As I dressed for dinner I felt half dazed. I hardly realized what I was doing, and I had to stop and pull myself together before I started downstairs to the dining room, for I knew if I did not have myself well in hand I would blubber like a big chump.
Mother and dad were waiting for me and I could see by mother’s sad expression and the troubled look in her eyes that dad had told her of the whole occurrence. And that only added to my unhappiness because I felt for a certainty that all that Blink Broosmore had shouted must be true.
For the first time in my memory dad forgot to say grace, and none of us ate with any apparent relish and none of us tried to make conversation. It was a painful sort of a meal and I wanted to have it over with as soon as I could. It seemed hours before Nora cleared the table and served dad’s demi-tasse.
I guess I then looked him full in the eyes for the first time since the occurrence on Front Street.
“That was a very unkind thing for Blink Broosmore to do,” said dad, and I knew by the firmness and evenness of his voice that he had gained full control of his feelings.
“Is—is—oh, did he tell the truth, dad?” I gulped helplessly and for the life of me I could not keep back the tears.
“Unfortunately, Donald, there is just enough truth in it to make it hurt,” said dad and I could see mother wince as if she had been struck, and turn away her face.
“They why—why? Oh! who am I?” I cried, for the whole thing had completely unnerved me.
“Don dear, we do not know to a certainty,” said mother struggling with her emotions.
“But now that you are partly aware of the situation, I think there is a way you can find out, at least as much as we know,” said dad, getting up and going into the library.
Through the doorway I could see him fumbling at the safe that he kept there beside the desk. Presently he drew out a battered and dented red tin box and a bundle of papers. These he brought into the dining room and laid on the table. Then he drew up a chair, cleared his throat, rather loudly it seemed to me, and began.
“Don, we always wanted a child, and why the Lord never blessed us with one of our own we do not know. Anyway, we wanted one so badly that we decided to adopt one. That was seventeen years ago, wasn’t it, mother?”