“That pays me for all my trouble, child! No doctor ever got a bigger fee than that. Banks may fail, but I'll never lose it. Your choice simplifies that matter very much. You won't need a picture in your room——”
“A picture could determine the features of an unborn babe?” she asked incredulously.
“Beyond a doubt, and it will determine character sometimes. I knew a mother in the mountains of Vermont who hung the picture of a ship under full sail in her living-room. She bore seven sons. Not one of them ever saw the ocean until he was grown and yet all of them became sailors. This was not an accident. In her age and loneliness she blamed God for taking her children from her. Yet she had made sailors of them all by the selection of a single piece of furniture in her room. Nature has a way of starting her children on their journey through this world very nearly equal—each a bundle of possibilities in the hands of a mother. A father may transmit physical disease, if his body is unsound. Such marriages should be prohibited by law. But nine-tenths of the spiritual traits out of which character is formed are the work of the mother. A criminal mother will bring into the world only criminals. A criminal male may be the father of a saint. The responsibility of shaping the destiny of the race rests with the mother——”
The Doctor sprang to his feet and paced the floor, his arms gripped behind his back in deep thought. He paused before the enraptured listener and hesitated to speak the thought in his mind.
He lifted his hand suddenly, his decision apparently made.
“It is of the utmost importance to the race that our mothers shall be pure. Better certainly if both father and mother are so. It is indispensable that the mother shall be! On this elemental fact rests the dual standard of sex morals. On this fact rests the hope of a glorified humanity through the development of an intelligent motherhood. Stay here with me until your child is born and I'll prove the truth of every word I've spoken——”
“Oh, if I only could!”
“Why not?”
“I couldn't impose such a burden on you!” she faltered.
“You would confer on me the highest honor, if you will allow me to direct you in this experiment.”