g sound. Maurice, under
the shock of that sound, stood rigid; but Lily's feeble arms cuddled the
bundle against her breast; she said, "Sweety--Sweety--Sweety!"

The young man sat there speechless.... This terrible squirming piece of
flesh--was part of himself! "I wouldn't touch it for a million dollars!"
he was thinking. He got up and said: "Good-by. I hope you--"

Lily was not listening; she said good-by without lifting her eyes from
the child's face.

Maurice stumbled out to the staircase, with little cold thrills running
down his back. The experience of recognizing the significance of what he
had done--the setting in motion that stupendous and eternal
_Exfoliating_, called; Life; the seeing a Thing, himself, separated from
himself! himself, going on in spite of himself!--brought a surge of
engulfing horror. This elemental shock is not unknown to men who look
for the first time at their first-born; instantly the feeling may
disappear, swallowed up in love and pride. But where, as with Maurice,
there is neither pride nor love, the shock remains. His organic dismay
was so overwhelming that he said to himself he would never see Lily
again--because he would not see It!--which was, in fact, "_he_," instead
of the girl Lily had wanted. But though his spiritual disgust for what
he called, in his own mind, "the whole hideous business," did not
lessen, he did, later, through the pressure of those heavy words, "my
own fault," go to see Lily--she had taken a little house out in
Medfield--just to put down on the table, awkwardly, an envelope with
some bills in it. He didn't inquire about It, and he got out of the
house as quickly as possible.

Lily had no resentment at his lack of feeling for the child; the baby
was so entirely hers that she did not think of it as his, too. This
sense of possession, never menaced on Maurice's part by even a flicker
of interest in the little thing, kept them to the furtive and very
formal acquaintance of giving and receiving what money he could
spare--or, oftener, _couldn't_ spare! As a result, he thought of Jacky
only in relation to his income. Every time some personal expenditure
tempted him, he summed up the child's existence in four disgusted and
angry words, "I can't afford it." But it was for Lily's sake, not
Jacky's, that he economized! He was wretchedly aware that if it had not
been for Jacky, Lily might still be a "saleslady" at Marston's, earning
good wages. Instead, she was taking l