During the second week in June, Beatrix's baby was born, and for days
afterward, the mother's life, so long in danger, now hung by a thread.
Then the good old fibre of the Danes reasserted itself, and Beatrix came
slowly upward from the verge of the River of Death. Bobby's face cleared
itself of its shadows, Thayer signed his contracts and, the next week,
he and Arlt finally sailed for Europe.
In the long days of her convalescence, Beatrix manifested an utter
indifference to the tidings from the outer world. She lay by the hour,
her baby on her arm, looking down at the fuzzy little head and the red
little face whose indeterminate features were fast taking the stamp of
those of their father. Strange to say, the fact caused Beatrix no
repulsion. The fires of her being seemed to have burned themselves out,
and even her feeling to Lorimer shared in her general apathy. In the
weeks which had followed his death, she had made up her mind that the
baby would be fashioned in his image; and she accepted the fact
philosophically, as a part of her life from which there was no appeal.
From the first, the baby was a quiet child. Apparently he shared his
mother's apathy towards all things, and he lay by the hour in a sluggish
drowse, leaving his mother free to allow her thoughts to wander at will.
They did wander, too. Lying there, passive, in her luxurious room,
Beatrix's mind scaled the heights of heaven, sounded the depths of hell.
The one had lain within her reach; but she had never known it until too
late. The other had crossed her path in the past; it was opening before
her future. Her baby boy, so plainly created in the physical likeness of
his father, could not have failed to receive something of his moral
nature. She quailed before the grim promise of the future and, drawing
the blanket over her face, she tried to shut out the sight and the
thought of her child. And, in the first weeks of her wedded life, she
had so longed for the time when a baby head should cuddle into the curve
of her arm! At the thought, she pulled the blanket away again
impetuously and, of its own accord, her arm tightened around the little
bundle of flannels. He was not entirely Lorimer's child; he was her
own, her very own. He must have inherited something of the sturdy
constitution, the steady nerves of the Danes. The stronger, better blood
was bound to triumph; and she would work unceasingly to oust that other
taint from his nature. He was her child; she loved him, and she would
give her life to the training which should make him able to wipe out the
stain upon his father's record.
July was burning the white asphalt streets, before Beatrix was strong
enough to be moved to Monomoy. Bobby dropped in to see her, the
afternoon before she left town.
"Funny little beggar!" he observed, as he sat down opposite Beatrix and
gravely inspected the baby in her arms.
"What do you think of him?" Beatrix asked, while she smoothed down the
wholly superfluous skirt and then, tilting the baby forward,
straightened the frills on the back of his little yoke.
"Oh, he's not so bad as he might be," Bobby responded encouragingly, as
he snapped his fingers in the face of the child who stared back at him
impassively.
The mother's face flushed.
"What do you mean, Bobby?" she asked a little sharply.
Too late, Bobby saw his blunder. In his consternation, he blundered yet
more.
"I had no idea he would be half so presentable a boy. Just the living
image of Lorimer; isn't he?"
"You see it, too?"
Bobby was at a loss to interpret the sudden incisive note in her voice.
No one had warned him that the baby's likeness to his father had been a
forbidden subject, and he could not know that Beatrix, in brooding over
the matter, had reached a point where she questioned whether the
resemblance might not exist solely in her own imagination. Bobby's next
words annulled that hope and confirmed her fears.
"He's as like him as two peas, cunning as he can be. There, boy, look at
your Uncle Bobby!" Bobby bent forward and with his forefinger gently
tilted the little face upward. "Lorimer's eyes to perfection," he
observed. Then, as he met Beatrix's eyes, he suddenly understood their
wild appeal. Dropping the baby's chin, he laid his hand on his cousin's
shoulder. "I wouldn't worry about that, Beatrix," he added reassuringly.
"He probably will take it out in looking, and, for his character, hark
back to some remote Dane or other. Lorimer was a handsome fellow, and
the baby might do worse than look like him. Otherwise, he may go off on
a tangent. Suppose he should take after me, for instance!"
Bobby spoke cheerily, hoping that Beatrix's laugh would follow his
words. Instead, she caught his hand with her disengaged one and pressed
it fiercely to her cheek.
"Oh, Bobby, I wish he would!" she cried.
Bobby looked rather abashed. He and Beatrix had been intimate from their
babyhood; yet neither one of them was prone to self-betrayal, and this
was the most demonstrative scene which had ever taken place between the
cousins. As a rule, they were too sure of each other to feel the need
for expressions of affection. For a minute, Bobby patted Beatrix's cheek
with clumsy gentleness. Then he returned to the baby.
"Come here, old man! Come to your Uncle Bobby!" he urged, holding out
his hands invitingly. "Come along here." And before Beatrix could utter
a word of protesting caution, the baby was lying in the hollow of
Bobby's elbow and blinking up at his new nurse with round brown eyes.
Bobby stared down at him benignly.
"Feels cunning; doesn't he, Beatrix? He seems to fit into one's grip
rather well. One can't help liking the little beggar. By the way,
what's his name?"
"Sidney," Beatrix responded quietly.
"The deuce!" In his surprise, Bobby almost dropped the baby.
Beatrix answered his unspoken thought.
"Yes, I have decided that it is best. I must meet fate anyway, and I may
as well do it boldly, with a direct challenge. The name won't make any
difference to the baby, and it may help to make me more patient and
forgiving."
Gently Bobby laid the baby back into Beatrix's arms. Then he rose.
"No," he said slowly; "it won't make any difference, and it gives the
chance of bringing the name back to its old standing. You may take lots
of comfort with the boy, Beatrix. I hope so with all my heart, for I
know how you need it. Things have gone rather against you, these last
months; but perhaps the bad times are all over now." At the door, he
lingered and looked back. "If you need me at Monomoy, Beatrix, don't
hesitate to send for me. Sometimes it is a comfort to have somebody of
one's own generation within hail."
Six weeks later, she realized the truth of his words when Bobby came
striding into the room, with the family doctor at his heels. For the
past forty-eight hours, Beatrix had watched convulsion after convulsion
rack the tiny frame, wear itself out and die away, only to be followed
by another and yet another. Under this new sorrow, the grandparents had
given way entirely. They were powerless to help, and Beatrix, pitying
their misery which she knew was more than half for her sake, had sent
them away from the room. For forty-eight hours, she and the nurse had
kept an unbroken vigil; and Beatrix had held herself steady until she
had caught sight of Bobby's strong, happy, pitiful face in the doorway.
When she came to herself once more, she was lying on the couch in the
hall, with Bobby beside her and Bobby's protecting arm around her
shoulders.
"It may not be so bad, dear," he was saying soothingly. "Schirmer will
pull him through, if anybody can, and he says it isn't at all hopeless.
Lots of youngsters have convulsions and come out of them, jolly as
grigs."
Beatrix saw no need for telling him the new fear which had tortured her,
during those endless hours of waiting after she had sent off her
telegram. Instead, she took his sympathy as it was given, with loving
optimism; but she nestled even more closely against her cousin's side,
as if for the hour she gained strength from the touch of his protecting
arm. It was her one spot of perfect restfulness.
Late that night, Bobby had a talk with the doctor. It left him glad that
already he had spoken with encouragement to Beatrix. The next two days,
he gave his time to her absolutely. Then his official summons came, and
reluctantly he returned to his desk.
By the time Beatrix was in town again, she was ready to admit to herself
that hopelessness might mean something worse than death. By the end of
the winter, the _might_ had ceased to be potential and had become
actual. Since those August days at Monomoy, the convulsions had recurred
at irregular intervals. The physical constitution of the Danes had
refused to give way to them; the nervous instability of the Lorimers had
yielded to them utterly. Unless some miracle intervened, the child must
face a future of vigorous body and enfeebled brain; and Beatrix, as she
watched him, told herself the melancholy truth that the day of miracles
was irrevocably dead. It seemed to her that the years were stretching
out before her in an empty, unending trail, that she must follow it
alone, hand in hand with her child, bound forever to watch for the
signs of an intellect which never, never should appear. And she was the
one to blame. It was no less her own fault, because she had assumed the
responsibility in arrogant ignoring of its true import.
One afternoon in late May found her sitting by the open window with the
child in her arms, when Thayer was announced. She greeted him with
something of her old cordiality. Then she rang for the nurse to take
away the baby.
"When did you get home again?" she asked, when they were seated alone
together.
"This morning. I landed at ten, and I came directly to you."
She ignored the eagerness of his tone.
"You have been wonderfully successful, I am told."
"Well enough. It was nothing wonderful, though."
"Bobby has kept me informed of your glories," she insisted, with a
slight smile; "and Mr. Arlt has really enjoyed them as well as if they
had been his own."
"That is characteristic of Arlt. His letters were noncommittal; but
Bobby says he has had his own fair share of honors. I am glad, for he
deserves them."
"Indeed he does," she assented heartily. "We all are so glad for him;
and it is a delight to watch the odd, boyish modesty with which he
accepts his own fame. He is the most unspoiled genius I have ever
known."
There was a short silence. Thayer grew restless under it. He had not
hurried his return, left his luncheon untasted and escaped from a dozen
reporters, in order to sit and discuss Arlt with that black-gowned woman
the tip of whose finger outweighed for him the clumsy honors of the
earth. All the way over, he had paced the steamer's deck by the hour,
planning what words he should say to Beatrix when at last they stood
face to face, with only the long-buried dead between them. He had
supposed that lie had learned his lesson by heart. Nevertheless, now
that he was at last in her presence, his words fled from his mind.
Beatrix broke the silence.
"You have seen Bobby, then?"
"He met me at the steamer."
She raised her eyes to his, half-appealingly, half-defiantly.
"And he told you--"
"He has told me everything," Thayer interrupted her. He rose restlessly,
crossed the room to the mantel and examined a vase with unseeing eyes.
Then, returning, he halted directly before her, straightened his
shoulders and drew a deep, full breath. "Beatrix?" he said unsteadily.
She shrank from before the words she had been dreading for so long.
"Don't!" she begged him.
"But I must." His voice was steady now. "We both of us know the truth,
and the time has come when we can acknowledge it. I have waited long,
dear, long and patiently. For fifteen months, I have left you to
yourself and to the past. Now it is time for the future. I have come
home, Beatrix, to marry you at last."
Before the glad tenderness that thrilled in his tone, she sank back in
her deep chair and buried her face in her hands. Thayer waited quietly,
patiently. He had told his story; he could afford to wait for her
answer, since he never doubted what it was to be. The silence between
them lasted for moments. From upstairs in another part of the house,
there came a fretful childish cry. Then the stillness dropped again. At
length, Beatrix let her hands fall into her lap. There was an instant of
utter listlessness; then quietly she rose and stood facing him, drawn to
her full height. Her cheeks were white, her eyes unstained by any tears,
her voice quite level.
"I am sorry," she said slowly; "but what you ask is impossible."
He started, as if struck with a lash.
"What do you mean?"
"That I cannot marry you."
He stared at her in amazement, while the color left his cheeks and then
rushed again to his temples where the veins stood out like knotted
cords. For the moment, he was angry, baffled by the shock of her
unexpected answer. Then he mastered himself.
"Do you not love me any longer?" he asked.
"Any longer?" Her tone sought to express haughty disdain; but her eyes
drooped before the fire in his own.
"Never mind the words," he said sharply. "In times like this, one can't
stop to pick for rhetorical effects. It is enough that I love you with
all the manhood there is in me, and that for months I have counted upon
winning your love in return. And now--"
She interrupted him.
"And now you have found out your mistake," she said sadly.
"Yes." There was a long interval of silence, before he added, "And is
this final?"
"It is." Her stiffened lips could scarcely form the words.
He turned to go away. All the alertness which had marked his coming had
dropped away from him. He moved slowly and with drooping shoulders.
Already his face had grown haggard underneath the bronzing of his sea
voyage. Beatrix stood motionless, watching him, struggling to master
herself, to hold herself firmly to her resolve which had been taking
shape within her, during all that past winter and spring.
Halfway across the room, Thayer hesitated, turned and came back to her
side.
"Beatrix," he said impetuously; "we may as well face this thing
squarely. It won't be the first time. We didn't wreck the future then;
we mustn't do it now. The cases are different, though. This time, the
danger lies in half-truths. We must speak plainly."
She attempted to check him; but, for the once, she was powerless to stem
the tide of his words, and he hurried on,--
"We loved each other. There is no disloyalty to Lorimer in admitting it
now. He belonged to the past, and, in that past, you belonged to him.
The past is over and ended now, and, for the future, we must belong to
each other. It is for that that I am here."
She tried in vain to control her voice. Then she shook her head.
"What has come between us?" he demanded. "You did love me. Look up,
Beatrix! Yes, your eyes tell the truth about it. You love me now; I am
here to prove it, and to marry you in spite of yourself."
Gently she put away his arms and faced him.
"No. It is impossible."
He wavered before the finality of her tone.
"But you love me," he urged.
She was silent, and stood with her eyes fixed on the floor at his feet.
Then, of a sudden, she raised her eyes to his, and Thayer was dazzled by
the light that was shining in them.
"Yes," she answered, with a quiet dignity which he could not gainsay.
"And that is the very reason that I will not marry you. I love you too
well--so well that I can never allow you to become the father of Sidney
Lorimer's child."