"I always wanted to."
"Very well, then, you'd better do it at once."
He took an evening newspaper out of his pocket and strolled toward one of the front windows; then he turned to her.
"You and I might as well understand each other, Jennie," he went on.
"I can see how this thing came about.
It was a piece of foolishness on my part not to have asked you before, and made you tell me.
It was silly for you to conceal it, even if you didn't want the child's life mixed with mine.
You might have known that it couldn't be done.
That's neither here nor there, though, now.
The thing that I want to point out is that one can't live and hold a relationship such as ours without confidence.
You and I had that, I thought.
I don't see my way clear to ever hold more than a tentative relationship with you on this basis.
The thing is too tangled.
There's too much cause for scandal."
"I know," said Jennie.
"Now, I don't propose to do anything hasty.
For my part I don't see why things can't go on about as they are—certainly for the present—but I want you to look the facts in the face."
Jennie sighed.
"I know, Lester," she said, "I know."
He went to the window and stared out. There were some trees in the yard, where the darkness was settling.
He wondered how this would really come out, for he liked a home atmosphere.
Should he leave the apartment and go to his club?
"You'd better get the dinner," he suggested, after a time, turning toward her irritably; but he did not feel so distant as he looked.
It was a shame that life could not be more decently organized.
He strolled back to his lounge, and Jennie went about her duties.
She was thinking of Vesta, of her ungrateful attitude toward Lester, of his final decision never to marry her.
So that was how one dream had been wrecked by folly.
She spread the table, lighted the pretty silver candles, made his favorite biscuit, put a small leg of lamb in the oven to roast, and washed some lettuce-leaves for a salad. She had been a diligent student of a cook-book for some time, and she had learned a good deal from her mother. All the time she was wondering how the situation would work out.
He would leave her eventually—no doubt of that.
He would go away and marry some one else.
"Oh, well," she thought finally, "he is not going to leave me right away—that is something.
And I can bring Vesta here."
She sighed as she carried the things to the table.
If life would only give her Lester and Vesta together—but that hope was over.
CHAPTER XXXI
There was peace and quiet for some time after this storm.
Jennie went the next day and brought Vesta away with her.
The joy of the reunion between mother and child made up for many other worries.
"Now I can do by her as I ought," she thought; and three or four times during the day she found herself humming a little song.
Lester came only occasionally at first.
He was trying to make himself believe that he ought to do something toward reforming his life—toward bringing about that eventual separation which he had suggested.
He did not like the idea of a child being in this apartment—particularly that particular child.
He fought his way through a period of calculated neglect, and then began to return to the apartment more regularly.
In spite of all its drawbacks, it was a place of quiet, peace, and very notable personal comfort.
During the first days of Lester's return it was difficult for Jennie to adjust matters so as to keep the playful, nervous, almost uncontrollable child from annoying the staid, emphatic, commercial-minded man.
Jennie gave Vesta a severe talking to the first night Lester telephoned that he was coming, telling her that he was a very bad-tempered man who didn't like children, and that she mustn't go near him.
"You mustn't talk," she said.
"You mustn't ask questions.
Let mamma ask you what you want.
And don't reach, ever."