The Boy Grew Older Part 3

Peter knocked.

"Come in," said Maria. She had thrown the blue and gold costume in a corner, and slipped on a kimono.

"It was marvelous," said Peter; "n.o.body's ever heard anything like it in a theatre. They're still cheering and applauding for you."

"For all that applause I do not give a d.a.m.n," answered Maria and snapped her fingers. "As long as you like. That is all."

Peter kissed her. "Maria, I was afraid I'd lost you." He held her at arm's length and the kimono slipped down over one shoulder. "Cover yourself up," said Peter almost sharply. Maria pulled the wrap back and folded it closely around her. Peter had never seen that smile before.

"A husband," she said. "It is different."

CHAPTER IV

I

Maria blamed a good many things upon the inst.i.tution of marriage for which the explanation probably lay elsewhere. If Peter had been a lover rather than a husband he would still have been insensitive to Chopin. In all the range of Maria's repertoire he was never able to detect more than a single tune. That itself seemed to him an achievement for the Fantaisie Impromptu had not yet been discovered to be actually, "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows." But as a matter of fact Peter did not really understand Maria Algarez any better than he understood Chopin. He loved her throughout the year of their married life but he was not happy.

"It is the curse of the witch on you," she said, "or maybe it is not the witch but that America of yours. There is something in you, Peter, that will not let you be happy. You are afraid of it. Of me you are afraid, Peter."

He protested that this was not so but Maria knew better.

"Love--what you call s.e.x--that is one of the things which has frightened you the most of any. Somebody has put black thoughts into that head.

Yes, I tell you it is so. A terrible thing has been done to you.

Somebody has brought you up carefully."

But in an instant she had come across the room to him and had a protecting arm about him.

"Now I have made you the more sad. You must tell me what it is."

"I can't, Maria. I don't know whether I know. But anyhow I can't."

"Perhaps it is the sound of it which you fear. You tell me. You must.

Whisper it."

Peter did whisper. "You remember that night you told me---- you told me about the others."

"You mean those oh so few lovers. But that did not make you sad then.

You were not angry."

"I'm not angry now. But I can't help it, Maria, that I worry."

"And for what do you worry?"

"I think that maybe those other lovers they made you happier than I can."

"So! That I should have known. You think you are not the so great lover.

These men they are gone but they are still your rivals. Perhaps I remember. That is it?"

"Yes," said Peter.

He was startled when Maria laughed.

"Why do you laugh at me?"

"It is to you like the baseball game. It is what you call it? Oh yes, a compet.i.tion."

Peter made no answer.

"Now listen to me, Peter. You I love the most of anybody in the world. I tell you that but it is not enough. You still worry. Something I must do to show you. This blackness I must drive away. Peter, you must have a baby. Yes, it is a son you need. Then you can worry about him."

Maria spoke upon the conviction but also upon impulse and babies are not born that way. The time of her trial beat fiercely upon her. She had to quit the show just a day after a new role and several new songs were promised to her. During the last three months of her pregnancy she never left the apartment. "I do not want anybody to point at me," she told Peter, "and say that is Maria Algarez who did the b.u.t.terfly Dance in 'Adios.'"

In the note which Dr. Clay handed to Peter, Maria had written: "I did keep my promise. It is a baby and a son. That was all I promised. More I cannot do. Peter, I must be Maria Algarez, the dancer. I cannot be the wife and the mother. You should not be sad altogether. I think it is good that we have met. When you look at your son you will forget some of the rubbish that was in your head. That is more than that you should remember Maria Algarez. And the boy, Peter, remember it is fair that from life he should get fun. Thank G.o.d, n.o.body can ever make of him the wife and mother. Miss Haine says he is like me. If that is so, Peter, you may have much trouble. But leave him just a little bad."

The last sentence was hard to decipher. Peter could not make out whether Maria had written, "I love you," or "I loved you."

II

Peter must have gone to sleep eventually on the sofa in the reception room of Dr. Clay's hospital. It was almost dark when he woke. He had been dreaming hard. In the dream some vague figure, forgotten by the time he awoke, presented him with a small lion cub as a pet. Throughout the dream Peter worried about the lion cub. The apartment house in which he lived had a strict rule against dogs. The janitor did not actually come into the dream, but much of Peter's sleeping consciousness was concerned with planning arguments for that official. "But it isn't a dog," Peter was prepared to say, "it's a lion. Your rules don't say anything about lions. Anyhow it's only a little lion." There had been a lion cub in Battling Nelson's camp and Peter had often watched the fighter fool around with it and slap the animal when it tried to nip him. Nelson had a trick of rubbing the rough stubble of his beard against the lion's nose. Peter hated that.

Disentangling himself from his dream he decided that his nightmare had been an echo he remembered from Goldfield. It took him several minutes to get himself back from the Nevada fight to the hospital in New York.

While he slept he had forgotten that Maria had run away and that his son was in a room upstairs. He was about to skirmish out in search of one of the nurses when Dr. Clay came into the room.

"Feeling any better?" asked the doctor.

"I feel all right. I'm all ready to take the baby now."

"You don't need to be in any hurry about that, Mr. Neale. Better let him stay till tomorrow. It's after six now. Suppose we go up and watch the little fellow get bathed. I asked Miss Haine to postpone that so you could see him."

Peter realized that his presence at the bath seemed to be obligatory in the mind of the doctor. He went up the stairs to the same room which he had visited the fortnight before when he rushed away from the poker game. There could be no possible question about finding the right door for the hall was filled with loud howling.

"They never like it," said Dr. Clay.

"Is there any other reason for doing it?" asked Peter, but the physician made no answer.

The baby was propped up against one end of the tub rubbing at his eyes and Miss Haine was sloshing his chest with water from a sponge.

She looked up and said, "He's just fine, Mr. Neale. I'm not really hurting him."

Peter found that a dim shadow of personality had descended upon his son in the two weeks since he had last seen him. The face was too crowded with tears and fingers to make much of an impression, but Peter, making room for the doctor, walked around behind the tub and from the shoulders of the child he received his first thrill. They were square high shoulders without the suggestion of a curve. Christy Mathewson, the rookie pitcher of the Giants, whom Peter Neale had recently hailed in his column as a coming baseball star had shoulders just like that. And it was a fine a.s.sertive chest.

"He'll be a big man some day," said Miss Haine lifting up one of the baby's feet. "Remember he's got to grow up to these."