Young Phil Glenn was the first American aviator to fall; and when the news came people saw that the Mr. and Mrs. Glenn they had known was a mere façade, and that behind it were a passionate father and mother, crushed, rebellious, agonizing, but determined to face their loss dauntlessly, though they should die of it.

            Stephen Glenn did die of it, barely two years later. The doctors ascribed his death to a specific disease; but everybody who knew him knew better. “It was the loss of the boy,” they said; and added: “It’s terrible to have only one child.”

            Since her husband’s funeral I had not seen Mrs. Glenn; I had completely ceased to think of her. And now, on my way to take up a post at the American Consulate in Paris, I found myself sitting beside her and remembering these things. “Poor creatures—it’s as if two marble busts had been knocked off their pedestals and smashed,” I thought, recalling the faces of husband and wife after the boy’s death; “and she’s been smashed twice, poor woman…. Yet she says it has made her more beautiful. …” Again I lost myself in conjecture.

              

 

 II.
 
 

            I was told that a lady in deep mourning wanted to see me on urgent business, and I looked out of my private den at the Paris Consulate into the room hung with maps and Presidents, where visitors were sifted out before being passed on to the Vice-Consul or the Chief.

            The lady was Mrs. Stephen Glenn.

            Six or seven months had passed since our meeting on the Scythian, and I had again forgotten her very existence. She was not a person who stuck in one’s mind; and once more I wondered why, for in her statuesque weeds she looked nobler, more striking than ever. She glanced at the people awaiting their turn under the maps and the Presidents, and asked in a low tone if she could see me privately.

            I was free at the moment, and I led her into my office and banished the typist.

            Mrs. Glenn seemed disturbed by the signs of activity about me. “I’m afraid we shall be interrupted. I wanted to speak to you alone,” she said.

            I assured her we were not likely to be disturbed if she could put what she had to say in a few words—

            “Ah, but that’s just what I can’t do. What I have to say can’t be put in a few words.” She fixed her splendid nocturnal eyes on me, and I read in them a distress so deep that I dared not suggest postponement.

            I said I would do all I could to prevent our being interrupted, and in reply she just sat silent, and looked at me, as if after all she had nothing farther to communicate. The telephone clicked, and I rang for my secretary to take the message; then one of the clerks came in with papers for my signature. I said: “I’d better sign and get it over,” and she sat motionless, her head slightly bent, as if secretly relieved by the delay. The clerk went off, I shut the door again, and when we were alone she lifted her head and spoke. “Mr. Norcutt,” she asked, “have you ever had a child?”

            I replied with a smile that I was not married. She murmured: “I’m sorry—excuse me,” and looked down again at her black-gloved hands, which were clasped about a black bag richly embroidered with dull jet. Everything about her was as finished, as costly, as studied, as if she were a young beauty going forth in her joy; yet she looked like a heart-broken woman.

            She began again: “My reason for coming is that I’ve promised to help a friend, a poor woman who’s lost all trace of her son—her only surviving son—and is hunting for him.” She paused, though my expectant silence seemed to encourage her to continue. “It’s a very sad case: I must try to explain. Long ago, as a girl, my friend fell in love with a married man—a man unhappily married.” She moistened her lips, which had become parched and colourless. “You mustn’t judge them too severely…. He had great nobility of character—the highest standards—but the situation was too cruel. His wife was insane; at that time there was no legal release in such cases. If you were married to a lunatic only death could free you. It was a most unhappy affair—the poor girl pitied her friend profoundly.