But even this is not the end, however ready you may be to cease listening. There is an envoi that I must add. This was seven years later. By then I had removed to New York and established myself as a cartoonist. From others I had learned that Steele also had come to New York and was now connected with one of the local papers in some moderately responsible capacity—copy reading, I think. At any rate, I met him—one Sunday. It was near the entrance of the Bronx Zoo, at closing time. He was there with his wife and a second little son that had come to him since he had left G——. The first one—a boy of ten by then, I presume—was not present. All this I learned in the course of the brief conversation that followed.
But his wife! I can never forget her. She was so worn, so faded, so impossible. And this other boy by her—a son who had followed after their reunion! My God! I thought, how may not fear or convention slay one emotionally! And to cap it all, he was not so much apologetic as—I will not say defiant—but ingratiating and volubly explanatory about his safe and sane retreat from gayety and freedom, and, if you will, immorality. For he knew, of course, that I recalled the other case—all its troublesome and peculiar details.
“My wife! My wife!” he exclaimed quickly, since I did not appear to recognize her at first, and with a rather grandiose gesture of the hand, as who should say, “I am proud of my wife, as you see. I am still married to her and rightly so. I am not the same person you knew in G—— at all—at all!”
“Oh, yes,” I replied covering them all with a single glance. “I remember your wife very well. And your boy.”
“Oh, no, not that boy,” he hastened to explain. “That was Harry. This is another little boy—Francis.” And then, as though to re-establish his ancient social prestige with me, he proceeded to add: “We’re living over on Staten Island now—just at the north end, near the ferry, you know. You must come down some time. It’s a pleasant ride. We’ll both be so glad to see you. Won’t we, Estelle?”
“Yes, certainly,” said Mrs. Steele.
I hastened away as quickly as possible. The contrast was too much; that damned memory of mine, illegitimate as it may seem to be, was too much. I could not help thinking of the Ira Ramsdell and of how much I had envied him the dances, the love, the music, the moonlight.
“By God!” I exclaimed as I walked away. “By God!”
And that is exactly how I feel now about all such miscarriages of love and delight—cold and sad.