JOAN 
 
 AND -THE 
 
 BABIE5-AND-I 
 
 COSMO HAMILTON
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I
 
 Cofifmo Hamilton 
 
 THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN 
 THE BLINDNESS OF VIRTUE 
 THE DOOR THAT HAS NO KEY 
 THE MIRACLE OF LOVE 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE YOUNGER 
 GENERATION 
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I
 
 
 
 We had met and loved and the earth was ours. 
 FRONTISPIECE. See page 86.
 
 JOAN AND THE 
 BABIES AND I 
 
 BEING CERTAIN CHAPTERS FROM 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN MAINWARING 
 
 THE NOVELIST 
 
 BY 
 
 COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 MARY LANE McMILLAN 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1917
 
 Copyright, 79/6, 
 BY COSMO HAMILTON. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Published, March, 1917 
 
 NortoooU 
 
 Set up and electrotypcd by J. S. Gushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 We had met and loved and the earth was 
 
 ours ..... Frontispiece 
 
 There was an exquisite, a bewildering femi- 
 ninity all about her .... PAGE 43 
 
 Three soldiers in the sitting-room before 
 
 dinner, marched grimly round and round 95 
 
 For a moment we stood looking into each 
 
 other's eyes, afraid to speak . . "102 
 
 2136175
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES 
 AND I 
 
 A STURDY little shadow rested sud- 
 denly on the pages of my book. 
 
 "Hullo, man." 
 
 I looked up. It was a boy. 
 
 "Hullo, man," I answered. 
 
 He shook his well-shaped head and a 
 look of resentment came into his large, 
 brown, intelligent eyes. 
 
 "I be's a boy," he stated, with ex- 
 treme decision. 
 
 "O, I beg your pardon. And what 
 do they call you?"
 
 JOAN AND- THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "John." 
 
 "Jack for short?" 
 
 "Mudder does." 
 
 I held out my hand. The sun fell 
 hotly on my palm. "How de do, 
 John?" I should have been glad of 
 the privilege of calling him Jack, too. 
 
 He gave me a very brown, small hand. 
 :< Your nose is coming off," he said, 
 cordially. 
 
 ; 'Yes, the sun's splendid, isn't it? 
 My chin's coming off too. It's like 
 being punished for being naughty to 
 shave every morning." 
 
 "Do you shave your nose?" He 
 touched it in a gingerly but interested 
 way with a forefinger. 
 
 "Not yet," and I rapped a piece of 
 wood three times. "Won't you sit 
 2
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 down?" I made room for him on the 
 flat piece of brown rock in the hollows 
 of which the receding sea had left warm 
 reminders. 
 
 John glanced behind me where, be- 
 yond a bank of sand and rock and under- 
 growth, he could just see the roof of a 
 lonely verandahed cottage, and in front, 
 where a blue-green sparkling sea was 
 playing with the golden sand. He had 
 begun to build a great fort with moat 
 and drawbridge and the flag of the 
 United States, in the shape of a piece 
 of floppy seaweed, flying proudly in the 
 soft warm breeze. It was a hundred 
 yards away and a little round, golden 
 head was bending over it. I could see 
 two small brown legs and the blue of a 
 short frock. 
 
 3
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 My pipe, which had got out the 
 wrong side of the bed that morning 
 and had been gummy and disagreeable 
 ever since, refused to draw. It detested 
 sarcasm, and like a fool I had forgotten 
 that. I had to fall back on a cigarette 
 and took out a rather nice silver case. 
 
 It caught John's miss-nothing eye. 
 "When that be's empty I have it," he 
 said, and metaphorically placed it 
 among his collection of treasures. 
 
 I didn't see it there. I pointed to 
 brown legs. "Who's that?" 
 
 "Marjory." 
 
 "Does she belong to you?" 
 
 He looked puzzled and shook his 
 head. "She's Mudder's," he said, dis- 
 missing the subject. "You live in this 
 place?" 
 
 4
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "No. I'm staying at the hotel over 
 there." I pointed to the roof that cut 
 the sky-line rather nicely half a mile 
 away, with a long stretch of yellow sand, 
 a white bridge and a white road, garden 
 bordered, lying in between. 
 
 "You like it there?" 
 
 "It does," I said, thinking with 
 amusement and a touch of bewilder- 
 ment of the large collection of little 
 dishes with which a white frocked, 
 roguish-eyed waitress immediately built 
 me round the moment I sat down to a 
 meal. Also of the tinny piano in the 
 bleak ball-room out of whose martyred 
 keys dozens of inexpert young fingers con- 
 tinually tortured nerve-racking sounds. 
 
 "I have a house," said John. "You 
 have no house?" 
 
 5
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 I pointed to the horizon with a geo- 
 graphically inaccurate finger. : 'Yes, 
 three thousand miles over that line," I 
 answered, "and then fifty more." 
 
 "Is anyone there now?" 
 
 "Yes, a housekeeper and a big dog 
 and a lot of books. All the same it's 
 so empty that I couldn't stand it. 
 That's why I'm here. Who lives in 
 your house ?" 
 
 "Me and Mudder and Marjory and 
 Nannie and Rose and Robert and Alice." 
 
 "Do they belong to Mudder, too?" 
 
 He shot out a shrill scream of laugh- 
 ter. "No; Alice is mine and Robert's 
 Marjory's." 
 
 It was my turn to be puzzled. 
 
 "They're bunnies," he said. 
 
 For some absurd and unexplainable 
 6
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 reason I felt relieved. And then a little 
 sweet voice cr-me to us calling "John!" 
 and again and again "John!" the 
 last time with a suggestion of tears. 
 
 But as John took no notice, being 
 extremely interested in the clocks of 
 my socks, I called out, "Here's John," 
 and waved my hand. 
 
 "What he's those things?" 
 
 "Clocks." 
 
 "Do they tell the time?" 
 
 "No; they only tell the character. 
 If they're plain and ordinary like mine 
 you may speak to the man who wears 
 them, but if they're dinky and queer 
 you mustn't touch him with the end of 
 a barge pole. . . . Hullo, Marjory." 
 
 The golden head and brown legs and 
 short blue frock were in arm's length of 
 7
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 me. Also big, wide-apart eyes, a little 
 unformed nose, a beautifully shaped 
 mouth and two charming tanned hands 
 with a little ring on one ringer. 
 
 "This is a Man," said John. 
 
 "Thank you, John," I said. I had 
 never had such a splendid introduction 
 before. "How de do, Marjory." 
 
 "I sit by you, too," she said, and put 
 one hand on my knee. 
 
 A funny hot feeling, like pain 
 threaded in a sharp needle, ran through 
 me. If I had these two little good bits 
 of responsibility in my life I might still 
 have been in that empty house three 
 thousand miles away across that line, 
 and then fifty more. 
 
 John made a long arm across me and 
 pushed the little hand away. "You 
 8
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 mustn't do that," he said. "He he's 
 mine." 
 
 Brown legs looked into my face, at 
 first doubtfully, then a slow smile turned 
 up the corners of her mouth and two rows 
 of tiny white teeth came. She put her 
 hand back again and took me into her set. 
 : ' You're Margy's man, too," she said. 
 
 It was a proud moment for me. But 
 I was seized with a small panic. How 
 to keep the friendship of both these 
 new friends ? I was a child among 
 children. I knew that they blew 
 watches and made a tunnel between 
 one's legs and had whooping cough and 
 took crackers when no one was looking 
 and had a perfectly wonderful knack 
 of finding places that left dirty marks 
 on white clothes. So I hauled out my 
 9
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 watch quickly to divert what was going 
 to become a very flattering fight for the 
 possession of me. " Blow, old son," I said. 
 
 He did, and gurgled and laughed to 
 see his success. 
 
 "Now me," said little brown legs. 
 
 And all was well. 
 
 They started to talk together, John 
 about a battleship that had appeared 
 two or three days before, and Marjory 
 about a little girl whose nurse had 
 spanked her, but with such a rush of 
 words that to this day the true story of 
 that tragic event remains a mystery. 
 And all the time the sun shone hotly on 
 the three of us and the song of the sea 
 came merrily to our ears and not a cloud 
 even as big as a man's hand broke the 
 wonderful blue of the sky. John had 
 10
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 run a hand through my arm and Mar- 
 jory had put her cheek against my sleeve 
 and a small pink foot on my leg. I was 
 accepted. 
 
 And just as I had it in my mind to 
 propose that I should be conducted 
 over the fort and shown the great hall 
 where the gallant pirate lived with his 
 ruffians, a rather shrill Irish voice called 
 "Babies --Babies." 
 
 "That's my Nannie," said Marjory, 
 but she made no effort to move. 
 
 And John brought a great rusty hook 
 out of his pocket, with three shells, a 
 cutting of an engine from a magazine, 
 an empty cotton reel, a bit of pencil, 
 and a used tin of tooth paste. "Look !" 
 he said proudly. 
 
 A very large, beamy shadow fell on 
 ii
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 the sand in front of us. "Whall, I 
 guess you're comfortable, annyway." 
 
 We all looked up. It was obviously 
 Nannie, and it seemed to me that she 
 needn't have been so broad and thick 
 through or possess such tremendous 
 girth to look after two such thorough- 
 bred youngsters. She could have 
 managed a younger son who had be- 
 come a harmless lunatic with one of 
 her fat spatulate hands, and kept a 
 six-foot-two Connemara constable in 
 order with half her ripe tongue. 
 
 "Do you want to take the children 
 in now?" I asked. 
 
 "I do, sorr," she said. "I guess I 
 must clean them up for their dinner." 
 
 "Lunch," corrected Marjory, who still 
 made no effort to move. 
 
 12
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "No," said John. "I don't want 
 to." 
 
 He was clutched. "Ye know ye 
 must come. It's late as it is. If Oi 
 have anny troubil ye shan't go to the 
 village this afternoon for the candies. 
 Oi'll learn ye to say 'I don't want to' 
 to me. Oi'm yer Nannie and ye must 
 mind me." 
 
 She lifted him up as though he were 
 a small cushion. All his articles of 
 virtu fell and he set up a big howl. 
 
 But Marjory still made no effort to 
 move. 
 
 "Now come along, Marjory. Ye 
 mother couldn't see you from the house 
 and was frightened to death in case 
 ye'd got drownded." 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry," I said. But I 
 13
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 couldn't be heard because John was 
 giving an exact imitation of a jackal in 
 acute agony and of a man on the tread- 
 mill. It was very disturbing. 
 
 He was clutched again. "Look at 
 the gentleman. He's ashamed of ye. 
 Such a cry-baby as ye are thin." 
 
 "I won't be a cry-baby." The noise 
 ceased at once. John stood looking at 
 me with his mouth drawn down and his 
 eyes stretched, and tears streaming down 
 his face. 
 
 Nannie seized her opportunity and a 
 hand of both children and drew them 
 up through the slipping sand, talking 
 hard. 
 
 I got up and watched them. They 
 kept looking round and waving and 
 calling "Good-bye, Man." And when
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 they had been half pushed and half 
 drawn up to the cottage I saw someone 
 in white come out eagerly and quickly 
 and bend down and draw both my new 
 friends into her arms. The sun dodged 
 the roof of the verandah and laid a 
 caressing hand on a small golden head. 
 
 They waved again before going in, 
 and for what seemed a long time I 
 stood looking through the wall of the 
 cottage and through the dead years, 
 with regret like a great load in a home- 
 sick heart. I turned away. I could 
 see by the shortness of my shadow that 
 I also must hurry to lunch or I should 
 have to go without. And there at my 
 feet lay a collection of some of the most 
 valuable things in the world. 
 
 I made a hole in the sand and buried 
 15
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 them, marking the spot carefully. As 
 I started to go I thought I saw the 
 golden head move quickly from an upper 
 window. I suppose it was because I 
 hoped I should. 
 
 16
 
 II 
 
 TO be at a loose end ; to feel, in 
 the middle of life, that you are 
 drifting, with a dragging anchor, from 
 old moorings ; to realise suddenly that, 
 although you can call on many friends 
 and rely upon their coming, you are 
 utterly unable to bring to you the one 
 human being who can give life a meaning 
 and a reason and a purpose ; to go 
 through crowded cities and quiet coun- 
 try lanes always alone even if you are 
 listening to the laughter and talk of 
 brothers and the men you like ; to wake 
 up in the middle of the night with a
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 sense of homesickness so strong and 
 urgent, a longing and a desire for wife 
 and children and home so terrible and 
 poignant that ugly thoughts form them- 
 selves into menacing shapes and lurk 
 in the corners of your room ; to feel 
 that you are working for no one partic- 
 ular person who will take pride in your 
 success, have patience with your failure 
 and give you God-sent sympathy and 
 encouragement in your efforts to do 
 better; and then to wander out aim- 
 lessly in search of the someone that 
 you need, bitterly persuaded that you 
 have missed her in the crowd, these 
 things are not good for a man. I knew, 
 because I was going through all this. I 
 had brothers who were married and 
 whose homes echoed with children's 
 18
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 footsteps that I envied. I had an un- 
 married brother whose loyalty and un- 
 quenchable friendship were things to be 
 proud of; but he, much younger, had 
 his own vital and vivid interests and 
 his way to make. Father and mother, 
 
 dead. 
 
 I had come to America to widen my 
 interests, to divert my attention from 
 myself, knowing that self-analysis led 
 either to martyrdom or mental malady. 
 I had seized on New York as a chemist 
 on a new gas, or a bug hunter on a new 
 species of beetle. I had examined it 
 closely, been amused and interested at 
 its rush and glitter and gone to the 
 Massachusetts coast with only one idea, 
 
 to fill my lungs with air that was 
 clean and my eyes and brain with the 
 
 19
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 sight and sense of nature in all its sim- 
 ple pride of life and movement and 
 genuineness. 
 
 I had chosen the south coast instinc- 
 tively, first having explored Boston and 
 seen in it curious reminiscent bits of 
 Cheltenham and London and some of 
 the towns along the Thames. For 
 several days I had been in the holiday- 
 making hotel, alone among a throng of 
 young people whose fathers and mothers 
 talked and rocked on the verandah or 
 played golf on a pretty course that 
 overlooked the sea. The place was 
 good. I liked it all the better because 
 it reminded me of the Emerald Coast 
 of Brittany, and I bathed in sea and 
 sun with relish and refreshment. But 
 the incessant spirit of search and wander 
 20
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 that dogged my heels had caught up 
 with me again that morning and had 
 linked arms as I had gone out to try 
 and outdistance it, and to concentrate 
 my thoughts on all the work that I had 
 to do. The old restlessness was in my 
 veins again. No ship came over the 
 horizon to throw out friendly signals. 
 Work seemed to have lost its old power 
 to enchain me, to give me the old satis- 
 faction that goes with the act of creat- 
 ing. I had made up my mind to get 
 up and go on, it didn't much matter 
 where, when the little sturdy shadow 
 fell on the blank pages of my manu- 
 script book and the small clear voice 
 said, "Hullo, man." 
 
 And as I went back to lunch I had 
 an odd warm feeling that I should stay 
 
 21
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 to dinner and other lunches and dinners. 
 I felt that I had left the uncomfortable 
 jeering spirit that I so completely de- 
 tested somewhere among the rocks and 
 undergrowth, biting its nails. These 
 two children had given me their blessed 
 trust and liking. They had struck the 
 human note. They were friends. They 
 might have been mine. 
 
 I laughed at the thought of it, as I 
 hurried through the dry sand with its 
 queer yellow weeds, or marched across 
 the smooth almost wet stuff, from which 
 the sea had just receded, leaving the 
 pattern of the soles of my shoes tem- 
 porarily behind. I had met and liked 
 other children and been trusted. I had 
 dozens of little friends in various parts 
 of the earth who ran to me when I 
 22
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 came. But somehow, for no apparent 
 reason, these two, John and Marjory, 
 seemed to, yes, I used the word, - 
 "need" me. I felt just that, unexplain- 
 able as it was then, stupid and absurd 
 as it seemed in those budding hours, 
 and metaphorically I let go my anchor, 
 I decided to stay. I didn't remember 
 to have felt so light shouldered, so un- 
 burdened, so curiously and newly awake 
 to life and its interests and ties for God 
 knows how long. I went back with a 
 song in my heart as though I had got 
 out of a long tunnel and the sun was on 
 me again. It was very strange and 
 good. 
 
 After lunch I collected my manu- 
 script book and a pencil, self-filling 
 pens are bad servants and are likely to 
 23
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 turn a man into a cynic, and took up 
 a place on the verandah that was de- 
 serted because the sun was on it, and 
 with a new feeling of energy went over 
 the first few chapters of my new novel. 
 I found them limp, aimless and tinc- 
 tured with a peculiar bitterness that 
 left a taste in my mouth like that of 
 nasturtium seeds. I tore them out and 
 dropped them in little pieces over the 
 verandah into a small mountain of dead 
 leaves. The writing of a long novel at 
 the best of times is not much less wear- 
 ing than picking a hole in a prison wall 
 with a hair pin. You must feel con- 
 vinced that your plot means something, 
 your characters are alive and that you 
 are going to paint a picture of a recog- 
 nisable phase of life that will have some 
 24
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 sort of value to your readers, or you 
 might as well go out and break stones. 
 I liked my plot as I had worked it out 
 in my head but I had libelled my char- 
 acters. In an unconscious way I had 
 treated them as the inevitable hotel 
 gossip treats the other visitors. Instead 
 of giving them characters I had taken 
 them away. So, in the right spirit, I 
 began all over again with "This is a 
 man" ringing in my ears, and with the 
 comfort of that little cheek against my 
 arm. 
 
 Without moving or being aware of 
 the passing of time I worked fast and 
 well until the sun had left my spot and 
 I had finished the first chapter. Then 
 I got up, on better terms with myself 
 and in consequence with the world, put 
 25
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 my work in the dispatch-box in my 
 room and swung out of the hotel. In- 
 stinctively I went over the bridge 
 towards the place where John and Mar- 
 jory had found me. I felt that I must 
 recover those treasures and hand them 
 back to the boy. How could he go to 
 sleep peacefully without bringing an out- 
 burst of shrill Irish from Nannie unless 
 the precious, used tin of tooth paste 
 that would certainly be of infinite use 
 in case of shipwreck or a brush with the 
 Indians were safely under his pillow with 
 the old iron hook and the reel of cotton ? 
 The tide had come in and was just 
 turning. A fringe of weed and the 
 strange flotsam of the sea was stretched 
 in a long uneven line within a few inches 
 of the sun-dried sand. The sun was 
 26
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 ready to set and lingered for a moment 
 generously, all golden. There was that 
 wonderful hush and softness everywhere 
 that precedes the passing of the sky's 
 king and even the sea, disrespectful and 
 egotistical as it is, seemed to be going 
 out on tip-toe. A fishing boat, with a 
 patched sail bagged out flatly, went 
 silently and smoothly home. Small 
 birds, with long narrow beaks and thin 
 legs, paddled in the water. My shadow 
 moved grotesquely at right angles all 
 across the sand. I ought to have been 
 a giant. 
 
 There was no sign of the children on 
 the beach or the verandah of the cottage. 
 I could only see the ropes of a hammock 
 moving to and fro regularly. Perhaps 
 "Mudder" and Nannie had taken them 
 27
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 by trolley car down to the village, or 
 did it call itself a town ? And Rose, 
 who was obviously a sturdy, fat-cheeked 
 cook-maid who sang to herself in the 
 kitchen and conducted badinage with 
 the tradesmen's men from the back 
 door, was enjoying a siesta with the 
 "Saturday Evening Post." If they had 
 been my children they certainly would 
 have been out. I was certain that 
 they were out from the look of the 
 children. They spoke well for " Mud- 
 der." And so with my brain working 
 hard, at one moment on my next chap- 
 ter, at another on my sudden decision 
 to stay in that place and finish the book, 
 I went on keeping a sharp eye for a 
 sight of Jack and "Mudder" and little 
 brown legs. 
 
 28
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 They were not near the place where 
 they had found me in the morning. 
 But I dug up the invaluable things that 
 I had buried and spread them out be- 
 tween my pockets, to their keen annoy- 
 ance. As I turned the bend where the 
 rocks mounted higher I saw Nannie's 
 brave figure sitting squarely on the 
 undergrowth and the two children in a 
 boat. I dodged among the rocks until 
 I came level with their backs and then 
 went as quietly as I could, got into the 
 boat and put my hands on imaginary oars. 
 
 "Now," I said, "out we go to sea, to 
 Robinson Crusoe's island. Hold fast. 
 The sea's mountains high and the one 
 who falls overboard is lost." I rowed 
 hard against a strong current and a 
 stiff northeaster. 
 
 29
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 John tumbled to the idea immediately. 
 He jammed his hat down on his head 
 and gripped the side of the boat with 
 one hand and the seat with the other. 
 "All right, Captain," he shouted loudly, 
 so that his voice might reach me through 
 the roar of the sea, and his face took on 
 the set expression of an old seafaring 
 man who realises the danger and the 
 responsibility. 
 
 Marjory was also at once alive to 
 the game. She slipped to the bottom 
 of the boat, twirled one arm around a 
 leg of John's and caught hold of the side 
 of the boat with a tiny, delicate hand. 
 "I the captain," she said. "You Bill." 
 
 If John had dared, he would have let 
 go with one hand and hit Marjory. 
 He was seriously upset at this hideously 
 30
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 feminine remark. "No," he roared. 
 " He's captain. I Bill, and you Sam." 
 
 Holding that if she wasn't captain 
 she wouldn't be anything, Marjory made 
 to get up and step overboard to certain 
 death. "Look out, Sam," I yelled. 
 "Move one inch and I put a bullet 
 through you." 
 
 She hunched one shoulder and 
 cowered. 
 
 John nodded grimly, as who should 
 say, "Serve the blighter right, too," 
 and moved to and fro as if tossed by 
 the great movement of the sea. 
 
 I pulled my heart out for a whole 
 minute. "Land," I cried. "Sit tight, 
 man. I believe we're saved. Bill, stand 
 up and look for a safe landing." 
 
 He obeyed orders sharply, rocking as
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 he stood and putting a hand to his 
 forehead to help him to peer through the 
 blinding rain. ; 'Yes, Captain, there!" 
 
 "Aye, aye," said I, and with a super- 
 human effort beached the almost water- 
 logged boat. "Would you believe it, 
 mates?" I cried gleefully. "It's Rob- 
 inson Crusoe's island. Tumble out, you 
 two, there's work to be done before 
 night comes." 
 
 Out sprang John. "I build a hut," 
 he said. 
 
 "Right." 
 
 "And I sit in it," said Marjory, rising 
 in a quite perfect Fifth Avenue manner. 
 
 John ignored her. "Give me the 
 saw," he said. 
 
 I gave it to him. "That tree first." 
 
 He attacked it vigorously, pushing 
 32
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 Marjory away when she walked through 
 it. 
 
 "Now, Sam, stand there and look 
 out for lions and tigers while I make a 
 fire. Do you see anything?" 
 
 "Yes, Nannie." 
 
 "That's not Nannie," scoffed John. 
 "That's a porpoise." 
 
 And Marjory laughed. 
 
 I pulled an old piece of sacking, 
 or it may have been a shirt, from the 
 boat and put a match to it. Fool ! 
 The sight of the actual instantly de- 
 stroyed the imaginative. John dropped 
 his metaphorical saw and came to watch 
 the flame, and Marjory left her lookout 
 and ran forward. "Burn this, too," 
 she cried and twisted off her straw hat. 
 
 The game was over. 
 33
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 I rescued the hat and saved a spank- 
 ing for Brown-legs and sat down with 
 my back against the boat. The west 
 had become all red and gold and the 
 sea was stained in great patches. The 
 small, long-legged birds still paddled. 
 I saw the faint thin half circle of a slim 
 new moon lying on its back. 
 
 And while the light was fading I told 
 my friends a story, sitting between them, 
 holding two sticky hands. But just before 
 I had finished it a clear sweet voice came 
 to us calling "John Marjory," and 
 they both struggled eagerly to their feet 
 and ran away from me without a word. 
 
 I sat on with my back to the boat 
 till all the day had gone and the angel 
 of night had lit the lamp in the moon, 
 wishing and wishing. 
 34
 
 Ill 
 
 THE place continued to hold me. 
 To my surprise and relief the 
 spirit of search and wander had lost me 
 or had gone off to punish some other 
 lonely man whose life was empty. I 
 was working again with enthusiasm. 
 Three days slipped off the calendar 
 almost before I realised that they had 
 come. I got up early and wrote till 
 breakfast, and after it till half past 
 eleven. Then I went out and made 
 castles in the sand for John and Marjory 
 until Nannie gathered them in to lunch. 
 In the afternoon I wrote again till five 
 35
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 o'clock and rejoined the babies for 
 further games or stories. And at night, 
 up in my bedroom, only luckily just in 
 ear-shot of the tortured piano, I buried 
 myself in the new book till long after 
 everybody in the hotel was in bed and 
 asleep, and my small room reeked of 
 tobacco. It was intensely still and quiet 
 at night except for the regular pulsing 
 of an engine somewhere near. 
 
 I found myself continually wonder- 
 ing why it was that the sudden and 
 unexpected advent of these two little 
 beings, who were, after all, not much 
 different from dozens of others whom I 
 knew much better and to some of whom 
 I was connected by ties of blood, should 
 have dispelled my loneliness. Very 
 vaguely and without any reason it 
 36
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 seemed to me that they were uncon- 
 sciously only the signals of someone in 
 distress, someone equally lonely and at 
 a loose end ; someone who had not 
 found content or happiness or the glory 
 of love. I had a feeling that I was 
 waiting, that I was going to be called 
 upon to accept a great responsibility, 
 to assume a proprietorship of human life 
 that was the thing most needed by me 
 to make my own life good and big and 
 real. It was all, at that time, phantom- 
 like and untranslatable. I couldn't 
 grasp it or pin it down. But I was 
 curiously satisfied and soothed and 
 quieted. I seemed to be like a man 
 who had been thrown on what he sup- 
 posed was a desert island and just at 
 the time when his craving for human 
 37
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 intercourse has led him almost up to 
 the moment when he ended an aimless 
 and miserable life a bunch of flowers 
 had been thrown into his cave with the 
 scent of hope and a cry for help upon 
 them. 
 
 My desire to see and meet the mother 
 of John and Marjory grew stronger and 
 stronger as the days went by. Several 
 times I saw the slight sweet figure with 
 the golden head bend over the children 
 on the verandah, but never closer than 
 that. The babies talked about "Mud- 
 der" continually. She was their heroine 
 and always the mere sound of her voice 
 sent them to their feet and away. There 
 was no mention of the word father. 
 To them as well as, oddly enough, to 
 38
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 me such a person had no existence. It 
 was all very curious. 
 
 But I asked them no questions, put 
 them through no cross-examination. I 
 played with them and was well content 
 to wait. In my room in the hotel 
 there already seemed to be three 
 bunches of flowers, and all the air was 
 filled with the scent of hope and always 
 I could feel as plainly as though I were 
 a Marconi operator the call for help. 
 
 My God, who was readier than I to 
 respond ? Only the man who himself 
 needs help can understand the urgency 
 of such a call. In a sort of way I 
 gathered all my strength together, stood 
 watching and waiting all strung into 
 an eager alertness, ready to go to the 
 rescue at a moment's notice. In no 
 39
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 other way can I describe the peculiar 
 feelings that pervaded me during those 
 three golden days of work and play. 
 
 I shall never forget that fourth 
 evening. 
 
 I worked rather later than usual, 
 being vitally interested and absorbed in 
 a close analysis of the character of a 
 man who should have been great if he 
 had not suffered from an incurable de- 
 sire to be popular. I hurried across 
 the sands in a fading light. I had made 
 an appointment at the boat. I was 
 more than an hour late. The children 
 were not there, nor was there any sign 
 of them. I went nearer to the house 
 than I had ever been before. I could 
 see no one. There was an engine stand- 
 ing on the rail of the verandah and a 
 40
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 white bear with one ear gone lying in a 
 bush. Someone was singing in the 
 kitchen. 
 
 I hunted about, hoping that I should 
 come suddenly on two small crouching 
 bodies and four large dancing eyes hid- 
 ing from me. I slipped about among 
 banks of dry sand and tangled under- 
 growth. But there were no babies. I 
 was only half amused at the depth of 
 my disappointment. Seeing no sign of 
 the bulky figure of the nurse I told 
 myself that they had all gone down to 
 the village. 
 
 I had never been beyond the boat. 
 I went that way then, a jumble of 
 thoughts in my head, work and the 
 construction of it ; what I should be 
 teaching those two children if they had
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 been mine ; whether I ought to send a 
 cable to my agent in London giving 
 him my address ; whether if I had a 
 son like John I should put him through 
 drills and make him understand some- 
 thing of discipline. And all the while I 
 was going from rock to rock like a goat 
 and absorbing the exquisite softness of 
 the colour of the sky that looked as 
 though it had been done with pastels 
 by a master hand. And I remember 
 that I was urged on by a feeling of in- 
 describable eagerness and exhilaration, 
 like that which must pervade a tired man 
 who stumbles his way towards home. 
 
 I rounded a sharp bend and stopped. 
 
 Within twenty yards of me I saw a 
 girl with a golden head and a round 
 white neck and a white frock and shoes, 
 42
 
 There was an exquisite, a bewildering femininity 
 all about her. Page 43.
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 sitting on a ledge. One arm was around 
 Marjory, who lay out asleep with her 
 cheek against a breast and her little 
 brown knees all bare. John was lying 
 across her lap with his fair head in the 
 dip of it, his eyes fast shut. 
 
 The mother's profile was cut against 
 the cloudless sky, and she was looking 
 out and out into space, into to-morrow, 
 and there was a little smile round her 
 lips. There was an exquisite, a be- 
 wildering femininity all about her, like 
 a halo, a sweet essence of motherliness, 
 even in the lines and curves of her that 
 were so young and lovely. There was 
 a certain strength about her, too, in 
 the thoroughbred cut of her nose and 
 chin and the wideness of her blue eyes. 
 
 I stood there, holding my breath. 
 43
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 All my blood raced through me and my 
 heart seemed to tumble. My search 
 and my wanderings were over. I had 
 arrived. I knew it so surely as I knew 
 that the sun had almost set and that 
 those children had held me for a reason 
 in that place. She might have been 
 my wife and the mother of my children. 
 
 I don't know how long it was before 
 she turned her face round and saw me. 
 But when she did there was an instant 
 welcome in her eyes. No surprise, no 
 embarrassment, nothing but a great 
 warm, quiet welcome. I might have 
 been her husband. 
 
 I went forward softly, my rubber 
 shoes silent on the smooth brown, al- 
 most even, rock. "They're tired," I 
 whispered. 
 
 44
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 And she nodded. 
 
 "I was to have met them at the 
 boat, but I worked without watching 
 the time." 
 
 "They waited and were very disap- 
 pointed, so I took them for a scramble." 
 
 I sat down and Marjory opened her 
 eyes for an instant, put a little hand on 
 my arm and went to sleep again, suck- 
 ing a finger. 
 
 Nothing more was said. 
 
 I watched the light fade slowly and 
 saw the faint breeze fall away and 
 heard the song of the sea rise up to greet 
 the young moon. And an early star 
 came out, not wholly alight yet, and 
 peace and security touched my soul. 
 
 Presently John stretched and yawned 
 and rubbed his fists into his eyes and 
 45
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 gathered himself up and put his arms 
 tight round his mother's neck. 
 
 She laughed and said, "Look." 
 
 When he saw me he frowned a little 
 and said after a pause: "Why don't 
 you like me ?" 
 
 I explained that I did and the reason 
 why I hadn't been in time. Then he 
 climbed over his mother, waking the little 
 girl on his impetuous way, and kissed me. 
 
 It was good. 
 
 I carried Marjory home on my 
 shoulder, holding John's hand, and we 
 all talked together. On the step of the 
 verandah I stopped short and lowered 
 my little burden and delivered her up. 
 Nannie came out and the babies were 
 captured. John fell at the door, but 
 didn't cry. 
 
 46
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 The mother and I stood face to face 
 silently. She looked very white and 
 slight. 
 
 I said, "Are you doing anything to- 
 night after dinner?" 
 
 "No," she said. 
 
 "May I come to talk to you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 I turned back three or four times on 
 my way across the wet sand. I could 
 see her standing on the verandah watch- 
 ing me go. 
 
 It seemed wrong and unnatural to be 
 walking away from that house and that 
 woman and those babies. 
 
 47
 
 IV 
 
 LOOKING back, I can see myself 
 racing up to my room, plunging into 
 a cold bath with the tap running and 
 changing into a dinner jacket. I can 
 see my face looking as though a mask 
 had fallen away from it and all my 
 actions quick and energetic and gay. 
 My mind, I remember, was like a child's. 
 Something good had happened. I was 
 unaccountably happy. I asked myself 
 no questions. I looked no further than 
 the moment, the hour. I had some- 
 thing delightful to do presently. The 
 whole complexion of my life had changed. 
 48
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 I didn't, in my usual way, stop to 
 analyse. I just seemed to be re- 
 charged, revitalised, renewed. I revelled 
 in a new sense of living and being 
 alive. I felt extraordinarily young and 
 unsophisticated. 
 
 I noticed that the dining-room was 
 not so full that night. The season was 
 drawing to a close and already many 
 tables were empty, and some of the 
 white-frocked waitresses had gone. I 
 asked the one who made a pattern of 
 small dishes on my table when the 
 hotel closed, and she told me at the 
 end of the first week of September 
 eight days. It didn't matter. I would 
 find another place that would give me 
 a bedroom. I could write anywhere, 
 with my face to the sun and my book on 
 49
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 my knee. I needed no elaborate study 
 lined with encyclopaedias that I should 
 never consult, elaborate reading lamps 
 and a desk covered with brass pen 
 trays and smart blotting pads cornered 
 with silver. I had got over that phase, 
 and had become a workman instead of 
 a writer. A pencil, a block and sin- 
 cerity, that's all I needed for my job, 
 with patience and a great economy of 
 words. 
 
 I hurried through dinner and went 
 out on the wide verandah and walked 
 up and down, smoking a cigar. The 
 early diners were sitting about in groups, 
 rocking to and fro with the restlessness 
 peculiar to Americans. 
 
 It was a wonderful night. The sky 
 was cloudless and transparent and the
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 moon, like polished silver, lay a little 
 shyly among a very orgy of stars. Half 
 a dozen motor cars were drawn up on 
 a wide space of gravel in front of the 
 hotel, and the cigarettes of two of the 
 chauffeurs made small blinking spots of 
 light. In a cottage somewhere near a 
 woman was singing in a high soprano, 
 and away in the distance the irritating 
 clang of a train's raucous bell was blown 
 upon the soft breeze. There was a 
 strong refreshing smell of the sea. 
 
 But it was impossible to keep to the 
 hotel. I felt myself drawn towards the 
 cottage where, by this time, John and 
 Marjory were asleep with their fair 
 heads dented into their pillows, and 
 somewhere near, ready for the morning, 
 the favourite book or toy of the moment.
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 So I went along the white road across 
 which lights from the houses on each 
 side were flung, and over the wooden 
 bridge and down to the long stretch of 
 sand. The laugh of a girl who was 
 sitting with a man filtered into the air. 
 The wash of the sea was ceaseless. 
 
 There was no one on the verandah of 
 the cottage. I could see a light in the 
 sitting-room through the screened door 
 and windows. But just as I hesitated, 
 wondering whether I had arrived too 
 soon, the door opened and she came 
 out. I might have called her. 
 
 She leant over and looked down on 
 me, standing ankle deep in dry sand. 
 "I've finished dinner," she said, answer- 
 ing my thoughts, and I went up, glanc- 
 ing into the hall sitting-room, as I 
 5*
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 passed, with its uncovered wood walls 
 and staircase and stone fireplace, with 
 big screen in front. I arranged the 
 cushions in the hammock and held it 
 while she climbed into it. We might 
 have known each other all our lives. 
 
 "Marjory has a little fever to-night," 
 she said. 
 
 "Nothing serious?" 
 
 "Oh, no, a little overtired, perhaps. 
 Children often get it, and their tempera- 
 ture runs up alarmingly. A little dose 
 puts them right." She seemed to know 
 that I had never possessed a child. 
 
 I sat on the ledge of the verandah 
 and dropped my hat into a chair. The 
 light from the sitting-room fell on her 
 golden head and the white of her 
 neck. 
 
 53
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "Do they call you Jack or John?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "How did you know that I'm a John ?" 
 
 "I don't know. I just did. I knew 
 when I saw you coming along the sands 
 two days before you met the babies. 
 I called the boy John because I knew 
 that some day I should see you coming 
 along the sands to speak to them." 
 
 A very warm feeling settled round 
 my heart as though a precious hand had 
 touched it and claimed it forever. And 
 for some time we sat quite quietly look- 
 ing into each other's eyes, without self- 
 consciousness or affectation, but with a 
 sort of childlike gladness and trust and 
 security. 
 
 "I wonder if you know my name," 
 she said. 
 
 54
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 I knew the name by which I would 
 have given all I possessed to call her. 
 It was wife. "I've always called you 
 'Mudder' as the babies do." 
 
 "It's Joan. Do you like it? Is it 
 right?" 
 
 "Perfectly right," I said. 
 
 I suppose it was odd that we didn't 
 give each other our surnames. Some- 
 how then they didn't matter, any more 
 than such unnecessary things do to 
 children. We had met. That was the 
 whole thing that mattered to us both. 
 I suppose it was odd that we didn't 
 talk about ourselves any more, and go 
 into details as to family and character- 
 istics, as we wished them to appear, 
 and describe the unhappiness that 
 we had both gone through as people 
 55
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 describe the symptoms of illnesses. But 
 somehow ego disappeared, or at any 
 rate the expression of it. I didn't care 
 who her people were, or where she had 
 been born and educated, or where she 
 had lived before I found her. Nor did 
 she wish to know to whom I was related 
 in England, whether I was Eton and 
 Oxford, or whether my public school was 
 unknown to polite society or my uni- 
 versity the streets. I was hers, and she 
 was mine, and that was all. We ac- 
 cepted each other. It was neither un- 
 canny or psychic, nor anything with a 
 far-fetched name that dictionaries have 
 some difficulty in defining, or that 
 people are fond of using indiscriminately 
 about any rather exceptional or uncon- 
 ventional case. It was simply natural, 
 56
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 at any rate to us. All we both felt 
 was glad and secure and wholly trustful 
 and beautifully, perhaps pathetically, 
 childlike. Sooner or later we should be 
 brought to the realization of the un- 
 avoidable fact that we were man and 
 woman, with urgent desires, and the 
 need to touch. Sooner or later we 
 should be forced to face nature, who 
 has no mercy, and makes no exceptions 
 and ignores all rules and regulations 
 with the most insolent triumph, and 
 glories in her power. 
 
 But not then, not yet. Mutually 
 and even unconsciously we seemed to 
 agree at once to take the present into 
 our arms and leave the future to look 
 after itself. We were neither of us, so 
 it seems to me as I look back, afraid of 
 57
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 whatever the future might have in store 
 for us. The present was so good, so 
 wonderful, so tremendous that we did 
 not wish to recover from it; we wanted 
 to spread it out. That, in itself, showed 
 me, as plainly as it showed her, with- 
 out words or explanations, that unhap- 
 piness and discontent and unfulfilment 
 had dogged our heels. 
 
 And so for a long time we sat and 
 chatted about the babies, and the place 
 and the people and the colour of 
 the sky when the sun set and a hun- 
 dred and one impersonal things, with 
 laughter. 
 
 Once I saw the two servants peer out 
 
 through the screened window and dodge 
 
 away when they saw me looking. I 
 
 was not annoyed or surprised or made 
 
 58
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 self-conscious. Why shouldn't they 
 peer ? I was in my right place. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when she sat 
 up and slipped suddenly out of the 
 hammock. "As a rule I go to bed 
 about half past nine," she said. "It 
 must be eleven o'clock." 
 
 I told her the time and she held out 
 her hand and said : "Good night. Bring 
 your work here in the morning. Dic- 
 tate to me or something. I want to 
 help." 
 
 I picked ,up her absurdly small hand- 
 kerchief and held the door open. She 
 went in and locked it and waved her 
 hand. I waited till she turned out the 
 light and I heard her go upstairs, and 
 then I went away, whistling like a boy. 
 
 The night watchman unbolted the 
 59
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 door of the hotel for me and we stood 
 talking for a few minutes in the half-lit 
 hall. He said that he slept perfectly 
 well during the day and was quite used 
 to lonely night work. I wondered what 
 sort of stuff he was made of and envied 
 him his stolid temperament, gave him a 
 cigar and went upstairs to my empty 
 room. 
 
 I didn't smoke and read in bed that 
 night. I fell asleep almost as soon as my 
 head touched the pillow and dreamed 
 of Joan and the babies and home. 
 
 Where they were was home. 
 
 60
 
 1WAS down to breakfast before any- 
 body else was about. And as I ate 
 my eggs with the sun pouring into the 
 many windows of the long dining-room 
 the waitress told me, having nothing else 
 to do, that she was a school teacher 
 somewhere near Boston who spent her 
 holidays making a little money and get- 
 ting sea air and bathing. She told me 
 also that the three shock-headed bell 
 boys were college men who did the same 
 thing for the same purpose. This was 
 new to me and surprising. I could 
 only conceive having my shaving water 
 61
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 brought into my bedroom by an under- 
 graduate of Oxford, or giving my shoes 
 to be cleaned to a Cambridge man in 
 the millennium. The snobbishness of the 
 average Englishman would have received 
 a nasty jar at the bare thought of an 
 Oxford or Cambridge man doing any- 
 thing useful. It appealed to me, al- 
 though I don't profess not to be a snob 
 in a hundred ways, as altogether ad- 
 mirable. How splendid for English 
 parents if their immaculate and penni- 
 less sons refused to be parasites during 
 the vacations and put their hands to 
 honest labour for a change. 
 
 The waitress had discovered me as 
 
 the author of several books that she had 
 
 read and with a splendid frankness and 
 
 a perfectly unhidden interest in me 
 
 62
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 made several drastic criticisms. But she 
 certainly gave me a better half of grape- 
 fruit than usual. 
 
 I went out as quickly as I could get 
 away and walked round to a shack 
 where I had noticed that there were 
 cut flowers for sale. I bought a large 
 mixed bunch and with my book and 
 pencil dashed off to the cottage. 
 
 I could hear the babies talking and 
 walking above and Joan's clear sweet 
 voice chiming in. But there was no 
 one in the sitting-room. I went in 
 quietly and opened a door that I 
 imagined led to the kitchen. A round- 
 faced, fresh-looking girl with dark hair 
 and Irish eyes was doing something at 
 the gas-stove. 
 
 I said, "Good morning, Rose. Will 
 63
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 you please give me a jug of water ? I 
 want to put these flowers on the break- 
 fast table." 
 
 She looked at me with great round 
 eyes and wide-open mouth for a long 
 moment, then said, "I will," and did so. 
 But it was with an amused-astonished 
 air of "Well Oi'm jiggered!" 
 
 I put the flowers in the centre of the 
 table. On my way out I saw, subcon- 
 sciously, that the hat pegs were devoid 
 of a man's hats. I took a chair into a 
 place on the verandah where the sun 
 came, read over my last chapter and 
 fell to work. 
 
 Presently the two children, who had, 
 
 I supposed, breakfasted in the nursery, 
 
 ran out. They couldn't see me because 
 
 I was behind the angle of the house and 
 
 64
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 so scurried off to the beach, big with 
 ideas. A little later I saw Joan come 
 down into the hall. She was singing 
 and was all in white with a blue silk 
 sweater. She drew up and looked 
 searchingly at the flowers as though 
 reading the message that I had asked 
 them to deliver. Then she turned round, 
 saw me, smiled, waved her hand and 
 made a movement as though writing. 
 
 I waved mine and returned to work. 
 
 My pen was amazingly kinder and more 
 human. The bitterness and satire had 
 gone out of it. I found myself dealing 
 with normal people in a normal way, no 
 longer of abnormal types, with cruelty. 
 
 When I looked up again Joan was 
 sitting near by, with her back to the 
 sun, busily cross-stitching. 
 65
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 John must have seen me from the 
 beach because he came up out of breath 
 shouting "Hullo, Man!" But Joan in- 
 tercepted him deftly, held him tight 
 and whispered: "Sssh, he's writing. 
 Be a good boy and go to the boat. 
 Mudder and Man will come down in 
 a little while and have a fine game with 
 you." 
 
 There was a little struggle and a 
 shout and more whispering and then 
 silence. I tilted my chair forward and 
 looked over the verandah. Master John 
 was walking slowly back with his chin a 
 little cocked up and eyebrows raised. 
 I knew what he was thinking, "A 
 funny man to sit and write when he 
 might be playing with me in a real 
 boat." 
 
 66
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 I put down my book at eleven o'clock. 
 
 "I love flowers in the house, John," 
 said Joan. 
 
 "I know you do," I said. 
 
 "I slept so well last night." 
 
 "So did I." 
 
 "What are you writing?" 
 
 "My new novel for the spring." 
 
 "What's it about?" 
 
 "Oh, life and death and love." 
 
 She gave a little sigh and smiled and 
 took my book and got up. "Come to 
 the babies, John," she said. "But wait 
 a minute." With a swift movement she 
 went round the house into the sitting- 
 room and opened a drawer in the table. 
 But before she put the book into it, 
 she held it to her lips for a moment and 
 against her breast. Then she came out 
 67
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 and I took her hand and we scrambled 
 down the bank and over the sands to 
 the boat. 
 
 There was no storm at sea that 
 morning. 
 
 We sailed across three thousand miles 
 of water to England. John and Mar- 
 jory had talked of nothing but England 
 for two days, it appeared, and then we 
 took the train, it was a most elastic 
 and ubiquitous boat, --to the country 
 and flew up the hill in an aeroplane to 
 my house, where the big dog was, and 
 where the cows were grazing in the 
 meadow, flicking their anaemic tails to 
 keep the persistent flies away. 
 
 "Do you kill a cow to get the milk?" 
 asked John. 
 
 "Yes, of course," said Marjory. 
 68
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 The children went back with Nannie. 
 Joan and I lingered in the sun. A 
 party of crows flopped heavily over our 
 heads. Nobody's dog came and looked 
 at us from a little distance, gave the 
 suspicion of a wag in reply to the flip 
 of my fingers and made off. The sand 
 was warm through my shoes. 
 
 "Tell me about your house," said 
 Joan. 
 
 "You tell me," I laughed, imitating 
 John, who invariably asked you to give 
 him all the details of the thing about 
 which you had asked him. 
 
 She stopped and put a white-shoed 
 foot on a piece of brown rock with her 
 eyes straight ahead as though looking 
 at a picture that she knew by heart. 
 Her wide-brimmed Panama hat shaded 
 69
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 all her face except her chin on which 
 there was a splash of sun. The collar 
 of her silk shirt was cut low and there 
 were freckles round her ears. Her lines 
 were so slight and sweet that she might 
 have been a sister to those babies. 
 
 "It has a thickly thatched roof," 
 she said, "that hangs over the windows 
 like bushy eyebrows. The chimneys are 
 stubby and fat and when the smoke 
 comes out on a windless day it looks 
 like cotton wool. The walls are all 
 sorts of colours, -- bits of worn red and 
 touches of yellow and green, mossy 
 green, and almost white where the rain 
 has soaked it. The door is narrow and 
 warm with an old oak beam above it 
 and all the windows have small panes 
 of leaded glass. The paths are bricked 
 70
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 and uneven and there are roses every- 
 where and hollyhocks with round 
 shoulders, like tall boys who have out- 
 grown their strength. And all round 
 it, but not too near, there are trees 
 with many arms all loaded with leaves 
 and between the gaps great stretches of 
 country lie below in patterns. ... Is 
 that right?" 
 
 "Yes; how did you know?" 
 "I've always known, John," she 
 answered. 
 
 She turned round and faced me on 
 the step of the verandah. Her wide- 
 apart blue eyes were filled with tears. 
 "I've often looked in at the window 
 behind which the light burns very late 
 every night and seen you bending over 
 a desk with your shiny head in your
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 hand. . . . You've been very lonely, 
 haven't you, John?" 
 
 "Hideously lonely, Joan," I said. 
 
 "And so have I indescribably 
 terribly." 
 
 I held out my hand and she took it 
 and put it against her breast. 
 
 Two days before the hotel closed I 
 had been working steadily on Joan's 
 verandah all the afternoon. A torrent 
 of rain had fallen the night before and 
 had made the few remaining flowers in 
 the gardens of the shut-up bungalows 
 all round my hotel look very sagged. 
 The chalky roads were soft and sticky 
 and heavy clouds skidded across a kindly 
 disposed sun. 
 
 I had been playing train with the 
 72
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 babies and making myself into a tunnel 
 by the simple process of standing with 
 my legs far apart, they crawled 
 through making sounds like "Iland- 
 ilang" in imitation of an engine's bell, 
 and left to go back to dinner when 
 the light had almost gone. I saw a 
 man drive up in a small motor wagon 
 which delivered groceries. I don't know 
 why I stopped. Instinct, I suppose, or 
 perhaps a feeling that it was my right 
 and privilege to stand by that cottage 
 in which there were only women and 
 children. At any rate I went back 
 within ear-shot of the kitchen door and 
 heard that man say angrily that if his 
 bill wasn't paid by the next day he 
 wouldn't deliver anything else. "It's 
 two months in arrears," he said, "and I 
 73
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 can't afford to let it run. Besides, I've 
 been stung before by visitors and I'm 
 taking no chances." 
 
 I didn't hear what Rose said but I 
 followed the man to his machine. 
 "Have you got your bill with you?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "No, but I can give you the amount." 
 
 I wrote it down with his name and 
 address. "All right. I'll look in to- 
 night and write you a cheque." 
 
 "Are you Mrs. Thompson's brother?" 
 His tone was polite. 
 
 "My cheque's good," I said. 
 
 It was the first time I had heard 
 Joan's name. 
 
 "Thank you," he said, cranked up 
 and drove off. 
 
 I had dinner as quickly as I could, 
 74
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 took a trolley car into the town and 
 having paid his bill and obtained a 
 receipt, went into a big store where meat 
 and vegetables were sold and asked 
 for Mrs. Thompson's account. I had 
 struck the right place, which wasn't 
 extraordinary because it was the only 
 large shop of the kind, and paid there 
 too, pocketing the receipt. I then found 
 a fish shop and a chemist's. The name 
 of Thompson was unknown to them 
 both. I searched further. There were 
 several fish shops and many chemists, 
 but before I left the town I had found 
 the right ones and paid them to date. 
 In each case my cheque on a well-known 
 New York bank was accepted without 
 question. The men may have looked 
 curiously at me. I didn't notice. What 
 75
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 did it matter to me what Joan's sur- 
 name was ? She was mine. 
 
 When I reached the cottage it was 
 an hour and a half later than I had 
 ever been there before in the evening. 
 Joan was walking about on the uneven 
 path alongside the house, anxiously, 
 muffled in an overcoat. It was damp 
 though not cold ; cheerless and there 
 were no stars. She ran towards me 
 when she heard my step and whistle. 
 
 "Where have you been all this 
 time?" she cried. "Oh, never do this 
 again, John. I can't stand it. I've 
 never been so ... so nervous and 
 frightened before. I thought something 
 must have happened to you." 
 
 My God, how good that was to hear ! 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry," I said. I could 
 76
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 hear my heart thumping. "I had to 
 go down to the town." 
 
 "The town?" 
 
 :< Yes." I put the receipts into her 
 pocket. 
 
 She led the way into the cottage. 
 The elementary electric lights were 
 turned off. Four candles were burning 
 on the wide mantel-board. The farther 
 end of the room was in shadow. My 
 manuscript book with the pencil be- 
 tween its pages had been placed on a 
 small table between two rocking chairs. 
 In one of them her work was lying, as 
 though it had been thrown there. A 
 tangle of blue silk thread lay on the 
 floor. The sound of voices came from 
 the kitchen and an occasional cackle of 
 women's laughter. 
 
 77
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 This place was home. 
 "May I read you my last chapter?" 
 "I want you to," she said and slipped 
 off her coat. I took it and was going 
 to hang it up on the pegs when she put 
 out her hand and drew the receipts out 
 of the pocket. "What are . . ." 
 
 When I came into the light again she 
 looked at me and the most beautiful 
 smile was on her face. 
 
 "John," she said. "John!" 
 She came forward and into my arms 
 and kissed my lips. I clutched her 
 tight and kissed her mouth and fore- 
 head and eyes, feeling the thump of her 
 heart, the warmth of her limbs. The 
 scent of her hair went to my brain. 
 Every bird on the earth seemed to break 
 into song and the room to be flooded 
 78
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 with a blinding light. My blood burned 
 and I trembled with a sudden wave of 
 vitality, a great passionate thrill of love 
 and desire. 
 
 And presently I stood back, having 
 poured out incoherent, inarticulate 
 words. Her eyes were alight and both 
 hands were on her breasts. There was 
 something amazingly ethereal and 
 mediaeval about her at that moment, 
 and spiritual. 
 
 "You used to kiss me like that and 
 say those things to me when we were 
 together before, John," she said. 
 
 "When?" I asked, half bewildered, 
 half understanding. 
 
 "Have you forgotten? You can't 
 have forgotten." 
 
 "No. Yes. Tell me." 
 79
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "On the galley," she said, "after you 
 took me from my father and sailed 
 away and put me on the skins above 
 the rowers. Don't you remember the 
 noise the great sail made and the wash 
 of the water as we cut through it ? 
 What a Viking you were, my big man." 
 
 I said: "We're awake, Joany. Let's 
 face things up." 
 
 "Yes," she said, and sat down, rest- 
 ing a hand on my book. 
 
 I sat, too, and put my hand possess- 
 ingly on hers. She was mine. She be- 
 longed to me. 
 
 "Fisher rented this cottage from some 
 friends of his for the summer. Before 
 we left New York. ..." 
 
 "Fisher is Thompson ?" 
 
 :< Yes. The day before the babies 
 80
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 and I left, I don't know how it began 
 or whose fault it was, we said things 
 to each other, suddenly, that brought 
 down everything like a pack of cards, 
 things that had been on the tip of 
 my tongue to say, oh, an uncountable 
 numbers of times during the last four 
 years. A week after we had settled 
 here he died." ("He's dead: He's 
 dead!" The words went running 
 through my brain.) "I was married 
 at eighteen a child and he was the 
 wrong man, as you know. I found it 
 out at once. He wasn't a criminal, or 
 bad in any way. He was conceited and 
 pig-headed and weak, but meant well 
 and worked hard. He was clever, too, 
 and was making a name. He loved me 
 as well as he knew how to love anyone 
 81
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 besides himself and he admired me and 
 leaned on me, because I can make up 
 my mind. He relied on my judgment 
 almost wholly and looked to me like a 
 child to put him right, although playing 
 and posing as the strong, infallible man. 
 He nearly always posed. It went with 
 his peculiar form of weakness, which 
 was really moral cowardice. There was 
 never any happiness or content in the 
 house, only a sort of tacit agreement to 
 disagree on all fundamental things. We 
 kept up appearances for the sake of 
 the babies and our families. He clung 
 to me because I was helpful. Marriage ? 
 If that's marriage, then the sooner the 
 law and the church are forced to pre- 
 vent such a thing, the better for hu- 
 manity. We muddled along, wasting 
 82
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 the best of life. His egotism and a sort 
 of gift for reconstructing facts to make 
 them look as he desired they should 
 enabled him to get through somehow. 
 Since I've been here I've learned from 
 his solicitors that he left no money. I 
 had with me just enough to pay the first 
 bills. Now I have nothing, but I 
 haven't been anxious because somehow 
 I knew that you were on your way to 
 me. I don't know how I knew, I 
 just did." 
 
 I watched a moth fly madly round 
 and round the flame of one of the 
 candles. Finally it was caught and fell 
 with a little thud. I was amazed to 
 find that I was not attacked by an 
 overwhelming passion of jealousy and 
 rage that the incident of this man 
 83
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 seemed untrue and unmeaning and nebu- 
 lous. More than ever the babies seemed 
 to be mine because they were hers and 
 she belonged to me. I put the palm 
 of her hand to my lips. 
 
 She went on thoughtfully. "I don't 
 quite know why I married him. Does 
 a girl of eighteen ever quite know why 
 she marries ? I had known him for 
 two or three years. He was kind and 
 clean and straight. I had no father or 
 brothers to talk to and no sister to con- 
 sult. My mother was absorbed in her 
 own interests and was strangely de- 
 tached, the last person in the world I 
 could confide in. ... I know that I 
 had a tremendous yearning for children. 
 Always since I can remember children 
 have drawn me. I have spoken to 
 84
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 them and put their little hands against 
 my face and held them to me in their 
 helplessness and need, in the street, 
 in trains, in hotels, wherever I saw them. 
 I know that I wanted to possess one of 
 my own, unbearably sometimes. I 
 think that's why I married, not realiz- 
 ing that it meant so much more. . . . 
 Eighteen ! I was only a child. And 
 no one told me. . . . But now you've 
 come. My waiting is over at last." 
 
 She put her cheek down on my hand 
 and gave a long sigh. 
 
 And for a time we sat like that, in 
 silence. 
 
 Not at once, but in a few months 
 
 from that night we should be married. 
 
 ... I was obsessed with a great joy, 
 
 a blessed sense of harbourage, the splen- 
 
 85
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 did knowledge that I had found my 
 woman, my responsibility, the cord that 
 tied me to life and lifted it from a weary, 
 meaningless tramp into something fine 
 and big and purposeful. 
 
 Like children we were too happy and 
 contented to fret at having to conform 
 to convention. About death there is a 
 deep solemnity. We had met and loved 
 and the earth was ours. 
 
 I left early so that Joan should have 
 all the sleep that she needed. 
 
 I didn't go straight to the hotel. I 
 walked and walked, listening to the sea, 
 hearing the song of the stars, watching 
 the shimmer of the moon on the water. 
 The sky was no longer overcast. The 
 blanket of clouds had been drawn back 
 86
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 and piled up in a great mountainous 
 heap, like dirty snow, and there was a 
 clear delicious sky, all fresh and clean. 
 
 It seemed to me wonderfully easy to 
 believe in the existence of God that 
 night, and in the certainty and necessity 
 of a future life. This was not entirely 
 because I was profoundly, startlingly 
 happy happiness is responsible for all 
 good thoughts. The beauty and wonder 
 of the scene all round and over me filled 
 me with reverence and optimism. It 
 was not an accident. It was not 
 haphazard any more than is the creation 
 of life itself the greatest of His 
 miracles. 
 
 I stood and looked and listened, and 
 out of the earth and sea and sky I could 
 feel the need equal to my own, as urgent 
 87
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 and pressing as my own, for a mate and 
 for children. Nature has no use for 
 lonely detached things. Every bird and 
 beast and plant has a mission to per- 
 form a duty to carry out. The very 
 stars weld and have small stars. With- 
 out God there could have been no hu- 
 manity. If humanity ceased what 
 would become of the usefulness of God ? 
 
 I had found Joan . . . and out there, 
 in God's roofless cathedral, with the 
 organ of the sea giving praise and His 
 nightly choir joining voices to His ever- 
 lasting glory, I thanked Him for Joan 
 and her little ones. 
 
 I hadn't told her, I forgot ; but I 
 
 intended when I left the hotel within a 
 
 few hours to take my things to her 
 
 cottage and stay there. There was no 
 
 88
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 need for me to mention it. I knew 
 that she desired it, considered it to 
 be right. In future she must be respon- 
 sible to me and I to her. Her loneliness 
 and waste of life were over, as mine 
 were. I and I knew that she 
 didn't intend to be influenced by what 
 people might say. The tongue of 
 scandal is in the mouth of Ananias. 
 We had everything to gain and nothing 
 to lose. But my room should not be 
 hers, at least, not yet, and in that 
 I knew instinctively that she would 
 agree. Not because we were ashamed 
 or afraid. Only so that the fulfilment 
 of love should be blessed. 
 
 89
 
 VI 
 
 1 DROVE up with my baggage about 
 four o'clock the next afternoon. The 
 racketty hired motor-car carried almost 
 more than it could stand, and the man 
 had driven squeezed into a small space 
 by a large trunk, covered with labels. 
 It amused me to see him steering with 
 one hand and holding a kit bag with 
 the other, while he chewed gum indus- 
 triously, a great broad-shouldered fel- 
 low with a neck like a bull's. Every 
 moment I had expected to find myself 
 sitting among a debris of wheels and 
 old iron in the undergrowth that lined 
 90
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 the unbelievable road. He hauled the 
 car to a standstill with a rasping of 
 brakes that awoke echoes, and carried 
 in my things as though they were small 
 sacks of coal. The cowlike action of 
 his jaw never ceased. 
 
 I had spent the morning with Joan 
 on the verandah and my room was 
 ready. John ran out to meet me, fol- 
 lowed by Marjory. "You live in my 
 house now?" he asked anxiously. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "Are you glad?" 
 
 His reply was more than eloquent. 
 He flung his arms round me and when 
 he let go marched about, making much 
 noise with his feet, saying "Ah-ha ! 
 Ah-ha !" excitedly. 
 
 "Is Marjory glad, too?" asked Joan. 
 "Yes, mudder?"
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "Yes, mudder." 
 
 "And has she got a nice kiss for 
 John? Yes, mudder?" 
 
 "Yes, mudder," and with outstretched 
 arms she came up, holding up her face. 
 
 Darling kids ! 
 
 And all the while Nannie stood by 
 with amazement in her eyes, but with 
 the spirit of romance burning in them, 
 too. 
 
 My room faced the sea and had two 
 windows. Between them was a round 
 table on which Joan had put a bowl 
 of flowers. The walls were unpapered. 
 The wood was varnished and nicely 
 grained and the floor was partially 
 covered by a plain rug. It was very 
 fresh and cheery and filled with salt 
 air. 
 
 92
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 The children, intensely interested, 
 watched me unpack, commenting on my 
 socks and ties and hats and shoes. 
 
 "When I be as big as John I have all 
 these shoes, mudder?" asked John. 
 
 "If you've worked as hard, old son," 
 said Joan, who sat in a low chair, with 
 a wonderful smile on her lips. 
 
 Marjory made for a large round tin 
 of tobacco, a collar box and a bottle of 
 hair stuff. "When these be's empty I 
 have them," she stated. 
 
 "Don't touch anything, darling," said 
 Joan. 
 
 "All right," and she took up a leather 
 case and spilt my waistcoat buttons, 
 links and collar studs all over the floor. 
 
 "Marjory won't go to England," an- 
 nounced John the second with the superb 
 93
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 finality of a county court judge. Eng- 
 land had become the Mecca of their 
 dreams. 
 
 He liked my clothes and as I hung 
 them up on the hooks felt each coat 
 critically. One would have supposed 
 that the lad had never been in a man's 
 room before, so absorbed was his in- 
 terest. I put him into a golf coat which 
 came down to his heels and he strutted 
 about giving an admirable imitation of 
 my walk. There was no peace until 
 Marjory was dressed up, too, and they 
 both played at being men, carrying a 
 pipe apiece ; so my shirts were put 
 away while they were occupied. 
 
 It was all like a dream come true to 
 me, especially when Joan suddenly got 
 up and came over and put her golden 
 94
 
 Three soldiers in the sitting room before dinner 
 marched grimly round and round. Page 95.
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 soft head on my chest and said, "John, 
 John!" 
 
 There were three soldiers in the 
 sitting-room before dinner who marched 
 grimly round and round armed with 
 the latest rifles, a putter, a mashie 
 and a driving iron, very rusty, while 
 "Alexander's Rag-time Band" played 
 in the barrack square, in the shape of 
 Joan, who sat on the table working the 
 gramophone, with one white shoe crossed 
 over the other and one hand beating 
 time. All went well until Marjory broke 
 away and slipped in front of John. 
 Outraged at such a breach of military 
 etiquette, he gave her a mighty heave, 
 down she went with a crash, a loud 
 howl uprose, off went Joan from the 
 95
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 table, the army fell into hopeless disrup- 
 tion and the pin slipped off the grooves of 
 the record and hissed like an angry swan. 
 
 As soon as Marjory was appeased 
 and her knees kissed, Master John was 
 dealt with. The crime of hitting a girl 
 was explained to him No boy who 
 did that ever grew into a man, a regu- 
 lar man. It wasn't done by gentlemen. 
 What would he do if a big brute came 
 up and hit mudder ? 
 
 The boy's hitherto sulky eyes moved 
 quickly at that, with a new glint in 
 them, and he stole his hand into Joan's. 
 
 "I don't want to spank you," she 
 went on, following up her advantage, 
 "because that hurts me much more, 
 yes, much more, than it hurts you, be- 
 cause you're my son, and when my 
 96
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 son John is so naughty that he has to 
 be spanked I want to go away and hide, 
 I'm so ashamed. My son spanked ? 
 Think of it. ... What are you going 
 to do?" 
 
 The boy's mouth began to tremble a 
 little and his eyes to flicker. "You tell 
 me," he said. 
 
 Joan turned to me. He hated that. 
 "What do you think he can do?" she 
 asked without the vestige of a smile. 
 
 I frowned heavily and remained in 
 deep thought for a moment, watched 
 closely by both children. 
 
 Marjory had the air of a great heroine. 
 She was not enjoying it quite so much 
 now, because there was so much serious- 
 ness in the air. 
 
 "He must go up to Marjory and say, 
 97
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 'I'm very sorry. I won't do it again. 
 Please forgive me.' Otherwise he'll have 
 to be a postman or a trolley-car con- 
 ductor, and Marjory and I will be 
 soldiers." 
 
 For a moment he wrestled hard with 
 pride. It was a big struggle. But 
 when he saw me pick up the club that 
 he had dropped, he went and stood 
 about five feet away from Marjory and 
 recited the awful words. "I very sorry. 
 I won't do it again." 
 
 Joan prompted him. 
 
 "Please forgive me," he added. 
 Then he made a rush to a corner and 
 stood with his face to the wall and I 
 knew that his mouth was wide open 
 and his eyes drawn down and big tears 
 running down his cheeks. 
 98
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 I stopped Joan as she was going to 
 make a rush for him and called out, 
 with my best parade rasp, "Army, fall 
 in," and began marking time. So did 
 Marjory. And after a few seconds he 
 turned round, crept back, took his club 
 from a chair and fell in alongside me, 
 and out came the sun, away went 
 "Alexander's Rag-time Band," and Joan 
 went back to her place on the table and 
 the manoeuvres continued. 
 
 Even a watch spring is not more deli- 
 cately hung than the mind of a child. 
 
 After dinner, at Joan's earnest re- 
 quest, I dictated to her for two hours. 
 
 At first, it was difficult to switch my 
 mind away from that charming, alluring 
 figure, sitting at the table, with a pencil 
 99
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 in her well cut hand and the light of 
 the candles thrown back from her golden 
 hair. The gravity of her beautiful 
 girlish face, the profile silhouetted 
 against the wall that was in shadow, 
 made me want to laugh. It was so very 
 grave and important. And then the 
 irresistible call of her femininity filled 
 me with a wild desire to go and kneel 
 at her feet and wrap my arms round 
 her and take her lips. I adored her. 
 She awoke all the latent passion, all the 
 starved love, that was in me. . . . 
 
 But I controlled myself, and while 
 she read out the last two pages of my 
 last chapter, stood with my face be- 
 tween my hands and my elbows on the 
 mantel-board. Then the wheels of my 
 brain began to move and my characters 
 100
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 to take shape and, walking up and 
 down like an animal in a cage, I spoke 
 a new chapter, hearing what the people 
 to whom my imagination had given 
 birth had to say, describing exactly 
 what I saw them do. During that two 
 hours I might have been a thousand 
 miles from Joan and the babies. I was 
 the mere trained instrument, the articu- 
 late reporter, the recorder of what I 
 saw and heard. 
 
 I returned to consciousness when the 
 chapter ended and the peep-hole through 
 which I had been peering was closed 
 suddenly, as though by the fall of a 
 curtain. 
 
 And then, oh, my God, how warm 
 and tender and relying she was against 
 
 my heart. 
 
 101
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "I love you, I love," she said, "I 
 love you." 
 
 "I love you," I said, "I love you," 
 and my heart beat strong and true and 
 all my body was full of health and the 
 joy of life. 
 
 Somewhere a clock struck eleven and 
 I let her go. 
 
 "Bed?" she said. 
 
 I nodded and took the two candles. 
 I waited at the foot of the stairs while 
 she locked the door and then followed 
 her up. Her room was next to mine. 
 She opened her door and I gave her a 
 light. And for a moment we stood 
 looking into each other's eyes, afraid to 
 speak. 
 
 Then: "God bless you, John," she 
 said, and gave me her hand. 
 1 02
 
 For a moment we stood looking into each other's 
 eyes, afraid to speak. Page 102.
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "God bless you, Joany," I answered, 
 and held it for a moment. 
 
 Our doors shut together. 
 
 But the day had come up over the 
 horizon before I put down the book I 
 was reading and the pipe I had loaded 
 and reloaded, and fell asleep, to 
 dream. 
 
 103
 
 VII 
 
 JOAN and the babies and I seemed to 
 have the earth almost to ourselves 
 during the days that followed. 
 
 Another heavy torrent of rain which 
 lasted all one night and part of the 
 next day seemed to bring autumn with 
 it, and leave behind a nagging, dis- 
 agreeable, cross-grained wind that 
 chilled the air after sundown and tor- 
 mented the sea into a constant irri- 
 tation. They were more like October 
 than September days. A log fire in 
 the evening was very cheery and desir- 
 able. 
 
 104
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 But there was spring in my heart and 
 Joan's. 
 
 I continued to dictate to her and we 
 mapped out the time into regular hours 
 of work and play. Nine o'clock found 
 us in the sun on the verandah. Up 
 and down I paced until eleven, when 
 we went down to the babies and built 
 castles or hunted for shells or stalked 
 Indians, armed to the teeth with ten- 
 cent revolvers, or scrambled about 
 among the rocks. 
 
 After lunch, leaving the two young- 
 sters asleep in the nursery, we went off 
 to the golf course and practised short 
 approaches and putting, eliminating our- 
 selves with a scrupulous attention to 
 the rules of the royal and ancient that 
 the few remaining golfers sometimes 
 105
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 failed to acknowledge with the right 
 courtesy. Being incurably English, I 
 instituted the habit of tea, and we sat 
 on the excellent verandah of the golf 
 house, dodging mosquitoes, and ate the 
 marmalade sandwiches that accompanied 
 it. Then we went back laughing and 
 talking, hand in hand, found the chil- 
 dren and kept them interested and 
 amused till Nannie called them to 
 supper. After dinner worked again. 
 
 Nothing broke the placid normality 
 of all those good hours nothing. Not 
 even nature, who, by tacit agreement 
 we recognized and warded off. Not 
 yet, we both seemed to say to her the 
 time has not come. Torture us as little 
 as you can, friend, but be near at hand. 
 
 What, in all this, is almost unbe- 
 106
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 lievable to me now, seemed then to be 
 perfectly natural and right. It still 
 seems to be natural and right; but the 
 peculiarity, the indescribable frankness 
 and simplicity of it all stands out bigly 
 against the world's background of deceit 
 and hypocrisy and illicit love. There 
 was honesty in what we had done, at 
 any rate, and strength. We met, at 
 last, and knew each other on sight. We 
 were unafraid. Of nothing had we to 
 be ashamed. This was too big and 
 fine a love for us to spoil. It was not 
 a thing of the moment, ephemeral and 
 greedy. It meant something more than 
 self-indulgence. There were other lives, 
 other small human things to consider, 
 to whom to be responsible and to whom 
 to answer. 
 
 107
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 That was our open and simple atti- 
 tude. Working and playing, utterly 
 happy and thankful, with heart and soul 
 filled with content and joy and grati- 
 tude, we went on, quietly waiting, un- 
 worried, unanxious, for the time when 
 we could, without offending the natural 
 susceptibilities either of Thompson's 
 people or of hers, go into Church 
 together. 
 
 108
 
 VIII 
 
 THE following four days were golden 
 and unforgetable. Warmth came 
 back into the sun and hardly a fleck of 
 cloud broke the smooth surface of the 
 sky. The sea put on the kittenish, soft, 
 purring airs of a young and coquettish 
 girl and played upon the beach. A 
 dancing haze hung all round the cottage 
 like a screen of multitudinous and al- 
 most invisible beads and only after the 
 sun went down in all the pageantry of a 
 royal death was there the tang of 
 autumn in the air. 
 
 There are no days more beautiful or 
 109
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 inspiring in all the year than those of a 
 fine September. Their mellowness is 
 like that of a splendid woman who 
 takes a little rest after having sent her 
 children to school and who has time 
 and the mood to remember that her own 
 youth and loveliness have not yet gone. 
 It must be very good for September, 
 as for a good mother, to look back on 
 her achievements ; on the great promises 
 of spring fulfilled in the summer; on 
 the new life all out strongly in the 
 world ; on the new beginnings that will 
 eventually ripen to a useful maturity. 
 How fine and exquisite a deed is mother- 
 hood. The future destiny of the world 
 is the work of the mother. It is given 
 to her as to no one else to reap what 
 she has sown. She is the most power- 
 no
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 fill of all religions, the medium for 
 God's greatest and most perpetual 
 miracle. Science with all its amaze- 
 ment and art in its most inspiring forms 
 cannot compete with the woman who 
 bears children. 
 
 In the cottage that was aloof and 
 detached from all but the perpetual 
 traffic of the sea there were four happy 
 children. It is right that I should put 
 Joan and myself under that heading. 
 Love had the gift of making people 
 childlike. It gives simplicity and trust 
 and charity and faith and that intimate 
 understanding of nature as the eye sees 
 it that go with childhood before dis- 
 illusion and disappointment, grief, dis- 
 loyalty and ungratefulness make the 
 heart bitter and sceptical, and the eye 
 in
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 introspective. We were childlike also 
 in that we did without the gratification 
 of passion, though this was not easy. 
 We promised each other that we would 
 wait for the child's sake. We kept this 
 promise. 
 
 Working and playing, together and 
 with the children, those memorable days 
 passed all too quickly. We were nearly 
 as completely isolated as though be- 
 calmed on a deserted sea. There we 
 were, on what seemed to be the edge of 
 the earth, a mile from a summer resort 
 from which all the visitors had gone, 
 two and a half miles from a town that 
 was half-a-day's journey from New 
 York, without mails or newspapers or 
 telephones ; tradesmen the only people 
 who came near us ; Rose and Nannie 
 112
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 and the babies the only other persons in 
 the house. 
 
 If ever fate placed two people in a 
 position of the most searching and even 
 disillusioning test, we surely were the 
 two that were chosen. Together day 
 after day anything might have happened 
 but for the most complete mutual sym- 
 pathy and a love as faithful and endur- 
 ing as it was physically passionate and 
 hungry. 
 
 If I had been tortured by jealousy, 
 and my brain had been the happy hunt- 
 ing-ground of morbid and hellish 
 thoughts of Thompson as the father of 
 Joan's two babies, I can conceive think- 
 ing of them as perpetual reminders of 
 years in which I had no place, and then 
 the first faint shadow of the grim and 
 "3
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 ugly figure that seems to take a devilish 
 joy in coming between men and women 
 must have fallen upon the wall of the 
 cottage. It may be difficult to make 
 some people believe that I needed the 
 babies almost as much as Joan did. 
 To me they seemed to complete the 
 picture of her which was framed by my 
 love. They were preciously hers, part 
 of her as much as her long, fair hair, 
 her delicately cut, sensitive hands, and 
 her eyes that set me on fire. That 
 being so, the babies also belonged to me. 
 They came to me with her. I chose to 
 think I think it still that they were 
 part of the exquisite responsibility with- 
 out which love may one day turn a 
 distant corner hand in hand with passion. 
 The jealousy that sometimes clutched 
 114
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 me by the throat and struggled for 
 mastery was not of Thompson that 
 insubstantial creature who seemed to 
 have wandered into life from a box of 
 marionettes but of the good and fruit- 
 ful years that Joan and I might have 
 spent together, in the first glory of our 
 youth. 
 
 In the hours that were not devoted 
 to work we talked of this as we scoured 
 the country, now in its red and golden 
 clothing. It was a definite agreement 
 between us that we were to hide nothing 
 from each other; to be scrupulously 
 honest in everything; never to let any 
 question that crept into the mind stay 
 in it to rankle and spread, cancerously, 
 and to deal truthfully by each other 
 always, under all circumstances. We 
 "S
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 decided also never to argue, or indulge 
 in sarcasm even by way of joke, and, 
 above all, to turn and run top-speed 
 from anything that might lead to a 
 quarrel. No day is long enough for 
 love. In what part of it, then, is there 
 time for quarreling ? Just as the draw- 
 ing of a brutal finger across the delicate 
 wing of a butterfly leaves an indelible 
 mark, the first quarrel bruises the irre- 
 coverable bloom of love. There were 
 many small points on which, of no ac- 
 count, we had already agreed to differ. 
 But if there were two opinions on vital 
 matters, as, for instance, the schooling 
 of the children, or any other of the 
 hundred and one questions that must 
 come up in our life together, mine was 
 to be the final say. This, not because 
 116
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 my judgment was regarded as infallible, 
 or because I happened to be some 
 
 years older than Joan and therefore 
 / 
 
 might be supposed to have acquired 
 additional wisdom, or, at any rate, more 
 knowledge of life and how it should be 
 managed, but for the simple, excellent 
 reason that I was the male the 
 master. We heard, mentally, the angry 
 and derisive laughter of advanced women 
 when this point was arrived at, and I 
 gave Joan an imitation of one of them 
 hurling such epithets at my head as 
 "old-fashioned", "out-of-date", and the 
 rest of them. The fact remained how- 
 ever that being male I intended to 
 follow the law of nature and be the 
 dominating factor a law which if 
 adopted by American husbands would 
 117
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 save many thoughtless women, over- 
 burdened with freedom, from making 
 epic fools of themselves. 
 
 We both felt, I think, during those 
 beautiful, curious, detached days, as 
 though Time had come to a dead stop 
 as though the very earth had halted 
 in its incessant movement and we 
 seized upon this wonderful and solemn 
 pause to take stock of ourselves and then 
 draw up a deed of partnership to which 
 to subscribe our names. Neither of us 
 failed to recognize the deadly serious- 
 ness of our compact, and neither of us 
 had any fear as to its success. 
 
 We were returning from the golf 
 course one evening the now deserted 
 golf course where the club-house was 
 118
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 closed and the sturdy, middle-aged man 
 who sat on a cutting-machine and drove 
 a patient, big-footed horse up and down 
 and then across, leaving long, velvety 
 lines behind, were our only companions. 
 The light had gone out with that pecul- 
 iar swiftness which is so surprising to 
 Europeans. We turned round suddenly 
 to find night standing at our elbows. 
 With one arm round Joan's delicious 
 shoulders and one hand holding the 
 strap of my bag of clubs their faces 
 all damp and stained with wet grass 
 we left the great deserted hotel behind 
 and went along the short road which 
 led to the sands. On each side the 
 houses were shut up and the few re- 
 maining flowers in the small gardens 
 had already become unkempt and un- 
 119
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 tidy, like children running wild. The 
 first star came out and looked like a 
 little hole pricked in the sky. The 
 wind that came over the sea was keen 
 and sharp. 
 
 Half-way across the sands the amaz- 
 ing sense of being alone on earth with 
 Joan that was given to me by the soli- 
 tariness of the place and the oncoming 
 darkness, swept over me. I became 
 suddenly a primeval man alone with 
 his mate his woman. Passion, the 
 gorgeous knowledge of possession, an 
 irresistible desire to hold and touch, to 
 feel the answer of her lips, the response 
 of her body, carried me away. I flung 
 my clubs down, seized Joan in my 
 arms and kissed her. She suddenly 
 startled me with a sort of yearning, 
 120
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 maternal cry, as her arms tightened 
 about my neck. 
 
 "Oh, John, John! My man, my 
 master!" she cried. "Make me the 
 mother of your son ! I want him ! I 
 need him ! I want to do something for 
 you, to reproduce you, to have the pride 
 and joy of bearing fruit by you, to see 
 you small and helpless and dependent, 
 to feed you, the little new you, 
 to have a little baby hand clasp my 
 ringer and a little hungry mouth fumble 
 for my breast !" 
 
 I don't know what I said. What 
 could I say ? What was there to say 
 except that love such as ours, good and 
 great and true and faithful as it was, 
 must wait for the recognition of the 
 Church. 
 
 121
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 "It can't be," I said. "I want you 
 to give a child to me. I want to see 
 you fulfilling the law of nature by me, 
 but we must wait." 
 
 "How long?" she asked, all warm 
 and soft and alluring in my arms. 
 
 "A little while longer only a little 
 while longer." 
 
 She still clung to me in all the beauty 
 of her youth in all the urgency 
 of her womanhood silently demand- 
 ing her rights setting my brain and 
 blood in a hot turmoil of desire. I 
 put my lips to her ear and begged 
 her not to tempt, not to weaken my 
 strength, but to help and make less 
 selfish. 
 
 And then she kissed me and her arms 
 relaxed and we went home. 
 122
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 It was all too difficult, as of course 
 any average man or woman could have 
 told us had we asked for advice. 
 
 The time came when to live in that 
 exposed bungalow now almost always 
 wet with the sea's spray and wholly cut 
 off from the town because the trolley- 
 cars had ceased to run was impossible. 
 The last vestige of summer had dis- 
 appeared and winter was dogging the heels 
 of autumn. It was not good to keep the 
 babies in this place any longer. Joan had 
 nowhere to take them, and no money. 
 
 One windy morning Joan and I 
 marched into the town. Having already 
 broken the conventions we decided to 
 mend them by obtaining a license to be 
 married, and we presented ourselves 
 before the proper official, gave him all 
 123
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 the necessary details, obtained the docu- 
 ment, and duly armed with this called 
 on the rector of an Episcopal Church, a 
 kindly old man, who smiled benignly 
 upon us and rinding that we had no 
 witness, asked his housekeeper to follow 
 us into the Church. Quite accustomed 
 to being called upon to perform this 
 duty the old lady, in whose heart ro- 
 mance still dwelt, took her place and 
 the simple ceremony was performed to 
 the accompaniment of the song of the 
 wind. The beautiful service was read 
 with quiet dignity and impressiveness 
 by the rector, and when the little ring 
 which I had bought in the town was 
 slipped by me on Joan's finger, the look 
 that came into her eyes brought out of 
 my heart a prayer that I might be 
 124
 
 JOAN AND THE BABIES AND I 
 
 worthy of her and a good father to those 
 two little children whose future happi- 
 ness and well-being were at my mercy. 
 
 And then, having made inquiries 
 about trains to Boston, where we in- 
 tended to spend the winter, we retraced 
 our steps to the bungalow. With a song 
 on her lips, Joan went off to find the 
 babies and bring them back to lunch, and 
 I sat down to begin a new chapter. 
 
 Presently Joan found me at work, sat 
 on the edge of my chair and put her 
 arms round my neck, and I whispered 
 something in her ear that brought into 
 her face the look' of a Madonna. 
 
 Metaphorically I raised my hand to 
 the figure of fate which had stood wait- 
 ing on the threshold, and said: "Pass, 
 friend! All's well!"
 
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 The Blindness of Virtue 
 
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 324 Pages. $1.35 net. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN fcf CO., Publishers, BOSTON
 
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 The Blindness of Virtue 
 
 A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS 
 
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 6mo. 75 cents net. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, BOSTON
 
 A 000129554 2