In the water the child lay with his face smilingly upturned.
“Ugh!” he exclaimed, “it feels good. This tub is big enough to swim in—a little bit, anyway. Will you show me how to swim some day?”
“Yes, my son—yes, Lionel, some day, perhaps.”
“In deep water—in a really-really stream that fish swim in?”
“Yes, Lionel.”
“Oh, that would be so nice! Couldn't we catch fish, too?”
“I think so—yes, of course, some day, perhaps.”
But would those delights, conceived for the first time to-day, ever be realized? Galt asked himself, as keen pangs from some unknown source darted through him. Sick unto death of the vapid adulation of narrow men and women, would he ever experience the transcendental joy of intimate and daily companionship with this human wonder, such as other fathers enjoyed with their sons?
No, the question was already answered. The bliss—the queer, Heaven-tending bliss of the present moment—was merely stolen. Was it likely that any son at all would ever come to him—a son which he could father in the broadest, holiest sense? No; and he started and fell to quivering superstitiously. Even if he were married and another son was given to him in lawful wedlock, could he dare—in the face of Infinite Justice—dare to put that child forward, acknowledge that child as his own, while deserting, ignoring, denying Lionel?
“Great God!” his quaking soul cried out in sheer anguish. “Lionel, my son; my boy, made in the image of her and me, he who trusts and so innocently loves me! And yet it must be. Fate has ordained it. I have his faith and love now, but later he may turn on me like an avenging angel.”