It may not need even actual presence.

But present or absent, there should be between the baby and the father that strange, intangible communication, that strange pull and circuit such as the magnetic pole exercises upon a needle, a vitalistic pull and flow which lays all the life-plasm of the baby into the line of vital quickening, strength, knowing.

And any lack of this vital circuit, this vital interchange between father and child, man and child, means an inevitable impoverishment to the infant.
The child exists in the interplay of two great life-waves, the womanly and the male.

In appearance, the mother is everything.

In truth, the father has actively very little part.