; she would go on, and he
would go on. What would be the goal, and which the ultimate winner? He
had argued that the grave and nothingness comprised the pot of dross
at the end of every life's rainbow; but was he right? Could that
mysterious, compelling sense of fatherhood; the thrill of boundless
ecstasy, when he held Lionel in his arms; the awful brooding over the
boy's future; the infinite rebuke of the child's fathomless eyes--could
such things be mere functions of matter?
He was in his library when these reflections were passing through his
brain, and his attention was attracted by children's voices somewhere
outside raised to a high pitch of anger. Stepping to a window, he looked
out toward the house of his neighbor, Congressman Weston. He was just in
time to see Weston's son, Grover, climb over the low paling fence, and,
with a loud and abusive threat, approach Lionel, who was shorter by a
head.
“You said I shouldn't say it again,” he cried, “but I do! She is not fit
for anybody to go with. My mother wouldn't notice her, and no other nice
lady would. People _don't_--they don't go near her!”
Galt's blood was shocked to stillness in his veins, and then, as if by
reactionary process, it began to boil. He saw the erect figure of his
son stand as if stunned for an instant, and then, like a young tiger,
Lionel sprang at the other boy, his little hands balled. Galt heard the
blows as they fell on young Weston's fat cheeks, and he chuckled and
ground his teeth in blended satisfaction and rage. He sprang through the
open window to the grass, and hurriedly skirted a clump of boxwood just
in time to see Grover Weston recovering from the unexpected onslaught
and beginning to rain blow after blow upon Lionel's white face. The
contest was close, despite the inequality in ages and sizes; but the
nameless scion of the Gaits, unconscious of his heritage of bravery, was
unconquerable. He was there to fight, justly roused as he was, to his
last breath. For one instant Grover tore himself from Lionel's bear-like
clutch, and stood glowering in sheer astonishment from his battered and
bruised face.
“You little bastard, I'll--” And he suddenly hurled his fist into
Lionel's face with all his force. It was a staggering blow, but Lionel
met it without a whimper or the loss of a breath. He sprang again at his
assailant, and, catching him around the neck with his strong left arm,
he battered the other boy's face with blow after blow.
“Hit him--that's right, hit him, Lionel!” Galt cried out, in utter
forgetfulness of his own incongruous position. “Beat his nasty face to
a pulp while you've got him! If you don't do it now, he'll down you when
he gets free. Give him his medicine, and give him a full dose. That's
the thing--trip him up!”
Without sparing an instant to look, but having recognized Galt's voice,
Lionel bent his wiry body toward accomplishing the trick advised. The
two combatants swung back and forth, still bound together by Lionel's
clutch, till finally they went down side by side. And then ensued
another struggle as to which should get on top.
“Throw your leg over!” Galt cried out. “Ah, that's a beauty! Now, beat
him till he takes it back!” Lionel needed no such advice. His little
fists moved like the spokes of a turning wheel. A shrill howl of defeat
rose from the conquered bully, and he uttered a prolonged scream of
genuine alarm. Then emerged from a side door of the Weston house no less
a personage than the Congressman himself, and he ran across the grass,
taking flower-pots and beds of roses at long leaps.
Reaching the fighters, he grasped Lionel by the collar of his blouse and
drew him off of his cowering son. And as he held him, squirming like a
cat, he turned on Galt. “Damn it, man!” he cried, in breathless fury,
“what do you mean by standing here and encouraging this brat to fight my
boy?”
“Why, I only wanted to see fair play, that's all,” Galt replied, a
dangerous gleam in his eyes. “I happened to hear your big bully of a son
dare the little one to fight him, and he brought it on by insulting
the little fellow's mother. God bless him, he didn't need my advice.
He could whip two such whelps as yours, and never half try! He hasn't a
cowardly bone in his body! He was all there!”
“Well, it seems to me, _you_ are in a pretty business!” Weston retorted,
white with rage.
“I might be even more active than I am, Weston,” Galt said, with cold
significance, “and if you are not satisfied with the part I have taken,
you only have to say the word. You know that well enough.”
The Congressman was taken aback. There was something in the unruffled
tone and meaning stare of his neighbor's eyes that perplexed and quelled
him. He now turned upon his sniffling offspring.
“You go in the house!” he said, angrily. “You are always picking at
some child under your size. I have noticed it.” Weston was a politician
before anything else, and the thought of turning against him a man who
controlled as many votes as did the president of the greatest railway in
the State was not particularly inviting.
“I didn't mean to offend you, Galt,” he said, as his boy limped away,
still mopping his eyes with his fists. “I reckon I got hot because
it was my own flesh and blood. Of course, it was natural for you to
sympathize with the smaller of the two.”
“That's the way _I_ felt about it, Weston,” Galt said, staring coldly at
the speaker. “I have nothing at all to apologize for.”
“Well, I'll see that Grover behaves himself better in future,” the
Congressman said, still with his political eye open to advantages. “Of
course, it would be natural for a child like mine to pick up remarks
floating about among older people in regard to the mother of--”
“We'll let that drop, _too_, Weston!” Galt snarled. His lip quivered
ominously as he glanced significantly at Lionel, who was listening
attentively, the blood from a bruised nose trickling down to his chin
and neck.
“All right, I understand,” the Congressman said; and he moved awkwardly
away, wondering what manner of man the frigid and reticent Galt was,
after all.
“I suppose I've got myself in a pretty mess,” Lionel remarked, ruefully,
when Weston had left him and his father together. “My mother has made me
promise time after time not to fight; but, you see, I did.”
“Yes, I see you did,” Galt responded, a lump of queer approval in his
throat.
“I couldn't help it--I really couldn't,” Lionel said, with a rueful look
at his hands, which were covered with the blood of his antagonist.
“I must be a bad boy; but oh, I couldn't let him say my beautiful
mother--my sweet mo--” He choked up. “I couldn't--I simply couldn't! She
is so sweet and good! I couldn't help it!”
“Of course not, but don't worry about it,” Galt said, sunken to depths
of shame he had never reached before. “You must try to forget it--forget
the whole thing.”
“I am afraid my mother will find out about it, and, you know, she
mustn't,” the child said, his great eyes filled with concern. “She would
ask what the boy said, and Granny says she must never be told nasty
things children say to me. Such things make her sad and keep her from
painting. She must not find out about this--this fight.”
“Well, she really need not know,” Galt said, as the heat of his shame
mantled his face and brow.
“But she _will_,” Lionel insisted, gloomily, “for she is sure to see
this blood on me. It is on my neck, and running down under my collar. Do
you suppose I could get it off without soiling my waist?”
Galt unbuttoned the broad white collar, and drew it away from the
child's neck.
“It hasn't touched it yet,” he said. “Wait a moment!” And he adroitly,
and yet with oddly quivering fingers, inserted his own handkerchief
between the collar and the trickling blood. “Now come into the house,
and I'll fix you up. Your clothes are a little rumpled, but when I have
washed the blood off no one need know about your fight.”
“Oh, that would be a _fine_ idea!” Lionel exclaimed, joyfully. He put
his little hand into his father's, and together they went into the
house. “She won't know, will she?”
“No, she need not know,” Galt said aloud; but in his thought he added:
“Lionel, you are a little gentleman. You are a living proof that blood
will tell.”
The lonely man's heart was warmed by an inward glow of pride which was
quickly succeeded by an icy breath of despair that seemed to blow over
him. This, he reflected, was only the introductory part of the vast soul
tragedy he himself had put on the stage of existence. The trials he had
encountered through young manhood were naught to those foreshadowed in
the unsuspecting and trusting face at his side.
“Here is the bath,” he said, as they reached the white-tiled room on the
second floor. “Now go in, and be careful to take off your blouse without
getting it bloody. If we are going to work this thing we must work it
right. Perhaps you'd better strip and bathe all over. It will make you
feel good anyway, after that fierce round of yours. Let me fill the
tub.”
“I think I'd better, maybe,” acquiesced Lionel. “Well, be careful,”
Galt warned him, as he turned on the two streams of water and tested the
blending temperature.
“I really can't unbutton this collar behind,” Lionel said, with a touch
of manly shame over the confession. “My mother always does it. She has
never let me learn. I am big enough, gracious knows!”
“Wait, let me undress you!” the father said, as he hastily dried his
hands.
“I wish you would, if you'll be so kind,” Lionel said, in a tone of
reliance, which somehow reached an hitherto untouched fount of feeling
in the breast of his companion.
As the child stood before him, Galt, with throbbing pulse and reverent
fingers, found himself doing the duties of a mother to his offspring.
The flowing necktie and collar were removed; next the blouse and
underbody. Then a vision of inexplicable and awe-inspiring beauty
greeted the senses of the beholder, as the symetrical form, a veritable
poem in flesh and blood, stood bared to his sight. He laid the still
unsoiled garments on a chair, and lifted the boy in his arms to put him
into the water. The warm, smooth cheek touched his own; a tingling throb
of paternity--of starving, yearning fatherhood--shot through him as he
held the boy across his arms like a baby and lowered him slowly to the
water.
“Look out, I'll duck you!” he said, jestingly, and the boy replied with
a ringing laugh which held no hint of fear.
In the water the child lay with his face smilingly upturned.
“Ugh!” he exclaimed, “it feels good. This tub is big enough to swim
in--a little bit, anyway. Will you show me how to swim some day?”
“Yes, my son--yes, Lionel, some day, perhaps.”
“In _deep_ water--in a really-really stream that fish swim in?”
“Yes, Lionel.”
“Oh, that would be so nice! Couldn't we catch fish, too?”
“I think so--yes, of course, some day, perhaps.”
But would those delights, conceived for the first time to-day, ever be
realized? Galt asked himself, as keen pangs from some unknown source
darted through him. Sick unto death of the vapid adulation of narrow men
and women, would he ever experience the transcendental joy of intimate
and daily companionship with this human wonder, such as other fathers
enjoyed with their sons?
No, the question was already answered. The bliss--the queer,
Heaven-tending bliss of the present moment--was merely stolen. Was it
likely that any son at all would ever come to him--a son which he could
father in the broadest, holiest sense? No; and he started and fell to
quivering superstitiously. Even if he were married and another son was
given to him in lawful wedlock, could he dare--in the face of Infinite
Justice--dare to put _that_ child forward, acknowledge _that_ child as
his own, while _deserting, ignoring, denying_ Lionel?
“Great God!” his quaking soul cried out in sheer anguish. “Lionel,
my son; my boy, made in the image of her and me, he who trusts and so
innocently loves me! And yet it must be. Fate has ordained it. I have
his faith and love now, but later he may turn on me like an avenging
angel.”
“My mother soaps me all over before I get out. Must I do it?” the child
asked, as his merry, haunting eyes smiled up through their long, wet
lashes.
“It won't be necessary this time,” Galt said. “The blood is entirely
washed off. Get out and let me dry you with this big towel.”
“Ugh! it is cold.” The boy shuddered, as he stood out on the rug and
allowed himself to be enveloped from head to foot in the big Turkish
towel. He was soon dry, and as he stood, his soft skin flushed as
delicately pink as the inside of a sea-shell, Galt, making many an
awkward mistake, proceeded to dress him.
“Now let me brush your hair; at least, I know how to do that, young
man,” the father said, “but I think it ought to be wet more.”
“Oh no; it is too wet now!” the child declared, as he shook his locks,
the ends of which had been under water. “My mother combs it dry.”
“There, how will that do, Miss Particular?” Galt asked as he led the
child to a large mirror.
“I don't know; it looks funny, somehow”--Lionel made a grimace at his
image in the glass--“but it will have to do. I'd better hurry home. They
might miss me, and find out about the fight. I like you for that.”
“For what?” Galt followed him to the door, and as they started across
the grass toward the cottage he felt Lionel timidly reaching out for his
hand. He had evidently not heard Galt's half-whispered question.
“What was it you said you liked me for?” his father repeated, taking the
little hand and holding it tenderly.
“Oh, because you wanted me to whip him. He's rich and has everything,
and Granny says his father is a great man. I suppose if you liked Grover
the best you would have told _him_ how to fight.”
“You are smaller than he,” Galt said, lamely.
“Then it _wasn't_ because you like me?” Galt felt the little hand
stiffen, as if some impulse of dormant confidence in the tiny palm had
forsaken it.
“Yes, it was because I like you,” Galt said, warmly, and, obeying a
desire he refused to combat, he raised the boy in his arms and held him
tight against his breast. “If he had hurt you, Lionel, I don't know what
I should have done.”
“Then I'm glad I made him bellow,” the boy said, with a little laugh, as
he got down to the ground. “Something had to be done, you know, after he
said that about my mother.”
Yes, something had to be done, Kenneth Galt told his tortured inner
self, as he stood and watched the boy trip lightly homeward--some one
had to fight and struggle and smart as a consequence of the wrong that
had been done, and the duty had fallen on a little child. Through the
slow, weary years of perhaps a long life the fight just beginning would
go on, and the chief cause of it must shirk it all. Galt groaned,
and clinched his hands, and turned back to his desolate home. He had
contended that there was no such thing as spirit, and yet this remorse
raging like a tempest within him certainly had naught to do with matter.
He had argued that man, born of the flesh, could gratify all animal
desires and suffer no ill effects except those excited by physical fear;
but there was nothing to fear in this case. Dora's lips were sealed;
no one else knew the truth, or ever would know, and yet the very skies
above seemed turning to adamant and closing in around him.