“You think I’m making a fool of myself,” he said. “Not at all. I’ve arrived at a very important decision. I’m attempting to provide every possible safeguard. I’m perfectly satisfied on every point but one. I must ask you again, what is the purpose of Albert Scher’s visits to your apartment?”
She smiled. “Really it’s none of your business, is it?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Really—”
“Yes. I think it is. Of course, Miss Winter, you are far too intelligent not to know what I’m driving at. Perhaps I’m not going about it properly; with women I have always been — somewhat — at a loss. Certainly it is obvious that what I wish to propose is that you should be the mother of my son. Six months after I learned that I was not George’s father — by the way, he was named after his real paternal grandfather, which was an unnecessary impertinence — I decided that I should have a son. It took me six months more, of careful consideration and elimination, to decide on you, tentatively at least. I was just about ready to consult you when Kadish died, an unexpected complication. In a way I wasn’t sorry, since the delay made possible a more complete inquiry. I waited a year, a full year, surely all that any standard of decency might require.”
That was that, apparently, for he picked up his knife and fork, parted a chop neatly from its bone, cut a triangular morsel from one corner, and conveyed it to his mouth; following it, after a moment, with bread and butter and two swallows of milk. Lora, fascinated, wondered how many days, weeks even, had passed since he had determined to have lamb chops for dinner on this particular Thursday evening. She decided she must say something.
“In the first place, Mr. Kane, I won’t pretend to resent your insult to my womanhood.”
“Yes. Of course. It isn’t necessary.” The second bite of chop went in.
“But to speak of nothing else, the practical difficulties — for instance, it would be hardly possible to guarantee a son—”
“I told you I am not making a fool of myself, Miss Winter.”
“And do you really mean — would you really have made this proposal to me while Max was alive?”
“I am making it to you today, and Scher and Stephen Adams are alive.”
She caught her breath. “That’s rude, and malicious. What do you know of Stephen Adams? How do you even know he’s alive? I don’t. — Besides, it’s illogical.”
“It is,” he admitted. “The analogy is imperfect. But it was plausible to suppose that Kadish’s fate would resemble that of his predecessors. I was willing to wait.”
“I see. Six months to decide on a son, six more to pick out a mother, and a year to investigate her. These last two months — these dinners — I suppose their purpose was to make me fall in love with you? You were making love to me?”
“Good heavens, no!” His fork wavered in the air, was replaced on the table, then composedly he picked it up again, and resumed, “I selected you for a dozen reasons. You are healthy, and your children are healthy. Your education is sufficient. Your tastes are sound and not extravagant. You are young and handsome. There is no sentimental nonsense in your head. You have lived with three men, been faithful to each, and devoted to none. You never go to church. As for the past two months, there are certain personal inclinations that are discoverable only by intimate and frequent observation. Table manners. Cleanliness. Nervous habits — little nervous habits that escape the ordinary observer. If I thought I could make you love me I might try, though for my present purpose it would probably be inadvisable. My wife has told the father of her children — the letters have been destroyed, but I preserve them in code — that if I were left alone in the world with a million women the race would perish. She is a wit. You must understand one thing, the arrangement between us will be one of complete mutual trust. I do my investigating before, not after. I shall not annoy you. Your income, an adequate one, will begin at once. The details are here.”
Lora, overwhelmed, took the blue folded paper which he drew from his pocket and handed to her; it consisted of four closely typewritten sheets; opening it at random, she saw near the middle of the third page:
17. In the event of an irreconcilable disagreement between A and B regarding education after the tenth year, the person named in paragraph 9 shall be consulted and his decision accepted as final.
She refolded the paper and handed it back to him. Of course, a joke. No, actually, it wasn’t. She felt she must laugh, but she knew it was impossible. Poor man. She could laugh later. Somewhere behind the elaborate ridiculous façade, beneath the thick crust of efficient calculations and crisp phrases, even between the lines of the preposterous typewritten sheets, his harassed soul was squealing and trying to wriggle out of its trap. She could laugh later.
“So you haven’t been making love to me,” she said.
“No.”
“Of course I’m flattered by your list of my virtues. But a little skeptical. It’s too much to expect, even of myself. And I would die of anxiety for fear it might be a girl.”
“Even there your record is good. Two to one”
“True,” she smiled. “But no. I won’t crowd my luck.”
“There’s no hurry. Here.” He placed the paper back on the table beside her plate. “Take that home and read it. Take all the time you want. My mind’s set on this, but there’s no hurry. Let’s talk of something else. Did you see those pictures I spoke of — the moderns at Knoedler’s? If you like the one next to the end on the right as you go in, the red and blue things on a raft or something in the ocean, you can have it.”
He turned and called to the waiter, who hurried over.
“Take these away and bring the salad.”
III
Leah, her bulging form tightly encased in a shiny pink silk dress, the integrity of its seams a desperate tribute to the stubborn heroism of thread, sat in a straight-backed chair by the dining-room window looking vaguely down into the summer lethargy of Seventy-first Street. Suddenly, for the twentieth time within an hour, imagining she heard a noise from the next room, she went to the door and softly opened it, fastened her black Asiatic eyes on Morris sound asleep in his crib, closed the door again and returned to her chair. She was furiously angry. On Sunday afternoons she was permitted — “permitted, my God” — to take the baby, alone, into the park. Outside was July sunshine and a pleasant breeze, not at all hot; and merely because that fool of a doctor didn’t like the baby’s breathing here she was, helpless, sitting in a chair listening to that stupid man with yellow hair talking to that little baby girl — well — he was a bigger fool than the doctor. There was nothing wrong with Morris anyway; tomorrow she would come back and take him out into the sun, and let them try to stop her!
“Here’s another one with a donkey,” the man with yellow hair was saying. “Look, Helen. See the way his tail hangs down. See the lines of the branches on the cypress trees, they hang down the same way. That’s pretty nice. Don’t you think that’s a nice one?”
He was seated across the room near the large table, with Helen on his knee and a portfolio of lithographs propped up so she could see. Five-year-old Roy, silent and looking a little bored, stood at his other side.
“What do the words say?” demanded the girl.
The man frowned. “There aren’t any. Look, can’t you see? There aren’t any words. Pictures are one thing, and words are another thing; I’ve told you that a hundred times. I suppose you’d better say it yourself, repeat it... No, that won’t do, that won’t do, don’t say it. You must feel it. You must feel it. See, here are these lovely trees and this lovely donkey, all these lovely lines — what do you want with words?”