Baby Mine

CHAPTER IX

Realising that she was rapidly losing ground by exercising her advantage over Alfred in the matter of quick retort, Zoie, with her customary cunning, veered round to a more conciliatory tone. “Well,” she cooed, “suppose I DID eat lunch with a man?”

“Ah!” shrieked Alfred, as though he had at last run his victim to earth.

She retreated with her fingers crossed. “I only said suppose,” she reminded him quickly. Then she continued in a tone meant to draw from him his heart's most secret confidence. “Didn't you ever eat lunch with any woman but me?”

“Never!” answered Alfred firmly.

There was an unmistakable expression of pleasure on Zoie's small face, but she forced back the smile that was trying to creep round her lips, and sidled toward Alfred, with eyes properly downcast. “Then I'm very sorry I did it,” she said solemnly, “and I'll never do it again.”

“So!” cried Alfred with renewed indignation. “You admit it?”

“Just to please you, dear,” explained Zoie sweetly, as though she were doing him the greatest possible favour.

“To please me?” gasped Alfred. “Do you suppose it pleases me to know that you are carrying on the moment my back is turned, making a fool of me to my friends?”

“Your friends?” cried Zoie with a sneer. This time it was her turn to be angry. “So! It's your FRIENDS that are worrying you!” In her excitement she tossed Alfred's now damaged hat into the chair just behind her. He was far too overwrought to see it. “I haven't done you any harm,” she continued wildly. “It's only what you think your friends think.”

“You haven't done me any harm?” repeated Alfred, in her same tragic key, “Oh no! Oh no! You've only cheated me out of everything I expected to get out of life! That's all!”

Zoie came to a full stop and waited for him to enumerate the various treasures that he had lost by marrying her. He did so.

“Before we were married,” he continued, “you pretended to adore children. You started your humbugging the first day I met you. I refer to little Willie Peck.”

A hysterical giggle very nearly betrayed her. Alfred continued:

“I was fool enough to let you know that I admire women who like children. From that day until the hour that I led you to the altar, you'd fondle the ugliest little brats that we met in the street, but the moment you GOT me——”

“Alfred!” gasped Zoie. This was really going too far.

“Yes, I repeat it!” shouted Alfred, pounding the table with his fist for emphasis. “The moment you GOT me, you declared that all children were horrid little insects, and that someone ought to sprinkle bug-powder on them.”

“Oh!” protested Zoie, shocked less by Alfred's interpretation of her sentiments, than by the vulgarity with which he expressed them.

“On another occasion,” declared Alfred, now carried away by the recital of his long pent up wrongs, “you told me that all babies should be put in cages, shipped West, and kept in pens until they got to be of an interesting age. 'Interesting age!'” he repeated with a sneer, “meaning old enough to take YOU out to luncheon, I suppose.”

“I never said any such thing,” objected Zoie.

“Well, that was the idea,” insisted Alfred. “I haven't your glib way of expressing myself.”

“You manage to express yourself very well,” retorted Zoie. “When you have anything DISAGREEABLE to say. As for babies,” she continued tentatively, “I think they are all very well in their PLACE, but they were NEVER meant for an APARTMENT.”

“I offered you a house in the country,” shouted Alfred.

“The country!” echoed Zoie. “How could I live in the country, with people being murdered in their beds every night? Read the papers.”

“Always an excuse,” sighed Alfred resignedly. “There always HAS been and there always would be if I'd stay to listen. Well, for once,” he declared, “I'm glad that we have no children. If we had, I might feel some obligation to keep up this farce of a marriage. As it is,” he continued, “YOU are free and I am free.” And with a courtly wave of his arm, he dismissed Zoie and the entire subject, and again he started in pursuit of Mary and his hat.

“If it's your freedom you wish,” pouted Zoie with an abused air, “you might have said so in the first place.”

Alfred stopped in sheer amazement at the cleverness with which the little minx turned his every statement against him.

“It's not very manly of you,” she continued, “to abuse me just because you've found someone whom you like better.”

“That's not true,” protested Alfred hotly, “and you know it's not true.” Little did he suspect the trap into which she was leading him.

“Then you DON'T love anybody more than you do me?” she cried eagerly, and she gazed up at him with adoring eyes.

“I didn't say any such thing,” hedged Alfred.

“Then you DO,” she accused him.

“I DON'T,” he declared in self defence.

With a cry of joy, she sprang into his arms, clasped her fingers tightly behind his neck, and rained impulsive kisses upon his unsuspecting face.

For an instant, Alfred looked down at Zoie, undecided whether to strangle her or to return her embraces. As usual, his self-respect won the day for him and, with a determined effort, he lifted her high in the air, so that she lost her tenacious hold of him, and sat her down with a thud in the very same chair in which she had lately dropped his hat. Having acted with this admirable resolution, he strode majestically toward the inner hall, but before he could reach it, Zoie was again on her feet, in a last vain effort to conciliate him. Turning, Alfred caught sight of his poor battered hat. This was the final spur to action. Snatching it up with one hand, and throwing his latchkey on the table with the other, he made determinedly for the outer door.

Screaming hysterically, Zoie caught him just as he reached the threshold and threw the whole weight of her body upon him.

“Alfred,” she pleaded, “if you REALLY love me, you CAN'T leave me like this!” Her emotion was now genuine. He looked down at her gravely—then into the future.

“There are other things more important than what YOU call 'love,'” he said, very solemnly.

“There is such a thing as a soul, if you only knew it. And you have hurt mine through and through.”

“But how, Alfred, how?” asked the small person, and there was a frown of genuine perplexity on her tiny puckered brow. “What have I REALLY DONE,” She stroked his hand fondly; her baby eyes searched his face.

“It isn't so much what people DO to us that counts,” answered Alfred in a proud hurt voice. “It's how much they DISAPPOINT us in what they do. I expected better of YOU,” he said sadly.

“I'll DO better,” coaxed Zoie, “if you'll only give me a chance.”

He was half inclined to believe her.

“Now, Allie,” she pleaded, perceiving that his resentment was dying and resolved to, at last, adopt a straight course, “if you'll only listen, I'll tell you the REAL TRUTH.”

Unprepared for the electrical effect of her remark, Zoie found herself staggering to keep her feet. She gazed at Alfred in amazement. His arms were lifted to Heaven, his breath was coming fast.

“'The REAL TRUTH!'” he gasped, then bringing his crushed hat down on his forehead with a resounding whack, he rushed from her sight.

The clang of the closing elevator door brought Zoie to a realisation of what had actually happened. Determined that Alfred should not escape her she rushed to the hall door and called to him wildly. There was no answer. Running back to the room, she threw open the window and threw herself half out of it. She was just in time to see Alfred climb into a passing taxi. “Alfred!” she cried. Then automatically she flew to the 'phone. “Give me 4302 Main,” she called and she tried to force back her tears. “Is this Hardy & Company?” she asked.

“Well, this is Mrs. Hardy,” she explained.

“I wish you'd ring me up the moment my husband comes in.” There was a slight pause, then she clutched the receiver harder. “Not COMING back?” she gasped. “Gone!—to Detroit?” A short moan escaped her lips. She let the receiver fall back on the hook and her head went forward on her outstretched arms.