The Friend of Women and Other Stories by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online

saw our entry in World War II and Amory’s departure to the Pacific as a lieutenant, JG, on a destroyer. When he returned to his firm in 1945, with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star, to find a Letty desolate with the recent loss of her father from heart failure and overwhelmed with the obligations of his estate, he had little difficulty in persuading her to join her troubled life to his. I am afraid she was even grateful to the hero for coming back to the girl who had almost rejected him.
4
    I have the three girls all married now, for Cora, of course, went ahead with her plan to become the wife of wealthy Larkin, and I have to admit that my basic distrust of all three unions put a crimp in my relationships with them. Oh, we continued our lunches, if less frequently, but our conversation was more literary than personal. The first marked return to our old ways came with Alfreda’s need to consult me about her childlessness.
    â€œWe’ve both had all the tests,” she told me. “And now we know just what it is. It’s not my fault.”
    â€œFault?” I queried. “Must there be one?”
    â€œBiological fault, I mean.” But her very definite tone did not convince me that she exempted poor Tommy of all moral responsibility. “Tommy, it appears, has a low sperm count. We have to face facts squarely, don’t we, Hubert?”
    â€œOf course. But a low sperm count doesn’t mean his case is hopeless. As I understand it, it means that a pregnancy is unlikely. But not impossible.”
    â€œHubert, I’ve waited four years. Isn’t that what the lawyers call a reasonable time?”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œFor me to wait. Now I must try something else.”
    â€œLike adoption?”
    Alfreda made a little face. “I hate the idea of taking some other woman’s unwanted baby. You may call me a snob, if you like, but I do have good blood.”
    Alfireda did not boast of it, but I knew how much she relished her descent from Pieter Stuyvesant. “Then there’s always artificial insemination,” I observed, responding to her appeal for honesty. “Would Tommy agree to that?” She nodded. “Well, at least the child would have blue blood on the distaff side.”
    â€œBut what about the father?” she demanded with something like indignation, as though the whole idea had been mine.
    â€œI believe it’s usually a medical student.”
    â€œUgh! And what do we know about
his
family? No, I can’t bear the thought! That’s what I’ve really come to talk to you about. You and nobody else, my dear old friend. Why wouldn’t it make sense for me to choose the father myself? Why shouldn’t we have the perfect father for the perfect child?”
    â€œHow many perfect fathers have perfect children?”
    â€œOh, I know all that. But at least there’s a chance they will. What about the two Dumas you’re always raving about? What about the two Pitts? And think of all the Adamses!”
    â€œAnd when you’ve found this paragon, will you persuade him to donate his seed to the necessary test tube?”
    â€œNever!” she cried. “How could I possibly ask such a man to go through so humiliating a procedure in some ghastly laboratory—probably before some leering intern?”
    â€œIt could be quite private.”
    â€œNo, no! My boy would have to spring from a glorious mating!”
    â€œYour boy? Why mightn’t it be a girl?”
    â€œBecause I know it wouldn’t!” She spoke with a curious passion.
    â€œAnd what about Tommy? Would he agree to be a
mari complaisant?
”
    â€œOh, never! But he wouldn’t have to know. I’d simply tell him that I’d gone through the clinical process. He’d accept the proposition that neither of us knew anything about the child’s father.”
    â€œI see.” But I was deeply shocked. “And this divine stud? Have