"There's just one thing you can do, Mr. Waythorn," he said. "You can
remind Mrs. Waythorn that, by the decree of the courts, I am
entitled to have a voice in Lily's bringing up." He paused, and went
on more deprecatingly: "I'm not the kind to talk about enforcing my
rights, Mr. Waythorn. I don't know as I think a man is entitled to
rights he hasn't known how to hold on to; but this business of the
child is different. I've never let go there--and I never mean to."

The scene left Waythorn deeply shaken. Shamefacedly, in indirect
ways, he had been finding out about Haskett; and all that he had
learned was favorable. The little man, in order to be near his
daughter, had sold out his share in a profitable business in Utica,
and accepted a modest clerkship in a New York manufacturing house.
He boarded in a shabby street and had few acquaintances. His passion
for Lily filled his life. Waythorn felt that this exploration of
Haskett was like groping about with a dark-lantern in his wife's
past; but he saw now that there were recesses his lantern had not
explored. He had never inquired into the exact circumstances of his
wife's first matrimonial rupture. On the surface all had been fair.
It was she who had obtained the divorce, and the court had given her
the child. But Waythorn knew how many ambiguities such a verdict
might cover. The mere fact that Haskett retained a right over his
daughter implied an unsuspected compromise. Waythorn was an
idealist. He always refused to recognize unpleasant contingencies
till he found himself confronted with them, and then he saw them
followed by a special train of consequences. His next days were thus
haunted, and he determined to try to lay the ghosts by conjuring
them up in his wife's presence.