Close your eyes, Sally, close them tight! Now open them! That’s it … Slowly, slowly …
He came out of nothingness into the light and was right beside her suddenly.
He was tall, but not too tall. His face was tanned mahogany brown, and his eyes were clear and very bright. And he stood there looking at her steadily until her mouth opened and a little gasp flew out.
He took her into his arms without a word and they started to dance …
They were still dancing when he asked her to be his wife.
“You’ll marry me, of course,” he said. “We haven’t too much time. The years go by so swiftly, like great white birds at sea.”
They were very close when he asked her, but he made no attempt to kiss her. They went right on dancing and while he waited for her answer he talked about the moon …
“When the lights go out and the music stops the moon will remain,” he said. “It raises tides on the Earth, it inflames the minds and hearts of men. There are cyclic rhythms which would set a stone to dreaming and desiring on such a night as this.”
He stopped dancing abruptly and looked at her with calm assurance.
“You will marry me, won’t you?” he asked. “Allowing for a reasonable margin of error I seriously doubt if I could be happy with any of these other women. I was attracted to you the instant I saw you.”
A girl who has never been asked before, who has drawn only one lone wolf cry from a newsboy could hardly be expected to resist such an offer.
Don’t resist, Sally. He’s strong and tall and extremely good-looking. He knows what he wants and makes up his mind quickly. Surely a man so resolute must make enough money to support a wife.
“Yes,” Sally breathed, snuggling close to him. “Oh, yes!”
She paused a moment, then said, “You may kiss me now if you wish, my darling.”
He straightened and frowned a little, and looked away quickly. “That can wait,” he said.
They were married a week later and went to live on an elm-shaded street just five blocks from where Sally was born. The cottage was small, white and attractively decorated inside and out. But Sally changed the curtains, as all women must, and bought some new furniture on the installment plan.
The neighbors were friendly folk who knew her husband as Mr. James Rand, an energetic young insurance broker who would certainly carve a wider swath for himself in his chosen profession now that he had so charming a wife.
Ten months later the first baby came.
Lying beneath cool white sheets in the hospital Sally looked at the other women and felt so deliriously happy she wanted to cry. It was a beautiful baby and it cuddled close to her heart, its smallness a miracle in itself.
The other husbands came in and sat beside their wives, holding on tight to their happiness. There were flowers and smiles, whispers that explored bright new worlds of tenderness and rejoicing.
Out in the corridor the husbands congratulated one another and came in smelling of cigar smoke.
“Have a cigar! That’s right. Eight pounds at birth. That’s unusual, isn’t it? Brightest kid you ever saw. Knew his old man right off.”
He was beside her suddenly, standing straight and still in shadows.
“Oh, darling,” she whispered. “Why did you wait? It’s been three whole days.”
“Three days?” he asked, leaning forward to stare down at his son. “Really! It didn’t seem that long.”
“Where were you? You didn’t even phone!”
“Sometimes it’s difficult to phone,” he said slowly, as if measuring his words. “You have given me a son. That pleases me very much.”
A coldness touched her heart and a despair took hold of her. “It pleases you! Is that all you can say? You stand there looking at me as if I were a—a patient …”
“A patient?” His expression grew quizzical. “Just what do you mean, Sally?”
“You said you were pleased. If a patient is ill her doctor hopes that she will get well. He is pleased when she does. If a woman has a baby a doctor will say, ‘I’m so pleased. The baby is doing fine. You don’t have to worry about him. I’ve put him on the scales and he’s a bouncing, healthy boy.’ ”
“Medicine is a sane and wise profession,” Sally’s husband said. “When I look at my son that is exactly what I would say to the mother of my son. He is healthy and strong. You have pleased me, Sally.”
He bent as he spoke and picked Sally’s son up. He held the infant in the crook of his arm, smiling down at it.
“A healthy male child,” he said. “His hair will come in thick and black. Soon he will speak, will know that I am his father.”
He ran his palm over the baby’s smooth head, opened its mouth gently with his forefinger and looked inside.
Sally rose on one elbow, her tormented eyes searching his face.
“He’s your child, your son!” she sobbed. “A woman has a child and her husband comes and puts his arms around her. He holds her close. If they love each other they are so happy, so very happy, they break down and cry.”
“I am too pleased to do anything so fantastic, Sally,” he said. “When a child is born no tears should be shed by its parents. I have examined the child and I am pleased with it. Does not that content you?”
“No, it doesn’t!” Sally almost shrieked. “Why do you stare at your own son as if you’d never seen a baby before? He isn’t a mechanical toy. He’s our own darling, adorable little baby. Our child! How can you be so inhumanly calm?”
He frowned, put the baby down.
“There is a time for lovemaking and a time for parenthood,” he said. “Parenthood is a serious responsibility. That is where medicine comes in, surgery. If a child is not perfect there are emergency measures which can be taken to correct the defect.”
Sally’s mouth went
