The Equinox (Volume I, Number VIII)

THE EQUINOX There was a silence. “ Excuse me, father, ” said the girl at last, “ but I’ve just had a glimpse of you for the first time in my life, and it’s a bit ofa shock. I must think. ” And she stood motionless until her hapless father attracted her attention by backing into his wicker chain “ Don't touch holy things," she snapped suddenly, taking the sketch from his nerveless hand, and replacing it reverently in the portfolio. The action seemed to decide heri "I'll give you an address to send my things to, ” she said, and walked out of the garden. Theodore Bugg sat stunned “Holy things, " she had said. She called that lustful French photograph holy! Was this Original Sin; or was it that strange new thing people were talking about—what was it? Ah I heredity. Heredity? His secret sin become her open infamy? Truly the sins of the fathers were visited on the children! By this time he was upstairs and in his bedroom. He must destroy the accursed thing; he must destroy— Ah! yes. He had contaminated Gertrude by having such a thing in his house. He must be the Roman father, and—what would a Roman father do ? He had the match alight, but he could not put it to the edge of the packet. Then the silence of the house hit him; he knew that his daughter would never return, and in a fit of rage he trampled on the envelope like a wild beast mauling a corpse, 58