“You see, I was thinking of her child, and he was thinking of his own. Mine was the woman’s—the narrow—point of view, and his was the father’s. Maybe you can understand a little of what I felt. I couldn’t have the child here in the house, while its own mother.... It would have been like giving her a place in our home—the woman, I mean. You can’t really separate people by putting their bodies in different places. You see what I mean?”
“Yes,” assented Baron, “I think I see quite clearly.”
“And I was sure she was a bad woman. And I felt that if her child were in the house, her—her real self would be here, too. Her influence, I mean. Bodies are not everything. Sometimes they’re even the least things of all. I was afraid that other woman’s very presence would be here among us on the most sacred occasions: at bedtime, to see if her child were covered up, and in the early hours of Christmas morning, jealously looking to see what we’d given her, and jealous of us, because we were fond of her. She would be a real influence in the house. It couldn’t be helped.”
“But a bad woman.... Surely a bad woman would forget,” suggested Baron.
“Well, not our kind of a woman, anyway. How could she have deserted a man who was good to her? And how could she consent to give up her child afterward? It might be right for her to leave her husband; but for a mother to give up a little daughter.... No, I couldn’t think of having here in our home a link to bind us with a woman like that—a life out in the unknown, on the streets that are strange to us, that are strange to all faithful, happy people.
“And then when it was too late I began to see his side of it. He was the father just as much as she was the mother. She was his child as much as hers—more, if he loved her more. And I began to realize what it must be to a father to have his little daughter away from him, perhaps not loved and provided for, possibly facing an evil future. Oh, the night that thought came to me! And always he was so kind to me, and patient. He did not speak of his daughter again. And I waited.... I knew he would speak again some day, and I wanted to grow strong enough to say to him honestly: ‘Ah, do bring her, and she shall have love here, here in her own home’....”
She lifted her hands to her cheeks and closed her eyes. It was as if she must shut out some of the impressions which crowded into her mind.
Baron waited until a measure of calm came upon her. “And—he never did?”
She opened her eyes and regarded him inquiringly.
“I mean, he never spoke of her again?”