Chapter I: The Prodigal

ON a certain Saturday afternoon, Norman Overbeck called up Dr. Zerneke’s office, asking if he might see her. The girl answered without hesitation, “Come right over, please!”

When he arrived, the girl gazed at him curiously. He looked quite the same as she remembered him, with his little stick, his soft hat, his light wavy hair, his polite manner--and his courteous voice, by now familiar to her from hearing it daily over the telephone. It had been her duty during the last two weeks to send a telegram to Gilbert Rand in Vickley, saying, “Telephoned to-day as usual.” For this young man had called up every day, refusing to give any name, and imperiously demanding news of the health of Isabel Drury’s baby. At first she had argued with him about it; but when she had referred the matter to Dr. Zerneke, the doctor had smiled and said: “It’s all right. Tell him. He happens to be the baby’s father.” This week he had shown some anxiety when he heard that the baby had been sent to a “boarding home.” She had assured him that there was nothing to worry about....

The waiting-room to-day was full of women patients, but Norman was ushered immediately into the doctor’s office.

Norman felt rather like a fool--and at the same time quite pleased with himself. Dr. Zerneke, he felt, if anybody, would understand. At any rate, he hoped she would!...

“Well!” said Dr. Zerneke, shaking hands with him. “What have you been doing, these last two weeks?”

“I--why--I’ve been here in Chicago, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Has anybody been looking for me?”

“Everybody has been looking for you,” said Dr. Zerneke. “Your friend Gilbert Rand is here in town looking for you right now. And I’ve been bombarded with telegrams about you. The police would have been looking for you, if you hadn’t turned up pretty quick. What do you mean by disappearing from the world like that?”

“I’m sorry,” said Norman. “Were my family worried?”

“Of course they were worried. They didn’t know whether you were alive or dead.”

“But I sent a letter--”

“So I heard. And it seems to have sounded to your family as if you were intending to commit suicide.”

“Good Lord!” He had left Vickley out of his calculations. In fact, he had managed to keep from thinking very much of the folks at home during these two weeks. It was just like them to act as though he were a runaway child! Why couldn’t they let him alone for once?

“But what have you been up to, all this time?”

“Why, I’ve been getting a job.” He masked his secret pride with an air of casualness.

“A job here in Chicago?”

“Yes.”

“Really!”

“Yes. In an advertising office. Wilkins and Freeman.”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing!” She looked at him curiously.

“Well--as a matter of fact that only took me a week. But I wanted to see whether I could hold the job before I said anything to any one about it. And you gave me two weeks, you know.”

That was by way of reminding her of her promise. He had told her he would be back in two weeks. He hadn’t known, then, what it would mean to come back--over what débris of a wrecked career he would have to clamber.... But here he was.

“The two weeks are up to-day,” he added.

Dr. Zerneke said reflectively: “As I remember, I gave you two weeks to find out if your family would take the baby.”

“Well, you see--I made rather a mess of that,” he confessed.

“I was afraid you might find it difficult to persuade them.”

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t really try. I saw it would be no use. I decided that I’d have to take care of the baby myself.”

“You?”

“Certainly. That’s why I came here and got a job.”

He took out a cigarette, tapped it, and put it back in the case....

“But you must realize,” said Dr. Zerneke, “that this is an entirely new proposal. Last week, it was a question of having the child adopted by a responsible family. Now you make it a question of turning the child over to an irresponsible young man of very uncertain prospects.”

“I don’t think my prospects are so bad, really, Dr. Zerneke,” he protested.

“Would you mind telling me--it’s a question you oblige me to ask--what you are now making, Mr. Overbeck, at your new job?”

“I’m starting in at thirty dollars a week. I know that’s not very much. But it’s merely while I’m on trial. As soon as I show that I can do the work, I’ll get a raise to fifty or sixty. And so on. If I’m any good at all, I’ll be getting eighty-five or ninety in the course of the year. And the rest is up to me.--I’m repeating what my boss told me when I got the job. And, if you can take my word for it, I have some real ability at this kind of work. I ought to be getting my raise within a month or so.”

“It’s not entirely a question of money,” said Dr. Zerneke. “It’s partly a matter of character.”

He hadn’t expected to have to argue about it like this. But he would defend himself if he had to....

“Yes--I know you called me irresponsible. Because I changed my job, I suppose. But you make it sound as if I were a drunkard or a thief. Haven’t I a right to stop being a lawyer if I want to?”

“Look at the thing impersonally for a moment, Mr. Overbeck. Do you really think it is a recommendation of a young man’s character and stability, that he disappears from home for two weeks, allows his family to think him dead--”

“But I didn’t know they were going to think any such idiotic thing.”

“Well, why did you do it? That’s what I don’t understand.”

“Because it was the only way I could be free to--to go ahead with this. I _had_ to cut loose from my family.”

“You wish to acknowledge the child as your son?”

“I do, certainly.”

“And make him your heir?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I should think you could do that without so much melodrama, Mr. Overbeck. You do not need to have left home for that, surely. Your family would have had to reconcile themselves to the fact. If they refused to do so, that would be another matter.”

“But--that isn’t all. I want to have my son with me.”

“You are hardly in a position to take care of him, are you? You have no home at present--I take it that on thirty dollars a week you are living in a furnished room. And you have no one to look after the baby--you’re not married,--and you can scarcely afford to set up an establishment with a housekeeper and nurse. We don’t turn babies over to bachelors, Mr. Overbeck.”

“Is that a rule, Dr. Zerneke? Even when the bachelor happens to be the baby’s father?”

“I admit that precisely such a situation has never come up before in my experience. But there’s another thing--it wouldn’t be fair to the child to pitch him into the middle of a family row. A baby is a baby, Mr. Overbeck. He needs regular meals and sleep, in an atmosphere of peace and affection. He is getting that now. We’ve put him in a boarding home, as it’s called--a private family.”

“Yes, so I heard. What’s--become of Isabel?”

“She has left town.”

“Oh!”

He wouldn’t let himself think about Isabel.... That was all over....

With an effort he put his attention on what Dr. Zerneke was saying:

“If you want to act for the best interests of your child, Mr. Overbeck, you will go back home and straighten things out with your family. And then you will make a will acknowledging the child as your son and naming him as your heir. There is no reason why he should not inherit your share of your father’s estate some day. That is why I suggest that you make up with your family--so that you, and consequently your child, will not be disinherited. Now that you have a child, you must think of such things, and behave sensibly. This is not a matter for histrionics--defiance of your family, and all that.” She paused.

“Yes, I can see your point of view,” said Norman doubtfully.

“In the meantime--I assure you that the Society is glad enough to turn over its financial responsibilities--you can pay for the child’s care. You will be able to see him whenever you like. And later, when you marry, your wife will be prepared to take the child into your home. I believe that I have heard something about your being engaged?”

“Yes, but that’s off. I told her about the baby, and she broke the engagement.”

“No doubt it would be a shock to a girl, coming without warning. Well, if she won’t marry you, some other girl will. Then you can have your child to bring up.”

“Not until then?”

“Certainly not now. What would you do with a four-weeks-old baby, Mr. Overbeck?”

Norman realized with a shock of surprise that the part of his mind which had been taking some satisfaction in the thought of having a son at his side, was picturing this son sometimes as a boy of eighteen and sometimes as a boy of five. His fantasies had all concerned the future, not the present....

“I--I hadn’t worked all that out,” he said.

“I thought not. Tell me, Mr. Overbeck--if you saw a roomful of babies, could you pick out your own child?”

Norman reflected. “I think so,” he said. “He has light hair, like mine, and a queer-shaped head.”

Dr. Zerneke smiled. “Would you like to see him again?”

“Yes. I would.”

“If I can feel safe that you’re not going to do something idiotic, I’ll let you see him.”

“What do you mean, idiotic?”

“Such as trying to kidnap him....”

“Oh, but really--you don’t think I’m as crazy as all that!”

“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m going to let you see him. And as soon as the situation clears up satisfactorily, as I trust it will, we can take the next step.”

“I ought to tell you, Dr. Zerneke, that I have no intention of trying to make up with my family,” said Norman firmly.

“Well, perhaps they will do the making up,” said Dr. Zerneke easily. “And in the meantime the child can stay with Mrs. Czermak. I’ll give you a note to her.”

She took pen and paper, and wrote. Looking up, she said: “You’ll find her a very capable foster-mother. She has an interesting story that I’ll tell you some time. This is the third baby she’s taken care of for me.”

“What,” asked Norman, “happened to the others?” His tone was anxious. He had heard of “baby-farms.”...

Dr. Zerneke smiled. “They came back to their mothers fat and rosy. You needn’t worry about what happens to babies in Mrs. Czermak’s care.”

She handed him the note.

“And by the way,” she said, “we must make up a story for you.”

“A story for me?”

“To account for the baby. You don’t want everybody in Chicago to know the peculiar state of your affairs, do you?”

“No. I’ve had enough of trying to explain it in Vickley.”

“Now when a girl has a fatherless baby, we always advise a wedding ring and a dead husband to simplify matters. But I don’t think you ought to be a widower, Mr. Overbeck.” She paused thoughtfully. “A widower with a baby is the natural prey of womankind. You’ll have a hard enough time as it is. You ought to have a wife, even though an absent one, to scare them off. Now how should we account for her absence? She might be ill--but then people would be sympathetic and inquiring. Can you think of a good story--simple, convincing, and not too interesting?”

“It does seem a rather difficult problem, doesn’t it?” said Norman, trying hard to think.

“T.B. is the only thing I can think of.”

“T.B.?”

“Yes. Your wife has been ordered to Colorado for the sake of her health. She’s in a sanitarium--you can be vague about that: or you can say Dr. Rublee’s sanitarium--there isn’t any such place, but there might be. She’ll have to stay there six months or a year. Yes, I think that will do. You understand just why I advise this story, don’t you? It’s simply to keep you from being married off to the first unattached woman you come across.”

“Do you really think there’s any great likelihood of any one being willing to marry me?”

“My dear man, you don’t know what you’re up against. Well, you can start in practicing your story on Mrs. Czermak, if you like. I told her the mother was ill. You can elaborate it. She’ll be glad enough of the prospect of keeping the baby longer.”

The telephone rang, and Dr. Zerneke turned to answer.

“Yes, connect him, please.... Mr. Rand?... Yes, indeed--your young friend is right here. I’ll let you speak to him.”

She handed the telephone to Norman.

“Hello, Gilbert.”

“Good God, is it really you, Norman?”

“It’s all right, Gilbert. Where are you?”

“At the Annex. What the devil have you been doing?”

“I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll be with you in about an hour.... Keep your shirt on. Good-by!”

He turned to Dr. Zerneke. “You don’t quite realize what I’m in for,” he said.

Dr. Zerneke smiled. “I don’t know your family,” she said, “but I’ve been in communication with your friend Mr. Rand, and you’ll find him quite reasonable, I think.”

“Just the same, I want to make my first visit to--my son. Before I see any one from Vickley.”

“If that will make you feel better, go ahead,” said Dr. Zerneke.

She dismissed him with a warm hand-shake.