Seed on the Wind

It was that same afternoon on her way home that she sent a telegram to her father and mother. Since the baby’s coming she had written them three letters, the first since she had left them, but sent none. For one thing, she had feared they might somehow trace her address through a letter, and for another she didn’t like what she had written. Re-read the next day, they sounded like bragging, and she didn’t want to brag; strength doesn’t brag, and they should, indeed they should, feel her strength! But this afternoon, passing a telegraph office, on the impulse she entered and sent a wire to Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Winter.

Hurrah nine pound baby boy born July twentieth named Leroy mother and child doing nicely father not to be found.

The girl at the desk counted the words and surveyed her with cold hesitation, wondering, perhaps, if this should not be refused on the ground of obscenity; but finally mumbled, sixty-nine cents. She added mechanically, “Your address at the bottom in case of reply.”

“It isn’t necessary,” said Lora, paid and departed.

The man with no eyebrows she called, in her mind and to Albert, Daintico. His name was Holcomb Burleigh. The third day she went there he asked her to dine with him; she declined, saying that she never went out evenings, she had to stay with her baby.

“I know, Scher told me,” he said. “You’re a brave little woman, Miss Winter. A noble woman.”

“Sure,” Lora said.

A week later he asked her again; arrangements could be made about the baby, he suggested. No, Lora said, she wouldn’t like to do that. Lunch then. Goodness, no, lunch was impossible, she always went out with the baby at noon and stayed three hours; that was more impossible than evening even, for then he was usually asleep. Daintico blinked at her and appeared to give it up.

But two months later he presented her with a problem. In the meantime she had had other jobs which Albert found for her — a life class that met once a week, a man who did North Africa and Hawaii for a travel bureau, a young woman who painted her in pink and purple vertical lines and called it simply and unassailably, Study. She was sufficiently good-looking, especially her fine brow and eyes and the clear living quality of her skin, but it was her glorious wealth of hair and the rarity of her type that brought her, finally, more offers than she could accept. Soon Albert’s offices were no longer needed; she could choose and reject; and when he brought her another summons from Daintico she hesitated, then decided her first client should not be abandoned.

He used her for an outing series for a fashionable sports apparel shop. This, she thought, was ridiculous, it should have been a bobbed-hair flapper; what was the matter with him? She found out one day towards the end, she was to return only once more, when he took her hand suddenly, kissed it, and with a quiet and remarkable dignity asked her to marry him.

The next day, seated on a bench in Washington Square with Roy’s carriage beside her, wrapped in a thick wool coat with a fur collar against the December wind, she told Albert about it. He often joined her there, usually briefly, sometimes sitting with her for an hour or more. Now and then he even pushed the carriage as they encircled the Square, amusing Lora with his unconscious defiant glare at the casual glances of passersby.

“You misunderstood him,” Albert declared. “If Burleigh ever marries he’ll have to be kidnapped. He was reciting poetry.”

“He made it fairly clear,” said Lora. “He said he would ask me only to exchange Miss Winter for Mrs. Burleigh and let time defeat him or make him the happiest of men.”