Chapter SIX: I

"It seems to be my fate," said Polly to herself, "to be always forgiving and benefiting those that despitefully use me. Imagine me taking this child--Vincent’s child--and not feeling the least resentment toward Angelica. I’m only sorry for her."

She was watching the baby lying on the lap of a lively and capable young nurse, whom she had got by telephone.

"I’m going to adopt this child," she had explained to the young woman. "His mother can’t keep him."

"It’s a risk," said the nurse. "You never know how they’ll turn out; but he’s a pretty little fellow--big gray eyes and all. He’s been badly fed, but I guess we can build him up."

Polly lapsed into a strange, an inexpressible mood. Vincent’s baby! Wasn’t it really sent to her to take the place of the one she had so cruelly lost? She certainly didn’t intend to pass the child off as her own, but she would adopt it and bring it up. She would love it. The starved and thwarted love which no one else wanted welled up in her heart.

"He’ll be a lot of trouble to you," said the nurse, looking about the orderly, pretty little place. "You certainly are good to take such a burden on yourself."

"I lost a little child of my own," said Polly.

And a dreadful pity for herself, and for Angelica, came over her.

She might well be sorry for Angelica, going out of the house without that little burden in her arms.

This was the supreme hour of Angelica’s punishment--the inhuman struggle between her heart and her brain. She did not look upon it as a punishment, however; she looked upon this horrible renunciation of her child as a part of the price she was obliged to pay for a magnificent future. She was bent, resolute, with all the savage resolution of her lawless soul, to marry Eddie and to obtain all that she so desired. If she must sacrifice her child, then she would do so, though it left a wound never to be healed.

She didn’t seek for happiness; if it had been that she wanted, she would have kept her little baby. She was ready and willing to give up happiness for success. She wished to vindicate herself, to give proof to the world of the power which she knew to be within herself.

Oh, to be going home alone, with empty arms! It was too cruel! She longed for the feel of that little body, for the sound of its feeble voice, for its eyes looking up at her in pain and innocence. She walked through the streets with streaming eyes, running against people, indifferent to abuse or remonstrance.

"I _can’t_ go home without him!" she gasped. "Oh, my little feller! I can’t go home and see his little clothes--and his empty basket!"

She stopped short.

"No!" she said. "I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can’t. I got to have him back. I’d rather he died home with me. Oh, I wish we _were_ dead, the two of us, dead and buried--him and me in one grave!"

She turned and retraced her long road to Polly’s house, as far as the door; but she did not go in.

"No! Him in there with a trained nurse--no! I’ll give him his chance, my poor little feller; and I’ll give myself a chance, too," she added. She started down-town again; but the nearer she got to home, the more unbearable was the idea of entering there, alone.

"If only I was over this first night!" she moaned. "If I could only just forget him till to-morrow!"

II

Mrs. Kennedy kept on working. She didn’t dare to stop, to give herself a moment to think.

They were both gone. Very well! She would simply expect them back, resolutely refusing to think where they had gone, what they might be doing. At five o’clock in the afternoon she began to clean her flat. Then she cooked a nice little supper and set it in the oven to keep warm. She mixed condensed milk and water in a bottle for the baby. She boiled its dirty clothes. Then, in a desperate search for work to do, she found an old pair of white shoes of Angelica’s, and began to clean them, singing all the while in a weird, cracked voice:

"_Af_-ter the ball is _o_-ver, af-_ter_ the ball is done."

She was trying with all her might to keep out of her head a terrible vision of a young mother standing on a bridge at night, with her baby in her arms.

Still humming, she went into the bedroom, undressed, and got into bed, in a waking nightmare, half hypnotizing herself with her monotonous little song. She was too far gone even to feel relieved when at last she heard Angelica’s footsteps in the hall, heard her go into the kitchen and light the gas. Then silence. She lay listening for the baby’s cry; there wasn’t a sound.

"What can she be doing in there?" she thought. "And what makes the baby so quiet?"

Fear struggled against the lethargy that engulfed her. She got up, went to the kitchen, and stood in the doorway in her long, old-fashioned nightgown, regarding her child. Angelica sat beside the table, with a small box in her lap.

"Angie! Where’s the baby?" cried her mother.

"Gone," said Angelica. "I got a lady to take him."

"Your own child?" screamed her mother. "Your own little baby? Oh, shame on you!"

"Shut up! You don’t understand. Do you think I liked to give him away?"

"Then get him back! Get him back, Angie! I’ll work for him till I drop. Don’t give him up!"

"He’s gone, I tell you. Let me alone! Can’t you see how I feel?"

"Then why, why, why did you do it, Angie?"

Angelica stared at her somberly.

"I don’t know," she said. "I had to. I thought it would be the best thing for him. She--the woman that’s taken him--she can do a lot for him. She’s kind and good. You’d like her."

"Who is she?"

Angelica did not intend to tell. She was too well aware of the preposterousness of having taken Vincent’s child to his wife.

"No one you know," she said.

Her mother was completely softened by this new idea, that Angelica had given up her dearly loved child for its own good.

"You poor girl!" she said. "I suppose you meant to do what was best for him. But----”

"I thought it would help me, too," said Angelica. "I couldn’t keep him."

Mrs. Kennedy was shocked. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Angelica stopped her with a quick gesture.

"No more!" she said. "I’ve had enough. Now you better go back to bed."

"I don’t want to leave you," said her mother. She could imagine how hideous would be Angelica’s loneliness.

"You better!"

"Why? What are you going to do?"

Angelica held up her tiny box.

"Heroin," she said. "I got it off a feller I know. I don’t want to think about anything to-night."

For an instant the small figure in the long night-dress wavered; then, with a pitiful scream, she ran out of the room and cast herself on her bed.

"It’s too much, God!" she cried. "I can’t bear any more. Take me to-night, oh, merciful God!"

III

Mrs. Kennedy listened in vain all through the night. From time to time she dozed, to wake with a start of fright. She had no knowledge of drugs, only horrible superstitions. She expected Angelica to be changed in some way beyond recognition. Would she be violent--fight and struggle with her? Would she kill herself--set the house on fire?

At dawn she waked from a brief nap, resentful to find herself still alive. Sick with apprehension, weary beyond all measure, she went into the kitchen, to see what had become of her child.

Angelica was asleep, with her head on the table. Beside her lay her tiny package, unopened.

She raised her head and looked at her mother with dark and heavy eyes.

"All right, mommer!" she said. "It’s over!"

"What? What’s over?"

"All of--of that. I’m going to start all over again."

"You can’t, Angie. You can’t undo what’s done."

"I have," she said solemnly. "I’ve just wiped it out. I haven’t done any harm to any one but myself, and I’m going to forget that. All the traces of it are gone. Eddie’ll never know; and so he’ll be happy! I have undone it, mommer; it’s just the same now as if _that_ had never happened."

Her mother, shivering, racked by her night’s anguish, looked sternly at her.

"That’s because you don’t know," she said. "You don’t know yet what you’ve done!"