Gladiator | Page 5

He was not. She took a glass after supper and
then a second, which she drank "for him." He smiled nervously and
urged her to drink it. His hands clenched and unclenched. When she
finished the second glass, he watched her constantly.
"I feel sleepy," she said.
"You're tired." He tried to dissemble the eagerness in his voice. "Why
don't you lie down?"
"Strange," she said a moment later. "I'm not usually so--so--misty."
He nodded. The opiate in the cordial was working. She lay on the
couch. She slept. The professor hastened to his laboratory. An hour
later he emerged with a hypodermic syringe in his hand. His wife lay
limply, one hand touching the floor. Her stern, dark face was relaxed.
He sat beside her. His conscience raged. He hated the duplicity his task
required. His eyes lingered on the swollen abdomen. It was cryptic,
enigmatic, filled with portent. He jabbed the needle. She did not stir
After that he substituted a partly empty bottle of cordial for the drugged
liquor. It was, perhaps, the most practical thing he had ever done in his

life.
Mrs. Danner could not explain herself on the following morning. She
belabored him. "Why didn't you wake me and make me go to bed?
Sleeping in my clothes! I never did such a thing in my life."
Danner went to the college. There was nothing more to do, nothing
more to require his concentration. He could wait--as he had waited
before.
September, October, November. Chilly winds from the high mountains.
The day-by-day freezing over of ponds and brooks. Smoke at the tops
of chimneys. Snow. Thanksgiving. And always Mrs. Danner growing
with the burden of her offspring. Mr. Danner sitting silent, watching,
wondering, waiting. It would soon be time.
On Christmas morning there entered into Mrs. Danner's vitals a pain
that was indefinable and at the same time certain. It thrust all thought
from her mind. Then it diminished and she summoned her husband.
"Get the doctor. It's coming."
Danner tottered into the street and executed his errand. The doctor
smiled cheerfully. "Just beginning? I'll be over this afternoon."
"But--good Lord--you can't leave her like--"
"Nonsense."
He came home and found his wife dusting. He shook his head. "Get
Mrs. Nolan," she said. Then she threw herself on the bed again.
Mrs. Nolan, the nearest neighbor, wife of Professor Nolan and mother
of four children, was delighted. This particular Christmas was going to
be a day of some excitement. She prepared hot water and bustled with
unessential occupation.
The doctor arrived after Danner had made his third trip. Mrs. Nolan
prepared lunch. "I love to cook in other people's kitchens," she said. He

wanted to strike her. Curious, he thought. At three-thirty the industry of
the doctor and Mrs. Nolan increased and the silence of the two,
paradoxically, increased with it.
Then the early twilight fell. Mrs. Danner lay with her lank black hair
plastered to her brow. She did not moan. Pain twisted and convulsed
her. Downstairs Danner sat and sweated. A cry--his wife's.
Another--unfamiliar. Scurrying feet on the bare parts of the floor. He
looked up. Mrs. Nolan leaned over the stair well.
"It's a boy, Mr. Danner. A beautiful boy. And husky. You never saw
such a husky baby."
"It ought to be," he said. They found him later in the back yard,
prancing on the snow with weird, ungainly steps. A vacant smile
lighted his features. They didn't blame him.
Chapter III
CALM and quiet held their negative sway over the Danner menage for
an hour, and then there was a disturbed fretting that developed into a
lusty bawl. The professor passed a fatigued hand over his brow. He was
unaccustomed to the dissonances of his offspring. Young Hugo--they
had named him after a maternal uncle--had attained the age of one
week without giving any indication of unnaturalness.
That is not quite true. He was as fleshy as most healthy infants, but the
flesh was more than normally firm. He was inordinately active. His
eyes had been gray but, already, they gave promise of the inkiness they
afterwards exhibited.
Danner spent hours at the side of his crib speculating and watching for
any sign of biological variation. But it was not until a week had passed
that he was given evidence. By that time he was ready to concede the
failure of his greatest experiment.
The baby bawled and presently stopped. And Mrs. Danner, who had
put it to breast, suddenly called her husband. "Abednego! Come here!

Hurry!"
The professor's heart skipped its regular timing and he scrambled to the
floor above. "What's the matter?"
Mrs. Danner was sitting in a rocking-chair. Her face was as white as
paper. Only in her eyes was there a spark of life. He thought she was