Chapter XII: Bad Dreams

BUT what could he do that afternoon?...

Two o’clock found him back in Dr. Zerneke’s waiting room.

“Have you looked us up?” asked Dr. Zerneke cheerfully, when he was admitted to her office.

“If I were a poor devil of a soda-fountain clerk,” said Norman, “and Isabel a stenographer I had got into trouble--what would you do?”

“Just what I have done in this case,” said Dr. Zerneke. “The rest, so far as I am concerned, would be up to you and her. Did you ask her to marry you?”

“Yes,” said Norman. “And she refused.”

“I thought that was what would happen,” said the doctor. “She’s a very determined young woman. And all women are not to be forced into a single mold. She wants her career. So we must find the child a proper home.”

“Yes, I understand that,” said Norman. “But what I object to is this business of turning the baby over to strangers!”

“They are not strangers to the Society,” said Dr. Zerneke. “We have more applicants than we have babies, and as I told you, they are very thoroughly investigated. We know all about them.”

“But I don’t,” said Norman stubbornly.

“I’m afraid that can’t be helped,” said Dr. Zerneke. And then she repeated her question: “Have you made inquiries about the work of our Society?”

“Oh,” said Norman, “I’ve no doubt your Society is all right. But--” He paused helplessly.

“I was sure you would come to that conclusion,” said Dr. Zerneke. And then, as he sat there, silent and troubled, she added: “I don’t wish to take advantage of your situation, Mr. Overbeck, but if it would help to ease your feelings the Society would be glad to accept a check to help carry on its work.”

“Yes,” he said, “I’ll be glad to do that.”

He took out his check-book and his fountain-pen, and started to write. But suddenly he laid down his pen.

“No,” he said, “I can’t buy them off that way.”

He spoke softly, as if to himself, but Dr. Zerneke asked sharply:

“Buy who off?”

“The bad dreams--the pictures,” he said. “The things that come into my mind.”... A frightful vision had visited him as he held the pen poised over the check. It was like the one that had come to him at lunch, with Gilbert--only worse, this time. Its misty fringes still clung to his mind and afflicted him with horror.

The doctor seemed to understand. She reached out and put her hand for a moment on one of his stooped, miserable shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What do you want to do?”

“I--I don’t know,” he said.

That vision-- No, of course nothing like that would ever really happen. But was he to be tormented with such pictures all his life? In every handcuffed youth being taken to prison--in every poster offering a reward for a young murderer--was he to seek for the features of his unknown son?

“If you have any practical alternative to offer--” the doctor was saying.

His mind was still grappling with the thought of a life haunted by such visions.... His wife would say, “Dearest, you’re positively morbid about crime-news!” He would have legitimate sons. “Dad, don’t you think I’m old enough to have a car of my own?” And then he would have to think about his other son, the one nobody knew about--a tramp, perhaps, freezing on the rods of a freight-train. He would be like a man haunted.

“Do you think your own family would care to adopt the child?” Dr. Zerneke asked. “Is that what you would like to do?”

“I hadn’t thought of that!” he said. “Of course--that’s what I’ll do!”

“Well,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “you can consult them about it, and let me know.”

Some dim apprehension of the actualities of that proposal came to him, clouding his relief. “Yes,” he said, “I’ll have to put it up to them....”

“Of course,” said the doctor, “they may not take kindly to the idea.”

“They’ll--_have_ to do it!” said Norman.

“We’ll see,” said the doctor. “But I hope there will not be too much delay in settling the matter, one way or another.”

“I’ll go back home to-night,” said Norman.

“And do you think you’ll be able to give me the decision within, say, two weeks?”

“Oh, yes,” he said.

She rose. “I’ll expect to see or hear from you in a fortnight, then.”

“In two weeks from to-day,” he said, “I shall come here to get my son,” and he walked out like some one in a dream.