She paused. "Yes, Frank, he did." She closed the book; she knew that this was to be the beginning. "I know you don't approve of my corresponding with my son, but he is my son and I have no desire or intention of losing him." "I don't think that is being very loyal to me, Helen. After all, I am the one who has suffered because of him." Frank had made the mistake of being pompous when he should have expressed merely wounded dignity.

Angry now, Helen turned on him. "For God's sake, what have you suffered? Who went around putting ads in the paper disowning his son and telling all of his friends that his son was no son of his? Who threw him out of his home? Did I? No, Frank, any misery you may have suffered on that account was of your own doing. Not mine and not John's for that matter."

Helen had wounded his dignity now and there was no need for pretense. "My doing! What do you mean my doing'? I welcomed home what I thought was a hero. My son, the son I had wanted but never really knew, was coming home and he had proved himself worthy of being called my son. But what did I find? There on the doorstep was John and Ralph. I welcomed Ralph into my home for he was the boy who had saved my son's life and I thought I owed him an eternal debt of gratitude. But I wish to God that when Ralph went out to that plane and helped John escape from it that it had exploded then and not later."

"Frank!"

"Does that surprise you, Helen? Are you shocked? Yes, I wish they had died then. Then I could hold up my head and say, 'My son died a hero's death. I would rather have had him dead than have had this disgrace brought down upon this house."

"What disgrace? What had he done to disgrace you?" "What disgrace?" he asked incredulously. "Can you have slept so soundly that night that you did not hear the noises? What can you call it but a disgrace when I flung open the door to find my son, MY SON, betraying me, betraying his manhood, mocking God, mocking my fatherhood before my very eyes? There's never been anything like that in my family before. Can you expect me to tolerate it now?"

Deadly in her calm, Helen faced him. "There's never been anything like it in my family either. Frank, you cannot deny your fatherhood that easily. He is our son, we bore him and we raised him, and all the screaming aloud to the world that he is not your son and that you will have nothing further to do with him will not absolve you and me of our failure. All those people you complained about so bitterly because you thought that they were laughing at you behind your back, they knew this. But you would not, do not, see it. I

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