The significance of that quietly uttered phrase did not escape me. Our glances met and locked.
“There are the children,” I reminded her. And she looked a very commercialized young lady as she sat confronting me across her many columns of figures.
“There should be no difficulty there—provided the suit is not opposed,” she repeated with the air of a physician confronted by a hypochondriacal patient.
“The children are mine,” I rather foolishly proclaimed, with my first touch of passion.
“The children are yours,” she admitted. And about her hung an air of authority, of cool reserve, which I couldn’t help resenting.
“That is very generous of you,” I admitted, not without ironic intent.
She smiled rather sadly as she sat looking at me.
“It’s something that doesn’t rest with either of us,” she said with the suspicion of a quaver in her voice. And she, I suddenly remembered, might some day sit eating her pot of honey on a grave. I realized, too, that very little was to be gained by 355 prolonging that strangest of interviews. I wanted quietude in which to think things over. I wanted to go back to my cell like a prisoner and brood over my sentence....
And I have thought things over. I at last see the light. From this day forward there shall be no vacillating. I am going back to Casa Grande.
I have always hated this house; I have always hated everything about the place, without having the courage to admit it. I have done my part, I have made my effort, and it was a wasted effort. I wasn’t even given a chance. And now I shall gather my things together and go back to my home, to the only home that remains to me. I shall still have my kiddies. I shall have my Poppsy and—But sharp as an arrow-head the memory of my lost boy strikes into my heart. My Dinkie is gone. I no longer have him to make what is left of my life endurable....