Finally, when he could bear it no longer, he crossed to the door and opened it just in time to see the maid disappearing into the room opposite Marie’s with a little white bundle in her arms. The doctor, following her into the hall, saw Hanley approaching, and leading him back into his own room, closed the door after him.
“Well?” said Hanley.
“You have a son,” said the doctor. “A fine boy. But—”
“Well?” repeated Hanley impatiently.
“I am afraid it has killed your wife,” the doctor said bluntly. One expected Thomas Hanley to bear anything.
Hanley’s hands closed on the doctor’s shoulders like grips of steel.
“Is she dead?” he asked calmly.
“No.” The doctor winced under Hanley’s grasp. “But I can give you little hope. I shall do my best.”
Hanley turned without a word and passed to Marie’s room. She was lying with her head propped up by a pillow, her face deathly pale, her eyes closed. Mrs. Barber sat on the edge of the bed, holding her daughter’s hand. As Hanley entered she looked up and placed her fingers to her lips to enjoin silence.
Hanley crossed over to the bedside and stood looking down at his wife, his lips sternly compressed, his hands twitching nervously. Marie’s eyes opened as though with an effort, and, seeing her husband, she tried to sit up. Mrs. Barber gently pressed her back on the pillow. Marie held out her hand, and Hanley awkwardly took it in his.
“Thomas,” said Marie faintly; and then, with a shudder: “How I hate that name!”
“I... I don’t like it very well myself,” said Hanley.
“I want — you — to — tell me — something,” said Marie. The words came with difficulty. “I know you — wouldn’t lie. Mother told me it is a little girl, but she looked so queer, and she wouldn’t let me—”
Her voice died away, but she kept her eyes on Hanley’s face in mute appeal.
Hanley bent over to kiss the hand he held and saw Mrs. Barber’s eyes full of tears. Then:
“It is a little girl,” he said. “A little blue-eyed girl.”
Marie sighed long and happily and closed her eyes, and as Hanley turned to leave the room Mrs. Barber caught his hand and kissed it. The doctor, meeting him at the door, asked him not to return till he was called, saying that Marie required absolute quiet. Hanley nodded and sought his own room.
Five, ten minutes passed. As before, the sound of voices came faintly through the wall. Would they never cease? He passed his hand across his brow and found it wet.
It is a painful thing to find one’s heart at forty, and delightful. Of course, Marie would live. Hanley found himself making plans for the future with a boyish fancy. What would he not do for her? It would be pretty hard, he reflected grimly, for Thomas Hanley to learn how to play, but it was for Marie. She would be disappointed to find a son instead of a daughter, but still he would make her happy.
Then the present recurred to his mind and filled him with a redoubled fear. He listened; the voices in her room had ceased and he thought he heard someone sobbing. He could bear it no longer; he must go to her.
The doctor met him at the door of Marie’s room. Hanley asked with his eyes. The doctor, who again felt that there was no need of gentleness with Thomas Hanley, used none.
“She is dead,” he said simply.
Hanley stared at him, unbelieving. Then he walked over to the bed and, kneeling by it, gazed steadily at the pallor of death on the face resting heavily against the pillow.
“Mrs. Barber,” he said, “I have killed your daughter. I have killed Marie.” And again, as he rose to his feet: “I have killed Marie.”
The doctor, not understanding, protested.
Hanley leaped toward him. The floodgates that had been closed for a lifetime burst suddenly.
“Curse you!” he screamed. “Don’t you lie to me! I tell you I killed her with a lie! Because I lied, God has killed her! I killed her!”
He threw himself on the bed and took Marie’s head to his breast in a wild embrace, sobbing like a woman.
Through the window came the breath of spring. Mrs. Barber was kneeling by the bed, weeping silently. From the hall came the sound of Maggie sniffling in the corner where Marie had said she could stay.
If He Be Married
It was an April morning in New York; that is to say, perfect. From the Battery there comes a breath of the sea; from Westchester, a scent of the country; and when the two unite the result is intoxication.
At such a time the strugglers of Manhattan are kept to their daily tasks only by their native instinct to herd. It is certain that if anyone of them should become temporarily insane, pull on his coat, and start for the Catskills the city would be depopulated in thirty minutes.
For if ever spring is spring, it is so in New York.
So thought Carl McNair, bookkeeper for Cohen & Aduchefsky, manufacturers of ladies’ dresses. And with him the desire to attend Pan’s symphony had nothing of the vagueness of ignorance. He had heard it before.
In January he had arrived in New York with a capital of two hundred dollars, a good education, a pleasing appearance, and an engaging manner. Also, he possessed great expectations. But getting a start in the metropolis is largely a matter of luck, and Carl had been unlucky.
At one time he was almost ready to give it up; but at the thought of the smiles and I-told-you-sos that would celebrate his return he strengthened his vows, burned another bridge or two, and tried again.
He had at first determined to take no position unless it measured up to his powers and requirements as he figured them, but by the time his two hundred dollars had been cut in half he was considerably less squeamish; and, in place of “holding himself open for an advantageous offer,” he began to look for a job.
That, of course, was simple. Nothing in New York is easier than getting a job, except, perhaps, getting out of one.
On the day that he began posting the ledgers of Cohen & Aduchefsky, manufacturers of ladies’ dresses, he felt himself forever disgraced. But even that, he reflected, was better than returning to Caxton.
And besides, it was purely temporary. Which proves that he knew nothing of the awful power of the millstones of a metropolis.
Carl was twenty-two, lovable, able, and ambitious; and yet he was in a very fair way to become a head bookkeeper at thirty, go to the Hippodrome each year, marry a stenographer, and live in Brooklyn, if it had not been for an incredible piece of luck and the mysterious ways of the little naked god.
On this particular April morning he was more than usually lonesome and dissatisfied.
It was Saturday, the last day of his third week at Cohen & Aduchefsky’s. As Miss Alteresko, the stenographer, entered the office he groaned audibly. It is true that Miss Alteresko was not beautiful, and she was a girl, and no girl should be forced to pound a typewriter in April. It is a crime against nature.
“You don’t feel well, Mr. McNair,” she observed.
Carl said that he felt as well as could be expected, and began billing the orders for the day before. Miss Alteresko sat regarding his back with a curious air of interest until the door opened to admit Mr. Cohen, when she started to bang the typewriter with a becoming zeal.
Mr. Cohen gave his usual good morning, half groan and half grunt, and proceeded to the sample room.
To Carl the morning passed with exasperating slowness. Through the open window came the alluring call of spring, little unmistakable breaths and cadences that reach to the most hidden vault and the deafest of ears.
Eleven o’clock found the billing still unfinished, with Carl gazing at the calendar above his desk in a sort of helpless resentment.
At sound of the chimes on the Metropolitan Tower he awoke with a start and fell to his task resignedly; and as he glanced through the latticed window which looked out on the salesroom he saw Mr. Cohen regarding him with an air of disapproval. An hour later he closed the sales book with a bang, stuffed the bunch of orders in the drawer of his desk, and, turning to look through the window for the ubiquitous Mr. Cohen, found himself gazing directly into the most beautiful pair of eyes in the world.