“I don’t want everyone seeing you so angry and sad because of me.”

“And him!”

“Yes, I know, but isn’t there some other way? I’ll go away until the baby comes.”

“Just like that? And no one asking questions? And if someone should find out and the story spreads, what do you think our lives would be like here? Just think how your mother would be.”

He paused, nodding.

“For now, I don’t want you telling your mother anything. Say you just had some indigestion.”

“But . . . what are you going to do?”

“I’ll do what I have to do. Say nothing about this to anyone else, Corrine. That’s of paramount importance, and I want you to return to work tomorrow.”

“You do?”

He started out and stopped to turn back. “I’m sorry for you. I’m upset, but I’m not going to stop loving you.”

The moment he was gone, I burst into the worst sobbing I had done since I was a very little girl.

Later, just as he had asked, I complained about indigestion, and my mother said nothing about how I was eating. I had absolutely no appetite, but I forced myself to nibble. My father announced a business trip that had come up at the last minute.

“After I drop you off at the bank, I’ll be taking the train,” he said. He turned away quickly, but I felt my heart quicken its beat.

I tried to approach him alone, but my mother hovered about us almost as if she sensed there was something going on, so I decided to wait until morning when we rode together to the bank. When I awoke, washed and dressed, and then went down for breakfast, I had another surprise, however.

“Your father left early,” she told me the moment I appeared. “Horace Makens will be coming by to take you to the bank.”

“Horace Makens? But Daddy said he was going to take me.”

“He changed his mind. He didn’t sleep well, tossed and turned all night. Something about this business venture has him on pins and needles. He had to leave earlier to make a train. It won’t kill you to go with Horace. He’s a very nice fifty-year-old man. Sad that he never found a good wife after Leona died of the flu. Well, don’t just stand there looking so shocked about something so simple, Corrine. Sit down and eat your breakfast.

“You’ll have to be as good at your job as you are when your father is at the bank, too. You don’t want people thinking you’re only successful because your father is looking over your shoulder and everyone else is afraid to say anything, do you?”

I was half listening to her as she went on and on.