“Yes ... at the railroad lunch counter.”
“That’s a hell of a life for a married man.”
He stood for a moment looking at little Naomi, who lay asleep on Philip’s shoulder. Then, shyly, he put out his finger and touched the downy head gently. “They’re fine babies,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought a poor creature like Naomi could have had ’em.”
Philip laid the child gently beside her brother and stood looking down at them.
“Philip,” his father began. Philip turned, and, as if the burning gaze of his son’s eyes extinguished his desire to speak, Jason looked away quickly, and said, “Well, good-night.” He turned shyly, and Philip, aware that he was trying to pierce through the wall that separated them, felt suddenly sorry for him, and said, “Yes, Pa. What was it you meant to say?”
Jason coughed and then with an effort said, “Don’t be too unhappy ... and if there’s somebody else ... I mean another girl ... why, don’t torture yourself too much about it. Your Ma has made you like that.... But she’s got queer ideas. We ain’t alive very long, you know, and there ain’t any reason why we should make our brief spell miserable.”
Philip didn’t answer him. He was looking down again at the children, silent, with the old, queer, pinched look about the eyes, as if he were ill again. He saw suddenly that his father wasn’t such a fool, after all, and he was human. He was standing there with his hat in his two hands, looking childish and subdued and very shy.
Philip heard him saying, with another nervous cough, “Well, good-night, Philip.”
“Good-night.”
The door closed and Philip sank down wearily into a chair, resting his head on the edge of the crib. Presently he fell asleep thus.