III The night Fred Babcock married them, there had been no place for Nathan to take his bride but the local hotel. He would not take her to his father’s home; he did not care to go to Milly’s. They had separated for an hour, each going for their “things”, pitifully meeting at the Whitney House later to set sail on the tempestuous seas of mismated connubiality. Nathan had found his father pacing the same room, wild-eyed, wild-faced, wild-haired, hands thrust deep in trousers pockets. The room was in wreckage. His mother was in an adjacent apartment, eternally rocking, rocking, rocking, considering her troubles in the dark. Father and mother quickly forgot their differences, however, when they beheld Nathan coming down the front stairs, suitcase in either hand. “Where you going?” demanded Johnathan sharply. “To the hotel.” “You’re going nowhere of the sort. Put those valises back upstairs. No story’ll go ’round this town if I can help it, that the very night my son turned twenty-one, he packed his traps and scooted.” “Do you think I’m going to bring a wife into this?” “Bring a what?” “A wife!” “Wait till you’ve got a wife before you talk about bringing her into anything. Put those suitcases back upstairs!” “But I’ve got a wife. I married one at nine o’clock.” In the darkened room Mrs. Forge’s rocker went over with a bump, she sprang from it so quickly. Johnathan reached out a hand and clutched the banisters. “You married one at nine o’clock? Who have you married?” “Mildred Richards. Good night!” Nathan left his apoplectic parents standing side by side. “_Oh, my God!_” groaned Johnathan. He staggered to the stairs and sat down flaccid, his face buried in his hands. He remained that way for half an hour. Mrs. Forge walked slowly back into the wrecked dining room. She stood looking out one of the windows, with clenched fists pushed against her hips, face twitching, biting one corner of her upper lip so nervously it was difficult to discern which was twitch and which was bite. After that first tragic half-hour, Mrs. Forge’s thinking amounted to this: Nathan had packed his clothes and gone to a wife and those clothes were not in a very happy state of laundering. She had put off her wash that week until she could get a new wringer. She still did her own washing. Laundries mangled clothes so. It would be hectic to follow on into the week, the month, the year which followed, in so far as Nat’s marriage affected his father. A competent psychologist might have explained Johnathan, but explaining him would have availed Nathan little nor lightened his load. Johnathan’s ultimate attitude was: