Mrs. Marvell had followed him into the hall, and her cry broke the silence.  “Ralph—­Ralph—­is it anything she’s done?”

“Nothing—­it’s nothing.”  He stared at her.  “What’s the day of the week?”

“Wednesday.  Why, what—?” She suddenly seemed to understand.  “She’s not going to take him away from us?”

Ralph dropped into a chair, crumpling the letter in his hand.  He had been in a dream, poor fool that he was—­a dream about his child!  He sat gazing at the type-written phrases that spun themselves out before him.  “My client’s circumstances now happily permitting... at last in a position to offer her son a home...long separation...a mother’s feelings...every social and educational advantage"...and then, at the end, the poisoned dart that struck him speechless:  “The courts having awarded her the sole custody...”

The sole custody!  But that meant that Paul was hers, hers only, hers for always:  that his father had no more claim on him than any casual stranger in the street!  And he, Ralph Marvell, a sane man, young, able-bodied, in full possession of his wits, had assisted at the perpetration of this abominable wrong, had passively forfeited his right to the flesh of his body, the blood of his being!  But it couldn’t be—­of course it couldn’t be.  The preposterousness of it proved that it wasn’t true.  There was a mistake somewhere; a mistake his own lawyer would instantly rectify.  If a hammer hadn’t been drumming in his head he could have recalled the terms of the decree—­but for the moment all the details of the agonizing episode were lost in a blur of uncertainty.

To escape his mother’s silent anguish of interrogation he stood up and said:  “I’ll see Mr. Spragg—­of course it’s a mistake.”  But as he spoke he retravelled the hateful months during the divorce proceedings, remembering his incomprehensible lassitude, his acquiescence in his family’s determination to ignore the whole episode, and his gradual lapse into the same state of apathy.  He recalled all the old family catchwords, the full and elaborate vocabulary of evasion:  “delicacy,” “pride,” “personal dignity,” “preferring not to know about such things”; Mrs. Marvell’s:  “All I ask is that you won’t mention the subject to your grandfather,” Mr. Dagonet’s:  “Spare your mother, Ralph, whatever happens,” and even Laura’s terrified:  “Of course, for Paul’s sake, there must be no scandal.”

For Paul’s sake!  And it was because, for Paul’s sake, there must be no scandal, that he, Paul’s father, had tamely abstained from defending his rights and contesting his wife’s charges, and had thus handed the child over to her keeping!