Marriage seemed to me the only worthy solution. But even more clearly than in the hospital days I knew I did not want to marry her. It was, I suppose, above all because I did not love her. It was partly because I liked my bachelor freedom, the coming and going without reference to anyone. It was partly my deep attachment to Norman. I felt he would not care for Ann. Anyway it would break up our household in the Teepee.
At last a letter came setting the date of her arrival. It coincided with a long-standing engagement I had made to lecture on criminology in a western college. I had an entirely cowardly sense of relief in the realization that the meeting and adjustment were postponed. But I thought of little else. Returning from my lectures, on the long ride across half the continent, with the knowledge that Ann was awaiting me in the city, that I could postpone things no longer, I won to a decision. I would see her at the earliest convenience—it seemed more straightforward to see her than to write—and tell her that I did not wish to recommence our intimacy. I might not be able to explain why I wanted to break with her, but I could at least make it plain that I did.
On my return, I found a letter waiting me in the Teepee. It contained her telephone number and a query as to when I could come out for dinner. I called her up at once. I would come that very day. The train out to Cromley seemed perversely slow. I was impatient to be through with it, to get back undisturbed to my work. It was only a short walk from the station to her house. The row of gingerbread cottages along her street is one of the fixtures of my memories.
Ann opened the door for me. She held me out at arm's length a minute.
"Woof!" she said, "You've grown old." Then she gave me a sudden kiss. "Come. You must meet Mother."
In the little parlor, Mrs. Barton greeted me cordially. She was a tall, angular New England woman, dried up in body, but her eyes were still young. I have seen many women like her down Cape Cod way. But her presence threw me into as much confusion as if she had been some threatening sort of an ogress. I could not fight out this matter with Ann before her mother. And some instinct warned me that I must plunge into my subject at once, if I wished to do it at all.
"Dinner is ready," Ann said in the midst of my embarrassment.
"This is my little grandson, William," Mrs. Barton said of a tow-headed youngster, of three, who caught hold of her skirt.
Ann picked him up.
"Can't you shake hands like a gentleman, Billy Boy?" she asked. "No? Well, you don't have to."