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!

As his cab whirled him up Fifth Avenue, Ralph's whole body throbbed with
rage against the influences that had reduced him to such weakness. Then,
gradually, he saw that the weakness was innate in him.