5. At Midnight

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_ At midnight the boy had long been sound asleep in bed. The lamp was turned low. It was very quiet in the room--quiet and shadowy in all the tenement.... And the stair creaked; and footfalls shuffled along the hall--and hesitated at the door of the place where the child lay quietly sleeping; and there ceased. There was the rumble of a man's voice, deep, insistent, imperfectly restrained. A woman protested. The door was softly opened; and the boy's mother stepped in, moving on tiptoe, and swiftly turned to bar entrance with her arm.

"Hist!" she whispered, angrily. "Don't speak so loud. You'll wake the boy."

"Let me in, Millie," the man insisted. "Aw, come on, now!"

"I can't, Jim. You know I can't. Go on home now. Stop that! I won't marry you. Let go my arm. You'll wake the boy, I tell you!"

There was a short scuffle: at the end of which, the woman's arm still barred the door.

"Here I ain't seen you in three year," the man complained. "And you won't let me in. That ain't right, Millie. It ain't kind to an old friend like me. You didn't used to be that way."

"No," the woman whispered, abstractedly; "there's been a change. I ain't the same as I used to be."

"You ain't changed for the better, Millie. No, you ain't."

"I don't know," she mused. "Sometimes I think not. It ain't because I don't want you, Jim," she continued, speaking more softly, now, "that I don't let you in. God knows, I like to meet old friends; but----"

It was sufficient. The man gently took her arm from the way. He stepped in--glanced at the sleeping boy, lying still as death, shaded from the lamp--and turned again to the woman.

"Don't wake him!" she said.

They were still standing. The man was short, long-armed, vastly broad at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of feature--handsome enough, withal. He was an acrobat. Even in the dim light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength--of grace and agility. For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body: then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and thereafter regarded him watchfully.

"Don't make no difference if I do wake him," he complained. "The boy knows me."

"But he don't like you."

"Aw, Millie!" said he, in reproach. "Come off!"

"I seen it in his eyes," she insisted.

The man softly laughed.

"Don't you laugh no more!" she flashed. "You can't tell a mother what she sees in her own baby's eyes. I tell you, Jim, he don't like you. He never did."

"That's all fancy, Millie. Why, he ain't seen me in three year! And you can't see nothing in the eyes of a four year old kid. You're too fond of that boy, anyhow," the man continued, indignantly. "What's got into you? You ain't forgot that winter night out there in Idaho, have you? Don't you remember what you said to Dick that night? You said Dick was to blame, Millie, don't you remember? Remember the doctor coming to the hotel? I'll never forget how you went on. Never heard a woman swear like you before. Never seen one go on like you went on. And when you hit Dick, Millie, for what you said he'd done, I felt bad for Dick, though I hadn't much cause to care for what happened to him. Millie, girl, you was a regular wildcat when the doctor told you what was coming. You didn't want no kid, then!"

"Don't!" she gasped. "I ain't forgot. But I'm changed, Jim--since then."

He moved a step nearer.

"I ain't the same as I used to be in them days," she went on, staring at the window, and through the window to the starry night. "And Dick's dead, now. I don't know," she faltered; "it's all sort of--different."

"What's gone and changed you, Millie?"

"I ain't the same!" she repeated.

"What's changed you?"

"And I ain't been the same," she whispered, "since I got the boy!"

In the pause, he took her hand. She seemed not to know it--but let it lie close held in his great palm.

"And you won't have nothing to do with me?" he asked.

"I can't," she answered. "I don't think of myself no more. And the boy--wouldn't like it."

"You always said you would, if it wasn't for Dick; and Dick ain't here no more. There ain't no harm in loving me now." He tried to draw her to him. "Aw, come on!" he pleaded. "You know you like me."

She withdrew her hand--shrank from him. "Don't!" she said. "I like you, Jim. You know I always did. You was always good to me. I never cared much for Dick. Him and me teamed up pretty well. That was all. It was always you, Jim, that I cared for. But, somehow, now, I wish I'd loved Dick--more than I did. I feel different, now. I wish--oh, I wish--that I'd loved him!"

The man frowned.

"He's dead," she continued. "I can't tell him nothing, now. The chance is gone. But I wish I'd loved him!"

"He never done much for you."

"Yes, he did, Jim!" she answered, quickly. "He done all a man can do for a woman!"

She was smiling--but in an absent way. The man started. There was a light in her eyes he had never seen before.

"He give me," she said, "the boy!"

"You're crazy about that kid," the man burst out, a violent, disgusted whisper. "You're gone out of your mind."

"No, I ain't," she replied, doggedly. "I'm different since I got him. That's all. And I'd like Dick to know that I look at him different since he died. I can't love Dick. I never could. But I could thank him if he was here. Do you mind what I called the boy? I don't call him Claud now. I call him--Richard. It's all I can do to show Dick that I'm grateful."

The man caught his breath--in angry impatience. "Millie," he warned, "the boy'll grow up."

She put her hands to her eyes.

"He'll grow up and leave you. What you going to do then?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "Just--go along."

"You'll be all alone, Millie."

"He loves me!" she muttered. "He'll never leave me!"

"He's got to, Millie. He's got to be a man. You can't keep him."

"Maybe I can't keep him," she replied, in a passionate undertone. "Maybe I do love you. Maybe he'd get to love you, too. But look at him, Jim! See where he lies?"

The man turned towards the bed.

"It's on my side, Jim! Understand? He lies there always till I come in. Know why?"

He watched her curiously.

"He'll wake up, Jim, when I lift him over. That's what he wants. He'll wake up and say, 'Is that you, mother?' And he'll be asleep again, God bless him! before I can tell him that it is. My God! Jim, I can't tell you what it means to come in at night and find him lying there. That little body of a man! That clean, white soul! I can't tell you how I feel, Jim. It's something a man can't know. And do you think he'd stand for you? He'd say he would. Oh, he'd say he would! He'd look in my eyes, Jim, and he'd find out what I wanted him to say; and he'd say it. But, Jim, he'd be hurt. Understand? He'd think I didn't love him any more. He's only a child--and he'd think I didn't love him. Where'd he sleep, Jim? Alone? He couldn't do it. Don't you see? I can't live with nobody, Jim. And I don't want to. I don't care for myself no more. I used to, in them days--when you and me and Dick and the crowd was all together. But I don't--no more!"

The man stooped, picked a small stocking from the floor, stood staring at it.

"I'm changed," the woman repeated, "since I got the boy."

"I don't know what you'll do, Millie, when he grows up."

She shook her head.

"And when he finds out?"

"That's what I'm afraid of," she whispered, hoarsely. "Somebody'll tell him--some day. He don't know, now. And I don't want him to know. He ain't our kind. Maybe it's because I keep him here alone. Maybe it's because he don't see nobody. Maybe it's just because I love him so. I don't know. But he ain't like us. It would hurt him to know. And I can't hurt him. I can't!"

The man tossed the stocking away. It fell upon a heap of little under-garments, strewn upon the floor.

"You're a fool, Millie," said he. "I tell you, he'll leave you. He'll leave you cold--when he grows up--and another woman comes along."

She raised her hand to stop him. "Don't say that!" she moaned. "There won't be no other woman. There can't be. Seems to me I'll want to kill the first that comes. A woman? What woman? There won't be none."

"There's got to be a woman."

"What woman? There ain't a woman in the world fit to--oh," she broke off, "don't talk of him--and a woman!"

"It'll come, Millie. He's a man--and there's got to be a woman. And she won't want you. And you'll be too old, then, to----"

The boy stirred.

"Hist!" she commanded.

They waited. An arm was tossed--the boy smiled--there was a sigh. He was sound asleep again.

"Millie!" The man approached. She straightened to resist him. "You love me, don't you?"

She withdrew.

"You want to marry me?"

Still she withdrew; but he overtook her, and caught her hand. She was now driven to a corner--at bay. Her face was flushed; there was an irresolute light in her eyes--the light, too, of fear.

"Go 'way!" she gasped. "Leave me alone!"

He put his arm about her.

"Don't!" she moaned. "You'll wake the boy."

"Millie!" he whispered.

"Let me go, Jim!" she protested, weakly. "I can't. Oh, leave me alone! You'll wake the boy. I can't. I'd like to. I--I--I want to marry you; but I----"

"Aw, come on!" he pleaded, drawing her close. And he suddenly found her limp in his arms. "You got to marry me!" he whispered, in triumph. "By God! you can't help yourself. I got you! I got you!"

"Oh, let me go!"

"No, I won't, Millie. I'll never let you go."

"For God's sake, Jim! Jim--oh, don't kiss me!"

The boy stirred again--and began to mutter in his sleep. At once the woman commanded herself. She stiffened--released herself--pushed the man away. She lifted a hand--until the child lay quiet once more. There was meantime breathless silence. Then she pointed imperiously to the door. The man sullenly held his place. She tiptoed to the door--opened it; again imperiously gestured. He would not stir.

"I'll go," he whispered, "if you tell me I can come back."

The boy awoke--but was yet blinded by sleep; and the room was dim-lit. He rubbed his eyes. The man and the woman stood rigid in the shadow.

"Is it you, mother?"

There was no resisting her command--her flashing eyes, the passionate gesture. The man moved to the door, muttering that he would come back--and disappeared. She closed the door after him.

"Yes, dear," she answered. "It is your mother."

"Was there a man with you?"

"It was Lord Wychester," she said, brightly, "seeing me home from the party."

"Oh!" he yawned.

"Go to sleep."

He fell asleep at once. The stair creaked. The tenement was again quiet....

He was lying in his mother's place in the bed.... She looked out upon the river. Somewhere, far below in the darkness, the current still ran swirling to the sea--where the lights go different ways.... The boy was lying in his mother's place. And before she lifted him, she took his warm little hand, and kissed his brow, where the dark curls lay damp with the sweat of sleep. For a long, long time, she sat watching him through a mist of glad tears. The sight of his face, the outline of his body under the white coverlet, the touch of his warm flesh: all this thrilled her inexpressibly. Had she been devout, she would have thanked God for the gift of a son--and would have found relief.... When she crept in beside him, she drew him to her, tenderly still closer, until he was all contained in her arms; and she forgot all else--and fell asleep, untroubled. _

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