And so they droned on, those three wiseacres–two oldish gentlemen and a middle-aged man, thinking they could change or check or dam the course of true love. While inside at the piano on the tide of music that was washing in from God only knows what bourne where words are useless and passions speak the primitive language of souls, Lila and Kenyon were solving all the problems set for them by their elders and betters. For they lived in another world from those who established themselves in the Providence business out on the veranda. And on this earth, even in the same houses, and in the same families, there is no communication between the worlds. With our powerful lenses of memory we men and women in our forties gaze earnestly and long at the distant planets of youth, wondering if they are really inhabited by real people–or mere animals, perchance–if they have human institutions, reasonable aspirations or finite intelligences. We take temperatures, make blood counts and record blood pressure, reckon the heart-beats, and think we are wondrous wise. But wig-wag as we may, signal with what mysterious wireless of evanescent youth-fire we still hold in our blood, we get nothing but vague hints, broken reminiscences, and a certain patchwork of our own subconscious chop logic of middle age in return. There is no real communication between the worlds. Youth remains another planet–even as age and childhood are other planets.
Now, after the three wise men had considered the star glowing before them, they decided thus:
“Well,” quoth the Doctor, “it seems absolutely just that Lila should know who her husband is, and that Laura should know whom her child is marrying. So far as I am concerned, I know this Adams blood; I’ll trust it to breed out 502any taint; but I have no right to decide for Lila; I have no right to say what Laura will do–though, Grant, I know in my heart that she would rather have her child marry yours than to have anything else come about that the world could hold for her. And yet–she should know the truth.”
Grant sat with his head bowed, and his eyes on the floor, while the Doctor spoke. Without looking up, he said: “There’s some one else to consider, Doctor–there’s Margaret–after all, it’s her son; it’s her secret. It’s–I don’t know what her rights are–perhaps she’s forfeited them. But she is at least physically his mother.”
The Doctor looked up with a troubled face. He ran his hand over the place where his pompadour once used to rise, and where only a fuzz responded to the stroke of his dry palm, and answered:
“Grant–through it all–through all the tragedy that she has brought here, I’ve kept that secret for Margaret. And until she releases me, I can never break my silence. A doctor–one of the right sort–never could. Whatever you feel are her rights–you and she must settle. It must be you, not I, to tell this story, even to my own flesh and blood, Grant.”
Grant rose and walked the long, straight stretch of the veranda. His shoulders, pugnacious, aggressive, and defiant, swayed as he walked heavily and he gazed at the floor as one in shame. Finally he whirled toward the Doctor and said:
“I’m going to his mother. I’m going now. She may have mighty few rights in this matter–she cast him off shamefully. But she has just one right here–the right to know that I shall tell her secret to Laura, and I’m going to talk to her before I tell Laura. Even if Margaret clamors against what I think is right, I shall not stop. But I’m not going to sneak her secret away without her knowing it. I suppose that’s about the extent of her rights in Kenyon: to know before I tell his wife who he really is, so that Margaret will know who knows and who does not know her relation to him. It seems to me that is about the justice of the case.” The Doctor puffed at his pipe, and nodded a slow assent.
“Now’s as good a time as any,” answered the Doctor, and added: “By the way, Amos–I had a telegram from Washington 503this morning, saying that Tom is to be made Federal judge in the new district. That’s what he’s doing in Washington just now. He is one of those ostensible fellows,” piped the Doctor. “Ostensibly he’s there trying to help land another man; but Tom’s the Van Dorn candidate.”
He smoked until his pipe revived and added, “Well, Tom can afford it; he’s got all the money he needs.”