Chapter XV: The Inevitable

SUNDAY morning dawned for Norman--if it could be said to dawn at about ten o’clock--with a sense of fatality. At first he didn’t know why. He lay in bed, hearing his mother stirring in the kitchen. Then he remembered. She was getting breakfast for Madge. Madge was coming....

Suddenly in his imagination he saw the two of them left alone together. She would reproach him. Well, she had a right to. And he would feel sorry and ashamed. But he would defend himself--he would try to make her understand. It would be like one of their old-time quarrels. For they had quarreled--and made up. They had kissed and made up, always, and everything had seemed all right again....

Well, perhaps it was inevitable. Everybody seemed to think he had to have a wife. Lucinda had said so. Dr. Zerneke had said so. His mother had as good as said so. A man with a baby was helpless.... And if Madge would marry him....

He turned, as if for the last time, to the thought of Monica.... Reckless little Monica--the rooming house--old Mr. Victor--the homely maternal airs of Mrs. Czermak--the Rabelaisian conversation of Mrs. Case.... He sighed. He knew now that those things weren’t for him....

He rose to face the day and what might come of it.... After all, Madge would be a damned sight nicer wife than he deserved....

Breakfast was getting ready. He walked slowly back and forth.

The bell rang. He went to the door.

Lucinda was there, alone.

“Where’s Madge?” he asked.

“She wouldn’t come,” said Lucinda. “She’s very much upset. I left her at the hotel, packing to go back to Vickley.”

“I’ll go and get her,” said Norman.

“Wait. She wrote this to you last night.”

He took the letter and walked out.

Lucinda ran to the banister and called down to him. “The room is 314--you’d better go right up, Norman, if you want to see her!”

In the street he opened the envelope, stopped short on the corner, and read:

“Dear Norman Overbeck: I came to see your child, not to see you. Perhaps it was foolish of me to come; but I wanted to, and I’m not sorry I did. And I can tell you better in a letter how I feel about you, without seeing you.

“I don’t blame you for what happened. I mean, about the baby. I love your baby. But you weren’t fair to me. You never told me about the other girl. It wasn’t fair to ask me to marry you when you were still in love with her. But I could forgive that, because maybe you didn’t know and thought you were over it. That isn’t what hurts most.

“What hurts is that you should not have trusted me to understand about the baby. You never gave me a chance. You ran away before we could talk it over. You treated me as if I were a conventional little fool. That is what you thought of me. You never came back to explain. You didn’t try to make me understand. You didn’t let me have a chance to say whether I would take the baby or not. You just assumed that I was a certain sort of person. You didn’t trust me, and that’s what I shall never forgive you for.

“I’m not what you think. I’ll tell you this. If it had been I that had had another sweetheart, and found I was going to have a baby when I was engaged to you--I’d have told you, I’d have trusted you, I’d have given you your chance.

“No, I’m not what you think. You never knew me. I hate Vickley as much as you do--more. It’s you who are conventional at heart.

“You never gave me my chance.

“I would rather not see you. Some time I may feel differently, but it is too bitter a subject just now. I’m glad I’ve seen Norman Junior. I’m going back to Vickley in the morning, and I’m leaving with Lucinda some little things I’ve bought for him while I’ve been here.

“Good-by.

“Madge Ferris.”

Norman stood there, with tears in his eyes. He hadn’t known she was like that.... He had been an awful fool. He didn’t understand girls at all....

Well, if he got there before she left, it might still be all right.... It was plain that she still cared for him....

“Taxi?”

“Yes!” He climbed in. “The Annex--quick!” In his imagination he could see Madge in the hotel room, packing.... He saw himself enter ... yes, and quarrel, and kiss. Oh, there was no doubt that they would make up.... And no doubt, either, that that would be the best thing all around....

Only one thing bothered him. Madge wasn’t what he had thought, at all. She wasn’t a doll. She was a real girl, with a heart. She could love, and suffer. She wouldn’t mind being poor with him in Chicago. She would be a mother to his child. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be glad to marry her. And in spite of what she wrote, she would be hoping in her heart that he would come before she packed up and left the hotel. Only one thing stood in the way--and that was something a loving and tender wife could surely banish--the ghost of that girl who was so unaccountably the mother of his child ... Oh, he would forget Isabel in time....

But he might as well settle that now. He looked out, and rapped on the glass. “Stop at that cigar store on the corner for a moment!”

He would send her a telegram, and have that off his mind. He knew her address in Michigan.

“Western Union, please....

“I want to send a telegram....

“To Miss Isabel Drury.... Yes.... Hawk Lake, Michigan.... Just a moment....”

He had known what he was going to say. Something polite and final. But suddenly it was as if Isabel was at the other end of the wire, listening.... and the words went out of his head....

“Just a moment,” he repeated, while the world rocked dizzily about him....

Couldn’t he say the word that would free them both? Couldn’t he let that vain dream go?

It seemed not. A new pattern of words was framing itself in his mind, forcing itself to his lips....

Must he forever be a fool? Must he doom himself to endless unhappiness? It wouldn’t work out. He knew it. He had renounced her. Why couldn’t he take what life offered? Madge--and peace.... Madge--waiting now, ready to forgive him, cherish him, be patient with him....

No.... But at least he could send a sane telegram.

He spoke into the telephone to the impatient operator: “I have it, now. Here’s the message:

“‘Call me McCullough Advertising Agency when you come Chicago this week preferably.’ Signed, ‘Norman.’

“That’s all. How much is it?”

He dropped in the nickels and dimes....

And Madge?--he couldn’t help it, that was all....

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said to the taxi-driver, and handed him a dollar bill.

The taxi drove away, leaving him standing there on the corner.

Yes, no doubt it was a crazy thing to do. But he didn’t care. He had to see this thing through with Isabel....

He began to walk slowly back toward the apartment.

[The End]