“Oh, I don’t know yet. I didn’t want to be a bother to those people out there. I thought I’d get a little house somewhere and adopt a baby maybe, or get something to do. I don’t like to be alone.”
“That isn’t a bad idea,” he said, “that of adopting a baby. It would be a lot of company for you. You know how to go about getting one?”
“You just ask at one of these asylums, don’t you?”
“I think there’s something more than that,” he replied thoughtfully. “There are some formalities—I don’t know what they are. They try to keep control of the child in some way. You had better consult with Watson and get him to help you. Pick out your baby, and then let him do the rest. I’ll speak to him about it.”
Lester saw that she needed companionship badly. “Where is your brother George?” he asked.
“He’s in Rochester, but he couldn’t come. Bass said he was married,” she added.
“There isn’t any other member of the family you could persuade to come and live with you?”
“I might get William, but I don’t know where he is.”
“Why not try that new section west of Jackson Park,” he suggested, “if you want a house here in Chicago? I see some nice cottages out that way. You needn’t buy. Just rent until you see how well you’re satisfied.”
Jennie thought this good advice because it came from Lester. It was good of him to take this much interest in her affairs. She wasn’t entirely separated from him after all. He cared a little. She asked him how his wife was, whether he had had a pleasant trip, whether he was going to stay in Chicago. All the while he was thinking that he had treated her badly. He went to the window and looked down into Dearborn Street, the world of traffic below holding his attention. The great mass of trucks and vehicles, the counter streams of hurrying pedestrians, seemed like a puzzle. So shadows march in a dream. It was growing dusk, and lights were springing up here and there.