Chapter IX: It Was Bound to Happen

THAT was on Friday evening. And on Saturday morning he had a telephone call from Dr. Zerneke.

“I’ve heard from Isabel,” she said. “The papers are signed. If you can get off this afternoon to go to the courthouse, the thing will be settled for good.”

He would be at her office at two, he said.

The legal red-tape would soon be unwound, now--his son would be all his own!...

Going back to his desk, he found a note there, saying formally that Mr. Wilkins wished to see him.

He walked buoyantly into Mr. Wilkins’ office, thinking to himself that this would be his promised raise.

“My luck is with me!” he said to himself.

Ten minutes later, he came out of Mr. Wilkins’ office saying to himself over and over:

“Of course. It was bound to happen. I’ve had too easy a time. It was bound to happen.”

He had in his hand an order on the cashier for his week’s pay, and another week’s in advance.

Mr. Wilkins had observed his work carefully, he said, during these two weeks. Not everybody had the makings of an advertising man in him. He felt sure that Mr. Overbeck would do better in some other field. Et cetera.

Fired!

He tried to persuade himself to take it lightly. After all, there were other advertising agencies in Chicago. He had got this job without any experience at all. With what he had picked up of the lingo of the profession, he ought to be able to get a better job. Yes, he was no longer a mere beginner. He would strike the next place for sixty-five dollars a week at least....

While he felt that way, as soon as he had cleaned up his desk and got his money from the cashier, he walked over to the H. H. Warner agency and asked for a job. He did not get it.

Then he tried the Simpson agency. There was nothing there for him, either.

Well, it had taken him some little time to get that first job. It would take more than a day to get another.... And in the meantime he had to go to see Dr. Zerneke.

What an irony! That it should be at such a moment that he should be given his son!

With Dr. Zerneke, in her office, he was stiff and formal. He had decided not to tell her about losing his job--until he had found another.

She wasted no words, but pushed a document across her desk.

“That is the mother’s consent. And here”--she glanced at another paper, and handed it over--“is your petition. Sign it before a notary, and take it to Judge Hummel in the County Court, at three o’clock; our legal representative will be there. His name is Starrett.”

“Thank you.”

He took his departure stiffly.

There was a notary’s office down the street. He had noticed it in coming. He stopped there, signed his name, and held up his hand while the notary mumbled a formula.

At the courthouse he found Mr. Starrett waiting for him. They went into Judge Hummel’s chambers. The judge looked at him curiously. It was not every day, it seemed, that a man adopted his illegitimate child....

It was over at last. And now to look for a job.

But no--he must wait till Monday for that....

He would have nothing to do over Sunday except think.

He remembered what Dr. Zerneke had said about the child’s being supported by his grandfather. It was as if she had known he was going to lose his job....

It was true that he had been slack at his desk all week. Not like the week before, when he had been living by himself, and calling up Dr. Zerneke’s office once a day to see whether the baby was all right.... He had been working for his son, then. Ever since he had come to Mrs. Czermak’s, he had been lapped in a soft, sentimental dream of fatherhood....

He realized that he had had no lunch. He must eat, even if he was out of a job.

He went home early in the evening and picked up a book to read, to keep his thoughts off his situation. He had decided he would say nothing to the people here about losing his job. Not until he had got another. He would go out early in the morning as usual, and keep looking for a job all day....

The book was one that had been in the room when he rented it, a novel of Dumas’. He had read it when he was a boy. He started to read it again, with the hope that in this cheerful swashbuckling romance he would find something to take his mind entirely away from his problems. It was about Athos--and, as he presently noted, about an illegitimate son of that worthy. And Norman vaguely remembered, from his boyhood, the story of how it had all come about. The young man had found upon his doorstep a bassinet containing the newborn child--a souvenir sent by a young lady of quality in memory of the jocund night of love which they had enjoyed the year before. So, it appeared, were such matters handled in those romantic days. And, as Norman remembered, the young hero had suffered no pangs of conscience; he had taken it as a matter of course, and sent the child away to be nursed and educated. Such, as well as Norman could remember, were the origins and early circumstances of the Vicompte de Bragelonne....

Norman threw the book aside fretfully. Dumas had played him false--had merely reminded him of his own troubles....

He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. Time for the feeding. But he did not want to go to see it.... He would feel ashamed, knowing that he had lost his job....

What was it that Dr. Zerneke had said about the clock stopping for him? When he found that he had a baby. Yes, he hadn’t thought of much else since then.

When Dumas’ hero found that bassinet on his doorstep, he didn’t moon over it. He took it in his stride....

Well, when he had another job, he would begin to live what Dr. Zerneke called a normal life. He would make friends. He would meet girls. He would not hang over his son’s cradle every evening. He would be a normal young bachelor....

But first he had to find a job--and work hard to keep it this time.

What a fool he had been, to lose that job! It might be hard enough to get another.... But he wasn’t going to let his son be supported by J. J. Overbeck....

There was a knock at the door. It sounded like Mr. Victor’s. He ignored it. And Mr. Victor took the hint of his silence and went away. But presently there came another tap that sounded like Monica’s. He ignored that, too. He sat slumped in his chair, thinking of his inadequacies. He was sitting thus, with his head drooped on his chest miserably, when the door opened slightly, and Monica’s voice uttered a surprised and apologetic “Oh!”

Norman did not look up even then. For he became aware of the tears of self-anger and self-pity in his eyes. He did not want this girl to see him crying.

But girls are stupid about such things. She stayed there in the doorway, and said “Oh!” again, this time in a sympathetic tone. Then she came timidly into the room, approached him, touched his arm with her hand. “Please--is anything the matter, Mr. Overbeck? Have you--have you had bad news from Colorado?”

She stooped over him in a kind sisterly way.

Colorado?

“No!” he said. And he added roughly: “Go away and leave me alone!”

She fled.

He shouldn’t have said that, he thought regretfully. She wasn’t his sister, to be talked to in such a fashion. She had a right to ask--she had thought his wife was dying or something. That was what any one would think, to see him sitting there crying.

Stricken with remorse, he went to the door.

“Monica!” he called, for she was not in sight. She appeared abruptly at the head of the stairs. “Yes, Mr. Overbeck?”

“I--I’m sorry, Monica,” he said.

“Oh, it’s all right.”

She was coming down. She stood there before him, with a queer frightened look on her face.

He didn’t know that he was holding out his arms to her in the doorway. He didn’t know until she melted into his clasp, and they were kissing one another.

“Oh!” she said at last, “we mustn’t do this. Your wife--”

“Of course,” said Norman, infinitely astonished at himself. “I forgot!”

There they were, in the doorway; and at the head of the stairs, as they both suddenly became aware, was Monica’s mother. They released each other abruptly. Monica ran out into the hall. Norman closed the door, and sat down to think.

Now what?

He couldn’t imagine why he had done such a foolish thing.

Fortunately, he was supposed to have a wife in Colorado. Monica wouldn’t expect him to marry her.

But what would her mother say?

He wasn’t left long in doubt. A firm rap at the door was Mrs. Case’s. He rose to let her in.