Dorothy! How sweet the name sounded! But no sweeter than my little daughter—of that I was sure. I could feel her hand, small as a rose leaf, nestling in mine; see her innocent, tarn-brown eyes gazing upward into my face. Then as she ran and eagerly plucked a vagrant blossom I would weave about it some charming legend. I would people the glade with fairies for her, and the rocks with gnomes. In her I would live over again my own wonderful childhood. She, too, would be a dreamer, sharing that wonderful kingdom of mine, understanding me as no other had ever done.
Then when she grew up, what a wonderful woman she would be! How proud she would be of me! How, in old age, when my hair grew white, and my footsteps faltered, she would take my arm, and together we would walk round the old garden in the hush of eventide.
“Wonderful destiny!” I cried, inspired by the sentimental pictures unfolding themselves before me. “I can see myself older yet, an octogenarian. My back is bent, my hair is snowy white, I have a venerable beard, and kindly eyes that shine through gold-rimmed spectacles. A tartan shawl is round my shoulders, and my hands, as they rest on my silver-headed cane, are glazed and crinkly. But, crowning glory! Greater than that array of children of my mind for which men give me honour, are the children of my flesh who play around my knee, my grandchildren. There will be such a merry swarm of them, and in their joyous laughter I will grow young again. Oh, blessed destiny! To be a father is much; but to be a grandfather so infinitely nobler—and less trouble.”
The more I thought over it, the more I became impressed. My imminent paternity became almost an obsession with me. My marriage had surprised me. No time had I to embroider it with the flowers of fancy, but this was different. So engrossed did I become with a sense of my own importance that you would have thought no one had ever become a father before. In my enthusiasm I told Lorrimer of my interesting condition, but the faun-like young man rather damped my ardour.
“Marriage,” he observed, in his usual cynical manner, “is a lottery, in which the prizes are white elephants. But Fatherhood, that’s the sorriest of gambles. True, as you suggest, your daughter may marry the President of the United States, but on the other hand she may turn out to be another Brinvilliers. She may be a Madame de Staël and she may be a Pompadour. Then again, you may have a family of a dozen.”
“But I won’t,” I protested indignantly.
“Well, just suppose. You may have a dozen ordinary respectable tax-payers and one rotter. Don’t you think the black sheep will discount all your successful efforts? Really, old man, you’re taking an awful chance. Then after all it’s an ungrateful business. The girls get married and enter the families of their husbands; the boys either settle far away, or get wives you don’t approve of. Anyway, you lose them. At the worst you beget a criminal, at the best an ingrate. It’s a poor business. However, cheer up, old man: we’ll hope for the best.”
Helstern, on the other hand, took a different view of it. The sculptor was sombrely enthusiastic.
“You must let me do a group of it, Madden. I’ll call it the First-born. I’m sure I could take a gold medal with it.”
He led me to a café and in his tragic tones ordered beer in which we drank to the health of the First-born.