He found new comfort in the reflection that his
first-born would be a boy--to grow up and be the idol of a nation.
But a little later he was again thinking of her as "Chubbins," wishing
he had called her that, wishing she had stayed longer out in the scented
night--the wonderful smoothness of her yielding cheek! Her little tricks
of voice and manner came back to him, her quick little patting of
Grandma's back at unexpected moments, the tilting of her head like a
listening bird, that inexplicable look as her eyes enveloped him, a tiny
scar at her temple, mark of an early fall from her pony.
He became sentimental to a maudlin degree. She would go on in her
shallow way of life, smashing windows, voting, leading perfectly decent
young men to do things they never meant to do; but he, the tender, the
true, the ever-earnest, he would not recover from the wound that frail
one had so carelessly inflicted. He would be a changed man, with hair
prematurely graying at the temples, like Gordon Dane's, hiding his hurt
under a mask of light cynicism to all but persons of superior insight.
The heartless quip, the mad jest on his lips! And years afterward, a
deeply serious and very beautiful woman would divine his sorrow and win
him back to his true self.
The wedding! The drive from the church! The carriage is halted by a
street crowd. A stalwart policeman appears. He has just arrested two
women, confirmed window-smashers--Grandma, the Demon, and the flapper.
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