“What common ground is there?  Why must I think your friendship and your money are the best possible things for him?  Why should I advise him to take what I refused for myself twelve years and more ago?  You offered me your friendship and your money—­as a substitute for being your wife.  You were so stark ignorant of the girl you’d promised to marry, that you offered her cash and the privilege of your company after your child was born.  And now you offer your child cash and the privilege of your company—­that’s all.  You deny him your name, as you denied his mother your name; and why should he pick up the crumbs from your table that his mother would have starved rather than eaten?  I’ve never spoken against you to him and never shall, but I’m not a fool now—­whatever I was—­and I’m not going to urge my son to seek you and put his little heart into your keeping; because well I know what you do with hearts.  I’m outside your life and so is he; and if he likes to come into your life, I shan’t prevent it.  I couldn’t prevent it.  He’ll do about it as he chooses, when he’s old enough to measure it up.  But I’m not for you, or against you.  I’m only the suffering sort, not the fighting sort.  You know whether you deserve the love and worship of that little, nameless boy.”

He was struck into silence, not at her bitter words, but at his own thoughts.  For he had often speculated on future speech with her and wondered when it would happen and what it would concern.  He had hoped that she would let the past go and be his friend again on another plane.  He had pictured some sort of amity based on the old romance.  He had desired nothing so much in life as a friendly understanding and the permission to contribute to the ease and comfort of Sabina and the prosperity of his son.  He hoped that in course of time and faced with the rights of the child, she would come round.  He had pictured her coming round.  But now it seemed that he was not to plan their future on his own terms.  What he offered had not grown sweeter to her senses.  No gifts that he could devise would be anything but poor in the light of the unkind past.  And that light burned steadfastly still.  She was not changed.  As he listened to her, it seemed that she was merely picking up the threads where they were dropped.  He feared that if he stopped much longer beside her, she would come back to the old anger and wake into the old wrath.

“I’d dearly hoped that you didn’t feel like that, any more.  You’ve got right on your side up to a point, though human differences are so involved that it very seldom happens you can get a clean cut between right and wrong.  However, the time is past for arguing about that, Sabina.  Granted you are right in your personal attitude, don’t carry it on into the next generation and assume I cannot even yet, after all these years, be trusted to befriend my own child.”

“He’s only your child in nature.  He’s only your child because your blood’s in his veins.  He’s my child, not yours.”