gently, looking past me out of the window into the garden. "I was coming
over just as soon as I got back from this call to talk with you about
it, even if it did seem to intrude Bill's and my affairs into a day
that--that ought to be all yours to be--be happy in. But Bill, you see,
is no respecter of--of other people's happy days if he wants them in his."

"Billy's happy days are mine and mine are his, and he has the heart
not to leave me out even if you would have him!" I exclaimed, a sob
gathering in my heart at the thought that my little lover hadn't even
taken in a situation that would separate him from me across an ocean.

"Bill is too young to understand when he is--is being bereaved, Molly,"
he said, and still he didn't look at me. "I have been appointed a
delegate to attend the Centennial Congress in Paris the middle of next
month--and somehow I--feel a bit run down lately and I thought I would
take the little chap and--have--have a _Wanderjahr_. You won't need him
now, Mrs. Molly, and I couldn't go without him, could I?" The sadness in
his voice would have killed me if I hadn't let it madden me instead.

"Won't need Billy any more!" I exclaimed with a rage that made my voice
literally scorch past my lips. "Was there ever a minute in his life that
I haven't needed Billy? How dare you say such a thing to me? You are
cruel, cruel, and I have always known it, cold and cruel like all other
men who don't care how they wring the life-blood out of women's hearts,
and are willing to use their children to do it with. Even the law
doesn't help us poor helpless creatures, and you can take our children
and go with them to the ends of the earth and leave us suffering. I have
gone on and believed that you were not like what the women say all men
are, and that you cared whether you hurt people or not, but now I see
that you are just the same, and you'll take my baby away if you want