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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14396 ***
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS
+ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO
+
+MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
+LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
+MELBOURNE
+
+THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
+TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+BY
+ERNEST POOLE
+AUTHOR OF "THE HARBOR"
+
+New York
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+1917
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917
+BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1917
+BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+TO M.A.
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of _old_ New York--he had
+heard of that from old, old men when he himself had still been young and
+had smiled at their garrulity. He was thinking of a _young_ New York, the
+mighty throbbing city to which he had come long ago as a lad from the New
+Hampshire mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting
+drivers, hurrying crowds, the crack of whips and the clatter of wheels; an
+uproarious, thrilling town of enterprise, adventure, youth; a city of
+pulsing energies, the center of a boundless land; a port of commerce with
+all the world, of stately ships with snowy sails; a fascinating pleasure
+town, with throngs of eager travellers hurrying from the ferry boats and
+rolling off in hansom cabs to the huge hotels on Madison Square. A city
+where American faces were still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner
+and a kindlier town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar
+scramble. A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling
+trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and groups of
+youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark. A place of music
+and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on those dazzling evenings
+when as a boy he had ushered there for the sake of hearing the music, how
+the rich joy of being alive, of being young, of being loved, had shone out
+of women's eyes. Shimmering satins, dainty gloves and little jewelled
+slippers, shapely arms and shoulders, vivacious movements, nods and smiles,
+swift glances, ripples, bursts of laughter, an exciting hum of voices.
+Then silence, sudden darkness--and music, and the curtain. The great wide
+curtain slowly rising....
+
+But all that had passed away.
+
+Roger Gale was a rugged heavy man not quite sixty years of age. His broad,
+massive features were already deeply furrowed, and there were two big
+flecks of white in his close-curling, grayish hair. He lived in a narrow
+red brick house down on the lower west side of the town, in a neighborhood
+swiftly changing. His wife was dead. He had no sons, but three grown
+daughters, of whom the oldest, Edith, had been married many years. Laura
+and Deborah lived at home, but they were both out this evening. It was
+Friday, Edith's evening, and as was her habit she had come from her
+apartment uptown to dine with her father and play chess. In the living
+room, a cheerful place, with its lamp light and its shadows, its
+old-fashioned high-back chairs, its sofa, its book cases, its low marble
+mantel with the gilt mirror overhead, they sat at a small oval table in
+front of a quiet fire of coals. And through the smoke of his cigar Roger
+watched his daughter.
+
+Edith had four children, and was soon to have another. A small demure woman
+of thirty-five, with light soft hair and clear blue eyes and limbs softly
+rounded, the contour of her features was full with approaching maternity,
+but there was a decided firmness in the lines about her little mouth. As he
+watched her now, her father's eyes, deep set and gray and with signs of
+long years of suffering in them, displayed a grave whimsical wistfulness.
+For by the way she was playing the game he saw how old she thought him. Her
+play was slow and absent-minded, and there came long periods when she did
+not make a move. Then she would recall herself and look up with a little
+affectionate smile that showed she looked upon him as too heavy with his
+age to have noticed her small lapses.
+
+He was grimly amused at her attitude, for he did not feel old at all. With
+that whimsical hint of a smile which had grown to be a part of him, he
+tried various moves on the board to see how far he could go without
+interrupting her reveries. He checkmated her, re-lit his cigar and waited
+until she should notice it. And when she did not notice, gravely he moved
+back his queen and let the game continue. How many hundreds of games, he
+thought, Edith must have played with him in the long years when his spirit
+was dead, for her now to take such chances. Nearly every Friday evening for
+nearly sixteen years.
+
+Before that, Judith his wife had been here. It was then that the city had
+been young, for to Roger it had always seemed as though he were just
+beginning life. Into its joys and sorrows too he had groped his way as most
+of us do, and had never penetrated deep. But he had meant to, later on.
+When in his busy city days distractions had arisen, always he had promised
+himself that sooner or later he would return to this interest or passion,
+for the world still lay before him with its enthralling interests, its
+beauties and its pleasures, its tasks and all its puzzles, intricate and
+baffling, all some day to be explored.
+
+This deep zest in Roger Gale had been bred in his boyhood on a farm up in
+the New Hampshire mountains. There his family had lived for many
+generations. And from the old house, the huge shadowy barn and the crude
+little sawmill down the road; from animals, grown people and still more
+from other boys, from the meadows and the mountain above with its cliffs
+and caves and forests of pine, young Roger had discovered, even in those
+early years, that life was fresh, abundant, new, with countless glad
+beginnings.
+
+At seventeen he had come to New York. There had followed hard struggles in
+lean years, but his rugged health had buoyed him up. And there had been
+genial friendships and dreams and explorations, a search for romance, the
+strange glory of love, a few furtive ventures that left him dismayed. But
+though love had seemed sordid at such times it had brought him crude
+exultations. And if his existence had grown more obscure, it had been
+somber only in patches, the main picture dazzling still. And still he had
+been just making starts.
+
+He had ventured into the business world, clerking now at this, now at that,
+and always looking about him for some big opportunity. It had come and he
+had seized it, despite the warnings of his friends. What a wild adventure
+it had been a bureau of news clippings, a business new and unheard of but
+he had been sure that here was growth, he had worked at it day and night,
+and the business widening fast had revealed long ramifications which went
+winding and stretching away into every phase of American life. And this
+life was like a forest, boundless and impenetrable, up-springing,
+intertwining. How much could _he_ ever know of it all?
+
+Then had come his marriage. Judith's family had lived long in New York, but
+some had died and others had scattered until only she was left. This house
+had been hers, but she had been poor, so she had leased it to some friends.
+It was through them he had met her here, and within a few weeks he had
+fallen in love. He had felt profound disgust for the few wild oats he had
+sown, and in his swift reaction he had overworshipped the girl, her beauty
+and her purity, until in a delicate way of her own she had hinted that he
+was going too far, that she, too, was human and a passionate lover of
+living, in spite of her low quiet voice and her demure and sober eyes.
+
+And what beginnings for Roger now, what a piling up of intimate joys,
+surprises, shocks of happiness. There had come disappointments, too, sudden
+severe little checks from his wife which had brought him occasional
+questionings. This love had not been quite _all_ he had dreamed, this woman
+not so ardent. He had glimpsed couples here and there that set him to
+imagining more consuming passions. Here again he had not explored very
+deep. But he had dismissed regrets like these with only a slight
+reluctance. For if they had settled down a bit with the coming of their
+children, their love had grown rich in sympathies and silent
+understandings, in humorous enjoyment of their funny little daughters'
+chattering like magpies in the genial old house. And they had looked
+happily far ahead. What a woman she had been for plans. It had not been all
+smooth sailing. There had come reverses in business, and at home one baby,
+a boy, had died. But on they had gone and the years had swept by until he
+had reached his forties. Absorbed in his growing business and in his
+thriving family, it had seemed to Roger still as though he were just
+starting out.
+
+But one day, quite suddenly, the house had become a strange place to him
+with a strange remote figure in it, his wife. For he had learned that she
+must die. There had followed terrible weeks. Then Judith had faced their
+disaster. Little by little she had won back the old intimacy with her
+husband; and through the slow but inexorable progress of her ailment, again
+they had come together in long talks and plans for their children. At this
+same chessboard, in this room, repeatedly she would stop the game and
+smiling she would look into the future. At one such time she had said to
+him,
+
+"I wonder if it won't be the same with the children as it has been with us.
+No matter how long each one of them lives, won't their lives feel to them
+unfinished like ours, only just beginning? I wonder how far they will go.
+And then their children will grow up and it will be the same with them.
+Unfinished lives. Oh, dearie, what children all of us are."
+
+He had put his arm around her then and had held her very tight. And feeling
+the violent trembling of her husband's fierce revolt, slowly bending back
+her head and looking up into his eyes she had continued steadily:
+
+"And when you come after me, my dear, oh, how hungry I shall be for all you
+will tell me. For you will live on in our children's lives."
+
+And she had asked him to promise her that.
+
+But he had not kept his promise. For after Judith's dying he had felt
+himself terribly alone, with eternity around him, his wife slipping far
+away. And the universe had grown stark and hard, impersonal, relentless,
+cold. A storm of doubts had attacked his faith. And though he had resisted
+long, for his faith in God had been rooted deep in the mountains of New
+England, in the end it had been wrenched away, and with it he had lost all
+hope that either for Judith or himself was there any existence beyond the
+grave. So death had come to Roger's soul. He had been deaf and blind to his
+children. Nights by the thousand spent alone. Like a gray level road in his
+memory now was the story of his family.
+
+When had his spirit begun to awaken? He could not tell, it had been so
+slow. His second daughter, Deborah, who had stayed at home with her father
+when Laura had gone away to school, had done little things continually to
+rouse his interest in life. Edith's winsome babies had attracted him when
+they came to the house. Laura had returned from school, a joyous creature,
+tall and slender, with snapping black eyes, and had soon made her presence
+felt. One day in the early afternoon, as he entered the house there had
+burst on his ears a perfect gale of laughter; and peering through the
+portières he had seen the dining-room full of young girls, a crew as wild
+as Laura herself. Hastily he had retreated upstairs. But he had enjoyed
+such glimpses. He had liked to see her fresh pretty gowns and to have her
+come in and kiss him good-night.
+
+Then had come a sharp heavy jolt. His business had suffered from long
+neglect, and suddenly for two anxious weeks he had found himself facing
+bankruptcy. Edith's husband, a lawyer, had come to his aid and together
+they had pulled out of the hole. But he had been forced to mortgage the
+house. And this had brought to a climax all the feelings of guiltiness
+which had so long been stirring within him over his failure to live up to
+the promise he had made his wife.
+
+And so Roger had looked at his children.
+
+And at first to his profound surprise he had had it forced upon him that
+these were three grown women, each equipped with her own peculiar feminine
+traits and desires, the swift accumulations of lives which had expanded in
+a city that had reared to the skies in the many years of his long sleep.
+But very slowly, month by month, he had gained a second impression which
+seemed to him deeper and more real. To the eye they were grown women all,
+but inwardly they were children still, each groping for her happiness and
+each held back as he had been, either by checks within herself or by the
+gay distractions of the absorbing city. He saw each of his daughters, parts
+of himself. And he remembered what Judith had said: "You will live on in
+our children's lives." And he began to get glimmerings of a new
+immortality, made up of generations, an endless succession of other lives
+extending into the future.
+
+Some of all this he remembered now, in scattered fragments here and there.
+Then from somewhere far away a great bell began booming the hour, and it
+roused him from his revery. He had often heard the bell of late. A calm
+deep-toned intruder, it had first struck in upon his attention something
+over two years ago. Vaguely he had wondered about it. Soon he had found it
+was on the top of a tower a little to the north, one of the highest
+pinnacles of this tumultuous modern town. But the bell was not tumultuous.
+And as he listened it seemed to say, "There is still time, but you have not
+long."
+
+Edith, sitting opposite him, looked up at the sound with a stir of relief.
+Ten o'clock. It was time to go home.
+
+"I wonder what's keeping Bruce," she said. Bruce was still in his office
+downtown. As a rule on Friday evenings he came with his wife to supper
+here, but this week he had some new business on hand. Edith was vague about
+it. As she tried to explain she knitted her brows and said that Bruce was
+working too hard. And her father grunted assent.
+
+"Bruce ought to knock off every summer," he said, "for a good solid month,
+or better two. Can't you bring him up to the mountains this year?" He
+referred to the old New Hampshire home which he had kept as a summer place.
+But Edith smiled at the idea.
+
+"Yes, I could bring him," she replied, "and in a week he'd be perfectly
+crazy to get back to his office again." She compressed her lips. "I know
+what he needs--and we'll do it some day, in spite of him."
+
+"A suburb, eh," her father said, and his face took on a look of dislike.
+They had often talked of suburbs.
+
+"Yes," his daughter answered, "I've picked out the very house." He threw at
+her a glance of impatience. He knew what had started her on this line.
+Edith's friend, Madge Deering, was living out in Morristown. All very well,
+he reflected, but her case was not at all the same. He had known Madge
+pretty well. Although the death of her husband had left her a widow at
+twenty-nine, with four small daughters to bring up, she had gone on
+determinedly. Naturally smart and able, Madge was always running to town,
+keeping up with all her friends and with every new fad and movement there,
+although she made fun of most of them. Twice she had taken her girls
+abroad. But Edith was quite different. In a suburb she would draw into her
+house and never grow another inch. And Bruce, poor devil, would commute and
+take work home from the office. But Roger couldn't tell her that.
+
+"I'd be sorry to see you do it," he said. "I'd miss you up in the
+mountains."
+
+"Oh, we'd come up in the summer," she answered. "I wouldn't miss the
+mountains for worlds!"
+
+Then they talked of summer plans. And soon again Edith's smooth pretty
+brows were wrinkling absorbedly. It was hard in her planning not to be sure
+whether her new baby would come in May or early June. It was only the first
+of April now. While she talked her father watched her. He liked her quiet
+fearlessness in facing the ordeal ahead. Into the bewildering city he felt
+her searching anxiously to find good things for her small brood, to make
+every dollar count, to keep their little bodies strong, to guard their
+hungry little souls from many things she thought were bad. Of all his
+daughters, he told himself, she was the one most like his wife.
+
+While she was talking Bruce came in. Of medium height and a wiry build, his
+quick kindly smile of greeting did not conceal the fine tight lines about
+his mouth and between his eyes. His small trim moustache was black, but his
+hair already showed streaks of gray although he was not quite thirty-eight,
+and as he lit a cigarette his right hand twitched perceptibly.
+
+Bruce Cunningham had married just after he left law school. He had worked
+in a law office which took receiverships by the score, and through managing
+bankrupt concerns by slow degrees he had made himself a financial surgeon.
+He had set up an office of his own and was doing splendidly. But he worked
+under fearful tension. Bruce had to deal with bankrupts who had barely
+closed their eyes for weeks, men half out of their minds from the strain,
+the struggle to keep up their heads in those angry waters of finance which
+Roger vaguely pictured as a giant whirlpool. Though honest enough in his
+own affairs, Bruce showed a genial relish for all the tricks of the savage
+world which was as the breath to his nostrils. And at times he appeared so
+wise and keen he made Roger feel like a child. But again it was Bruce who
+seemed the child. He seemed to be so naïve at times, and Edith had him so
+under her thumb. Roger liked to hear Bruce's stories of business, when
+Edith would let her husband talk. But this she would not often do, for she
+said Bruce needed rest at night. She reproved him now for staying so late,
+she wrung from him the fact that he'd had no supper.
+
+"Well, Bruce," she exclaimed impatiently, "now isn't that just like you?
+You're going straight home--that's where you're going--"
+
+"To be fed up and put to bed," her husband grumbled good-naturedly. And
+while she made ready to bundle him off he turned to his father-in-law.
+
+"What do you think's my latest?" he asked, and he gave a low chuckle which
+Roger liked. "Last week I was a brewer, to-day I'm an engineer," he said.
+"Can you beat it? A building contractor. Me." And as he smoked his
+cigarette, in laconic phrases he explained how a huge steel construction
+concern had gone to the wall, through building skyscrapers "on spec" and
+outstripping even the growth of New York. "They got into court last week,"
+he said, "and the judge handed me the receivership. The judge and I have
+been chums for years. He has hay fever--so do I."
+
+"Come, Bruce, I'm ready," said his wife.
+
+"I've been in their office all day," he went on. "Their general manager was
+stark mad. He hadn't been out of the office since last Sunday night, he
+said. You had to ask him a question and wait--while he looked at you and
+held onto his chair. He broke down and blubbered--the poor damn fool--he'll
+be in Matteawan in a week--"
+
+"You'll be there yourself if you don't come home," broke in Edith's voice
+impatiently.
+
+"And out of that poor devil, and out of the mess his books are in, I've
+been learning engineering!"
+
+He had followed his wife out on the steps. He turned back with a quick
+appealing smile:
+
+"Well, good-night--see you soon--"
+
+"Good-night, my boy," said Roger. "Good luck to the engineering."
+
+"Oh, father dear," cried Edith, from the taxi down below. "Remember supper
+Sunday night--"
+
+"I won't forget," said Roger.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He watched them start off up the street. The night was soft, refreshing,
+and the place was quiet and personal. The house was one of a dozen others,
+some of red brick and some of brown stone, that stood in an uneven row on a
+street but a few rods in length, one side of a little triangular park
+enclosed by a low iron fence, inside of which were a few gnarled trees and
+three or four park benches. On one of these benches his eye was caught by
+the figure of an old woman there, and he stood a moment watching her, some
+memory stirring in his mind.
+
+Occasionally somebody passed. Otherwise it was silent here. But even in the
+silence could be felt the throes of change; the very atmosphere seemed
+charged with drastic things impending. Already the opposite house line had
+been broken near the center by a high apartment building, and another still
+higher rose like a cliff just back of the house in which Roger lived. Still
+others, and many factory lofts, reared shadowy bulks on every hand. From
+the top of one an enormous sign, a corset pictured forth in lights, flashed
+out at regular intervals; and from farther off, high up in the misty haze
+of the night, could be seen the gleaming pinnacle where hour by hour that
+great bell slowly boomed the time away. Yes, here the old was passing.
+Already the tiny parklet was like the dark bottom of a pit, with the hard
+sparkling modern town towering on every side, slowly pressing, pressing in
+and glaring down with yellow eyes.
+
+But Roger noticed none of these things. He watched the old woman on the
+bench and groped for the memory she had stirred. Ah, now at last he had it.
+An April night long, long ago, when he had sat where she was now, while
+here in the house his wife's first baby, Edith, had begun her life....
+
+Slowly he turned and went inside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Roger's hearing was extremely acute. Though the room where he was sitting,
+his study, was at the back of the house, he heard Deborah's key at the
+street door and he heard the door softly open and close.
+
+"Are you there, dearie?" Her voice from the hallway was low; and his
+answer, "Yes, child," was in the same tone, as though she were with him in
+the room. This keen sense of hearing had long been a peculiar bond between
+them. To her father, Deborah's voice was the most distinctive part of her,
+for often as he listened the memory came of her voice as a girl,
+unpleasant, hurried and stammering. But she had overcome all that. "No
+grown woman," she had declared, when she was eighteen, "has any excuse for
+a voice like mine." That was eleven years ago; and the voice she had
+acquired since, with its sweet magnetic quality, its clear and easy
+articulation, was to him an expression of Deborah's growth. As she took off
+her coat and hat in the hall she said, in the same low tone as before,
+
+"Edith has been here, I suppose--"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I'm so sorry I missed her. I tried to get home early, but it has been a
+busy night."
+
+Her voice sounded tired, comfortably so, and she looked that way as she
+came in. Though only a little taller than Edith, she was of a sturdier
+build and more decided features. Her mouth was large with a humorous droop
+and her face rather broad with high cheekbones. As she put her soft black
+hair up over her high forehead, her father noticed her birthmark, a faint
+curving line of red running up from between her eyes. Imperceptible as a
+rule, it showed when she was tired. In the big school in the tenements
+where she had taught for many years, she gave herself hard without stint to
+her work, but she had such a good time through it all. She had a way, too,
+he reflected, of always putting things in their place. As now she came in
+and kissed him and sank back on his leather lounge with a tranquil breath
+of relief, she seemed to be dropping school out of her life.
+
+Roger picked up his paper and continued his reading. Presently they would
+have a talk, but first he knew that she wanted to lie quite still for a
+little while. Vaguely he pictured her work that night, her class-room
+packed to bursting with small Jews and Italians, and Deborah at the
+blackboard with a long pointer in her hand. The fact that for the last two
+years she had been the principal of her school had made little impression
+upon him.
+
+And meanwhile, as she lay back with eyes closed, her mind still taut from
+the evening called up no simple class-room but far different places--a mass
+meeting in Carnegie Hall where she had just been speaking, some schools
+which she had visited out in Indiana, a block of tenements far downtown and
+the private office of the mayor. For her school had long curious arms these
+days.
+
+"Was Bruce here too this evening?" she asked her father presently. Roger
+finished what he was reading, then looked over to the lounge, which was in
+a shadowy corner.
+
+"Yes, he came in late." And he went on to tell her of Bruce's
+"engineering." At once she was interested. Rising on one elbow she
+questioned him good-humoredly, for Deborah was fond of Bruce.
+
+"Has he bought that automobile he wanted?"
+
+"No," replied her father. "Edith said they couldn't afford it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"This time it's the dentist's bills. Young Betsy's teeth aren't
+straightened yet--and as soon as she's been beautified they're going to put
+the clamps on George."
+
+"Poor Georgie," Deborah murmured. At the look of pain and disapproval on
+her father's heavy face, she smiled quietly to herself. George, who was
+Edith's oldest and the worry of her days, was Roger's favorite grandson.
+"Has he been bringing home any more sick dogs?"
+
+"No, this time it was a rat--a white one," Roger answered. A glint of dry
+relish appeared in his eyes. "George brought it home the other night. He
+had on a pair of ragged old pants."
+
+"What on earth--"
+
+"He had traded his own breeches for the rat," said Roger placidly.
+
+"No! Oh, father! Really!" And she sank back laughing on the lounge.
+
+"His school report," said Roger, "was quite as bad as ever."
+
+"Of course it was," said Deborah. And she spoke so sharply that her father
+glanced at her in surprise. She was up again on one elbow, and there was an
+eager expression on her bright attractive face. "Do you know what we're
+going to do some day? We're going to put the rat in the school," Deborah
+said impatiently. "We're going to take a boy like George and study him till
+we think we know just what interests him most. And if in his case it's
+animals, we'll have a regular zoo in school. And for other boys we'll have
+other things they really want to know about. And we'll keep them until five
+o'clock--when their mothers will have to drag them away." Her father looked
+bewildered.
+
+"But arithmetic, my dear."
+
+"You'll find they'll have learned their arithmetic without knowing it,"
+Deborah answered.
+
+"Sounds a bit wild," murmured Roger. Again to his mind came the picture of
+hordes of little Italians and Jews. "My dear, if I had _your children_ to
+teach, I don't think I'd add a zoo," he said. And with a breath of
+discomfort he turned back to his reading. He knew that he ought to question
+her, to show an interest in her work. But he had a deep aversion for those
+millions of foreign tenement people, always shoving, shoving upward through
+the filth of their surroundings. They had already spoiled his neighborhood,
+they had flowed up like an ocean tide. And so he read his paper, frowning
+guiltily down at the page. He glanced up in a little while and saw Deborah
+smiling across at him, reading his dislike of such talk. The smile which he
+sent back at her was half apologetic, half an appeal for mercy. And Deborah
+seemed to understand. She went into the living room, and there at the piano
+she was soon playing softly. Listening from his study, again the feeling
+came to him of her fresh and abundant vitality. He mused a little enviously
+on how it must feel to be strong like that, never really tired.
+
+And while her father thought in this wise, Deborah at the piano, leaning
+back with eyes half closed, could feel her tortured nerves relax, could
+feel her pulse stop throbbing so and the dull aching at her temples little
+by little pass away. She played like this so many nights. Soon she would be
+ready for sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After she had gone to bed, Roger rose heavily from his chair. By long habit
+he went about the house trying the windows and turning out lights. Last he
+came to the front door. There were double outer doors with a ponderous
+system of locks and bolts and a heavy chain. Mechanically he fastened them
+all; and putting out the light in the hall, in the darkness he went up the
+stairs. He could so easily feel his way. He put his hand lightly, first on
+the foot of the banister, then on a curve in it halfway up, again on the
+sharper curve at the top and last on the knob of his bedroom door. And it
+was as though these guiding objects came out to meet him like old friends.
+
+In his bedroom, while he slowly undressed, his glance was caught by the
+picture upon the wall opposite his bed, a little landscape poster done in
+restful tones of blue, of two herdsmen and their cattle far up on a
+mountainside in the hour just before the dawn, tiny clear-cut silhouettes
+against the awakening eastern sky. So immense and still, this birth of the
+day--the picture always gave him the feeling of life everlasting. Judith
+his wife had placed it there.
+
+From his bed through the window close beside him he looked up at the
+cliff-like wall of the new apartment building, with tier upon tier of
+windows from which murmurous voices dropped out of the dark: now soft, now
+suddenly angry, loud; now droning, sullen, bitter, hard; now gay with
+little screams of mirth; now low and amorous, drowsy sounds. Tier upon tier
+of modern homes, all overhanging Roger's house as though presently to crush
+it down.
+
+But Roger was not thinking of that. He was thinking of his children--of
+Edith's approaching confinement and all her anxious hunting about to find
+what was best for her family, of Bruce and the way he was driving himself
+in the unnatural world downtown where men were at each other's throats, of
+Deborah and that school of hers in the heart of a vast foul region of
+tenement buildings swarming with strange, dirty little urchins. And last he
+thought of Laura, his youngest daughter, wild as a hawk, gadding about the
+Lord knew where. She even danced in restaurants! Through his children he
+felt flowing into his house the seething life of this new town. And
+drowsily he told himself he must make a real effort, and make it soon, to
+know his family better. For in spite of the storm of long ago which had
+swept away his faith in God, the feeling had come to him of late that
+somewhere, in some manner, he was to meet his wife again. He rarely tried
+to think this out, for as soon as he did it became a mere wish, a hungry
+longing, nothing more. So he had learned to let it lie, deep down inside of
+him. Sometimes he vividly saw her face. After all, who could tell? And she
+would want to hear of her children. Yes, he must know them better. Some day
+soon he must begin.
+
+Suddenly he remembered that Laura had not yet come home. With a sigh of
+discomfort he got out of bed and went downstairs, re-lit the gas in the
+hallway, unfastened the locks and the chain at the door. He came back and
+was soon asleep. He must have dozed for an hour or two. He was roused by
+hearing the front door close and a big motor thundering. And then like a
+flash of light in the dark came Laura's rippling laughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+On the next evening, Saturday, while Roger ate his dinner, Laura came to
+sit with him. She herself was dining out. That she should have dressed so
+early in order to keep him company had caused her father some surprise, and
+a faint suspicion entered his mind that she had overdrawn at the bank, as
+she had the last time she sat with him like this. Her manner certainly was
+a bit strange.
+
+But Roger put the thought aside. Whatever she wanted, Laura was worth it.
+In a tingling fashion he felt what a glorious time she was having, what a
+gorgeous town she knew. It was difficult to realize she was his own
+daughter, this dashing stranger sitting here, playing idly with a knife and
+caressing him with her voice and her eyes. The blue evening gown she was
+wearing to-night (doubtless not yet paid for) made her figure even more
+supple and lithe, set off her splendid bosom, her slender neck, her creamy
+skin. Her hair, worn low over her temples, was brown with just a tinge of
+red. Her eyes were black, with gleaming lights; her lips were warm and
+rich, alive. He did not approve of her lips. Once when she had kissed him
+Roger had started slightly back. For his daughter's lips were rouged, and
+they had reminded him of his youth. He had asked her sister to speak to
+her. But Deborah had told him she did not care to speak to people in that
+way--"especially women--especially sisters," she had said, with a quiet
+smile. All very well, he reflected, but somebody ought to take Laura in
+hand.
+
+She had been his favorite as a child, his pet, his tiny daughter. He
+remembered her on his lap like a kitten. How she had liked to cuddle there.
+And she had liked to bite his hand, a curious habit in a child. "I hurt
+daddy!" He could still recollect the gay little laugh with which she said
+that, looking up brightly into his face.
+
+And here she was already grown, and like a light in the sober old house,
+fascinating while she disturbed him. He liked to hear her high pitched
+voice, gossiping in Deborah's room or in her own dainty chamber chatting
+with the adoring maid who was dressing her to go out. He loved her joyous
+thrilling laugh. And he would have missed her from the house as he would
+have missed Fifth Avenue if it had been dropped from the city. For the
+picture Roger had formed of this daughter was more of a symbol than of a
+girl, a symbol of the ardent town, spending, wasting, dancing mad. It was
+Laura who had kept him living right up to his income.
+
+"Where are you dining to-night?" he asked.
+
+"With the Raymonds." He wondered who they were. "Oh, Sarah," she added to
+the maid. "Call up Mrs. Raymond's apartment and ask what time is dinner
+to-night."
+
+"Are you going to dance later on?" he inquired.
+
+"Oh, I guess so," she replied. "On the Astor Roof, I think they said--"
+
+Her father went on with his dinner. These hotel dances, he had heard, ran
+well into Sunday morning. How Judith would have disapproved. He hesitated
+uneasily.
+
+"I don't especially care for this dancing into Sunday," he said. For a
+moment he did not look up from his plate. When he did he saw Laura
+regarding him.
+
+"Oh, do you mind? I'm sorry. I won't, after this," she answered. And Roger
+colored angrily, for the glint of amusement in Laura's mischievous black
+eyes revealed quite unmistakably that she regarded both her father and his
+feeling for the Sabbath as very dear and quaint and old. Old? Of course he
+seemed old to _her_, Roger thought indignantly. For what was Laura but a
+child? Did she ever think of anything except having a good time? Had she
+ever stopped to think out her own morals, let alone anyone else's? Was she
+any judge of what was old--or of _who_ was old? And he determined then and
+there to show her he was in his prime. Impatiently he strove to remember
+the names of her friends and ask her about them, to show a keen lively
+interest in this giddy gaddy life she led. And when that was rather a
+failure he tried his daughter next on books, books of the most modern kind.
+Stoutly he lied and said he was reading a certain Russian novel of which he
+had heard Deborah speak. But this valiant falsehood made no impression
+whatever, for Laura had never heard of the book.
+
+"I get so little time for reading," she murmured. And meanwhile she was
+thinking, "As soon as he finishes talking, poor dear, I'll break the news."
+
+Then Roger had an audacious thought. He would take her to a play, by
+George! Mustering his courage he led up to it by speaking of a play Deborah
+had seen, a full-fledged modern drama all centered upon the right of a
+woman "to lead her own life." And as he outlined the story, he saw he had
+caught his daughter's attention. With her pretty chin resting on one hand,
+watching him and listening, she appeared much older, and she seemed
+suddenly close to him.
+
+"How would you like to go with me and see it some evening?" he inquired.
+
+"See what, my love?" she asked him, her thoughts plainly far away; and he
+looked at her in astonishment:
+
+"That play I've just been speaking of!"
+
+"Why, daddy, I'd love to!" she exclaimed.
+
+"When?" he asked. And he fixed a night. He was proud of himself. Eagerly he
+began to talk of opening nights at Wallack's. Roger and Judith, when they
+were young, had been great first nighters there. And now it was Laura who
+drew him out, and as he talked on she seemed to him to be smilingly trying
+to picture it all.... "Now I'd better tell him," she thought.
+
+"Do you remember Harold Sloane?" she asked a little strangely.
+
+"No," replied her father, a bit annoyed at the interruption.
+
+"Why--you've met him two or three times--"
+
+"Have I?" The queer note in her voice made him look up. Laura had risen
+from her chair.
+
+"I want you to know him--very soon." There was a moment's silence. "I'm
+going to marry him, dad," she said. And Roger looked at her blankly. He
+felt his limbs beginning to tremble. "I've been waiting to tell you when we
+were alone," she added in an awkward tone. And still staring up at her he
+felt a rush of tenderness and a pang of deep remorse. Laura in love and
+settled for life! And what did he know of the affair? What had he ever done
+for her? Too late! He had begun too late! And this rush of emotion was so
+overpowering that while he still looked at her blindly she was the first to
+recover her poise. She came around the table and kissed him softly on the
+cheek. And now more than ever Roger felt how old his daughter thought him.
+
+"Who is he?" he asked hoarsely. And she answered smiling,
+
+"A perfectly nice young man named Sloane."
+
+"Don't, Laura--tell me! What does he do?"
+
+"He's in a broker's office--junior member of the firm, Oh, you needn't
+worry, dear, he can even afford to marry _me_."
+
+They heard a ring at the front door.
+
+"There he is now, I think," she said. "Will you see him? Would you mind?"
+
+"See him? No!" her father cried.
+
+"But just to shake hands," she insisted. "You needn't talk or say a word.
+We've only a moment, anyway." And she went swiftly out of the room.
+
+Roger rose in a panic and strode up and down. Before he could recover
+himself she was back with her man, or rather her boy--for the fellow, to
+her father's eyes, looked ridiculously young. Straight as an arrow,
+slender, his dress suit irreproachable, the chap nevertheless was more than
+a dandy. He looked hard, as though he trained, and his smooth and ruddy
+face had a look of shrewd self-reliance. So much of him Roger fathomed in
+the indignant cornered glance with which he welcomed him into the room.
+
+"Why, good evening, Mr. Gale--glad to see you again, sir!" Young Sloane
+nervously held out his hand. Roger took it and muttered something. For
+several moments, his mind in a whirl, he heard their talk and laughter and
+his own voice joining in. Laura seemed enjoying herself, her eyes brimming
+with amusement over both her victims. But at last she had compassion,
+kissed her father gaily and took her suitor out of the room.
+
+Soon Roger heard them leave the house. He went into his study, savagely bit
+off a cigar and gripped his evening paper as though he meant to choke it.
+The maid came in with coffee. "Coffee? No!" he snapped at her. A few
+moments later he came to his senses and found himself smoking fast and
+hard. He heartily damned this fellow Sloane for breaking into the family
+and asking poor Laura to risk her whole life--just for his own selfish
+pleasure, his whim! Yes, "whim" was the very word for it! Laura's attitude,
+too! Did she look at it seriously? Not at all! Quite plainly she saw her
+career as one long Highland fling and dance, with this Harry boy as her
+partner! Who had he danced with in his past? The fellow's past must be gone
+into, and at once, without delay!
+
+Here indeed was a jolt for Roger Gale, a pretty shabby trick of fate. This
+was not what he had planned, this was a little way life had of jabbing a
+man with surprises. For months he had been slowly and comfortably feeling
+his way into the lives of his children, patiently, conscientiously. But
+now without a word of warning in popped this young whipper-snapper, turning
+the whole house upside down! Another young person to be known, another life
+to be dug into, and with pick and shovel too! The job was far from
+pleasant. Would Deborah help him? Not at all. She believed in letting
+people alone--a devilish easy philosophy! Still, he wanted to tell her at
+once, if only to stir her up a bit. He did not propose to bear this alone!
+But Deborah was out to-night. Why must she always be out, he asked, in that
+infernal zoo school? But no, it was not school to-night. She was dining out
+in some café with a tall lank doctor friend of hers. Probably she was to
+marry him!
+
+"I'll have that news for breakfast!" Roger smote his paper savagely. Why
+couldn't Laura have waited a little? Restlessly he walked the room. Then he
+went into the hall, took his hat and a heavy stick which he used for his
+night rambles, and walked off through the neighborhood. It was the first
+Saturday evening of Spring, and on those quiet downtown streets he met
+couples strolling by. A tall thin lad and a buxom girl went into a cheap
+apartment building laughing gaily to themselves, and Roger thought of
+Laura. A group of young Italians passed, humming "Trovatore," and it put
+him in mind of the time when he had ushered at the opera. Would Laura's
+young man be willing to usher? More like him to _tango_ down the aisle!
+
+He reached Washington Square feeling tired but even more restless than
+before. He climbed to the top of a motor 'bus, and on the lurching ride
+uptown he darkly reflected that times had changed. He thought of the Avenue
+he had known, with its long lines of hansom cabs, its dashing broughams and
+coupés with jingling harness, livened footmen, everything sprucely
+up-to-date. How the horses had added to the town. But they were gone, and
+in their place were these great cats, these purring motors, sliding softly
+by the 'bus. Roger had swift glimpses down into lighted limousines. In one
+a big rich looking chap with a beard had a dressy young woman in his arms.
+Lord, how he was hugging her! Laura would have a motor like that, kisses
+like that, a life like that! She was the kind to go it hard! Ahead as far
+as he could see was a dark rolling torrent of cars, lights gleaming by the
+thousand. A hubbub of gay voices, cries and little shrieks of laughter
+mingled with the blare of horns. He looked at huge shop windows softly
+lighted with displays of bedrooms richly furnished, of gorgeous women's
+apparel, silks and lacy filmy stuffs. And to Roger, in his mood of anxious
+premonition, these bedroom scenes said plainly,
+
+"O come, all ye faithful wives! Come let us adore him, and deck ourselves
+to please his eye, to catch his eye, to hold his eye! For marriage is a
+game these days!"
+
+Yes, Laura would be a spender, a spender and a speeder too! How much money
+had he, that chap? And damn him, what had he in his past? How Roger hated
+the very thought of poking into another man's life! Poking where nobody
+wanted him! He felt desperately alone. To-night they were dancing, he
+recalled, not at a party in somebody's home, but in some flashy public
+place where girls of her kind and fancy women gaily mixed together! How
+mixed the whole city was getting, he thought, how mad and strange, gone out
+of its mind, this city of his children's lives crowding in upon him!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+He breakfasted with Deborah late on Sunday morning. He had come down at the
+usual hour despite his long tramp of the previous night, for he wanted to
+tell her the news and talk it all out before Laura came down--because
+Deborah, he hadn't a doubt, with her woman's curiosity had probed deep into
+Laura's affairs in the many long talks they had had in her room. He had
+often heard them there. And so, as he waited and waited and still his
+daughter did not come, Roger grew distinctly annoyed; and when at last she
+did appear, his greeting was perfunctory:
+
+"What kept you out so late last night?"
+
+"Oh, I was having a very good time," said Deborah contentedly. She poured
+herself some coffee. "I've always wanted," she went on, "to see Laura
+really puzzled--downright flabbergasted. And I saw her just like that last
+night."
+
+Roger looked up with a jerk of his head:
+
+"You and Laura--together last night?"
+
+"Exactly--on the Astor Roof." At her father's glare of astonishment a look
+of quiet relish came over her mobile features. Her wide lips twitched a
+little. "Well, why not?" she asked him. "I'm quite a dancer down at school.
+And last night with Allan Baird--we were dining together, you know--he
+proposed we go somewhere and dance. He's a perfectly awful dancer, and so I
+held out as long as I could. But he insisted and I gave in, though I much
+prefer the theater."
+
+"Well!" breathed Roger softly. "So you hoof it with the rest!" His
+expression was startled and intent. Would he ever get to know these girls?
+"Well," he added with a sigh, "I suppose you know what you're about."
+
+"Oh no, I don't," she answered. "I never know what I'm about. If you always
+do, you miss so much--you get into a solemn habit of trying nothing till
+you're sure. But to return to Laura. As we came gaily down the room we ran
+right into her, you see. That's how Allan dances. And when we collided, I
+smiled at her sweetly and said, 'Why, hello, dearie--you here too?" And
+Deborah sipped her coffee. "I have never believed that the lower jaw of a
+well-bred girl could actually drop open. But Laura's did. With a good
+strong light, Allan told me, he could have examined her tonsils for her.
+Rather a disgusting thought. You see until she saw me there, poor Laura had
+me so thoroughly placed--my school-marm job, my tastes and habits,
+everything, all cut and dried. She has never once come to my school, and in
+every talk we've ever had there has always been some perfectly good and
+absorbing reason why we should talk about Laura alone."
+
+"There is now," said her father. He was in no mood for tomfoolery. His
+daughter saw it and smiled a little.
+
+"What is it?" she inquired. And then he let her have it!
+
+"Laura wants to get married," he snapped.
+
+Deborah caught her breath at that, and an eager excited expression swept
+over her attractive face. She had leaned forward suddenly.
+
+"Father! No! Which one?" she asked. "Tell me! Is it Harold Sloane?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Oh, dad." She sank back in her chair. "Oh, dad," she repeated.
+
+"What's the matter with Sloane?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing--it's all right--"
+
+"It is, eh? How do you know it is?" His anxious eyes were still upon hers,
+and he saw she was thinking fast and hard and shutting him completely out.
+And it irritated him. "What do you know of this fellow Sloane?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--nothing--"
+
+"Nothing! Humph! Then why do you sit here and say it's all right? Don't
+talk like a fool!" he exclaimed. He waited, but she said no more, and
+Roger's exasperation increased. "He has money enough apparently--and
+they'll spend it like March hares!"
+
+Deborah looked up at him:
+
+"What did Laura tell you, dear?"
+
+"Not very much. I'm only her father. She had a dinner and dance on her
+mind."
+
+But Deborah pressed her questions and he gave her brief replies.
+
+"Well, what shall we do about it?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing--until we know something more." Roger regarded her fiercely.
+
+"Why don't you go up and talk to her, then?"
+
+"She's asleep yet--"
+
+"Never mind if she is! If she's going to marry a chap like that and ruin
+her life it's high time she was up for her breakfast!"
+
+While he scanned his Sunday paper he heard Deborah in the pantry. She
+emerged with a breakfast tray and he saw her start up to Laura's room. She
+was there for over an hour. And when she returned to his study, he saw her
+eyes were shining. How women's eyes will shine at such times, he told
+himself in annoyance.
+
+"Well?" he demanded.
+
+"Better leave her alone to-day," she advised. "Harold is coming some night
+soon."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To have a talk with you."
+
+Her father smote his paper. "What did she tell you about him?" he asked.
+
+"Not much more than she told you. His parents are dead--but he has a rich
+widowed aunt in Bridgeport who adores him. They mean to be married the end
+of May. She wants a church wedding, bridesmaids, ushers--the wedding
+reception here, of course--"
+
+"Oh, Lord," breathed Roger dismally.
+
+"We won't bother you much, father dear--"
+
+"You _will_ bother me much," he retorted. "I propose to be
+bothered--bothered a lot! I'm going to look up this fellow Sloane--"
+
+"But let's leave him alone for to-day." She bent over her father
+compassionately. "What a night you must have had, poor dear." Roger looked
+up in grim reproach.
+
+"You like all this," he grunted. "You, a grown woman, a teacher too."
+
+"I wonder if I do," she said. "I guess I'm a queer person, dad, a curious
+family mixture--of Laura and Edith and mother and you, with a good deal of
+myself thrown in. But it feels rather good to be mixed, don't you think?
+Let's stay mixed as long as we can--and keep together the family."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That afternoon, to distract him, Deborah took her father to a concert in
+Carnegie Hall. She had often urged him to go of late, but despite his
+liking for music Roger had refused before, simply because it was a change.
+But why balk at going anywhere now, when Laura was up to such antics at
+home?
+
+"Do you mind climbing up to the gallery?" Deborah asked as they entered the
+hall.
+
+"Not at all," he curtly answered. He did mind it very much!
+
+"Then we'll go to the very top," she said. "It's a long climb but I want
+you to see it. It's so different up there."
+
+"I don't doubt it," he replied. And as they made the slow ascent, pettishly
+he wondered why Deborah must always be so eager for queer places.
+Galleries, zoo schools, tenement slums--why not take a two dollar seat in
+life?
+
+Deborah seated him far down in the front of the great gallery, over at the
+extreme right, and from here they could look back and up at a huge dim
+arena of faces.
+
+"Now watch them close," she whispered. "See what the music does to them."
+
+As the symphony began below the faces all grew motionless. And as the music
+cast its spell, the anxious ruffled feelings which had been with Roger all
+that day little by little were dispelled, and soon his imagination began to
+work upon this scene. He saw many familiar American types. He felt he knew
+what they had been doing on Sundays only a few years before. After church
+they had eaten large Sunday dinners. Then some had napped and some had
+walked and some had gone to Sunday school. At night they had had cold
+suppers, and afterwards some had gone back to church; while others, as in
+Roger's house in the days when Judith was alive, had gathered around the
+piano for hymns. Young men callers, friends of their daughters, had joined
+in the family singing. Yes, some of these people had been like that. To
+them, a few short years ago, a concert on the Sabbath would have seemed a
+sacrilege. He could almost hear from somewhere the echo of "Abide With Me."
+
+But over this memory of a song rose now the surging music of Tschaikovsky's
+"Pathetique." And the yearnings and fierce hungers in this tumultuous music
+swept all the hymns from Roger's mind. Once more he watched the gallery,
+and this time he became aware that more than half were foreigners. Out of
+the mass from every side individual faces emerged, swarthy, weird, and
+staring hungrily into space. And to Roger the whole shadowy place, the very
+air, grew pregnant, charged with all these inner lives bound together in
+this mood, this mystery that had swept over them all, immense and
+formless, baffling, this furious demanding and this blind wistful groping
+which he himself had known so well, ever since his wife had died and he had
+lost his faith in God. What was the meaning of it all if life were nothing
+but a start, and there were nothing but the grave?
+
+"You will live on in our children's lives."
+
+He glanced around at Deborah. Was _she_ so certain, so serene? "What do I
+know of her?" he asked. "Little or nothing," he sadly replied. And he tried
+to piece together from things she had told him her life as it had passed
+him by. Had there been no questionings, no sharp disillusionments? There
+must have been. He recalled irritabilities, small acts and exclamations of
+impatience, boredom, "blues." And as he watched her he grew sure that his
+daughter's existence had been like his own. Despite its different setting,
+its other aims and visions, it had been a mere beginning, a feeling for a
+foothold, a search for light and happiness. And Deborah seemed to him still
+a child. "How far will _you_ go?" he wondered.
+
+Although he was still watching her even after the music had ceased, she did
+not notice him for a time. Then she turned to him slowly with a smile.
+
+"Well? What did you see?" she asked.
+
+"I wasn't looking," he replied.
+
+"Why, dearie," she retorted. "Where's that imagination of yours?"
+
+"It was with you," he answered. "Tell me what you were thinking."
+
+And still under the spell of the music, Deborah said to her father,
+
+"I was thinking of hungry people--millions of them, now, this minute--not
+only here but in so many places--concerts, movies, libraries. Hungry, oh,
+for everything--life, its beauty, all it means. And I was thinking this is
+youth--no matter how old they happen to be--and that to feed it we have
+schools. I was thinking how little we've done as yet, and of all that
+we're so sure to do in the many, many years ahead. Do you see what I mean?"
+she squeezed his hand.
+
+"Welcome back to school," she said, "back into the hungry army of youth!...
+Sh-h-h!"
+
+Again the music had begun. And sitting by her side he wondered whether it
+was because she knew that Laura's affair had made him feel old that Deborah
+had brought him here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They went to Edith's for supper.
+
+The Cunninghams' apartment was on the west side, well uptown. It was not
+the neighborhood which Edith would have chosen, for nearly all the nice
+people she knew lived east of the park. But rents were somewhat lower here
+and there was at least an abundance of fresh air for her family. Edith had
+found that her days were full of these perplexing decisions. It was all
+very simple to resolve that her children be old-fashioned, normal,
+wholesome, nice. But then she looked into the city--into schools and
+kindergartens, clothes and friends and children's parties, books and plays.
+And through them all to her dismay she felt conflicting currents, clashes
+between old and new. She felt New York. And anxiously she asked herself,
+"What is old-fashioned? What is normal? What is wholesome? What is nice?"
+Cautiously she made her way, testing and comparing, trying small
+experiments. Often sharply she would draw in her horns. She had struck
+something "common!" And she knew all this was nothing compared to the
+puzzles that lay ahead. For from her friend, Madge Deering, whose girls
+were well along in their 'teens, she heard of deeper problems. The girls
+were so inquisitive. Dauntlessly Madge was facing each month the most
+disturbing questions. Thank Heaven, Edith had only one daughter. Sons were
+not quite so baffling.
+
+So she had groped her way along.
+
+When her father and Deborah arrived, placidly she asked them what they had
+been doing. And when she heard that they had been at a concert on the
+Sabbath, though this was far from old-fashioned and something she would not
+have done herself, it did not bother her half so much as the fact that
+Hannah, the Irish nurse, had slapped little Tad that afternoon. She had
+never known Hannah to do it before. Could it be that the girl was tired or
+sick? Perhaps she needed a few days off. "I must have a talk with her,"
+Edith thought, "as soon as father and Deborah go."
+
+Roger always liked to come here. Say what you would about Edith's habit of
+keeping too closely to her home, the children to whom she had devoted
+herself were a fine, clean, happy lot. Here were new lives in his family,
+glorious fresh beginnings. He sat on the floor with her three boys,
+watching the patient efforts of George to harness his perturbed white rat
+to Tad's small fire engine. George was a lank sprawling lad of fourteen,
+all legs and arms and elbows, with rumpled hair and freckled face, a quick
+bright smile and nice brown eyes--frank, simple, understandable eyes. All
+but one of Edith's children were boys, and boys were a blessed relief to a
+man who had three grown-up daughters.
+
+And while Roger watched them, with a gentle glow of anticipation he waited
+for what should follow, when as had been already arranged Deborah should
+break to her sister the news of Laura's engagement. And he was not
+disappointed. The change in Edith was something tremendous. Until now so
+quietly self-absorbed, at the news that Laura was to be married instantly
+she was all alert. Sitting there in the midst of her children and facing a
+time of agony only a few weeks ahead which would add one more to her
+family, Edith's pretty florid face grew flushed and radiant as she
+exclaimed,
+
+"What a perfectly wonderful thing for Laura! Now if only she can have a
+child!"
+
+Her questions followed thick and fast, and with them her thoughts of what
+should be done. Bruce must look up this suitor at once. Bruce demurred
+stoutly but without avail. She eagerly questioned her sister as to Laura's
+plans for the wedding, but plainly she considered that Deborah was no woman
+to give her the full information she wanted. She must see Laura herself at
+once. For though she had thoroughly disapproved of the gay helter-skelter
+existence of her youngest sister, still Laura was now to be married, and
+this made all the difference.
+
+Just before Roger and Deborah left, Edith drew her father aside, and with a
+curious concern and pity in her voice, she said,
+
+"I'm so sorry I shan't be able to help you with the wedding, dear, and make
+it the sweet old-fashioned kind that mother would have wanted. Of course
+there's Deborah, she'll be there. But her head is so full of new ideas. I'm
+afraid she may find the house rather a burden after Laura has gone away."
+Edith gave a worried little sigh. "I'll be so glad," she added, "when we
+get that place in Morristown. We'll want you out there often, and for good
+long visits too. You may even find you'll care to try staying there with us
+for a while."
+
+Roger scowled and thanked her. She had given him a shock of alarm.
+
+"So she thinks that Deborah will find the housekeeping too hard," he
+reflected anxiously. And as he walked home with his daughter, he kept
+glancing at her face, which for all its look of quiet had so much tensity
+beneath. She had packed her life so full of school. What if she wanted to
+give up their home? "She'll try, of course, she'll try her best--but she'll
+find it too much of an added strain." And again he felt that sickening
+dread. Deborah said nothing. He felt as though they had drifted apart.
+
+And at night in his bed, as Roger stared up at the beetling cliff of
+apartment windows just outside, drearily he asked himself how it would feel
+to live like that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+One afternoon a few days later Roger was riding in the park. He rode
+"William," a large lazy cob who as he advanced in age had so subtly and
+insidiously slackened his pace from a trot to a jog that Roger barely
+noticed how slowly he was riding. As he rode along he liked to watch the
+broad winding bridle path with its bobbing procession of riders that kept
+appearing before him under the tall spreading trees. Though he knew
+scarcely anyone by name, he was a familiar figure here and he recognized
+scores of faces. To many men he nodded at passing, and to not a few
+alluring young dames, ardent creatures with bright eyes who gave him smiles
+of greeting, Roger gravely raised his hat. One was "The Silver Lady" in a
+Broadway musical show, but he thought she was "one of the Newport crowd."
+He liked to make shrewd guesses like that. There were so many kinds of
+people here. There were stout anxious ladies riding for figures and lean
+morose gentlemen riding for health. There were joyous care-free girls,
+chatting and laughing merrily. There were some gallant foreigners, and
+there were riding masters, and Roger could not tell them apart. There were
+mad boys from the Squadron who rode at a furious canter, and there were
+groups of children, eager and flushed, excited and gay, with stolid grooms
+behind them. The path in several places ran close beside the main road of
+the park, and with the coming of the dusk this road took on deep purple
+hues and glistened with reflections from countless yellow motor eyes. And
+from the polished limousines, sumptuous young women smiled out upon the
+riders.
+
+At least so Roger saw this life. And after those bleak lonely years
+confronted by eternity, it was good to come here and forget, to feel
+himself for the moment a part of the thoughtless gaiety, the ease and
+luxury of the town. Here he was just on the edge of it all. Often as a
+couple passed he would wonder what they were doing that night. In the
+riding school where he kept his horse, it was a lazy pleasure to have the
+English "valet" there pull off his boots and breeches--though if anyone had
+told him so, Roger would have denied it with indignation and surprise. For
+was he not an American?
+
+It had been a wonderful tonic, a great idea of Laura's, this forcing him up
+here to ride. In one of her affectionate moods, just after a sick spell he
+had been through, his gay capricious daughter had insisted that he have his
+horse brought down from the mountains. She had promised to ride with him
+herself, and she had done so--for a week. Since then he had often met her
+here with one of her many smart young men. What a smile of greeting would
+flash on her face--when Laura happened to notice him.
+
+He was thinking of Laura now, and there was an anxious gleam in his eyes.
+For young Sloane was coming to dinner to-night. What was he going to say to
+the fellow? Bruce had learned that Sloane played polo, owned and drove a
+racing car and was well liked in his several clubs. But what about women
+and his past? Edith had urged her father to go through the lad's life with
+a fine tooth comb, and if he should find anything there to kick up no end
+of a row for the honor of the family. All of which was nothing but words,
+reflected Roger pettishly. It all came to this, that he had a most ticklish
+evening ahead! On the path as a rider greeted him, his reply was a dismal
+frown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Laura's suitor arrived at six o'clock. In his study Roger heard the bell,
+listened a moment with beating heart, then raised himself heavily from his
+chair and went into the hallway.
+
+"Ah, yes! It's you!" he exclaimed, with a nervous cordiality. "Come in, my
+boy, come right in! Here, let me help you with your coat. I don't know just
+where Laura is. Ahem!" He violently cleared his throat. "Suppose while
+we're waiting we have a smoke." He kept it up back into his den. There the
+suitor refused a cigar and carefully lit a cigarette. Roger noticed again
+how young the chap was, and marriage seemed so ridiculous! All this
+feverish trouble was for something so unreal!
+
+"Well, sir," the candidate blurted forth, "I guess I'd better come right to
+the point. Mr. Gale, I want to marry your daughter."
+
+"Laura?"
+
+"Yes." Roger cursed himself. Why had he asked, "Laura?" Of course it was
+Laura! Would this cub be wanting Deborah?
+
+"Well, my boy," he said thickly. "I--I wish I knew you better."
+
+"So do I, sir. Suppose we begin." The youth took a quick pull at his
+cigarette. He waited, stirred nervously in his seat. "You'll have some
+questions to ask, I suppose--"
+
+"Yes, there are questions." Roger had risen mechanically and was slowly
+walking the room. He threw out short gruff phrases. "I'm not interested in
+your past--I don't care about digging into a man--I never have and I never
+will--except as it might affect my daughter. That's the main question, I
+suppose. Can you make her happy?"
+
+"I think so," said Sloane, decidedly. Roger gave him a glance of
+displeasure.
+
+"That's a large order, young man," he rejoined.
+
+"Then let's take it in sections," the youngster replied. Confound his
+boyish assurance! "To begin with," he was saying, "I rather think I have
+money enough. We'd better go into that, hadn't we?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger indifferently. "We might as well go into it." Of course
+the chap had money enough. He was a money maker. You could hear it in his
+voice; you could see it in his jaw, in his small aggressive blonde
+moustache. Now he was telling briefly of his rich aunt in Bridgeport, of
+the generous start she had given him, his work downtown, his income.
+
+"Twenty-two thousand this year," he said. "We can live on that all right, I
+guess."
+
+"You won't starve," was the dry response. Roger walked for a moment in
+silence, then turned abruptly on young Sloane.
+
+"Look here, young man, I don't want to dig," he continued very huskily.
+"But I know little or nothing of what may be behind you. I don't care to
+ask you about it now--unless it can make trouble."
+
+"It can't make trouble." At this answer, low but sharp, Roger wheeled and
+shot a glance into those clear and twinkling eyes. And his own eyes gleamed
+with pain. Laura had been such a little thing in the days when she had been
+his pet, the days when he had known her well. What could he do about it?
+This was only the usual thing. But he felt suddenly sick of life.
+
+"How soon do you want to get married?" he demanded harshly.
+
+"Next month, if we can."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Abroad," said Sloane. Roger caught at this topic as at a straw. Soon they
+were talking of the trip, and the tension slackened rapidly. He had never
+been abroad himself but had always dreamed of going there. With maps and
+books of travel Judith and he had planned it out. In imagination they had
+lived in London and Paris, Munich and Rome, always in queer old lodgings
+looking on quaint crooked streets. He had dreamed of long delicious
+rambles, glimpses into queer old shops, vast, silent, dark cathedrals. For
+Laura how different it would be. This boy of hers knew Europe as a group
+of gorgeous new hotels.
+
+The moment Laura joined them, her father's eye was caught and held by the
+ring upon her finger. Roger knew rings, they were his hobby, and this huge
+yellow solitaire in its new and brilliant setting at once awakened his
+dislike. It just fitted the life they were to lead! What life? As he
+listened to his daughter he kept wondering if she were so sure. Had she
+felt no uneasiness? She must have, he decided, for all her gay excitement.
+One Laura in that smiling face; another Laura deep inside, doubting and
+uncertain, reaching for her happiness, now elated, now dismayed,
+exclaiming, "Now at last I'm starting!" Oh, what an ignorant child she was.
+He wanted to cry out to her, "You'll _always_ be just starting! You'll
+never be sure, you'll never be happy, you'll always be just beginning to
+be! And the happier you are, the more you will feel it is only a start!...
+And then-"
+
+More and more his spirit withdrew from these two heedless children. Later
+on, when Deborah came, he barely noticed her meeting with Sloane. And
+through dinner, while they talked of plans for the wedding, the trip
+abroad, still Roger took no part at all. He felt dull and heavy. Deborah
+too, he noticed, after her first efforts to be welcoming and friendly, had
+gradually grown silent. He saw her watching Laura with a mingled look of
+affection and of whimsical dismay. Soon after dinner she left them, and
+Roger smoked with the boy for a while and learned that he was twenty-nine.
+Both had grown uneasy and rather dull with each other. It was a relief when
+again Laura joined them, dressed to go out. She and her lover left the
+house.
+
+Roger sat motionless for some time. His cigar grew cold unheeded. One of
+the sorrows of his life had been that his only son had died. Bruce had been
+almost like a son. But this young man of Laura's? No.
+
+Later he went for his evening walk. And as though drawn by invisible
+chains he strayed far down into the ghetto. Soon he was elbowing his way
+through a maze of uproarious tenement streets as one who had been there
+many times. But he noticed little around him. He went on, as he had always
+gone, seeing and hearing this seething life only as a background to his own
+adventure. He reached his destination. Pushing his way through a swarm of
+urchins playing in front of a pawnshop, he entered and was a long time
+inside, and when he came out again at last the whole expression of his face
+had undergone a striking change. As one who had found the solace he needed
+for the moment, his pace unconsciously quickened and he looked about him
+with brighter eyes.
+
+Around the corner from his home, he went into a small jewelry shop, a
+remnant of the town of the past. There were no customers in the place, and
+the old Galician jeweler sat at the back playing solitaire. At sight of
+Roger he arose; and presently in a small back room, beneath the glare of a
+powerful lamp, the two were studying the ring which Roger had found in the
+ghetto that night. It was plain, just a thin worn band of gold with an
+emerald by no means large; but the setting was old and curious, and
+personal, distinctive. Somebody over in Europe had worked on it long and
+lovingly. Now as the Galician gently rubbed and polished and turned the
+ring this way and that, the light revealed crude tiny figures, a man and a
+woman under a tree. And was that a vine or a serpent? They studied it long
+and absorbedly.
+
+At home, up in his bedroom, Roger opened a safe which stood in one corner,
+took out a large shallow tray and sat down with it by his lamp. A strange
+array of rings was there, small and delicate, huge, bizarre; great signet
+rings and poison rings, love tokens, charms and amulets, rings which had
+been worn by wives, by mistresses, by favorite slaves and by young girls in
+convents; rings with the Madonna and rings with many other saints graven
+on large heavy stones; rings French and Russian, Polish, Italian, Spanish,
+Syrian. Some were many centuries old. In nine shallow metal trays they
+filled the safe in Roger's room. Although its money value was small, the
+Gale collection was well known to a scattered public of connoisseurs, and
+Roger took pride in showing it. But what had always appealed to him most
+was the romance, the mystery, stored up in these old talismans that had
+lived so many ages, travelled through so many lands, decked so many
+fingers. Roger had found every one of them in the pawnshops of New York.
+What new recruits to America had brought them here and pawned them? From
+what old cities had they come? What passions of love and jealousy, of
+hatred, faith, devotion were in this glittering array? Roger's own love
+affair had been deep, but quiet and even and happy. All the wild
+adventures, the might-have-beens in his sex life, were gathered in these
+dusky trays with their richly colored glints of light.
+
+Of his daughters, Laura had been the one most interested in his rings, and
+so he thought of Laura now as he placed in the tray the new ring he had
+bought, the one he would have liked for her. But a vague uneasiness filled
+his mind, for he knew she had the same craving as he for what gleamed out
+of these somber trays. The old Galician jeweler had long been quite a
+friend of hers, she had often dropped in at his shop to ask him curious
+questions about his women patrons. And it was just this side of him that
+Roger did not care for. So many of those women were from a dubious
+glittering world, and the old Galician took a weird vicarious joy in many
+of the gay careers into which he sent his beloved rings, his brooches,
+earrings, necklaces, his clasps and diamond garters. And Laura loved to
+make him talk.... Yes, she was her father's child, a part of himself. He,
+too, had had his yearnings, his burning curiosities, his youthful ventures
+into the town. "You will live on in our children's lives." With her
+inheritance what would she do? Would she stop halfway as he had done, or
+would she throw all caution aside and let the flames within her rise?
+
+He heard a step in the doorway, and Deborah stood there smiling.
+
+"A new one?" she inquired. He nodded, and she bent over the tray. "Poor
+father," Deborah murmured. "I saw you eyeing Laura's engagement ring at
+dinner to-night. It wasn't like this one, was it?" He scowled:
+
+"I don't like what I see ahead of her. Nor do you," he said. "Be honest."
+She looked at him perplexedly.
+
+"We can't stop it, can we? And even if we could," she said, "I'm not quite
+sure I'd want to. It's her love affair, not yours or mine--grown out of a
+life she made for herself--curious, eager, thrilled by it all--and in the
+center of her soul the deep glad growing certainty, 'I'm going to be a
+beautiful woman--I myself, I, Laura Gale!' Oh, you don't know--nor do I.
+And so she felt her way along--eagerly, hungrily, making mistakes--and you
+and I left her to do it alone. I'm afraid we both rather neglected her,
+dad," Deborah ended sadly. "And all we can do now, I think, is to give her
+the kind of wedding she wants."
+
+Roger started to speak but hesitated.
+
+"What is it?" she inquired.
+
+"Queer," he answered gruffly, "how a man can neglect his children--as I
+have done, as I do still--when the one thing he wants most in life is to
+see each one of 'em happy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Roger soon grew accustomed to seeing young Sloane about the house. They
+could talk together more easily, and he began to call him Harold. Harold
+asked him with Laura to lunch at the Ritz to meet the aunt from Bridgeport,
+a lady excessively stout and profound. But that ended the formalities. It
+had all been so much easier than Roger had expected. So, in its calm sober
+fashion, the old house took into its life this new member, these new plans,
+and the old seemed stronger for the new--for Laura and Edith and Deborah
+drew together closer than they had been in many years. But only because
+they felt themselves on the eve of a still deeper and more lasting
+separation, as the family of Roger Gale divided and went different ways. At
+times he noticed it sadly. Laura, who had scarcely ever been home for
+dinner, now spent many evenings here. She needed her home for her wedding,
+he thought. Each daughter needed it now and then. But as the years wore
+slowly on, the seasons when they needed it grew steadily wider and wider
+apart....
+
+Early in May, when Roger came home from his office one night he found
+Edith's children in the house. From the hallway he could hear their gay
+excited voices, and going into the dining room he found them at their
+supper. Deborah was with them, and at once her father noticed how much
+younger she appeared--as she always did with these children who all
+idolized her so. She rose and followed him into the hall, and her quiet
+voice had a note of compassion.
+
+"Edith's baby is coming," she said.
+
+"Good Lord. Is anything wrong?" he asked.
+
+"No, no, it's all right--"
+
+"But I thought the child wasn't due for three weeks."
+
+"I know, and poor Edith is fearfully worried. It has upset all her plans.
+I'd go up and see her if I were you. Your supper is ready; and if you like
+you can have it with the children."
+
+There followed a happy boisterous meal, with much expectant chatter about
+the long summer so soon to begin at the farm up in the mountains. George,
+whose hair was down over his eyes, rumpled it back absorbedly as he told of
+a letter he had received from his friend Dave Royce, Roger's farmer, with
+whom George corresponded. One of the cows was to have a calf, and George
+was anxious to get there in time.
+
+"I've never seen a real new calf, new absolutely," he explained. "And I
+want a look at this one the very minute that he's born. Gee, I hope we can
+get there in time--"
+
+"Gee! So do I!" cried Bobby aged nine. And then Tad, the chubby
+three-year-old who had been intently watching his brothers, slowly took the
+spoon from his mouth and in his grave sweet baby voice said very softly,
+"Gee." At her end of the table, Elizabeth, blonde and short and rather
+plump, frowned and colored slightly. For she was eleven and she knew there
+was something dark and shameful about the way calves appear in barns. And
+so, with a quick conscious cough, she sweetly interrupted:
+
+"Oh, Aunt Deborah! Won't you please tell us about--about--"
+
+"About--about," jeered the ironical George. "About what, you little ninny?"
+Poor Elizabeth blushed desperately. She was neither quick nor resourceful.
+
+"Now, George," said his aunt warningly.
+
+"Wasn't I talking?" the boy rejoined. "And didn't Betsy butt right
+in--without even a thing to butt in about? About--about," he jeered again.
+
+"About Paris!" cried his sister, successful at last in her frantic search
+for a proper topic of conversation. "Aunt Deborah's trip to Paris!"
+
+"How many times has she told it already?" her brother replied with
+withering scorn. "And anyhow, I was talking of cows!"
+
+"Very well," said his aunt, "we'll talk about cows, some cows I saw on a
+lovely old farm in a little village over in France."
+
+"There!" cried his young sister. "Did she ever tell of _that_ part of her
+trip?" And she made a little face at her brother.
+
+"I don't care," he answered doggedly. "She has told about Paris lots of
+times--and that was what _you_ wanted. Yes, you did. You said, 'About
+Paris.' Didn't she, Bob?"
+
+"You bet she did," young Bob agreed.
+
+"Now, children, children, what does it matter?"
+
+"All right, go ahead with your barn in France," said George with patient
+tolerance. "Did they have any Holsteins?"
+
+Soon the questions were popping from every side, while little Tad beamed
+from one to the other. To Tad it was all so wonderful, to be having supper
+away from home, to be here, to go to bed upstairs, to take part perhaps in
+a pillow fight.... And glancing at the glowing face and the parted lips of
+his small grandson Roger felt a current of warm new life pour into his
+soul.
+
+Early in the evening he went up to Edith's apartment. He found his daughter
+in her room, looking flushed and very tense. He took her arm and they
+walked for a time. A trained nurse was soaping the windows. Roger asked the
+reason for this and was told that in case the baby did not come till
+morning the doctor wanted to pull up the shades in order to work by
+daylight. "And neighbors in New York are such cats! You've no idea!" said
+Edith. She looked out at the numberless windows crowding close about her
+home, and she fairly bristled with scorn. "Oh, how I loathe apartments!"
+
+"They seem to have come to stay, my dear. In a few years more New York will
+be a city without a house," he said. "Only a palace here and there." The
+thought flashed in his mind, "But I shall be gone."
+
+"Then we'll move out to the country!" she cried. Still walking the floor
+with her father, she talked of the perplexities which in her feverish state
+of mind had loomed suddenly enormous. She had planned everything so nicely
+for the baby to come the first of June, but now her plans were all upset.
+She did not want the children here, it would make too much confusion. They
+had much better go up to the mountains, even though George and Elizabeth
+lost their last few weeks at school. But who could she find to take them?
+Bruce was simply rushed to death with his new receivership. Laura was
+getting her trousseau. Deborah, said Edith, had time for nothing on earth
+but school.
+
+"Suppose I take them," Roger ventured. But she only smiled at this. "My
+dear," he urged, "your nurse will be with me, and when we arrive there's
+the farmer's wife." But Edith impatiently shook her head. Her warm bright
+eyes seemed to picture it all, hour by hour, day and night, her children
+there without her.
+
+"You poor dear," she told him, "you haven't the slightest idea what it
+means. The summer train is not on yet, and you have to change three times
+on the way--with all the children--luggage, too. And there are their naps,
+and all their meals. You don't arrive till late at night. No," she decided
+firmly, "Bruce will simply have to go." She drew a breath of discomfort.
+"You go and talk to him," she said.
+
+"I will, my dear." Roger looked at his daughter in deep concern. Awkwardly
+his heavy hand touched her small plump shoulder, and he felt the constant
+quivering there. "Now, now," he muttered, uneasily, "it's going to be all
+right, you know--" And at that she gave him a rapid glance out of those
+warm hunted eyes, as though to ask, "What do you know of this?" And Roger
+flinched and turned to the door.
+
+Bruce was working at his desk, with an old briar pipe in his teeth. He
+looked up with a quick nervous smile which showed his dread of the coming
+ordeal, but his voice had a carefully casual tone.
+
+"Does she want me now?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Roger. And he told of her plan for the children. "I volunteered
+myself," he added, "but she wouldn't hear to it."
+
+"Oh, my God, man, you wouldn't do," said Bruce, in droll disparagement.
+"You with forty-nine bottles of pasteurized milk? Suppose you smashed one?
+Where'd you be? Moving our family isn't a job; it's a science, and I've got
+my degree." He rose and his face softened. "Poor girl, she mustn't worry
+like that. I'll run in and tell her I'll do it myself--just to get it off
+her mind."
+
+He went to his wife. And when he came back his dark features appeared a
+little more drawn.
+
+"Poor devil," thought Roger, "he's scared to death--just as I used to be
+myself."
+
+"Pretty tough on a woman, isn't it?" Bruce muttered, smiling constrainedly.
+
+"Did Baird say everything's going well?" Baird was Edith's physician.
+
+"Yes. He was here this afternoon, and he said he'd be back this evening."
+Bruce stopped with a queer little scowl of suspense. "I told her I'd see to
+the trip with the kiddies, and it seemed to relieve her a lot." His eye
+went to a pile of documents that lay on the desk before him. "It'll play
+the very devil with business, taking three days off just now. But I guess I
+can manage it somehow--"
+
+A muscle began to twitch on his face. He re-lit his pipe with elaborate
+care and looked over at Roger confidingly:
+
+"Do you know what's the matter with kids these days? It's the twentieth
+century," he said. "It's a disease. It starts in their teeth. No modern
+girl can get married unless she has had her teeth straightened for years.
+Our dentist's bill, this year alone, was over eight hundred dollars. But
+that isn't all. It gets into their young intestines, God bless 'em, and
+makes you pasteurize all they eat. It gets into their nerves and tears 'em
+up, and your only chance to save 'em is school--not a common school but a
+'simple' school, tuition four hundred dollars a year. And you hire a
+dancing teacher besides--I mean a rhythm teacher--and let 'em shake it out
+of their feet. And after that you buy 'em clothes--not fluffy clothes, but
+'simple' clothes, the kind which always cost the most. And then you build a
+simple home, in a simple place like Morristown. The whole idea is
+simplicity. If you can't make enough to buy it, you're lost. If you can
+make enough, just barely enough, you get so excited you lose your head--and
+do what I did Monday."
+
+The two men smiled at each other. Roger was very fond of Bruce.
+
+"What did you do Monday?" he asked.
+
+"I bought that car I told you about."
+
+"Splendid! Best thing in the world for you! Tell me all about it!"
+
+And while Bruce rapidly grew engrossed in telling of the car's fine points,
+Roger pictured his son-in-law upon hot summer evenings (for Bruce spent his
+summers in town) forgetting his business for a time and speeding out into
+the country. Then he thought of Edith and the tyranny of her motherhood,
+always draining her husband's purse and keeping Edith so wrapt up in her
+children and their daily needs that she had lost all interest in anything
+outside her home. What was there wrong about it? He knew that Edith prided
+herself on being like her mother. But Judith had always found time for her
+friends. He himself had been more as Edith was now. How quickly after
+Judith died he had dropped all friends, all interests. "That's it," he
+ruefully told himself, "Edith takes after her father." And the same curious
+feeling which he had had with Laura, came back to him with her sister. This
+daughter, too, was a part of himself. His deep instinctive craving to keep
+to himself and his family was living on in Edith, was already dominating
+her home. What a queer mysterious business it was, this tie between a man
+and his child.
+
+He was thinking of this when Baird arrived. Allan Baird was not only the
+doctor who had brought Edith's children into the world, he was besides an
+intimate friend, he had been Bruce's room-mate at college. As he came
+strolling into the room with his easy greeting of "Well, folks--" his low
+gruff voice, his muscular frame, over six feet two, and the kindly calm
+assurance in his lean strong visage, gave to Bruce and Roger the feeling of
+safety they needed. For this kind of work was his life. He had specialized
+on women, and after over fifteen years of toilsome uphill labor he had
+become at thirty-seven one of the big gynecologists. He was taking his
+success with the quiet relish of a man who had had to work for it hard. And
+yet he had not been spoiled by success. He worked even harder than
+before--so hard, in fact, that Deborah, with whom through Bruce and Edith
+he had long ago struck up an easy bantering friendship, had sturdily set
+herself the task of prying open his eyes a bit. She had taken him to her
+school at night and to queer little foreign cafés. And Baird, with a humor
+of his own, had retaliated by dragging her to the Astor Roof and to musical
+plays.
+
+"If my eyes are to be opened," he had doggedly declared, "I propose to have
+some diamonds in the scenery, and a little cheery ragtime, too. You've got
+a good heart, Deborah Gale, but your head is full of tenements."
+
+To-night to divert Bruce's thoughts from his wife, Baird started him
+talking of his work. In six weeks Bruce had crammed his mind with the
+details of skyscraper building, and his talk was bewildering now, bristling
+with technical terms, permeated through and through with the feeling of
+strain and fierce competition. As Roger listened he had again that sharp
+and oppressive sensation of a savage modern town unrelentingly pressing,
+pressing in. Restlessly he glanced at Baird who sat listening quietly. And
+Roger thought of the likeness between their two professions. For Bruce,
+too, was a surgeon. His patients were the husbands in their distracting
+offices. Baird's were the wives and mothers in their equally distracting
+homes. Which were more tense, the husbands or wives? And, good Lord, what
+was it all about, this feverish strain of getting and spending? What were
+they spending? Their very life's blood. And what were they getting?
+Happiness? What did most of them know of real happiness? How little they
+knew, how blind they were, and yet how they laughed and chattered along,
+how engrossed in their little games. What children, oh, what children!
+
+"And am I any better than the rest? Do I know what I'm after--what I'm
+about?"
+
+He left them soon, for he felt very tired. He went to his daughter to say
+good-night. And in her room the talk he had heard became to him suddenly
+remote, that restless world of small account. For in Edith, in the one
+brief hour since her father had seen her last, there had come a great
+transformation, into her face an eager light. She was slipping down into a
+weird small world which for a brief but fearful season was to be utterly
+her own, with agony and bloody sweat, and joy and a deep mystery. Clumsily
+he took her hand. It was moist and he felt it clutch his own. He heard her
+breathing rapidly.
+
+"Good-night," he said in a husky tone. "I'll be so glad, my dear, so
+glad."
+
+For answer she gave him a hurried smile, a glance from her bright restless
+eyes. Then he went heavily from the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home he found Deborah sitting alone, with a pile of school papers in her
+lap. As he entered she slowly turned her head.
+
+"How is Edith?" she asked him. Roger told of his visit uptown, and spoke of
+Edith's anxiety over getting the children up to the farm.
+
+"I'll take them myself," said Deborah.
+
+"But how can you get away from school?"
+
+"Oh, I think I can manage it. We'll leave on Friday morning and I can be
+back by Sunday night. I'll love it," Deborah answered.
+
+"It'll be a great relief to her," said Roger, lighting a cigar. Deborah
+resumed her work, and there was silence for a time.
+
+"I let George sit up with me till an hour after his bedtime," she told her
+father presently. "We started talking about white rats--you see it's still
+white rats with George--and that started us wondering about God. George
+wonders if God really knows about rats. 'Has he ever stuck his face right
+down and had a good close look at one? Has God ever watched a rat stand up
+and brush his whiskers with both paws? Has he ever really laughed at rats?
+And that's another thing, Aunt Deborah--does God ever laugh at all? Does he
+know how to take a joke? If he don't, we might as well quit right now!'"
+
+Roger laughed with relish, and his daughter smiled at him:
+
+"Then the talk turned from rats and God to a big dam out in the Rockies.
+George has been reading about it, he's thinking of being an engineer. And
+there was so much he wanted to know that he was soon upon the verge of
+discovering my ignorance--when all of a sudden a dreamy look, oh, a very
+dreamy look, came into his eyes--and he asked me this." And over her bright
+expressive face came a scowl of boyish intensity: "Suppose I _was_ an
+engineer--and I was working on a dam, or may be a bridge, in the Rockies.
+And say it was pretty far down south--say around the Grand Canyon. I should
+think they'd need a dam down there, or anyhow a bridge,' said George. And
+he eyed me in a cautious way which said as plain as the nose on your face,
+'Good Lord, she's only a woman, and she won't understand.' But I showed him
+I was serious, and he asked me huskily, 'Suppose it was winter, Aunt
+Deborah, and the Giants were in Texas. Do you think I could get a few days
+off?' And then before he could tell me the Giants were a baseball nine, I
+said I was sure he could manage it. You should have seen his face light up.
+And he added very fervently, 'Gee, it must be wonderful to be an engineer
+out there!'"
+
+Roger chuckled delightedly and Deborah went on with her work. "How good she
+is with young uns," he thought. "What a knack she has of drawing 'em out.
+What a pity she hasn't some of her own."
+
+He slept until late the next morning, and awoke to find Deborah by his bed.
+
+"It's another boy," she told him. Roger sat up excitedly. "Bruce has just
+telephoned the news. The children and I have breakfasted, and they're going
+out with their nurse. Suppose you and I go up and see Bruce and settle this
+trip to the mountains."
+
+About an hour later, arriving at Edith's apartment, they found Bruce
+downstairs with Allan Baird who was just taking his departure. Bruce's dark
+eyes shone with relief, but his hand was hot and nervous. Allan, on the
+contrary, held out to Edith's father a hand as steady and relaxed as was
+the bantering tone of his voice.
+
+"Bruce," he said, "has for once in his life decided to do something
+sensible. He's going to drop his wretched job and take a week off with his
+children."
+
+"And worry every minute he's gone," Deborah retorted, "and come back and
+work day and night to catch up. But he isn't going to do it. I've decided
+to take the children myself."
+
+"You have?" cried Bruce delightedly.
+
+"You'll do no such thing," said Allan, indignant.
+
+"Oh, you go to thunder," Bruce put in. "Haven't you any delicacy? Can't you
+see this is no business of yours?"
+
+"It isn't, eh," Allan sternly rejoined. And of Deborah he demanded, "Didn't
+you say you'd go with me to 'Pinafore' this Saturday night?"
+
+"Ah," sneered Bruce. "So that's your game. And for one little night of your
+pleasure you'd do me out of a week of my life!"
+
+"Like that," said Baird, with a snap of his fingers.
+
+"I'm going, though," said Deborah.
+
+"Quite right, little woman," Bruce admonished her earnestly. "Don't let him
+rob you of your happiness."
+
+"Come here," growled Baird to Deborah. She followed him into the living
+room, and Roger went upstairs with Bruce.
+
+"If he ever hopes to marry that girl," said Bruce, with an anxious backward
+glance, "he's got to learn to treat her with a little consideration."
+
+"Quit your quarreling," Roger said. "What's a week in the mountains to you?
+Hasn't your wife just risked her life?"
+
+"Sure she has," said Bruce feelingly. "And I propose to stick by her, too."
+
+"Can I see her?"
+
+"No, you can't--another of Baird's fool notions."
+
+"Then where's the baby?"
+
+"Right in here."
+
+Silently in front of the cradle Bruce and Roger stood looking down with the
+content which comes to men on such occasions when there is no woman by
+their side expecting them to say things.
+
+"I made it a rule in my family," Roger spoke up presently, "to have my
+first look at each child alone."
+
+"Same here," said Bruce. And they continued their silent communion. A few
+moments later, as they were leaving, Deborah came into the room and went
+softly to the cradle. Downstairs they found that Allan had gone, and when
+Deborah rejoined them she said she was going to stick to her plan. It was
+soon arranged that she and the youngsters should start on their journey the
+following day.
+
+Back at home she threw herself into the packing and was busy till late that
+night. At daybreak she was up again, for they were to make an early start.
+Bruce came with his new automobile, the children were all bundled in,
+together with Deborah and their nurse, and a half hour later at the train
+Bruce and Roger left them--Deborah flushed and happy, surrounded by
+luggage, wraps, small boys, an ice box, toys and picture books. The small
+red hat upon her head had already been jerked in a scrimmage, far down over
+one of her ears.
+
+"Don't worry about us, Bruce," she said. "We're going to have the time of
+our lives!" Bruce fairly beamed his gratitude.
+
+"If she don't marry," he declared, as he watched the train move slowly out,
+"there'll be a great mother wasted."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+In the weeks which followed, Roger found the peace of his home so
+interrupted and disturbed by wedding preparations that often retreating
+into his den he earnestly told himself he was through, that a man with
+three grown daughters was a fool to show any sympathy with the utter folly
+of their lives. Yield an inch and they took a mile! It began one night when
+Deborah said,
+
+"Now, dearie, I think you had better make up your mind to give Laura just
+the kind of wedding she likes."
+
+And Roger weakly agreed to this, but as time wore on he discovered that the
+kind of wedding Laura liked was a thing that made his blood run cold. There
+seemed to be no end whatever to the young bride's blithe demands. The
+trousseau part of it he didn't mind. To the gowns and hats and gloves and
+shoes and trunks and jaunty travelling bags which came pouring into the
+house, he made no objection. All that, he considered, was fair play. But
+what got on Roger's nerves was this frantic fuss and change! The faded hall
+carpet had to come up, his favorite lounge was whisked away, the piano was
+re-tuned while he was trying to take a nap, rugs were beaten, crates and
+barrels filled the halls, and one whole bedroom stripped and bare was
+transformed into a shop where the wedding presents were displayed. In the
+shuffle his box of cigars disappeared. In short, there was the devil to
+pay!
+
+And Deborah, was as bad as the bride. At times it appeared to Roger as
+though her fingers fairly itched to jab and tug at his poor old house,
+which wore an air of mute reproach. She revealed a part of her nature that
+he viewed with dark amazement. Every hour she could spare from school, she
+was changing something or other at home--with an eager glitter in her eyes.
+Doing it all for Laura, she said. Fiddlesticks and rubbish! She did it
+because she liked it!
+
+In gloomy wrath one afternoon he went up to see Edith and quiet down. She
+was well on the way to recovery, but instead of receiving solace here he
+only found fresh troubles. For sitting up in her old-fashioned bed, with an
+old-fashioned cap of lace upon her shapely little head, Edith made her
+father feel she had washed her hands of the whole affair.
+
+"I'm sorry," she said in an injured tone, "that Laura doesn't care enough
+about her oldest sister to put off the wedding two or three weeks so I
+could be there. It seems rather undignified, I think, for a girl to hurry
+her wedding so. I should have loved to make it the dear simple kind of
+wedding which mother would have wanted. But so long as she doesn't care for
+that--and in fact has only found ten minutes--once--to run in and see the
+baby--"
+
+In dismay her father found himself defending the very daughter of whom he
+had come to complain. It was not such a short engagement, he said, he had
+learned they had been engaged some time before they told him.
+
+"Do you approve of that?" she rejoined. "When I was engaged, I made Bruce
+go to you before I even let him--" here Edith broke off primly. "Of course
+that was some time ago. An engagement, Laura tells me, is 'a mere
+experiment' nowadays. They 'experiment' till they feel quite sure--then
+notify their parents and get married in a week."
+
+"She is rushing it, I admit," Roger soothingly replied. "But she has her
+mind set on Paris in June."
+
+"Paris in June," said Edith, "sums up in three words Laura's whole
+conception of marriage. You really ought to talk to her, father. It's your
+duty, it seems to me."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I'd rather not tell you." Edith's glance went sternly to the cradle by her
+bed. "Laura pities me," she said, "for having had five children."
+
+"Oh, now, my dear girl!"
+
+"She does, though--she said as much. When she dropped in the other day and
+I tried to be sympathetic and give her a little sound advice, she said I
+had had the wedding I liked and the kind of married life I liked, and she
+was going to have hers. And she made it quite plain that her kind is to
+include no children. It's to be simply an effort to find by 'experiment'
+whether or not she loves Hal Sloane. If she doesn't--" Edith gave a slight
+but emphatic wave of dismissal.
+
+"Do you mean to say Laura told you that?" her father asked with an angry
+frown.
+
+"I mean she made me feel it--as plainly as I'm telling it! What I can't
+understand," his daughter went on, "is Deborah's attitude in the affair."
+
+"What's the matter with Deborah?" inquired Roger dismally.
+
+"Oh, nothing's the matter with Deborah. She's quite self-sufficient. She at
+least can play with modern ideas and keep her head while she's doing it.
+But when poor Laura--a mere child with the mind of a chicken--catches
+vaguely at such ideas, applies them to her own little self and risks her
+whole future happiness, it seems to me perfectly criminal for Deborah not
+to interfere! Not even a word of warning!"
+
+"Deborah believes," said her father, "in everyone's leading his own life."
+
+"That's rot," was Edith's curt reply. "Do I lead my own life? Does Bruce?
+Do you?"
+
+"No," growled Roger feelingly.
+
+"Do my children?" Edith demanded. "I know Deborah would like them to.
+That's her latest and most modern fad, to run a school where every child
+shall sit with a rat in its lap or a goat, and do just what he
+pleases--follow his natural bent, she says. I hope she won't come up to the
+mountains and practice on my children. I should hate to break with
+Deborah," Edith ended thoughtfully.
+
+Roger rose and walked the room. The comforting idea entered his mind that
+when the wedding was over he would take out his collection of rings and
+carefully polish every one. But even this hope did not stay with him long.
+
+"With Laura at home," he heard Edith continue, "you at least had a daughter
+to run your house. If Deborah tries to move you out--"
+
+"She won't!" cried Roger in alarm.
+
+"If she does," persisted Edith, "or if she begins any talk of the kind--you
+come to me and _I'll_ talk to her!"
+
+Her father walked in silence, his head down, frowning at the floor.
+
+"It seems funny," Edith continued, "that women like me who give children
+their lives, and men like Bruce who are building New York--actually doing
+it all the time--have so little to say in these modern ideas. I suppose
+it's because we're a little too real."
+
+"To come back to the wedding," Roger suggested.
+
+"To come back to the wedding, father dear," his daughter said
+compassionately. "I'm afraid it's going to be a 'mere form' which will make
+you rather wretched. When you get so you can't endure it, come in and see
+me and the baby."
+
+As he started for home, her words of warning recurred to his mind. Yes,
+here was the thing that disturbed him most, the ghost lurking under all
+this confusion, the part which had to do with himself. It was bad enough to
+know that his daughter, his own flesh and blood, was about to settle her
+fate at one throw. But to be moved out of his house bag and baggage! Roger
+strode wrathfully up the street.
+
+"It's your duty to talk to her," Edith had said. And he meditated darkly on
+this: "Maybe I will and maybe I won't. I know my duties without being told.
+How does Edith know what her mother liked? We had our own likings, her
+mother and I, and our own ideas, long after she was tucked into bed. And
+yet she's always harping on 'what mother would have wanted.' What I should
+like to know--right now--is what Judith would want if she were here!"
+
+With a pang of utter loneliness amid these vexing problems, Roger felt it
+crowding in, this city of his children's lives. As he strode on down
+Broadway, an old hag selling papers thrust one in his face and he caught a
+glimpse of a headline. Some bigwig woman re-divorced. How about Laura's
+"experiment"? A mob of street urchins nearly upset him. How about Deborah?
+How about children? How about schools, education, the country? How about
+God? Was anyone thinking? Had anyone time? What a racket it made,
+slam-banging along. The taxis and motor trucks thundered and brayed, dark
+masses of people swept endlessly by, as though their very souls depended on
+their dinners or their jobs, their movies, roaring farces, thrills, their
+harum scarum dances, clothes. A plump little fool of a woman, her skirt so
+tight she could barely walk, tripped by on high-heeled slippers. That was
+it, he told himself, the whole city was high-heeled! No solid footing
+anywhere! And, good Lord, how they chattered!
+
+He turned into a less noisy street. What would Judith want if she were
+here? It became disturbingly clear to him that she would undoubtedly wish
+him to have a talk with Laura now, find out if she'd really made up her
+mind not to have any children, and if so to tell her plainly that she was
+not only going against her God but risking her own happiness. For though
+Judith had been liberal about any number of smaller things, she had been
+decidedly clear on this. Yes, he must talk to Laura.
+
+"And she'll tell me," he reflected, "that Edith put me up to it!"
+
+If only his oldest daughter would leave the other girls alone! Here she was
+planning a row with Deborah over whether poor young George should be
+allowed to play with rats! It was all so silly!... Yes, his three children
+were drifting apart, each one of them going her separate way. And he rather
+took comfort in the thought, for at least it would stop their wrangling.
+But again he pulled himself up with a jerk. No, certainly Judith would not
+have liked this. If she'd ever stood for anything, it was for keeping the
+family together. It had been the heart and center of their last talks
+before she died.
+
+His face relaxed as he walked on, but in his eyes was a deeper pain. If
+only Judith could be here. Before he reached home he had made up his mind
+to talk with Laura that very night. He drew out his latchkey, opened his
+door, shut it firmly and strode into his house. In the hall they were
+putting down the new carpet. Cautiously picking his way upstairs, he
+inquired for Laura and was told she was dressing for dinner. He knocked at
+her door.
+
+"Yes?" came her voice.
+
+"It's I," he said, "your father."
+
+"Oh, hello, dad," came the answer gaily, in that high sweet voice of hers.
+"I'm frightfully rushed. It's a dinner dance to-night for the bridesmaids
+and the ushers." Roger felt a glow of relief. "Come in a moment, won't
+you?"
+
+What a resplendent young creature she was, seated at her dresser. Behind
+her the maid with needle and thread was swiftly mending a little tear in
+the fluffy blue tulle she was wearing. The shaded light just over her head
+brought a shimmer of red in her sleek brown hair. What lips she had, what a
+bosom. She drew a deep breath and smiled at him.
+
+"What are you doing to-morrow night?" her father asked her.
+
+"Oh, dad, my love, we have every evening filled and crammed right up to the
+wedding," she replied. "No--the last evening I'll be here. Hal's giving his
+ushers a dinner that night."
+
+"Good. I want to talk to you, my dear." He felt his voice solemn, a great
+mistake. He saw the quick glance from her luminous eyes.
+
+"All right, father--whenever you like."
+
+Much embarrassed Roger left the room.
+
+The few days which remained were a crowding confusion of dressmakers, gowns
+and chattering friends and gifts arriving at all hours. As a part of his
+resolve to do what he could for his daughter, Roger stayed home from his
+office that week. But all he could do was to unpack boxes, take out
+presents and keep the cards, and say, "Yes, my dear, it's very nice. Where
+shall I put this one?" As the array of presents grew, from time to time
+unconsciously he glanced at the engagement ring upon Laura's finger. And
+all the presents seemed like that. They would suit her apartment
+beautifully. He'd be glad when they were out of the house.
+
+The only gift that appealed to his fancy was a brooch, neither rich nor
+new, a genuine bit of old jewelry. But rather to his annoyance he learned
+that it had been sent to Laura by the old Galician Jew in the shop around
+the corner. It recalled to his mind the curious friendship which had
+existed for so long between the old man and his daughter. And as she turned
+the brooch to the light Roger thought he saw in her eyes anticipations
+which made him uneasy. Yes, she was a child of his. "June in Paris--"
+other Junes--"experiments"--no children. Again he felt he must have that
+talk. But, good Lord, how he dreaded it.
+
+The house was almost ready now, dismantled and made new and strange. It was
+the night before the wedding. Laura was taking her supper in bed. What was
+he going to say to her? He ate his dinner silently. At last he rose with
+grim resolution.
+
+"I think I'll go up and see her," he said. Deborah quickly glanced at him.
+
+"What for?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, I just want to talk to her--"
+
+"Don't stay long," she admonished him. "I've a masseuse coming at nine
+o'clock to get the child in condition to rest. Her nerves are rather tense,
+you know."
+
+"How about mine?" he said to himself as he started upstairs. "Never mind,
+I've got to tackle it."
+
+Laura saw what he meant to say the moment that he entered the room, and the
+tightening of her features made it all the harder for Roger to think
+clearly, to remember the grave, kind, fatherly things which he had intended
+to tell her.
+
+"I don't want to talk of the wedding, child, but of what's coming after
+that--between you and this man--all your life." He stopped short, with his
+heart in his mouth, for although he did not look at her he had a quick
+sensation as though he had struck her in the face.
+
+"Isn't this rather late to speak about that? Just now? When I'm nervous
+enough as it is?"
+
+"I know, I know." He spoke hurriedly, humbly. "I should have talked to you
+long ago, I should have known you better, child. I've been slack and
+selfish. But it's better late than never."
+
+"But you needn't!" the girl exclaimed. "You needn't tell me anything! I
+know more than you think--I know enough!" Roger looked at her, then at the
+wall. She went on in a voice rather breathless: "I know what I'm
+doing--exactly--just what I'm getting into. It's not as it was when you
+were young--it's different--we talk of these things. Harold and I have
+talked it all out." In the brief and dangerous pause which followed Roger
+kept looking at the wall.
+
+"Have you talked--about having children?"
+
+"Yes," came the answer sharply, and then he felt the hot clutch of her
+hand. "Hadn't you better go now, dad?" He hesitated.
+
+"No," he said. His voice was low. "Do you mean to have children, Laura?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I think you do know. Do you mean to have children?" Her big black eyes,
+dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.
+
+"Well then, no, I don't!" she replied. He made a desperate effort to think
+what he could say to her. Good God, how he was bungling! Where were all his
+arguments?
+
+"How about your religion?" he blurted out.
+
+"I haven't any--which makes me do that--I've a right to be happy!"
+
+"You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed. In accent and in quality it
+was like a voice from the heart of New England where he had been born and
+bred. "I mean you won't be happy--not unless you have a child! It's what
+you need--it'll fill your life! It'll settle you--deepen you--tone you
+down!"
+
+"Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost hysterical.
+"I'm no Puritan--I want to live! I tell you we are different now! We're not
+all like Edith--and we're not like our mothers! We want to live! And we
+have a right to! Why don't you go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? It's my
+last night, my very last! I don't want to talk to you--I don't even know
+what I'm saying! And you come and try to frighten me!" Her voice caught
+and broke into sobs. "You know nothing about me! You never did! Leave me
+alone, can't you--leave me alone!"
+
+"Father?" He heard Deborah's voice, abrupt and stern, outside the door.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He went in blind fashion out of the room and
+down to his study. He lit a cigar and smoked wretchedly there. When
+presently Deborah appeared he saw that her face was set and hard; but as
+she caught the baffled look, the angry tortured light in his eyes, her own
+expression softened.
+
+"Poor father," she said, in a pitying way. "If Edith had only let you
+alone."
+
+"I certainly didn't do much good."
+
+"Of course you didn't--you did harm--oh, so much more harm than you know."
+Into the quiet voice of his daughter crept a note of keen regret. "I wanted
+to make her last days in this house a time she could look back on, so that
+she'd want to come home for help if ever she's in trouble. She has so
+little--don't you see?--of what a woman needs these days. She has grown up
+so badly. Oh, if you'd only let her alone. It was such a bad, bad time to
+choose." She went to her father and kissed him. "Well, it's over now," she
+said, "and we'll make the best we can of it. I'll tell her you're sorry and
+quiet her down. And to-morrow we'll try to forget it has happened."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For Roger the morrow went by in a whirl. The wedding, a large church
+affair, was to take place at twelve o'clock. He arose early, put on his
+Prince Albert, went down and ate his breakfast alone. The waitress was
+flustered, the coffee was burnt. He finished and anxiously wandered about.
+The maids were bustling in and out, with Deborah giving orders pellmell.
+The caterers came trooping in. The bridesmaids were arriving and hurrying
+up to Roger's room. That place was soon a chaos of voices, giggles, peals
+of laughter. Laura's trunks were brought downstairs, and Roger tagged them
+for the ship, one for the cabin and three for the hold, and saw them into
+the wagon. Then he strode distractedly everywhere, till at last he was
+hustled by Deborah into a taxi waiting outside.
+
+"It's all going so smoothly," Deborah said, and a faint sardonic glimmer
+came into her father's hunted eyes. Deborah was funny!
+
+Soon he found himself in the church. He heard whispers, eager voices, heard
+one usher say to another, "God, what a terrible head I've got!" And Roger
+glared at him for that. Plainly these youngsters, all mere boys, had been
+up with the groom a good part of the night.... But here was Laura, pale and
+tense. She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. There was silence, then the
+organ, and now he was taking her up the aisle. Strange faces stared. His
+jaw set hard. At last they reached the altar. An usher quickly touched his
+arm and he stepped back where he belonged. He listened but understood
+nothing. Just words, words and motions.
+
+"If any man can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined
+together, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace."
+
+"No," thought Roger, "I won't speak."
+
+Just then he caught sight of Deborah's face, and at the look in her steady
+gray eyes all at once he could feel the hot tears in his own.
+
+At the wedding breakfast he was gay to a boisterous degree. He talked to
+strange women and brought them food, took punch with men he had never laid
+eyes on, went off on a feverish hunt for cigars, came back distractedly,
+joked with young girls and even started some of them dancing. The whole
+affair was over in no time. The bride and the groom came rushing
+downstairs; and as they escaped from the shower of rice, Roger ran after
+them down the steps. He gripped Sloane's hand.
+
+"Remember, boy, it's her whole life!" entreated Roger hoarsely.
+
+"Yes, sir! I'll look out! No fear!"
+
+"Good-bye, daddy!"
+
+"God bless you, dear!"
+
+They were speeding away. And with the best man, who looked weary and spent,
+Roger went slowly back up the steps. It was an effort now to talk. Thank
+Heaven these people soon were gone. Last of all went the ponderous aunt of
+the groom. How the taxi groaned as he helped her inside and started her off
+to Bridgeport. Back in his study he found his cigars and smoked one
+dismally with Bruce. Bruce was a decent sort of chap. He knew when to be
+silent.
+
+"Well," he spoke finally, rising, "I guess I'll have to get back to the
+office." He smiled a little and put his hand on Roger's weary shoulder.
+"We're glad it's over--eh?" he asked.
+
+"Bruce," said Roger heavily, "you've got a girl of your own growing up.
+Don't let her grow to feel you're old. Live on with her. She'll need you."
+His massive blunt face darkened. "The world's so damnably new," he
+muttered, "so choked up with fool ideas." Bruce still smiled
+affectionately.
+
+"Go up and see Edith," he said, "and forget 'em. She never lets one into
+the flat. She said you were to be sure to come and tell her about the
+wedding."
+
+"All right, I'll go," said Roger. He hunted about for his hat and coat.
+What a devilish mess they had made of the house. A half hour later he was
+with Edith; but there, despite his efforts to answer all her questions, he
+grew heavier and heavier, till at last he barely spoke. He sat watching
+Edith's baby.
+
+"Did you talk to Laura?" he heard her ask.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "It did no good." He knew that Edith was waiting for
+more, but he kept doggedly silent.
+
+"Well, dear," she said presently, "at least you did what you could for
+her."
+
+"I've never done what I could," he rejoined. "Not with any one of you." He
+glanced at her with a twinge of pain. "I don't know as it would have helped
+much if I had. This town is running away with itself. I want a rest now,
+Edith, I want things quiet for a while." He felt her anxious, pitying look.
+
+"Where's Deborah?" she asked him. "Gone back to school already?"
+
+"I don't know where she is," he replied. And then he rose forlornly. "I
+guess I'll be going back home," he said.
+
+On his way, as his thoughts slowly cleared, the old uneasiness rose in his
+mind. Would Deborah want to keep the house? Suppose she suggested moving to
+some titty-tatty little flat. No, he would not stand in her way. But, Lord,
+what an end to make of his life.
+
+His home was almost dark inside, but he noticed rather to his surprise that
+the rooms had already been put in order. He sank down on the living room
+sofa and lay motionless for a while. How tired he was. From time to time he
+drearily sighed. Yes, Deborah would find him old and life here dull and
+lonely. Where was she to-night, he wondered. Couldn't she quit her zoo
+school for one single afternoon? At last, when the room had grown pitch
+dark, he heard the maid lighting the gas in the hall. Roger loudly cleared
+his throat, and at the sound the startled girl ejaculated, "Oh, my Gawd!"
+
+"It's I," said Roger sternly. "Did Miss Deborah say when she'd be back?"
+
+"She didn't go out, sir. She's up in her room."
+
+Roger went up and found her there. All afternoon with both the maids she
+had been setting the house to rights, and now she ached in every limb. She
+was lying on her bed, and she looked as though she had been crying.
+
+"Where have you been?" she inquired.
+
+"At Edith's," her father answered. She reached up and took his hand, and
+held it slowly tighter.
+
+"You aren't going to find it too lonely here, with Laura gone?" she asked
+him. And the wistfulness in her deep sweet voice made something thrill in
+Roger.
+
+"Why should I?" he retorted. Deborah gave a queer little laugh.
+
+"Oh, I'm just silly, that's all," she said. "I've been having a fit of
+blues. I've been feeling so old this afternoon--a regular old woman. I
+wanted you, dearie, and I was afraid that you--" she broke off.
+
+"Look here," said Roger sharply. "Do you really want to keep this house?"
+
+"Keep this house? Why, father!"
+
+"You think you can stand it here alone, just the two of us?" he demanded.
+
+"I can," cried Deborah happily. Her father walked to the window. There as
+he looked blindly out, his eyes were assaulted by the lights of all those
+titty-tatty flats. And a look of vicious triumph appeared for a moment on
+his face.
+
+"Very well," he said quietly, turning back. "Then we're both suited." He
+went to the door. "I'll go and wash up for supper," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+It was a relief to him to find how smoothly he and Deborah dropped back
+into their old relations. It was good to get home those evenings; for in
+this new stage of its existence, with its family of two, the house appeared
+to have filled itself with a deep reposeful feeling. Laura had gone out of
+its life. He glanced into her room one night, and it looked like a guest
+room now. The sight of it brought him a pang of regret. But the big ship
+which was bearing her swiftly away to "Paris in June" seemed bearing off
+Roger's uneasiness too. He could smile at his former fears, for Laura was
+safely married and wildly in love with her husband. Time, he thought, would
+take care of the rest. Occasionally he missed her here--her voice,
+high-pitched but musical, chatting and laughing at the 'phone, her bustle
+of dressing to go out, glimpses of her extravagances, of her smart suits
+and evening gowns, of all the joyous color and dash that she had given to
+his home. But these regrets soon died away. The old house shed them easily,
+as though glad to enter this long rest.
+
+For the story of his family, from Roger's point of view at least, was a
+long uneven narrative, with prolonged periods of peace and again with
+events piling one on the other. And now there came one of those peaceful
+times, and Roger liked the quiet. The old routine was re-established--his
+dinner, his paper, his cigar and then his book for the evening, some good
+old-fashioned novel or some pleasant book of travel which he and Judith had
+read aloud when they were planning out their lives. They had meant to go
+abroad so often when the children had grown up. And he liked to read about
+it still. Life was so quiet over the sea, things were so old and mellow
+there. He resumed, too, his horseback rides, and on the way home he would
+stop in for a visit with Edith and her baby. The wee boy grew funnier every
+day, with his sudden kicks and sneezes, his waving fists and mighty yawns.
+And Roger felt drawn to his daughter here, for in these grateful seasons of
+rest that followed the birth of each of her children, Edith loved to lie
+very still and make new plans for her small brood.
+
+Only once she spoke of Laura, and then it was to suggest to him that he
+gather together all the bills his daughter had doubtless left behind.
+
+"If you don't settle them," Edith said, "they'll go to her husband. And you
+wouldn't like that, would you?"
+
+Roger said he would see to it, and one evening after dinner he started in
+on Laura's bills. It was rather an appalling time. He looked into his bank
+account and found that Laura's wedding would take about all his surplus.
+But this did not dismay him much, for money matters never did. It simply
+meant more work in the office.
+
+The next day he rose early and was in his office by nine o'clock. He had
+not been so prompt in months, and many of his employees came in late that
+morning. But nobody seemed very much perturbed, for Roger was an easy
+employer. Still, he sternly told himself, he had been letting things get
+altogether too slack. He had been neglecting his business again. The work
+had become so cut and dried, there was nothing creative left to do. It had
+not been so in years gone by. Those years had fairly bristled with ideas
+and hopes and schemes. But even those old memories were no longer here to
+hearten him. They had all been swept away when Bruce had made him move out
+of his office in a dark creaky edifice down close under Brooklyn Bridge,
+and come up to this new building, this steel-ribbed caravansary for all
+kinds of business ventures, this place of varnished woodwork, floods of
+daylight, concrete floors, this building fireproof throughout. That
+expressed it exactly, Roger thought. Nothing could take fire here, not even
+a man's imagination, even though he did not feel old. Now and then in the
+elevator, as some youngster with eager eyes pushed nervously against him,
+Roger would frown and wonder, "What are you so excited about?"
+
+But again the business was running down, and this time he must jerk it back
+before it got beyond him. He set himself doggedly to the task, calling in
+his assistants one by one, going through the work in those outer rooms,
+where at tables long rows of busy young girls, with colored pencils,
+scissors and paste, were demolishing enormous piles of newspapers and
+magazines. And vaguely, little by little, he came to a realization of how
+while he had slumbered the life of the country had swept on. For as he
+studied the lists and the letters of his patrons, Roger felt confusedly
+that a new America was here.
+
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. Business men and business firms, gigantic
+corporations, kept sending here for clippings, news of themselves or their
+rivals, keeping keen watch on each other's affairs for signs of strength or
+weakness. How savage was the fight these days. Here was news of mines and
+mills and factories all over the land, clippings sent each morning by
+special messengers downtown to reach the brokers' offices before the market
+opened. One broker wrote, "Please quote your terms for the following. From
+nine to two o'clock each day our messenger will call at your office every
+hour for clippings giving information of the companies named below."
+
+The long list appended carried Roger's fancy out all over the continent.
+And then came this injunction: "Remember that our messenger must leave your
+office every hour. In information of this kind every minute counts."
+
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. As Roger turned over his morning mail, in
+spite of himself he grew absorbed. What a change in the world of
+literature. What a host of names of scribblers, not authors but just
+writers, not only men but women too, novelists and dramatists, poets and
+muckrakers all jumbled in together, each one of them straining for a place.
+And the actors and the actresses, the musicians and the lecturers, each
+with his press agent and avid for publicity, "fame!" And here were society
+women, from New York and other cities, all eager for press notices of
+social affairs they had given or managed, charity work they had conducted,
+suffrage speeches they had made. Half the women in the land were fairly
+talking their heads off, it seemed. Some had been on his lists for years.
+They married and wanted to hear what was said in the papers about their
+weddings, they quarreled and got divorces and still sent here for
+clippings, they died and still their relatives wrote in for the funeral
+notices. And even death was commercialized. A maker of monuments wanted
+news "of all people of large means, dead or dangerously ill, in the State
+of Pennsylvania." Here were demands from charity bodies, hospitals and
+colleges, from clergymen with an anxious eye on the Monday morning papers.
+And here was an anarchist millionaire! And here was an insane asylum
+wanting to see itself in print!
+
+With a grim smile on his heavy visage, Roger stared out of his window.
+Slowly the smile faded, a wistful look came on his face.
+
+"Who'll take my business when I'm gone?"
+
+If his small son had only lived, with what new zest and vigor it might have
+been made to grow and expand. If only his son had been here by his side....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+DEBORAH needed rest, he thought, for the bright attractive face of his
+daughter was looking rather pale of late, and the birthmark on her forehead
+showed a faint thin line of red. One night at dinner, watching her, he
+wondered what was on her mind. She had come in late, and though several
+times she had made an effort to keep up the conversation, her cheeks were
+almost colorless and more than once in her deepset eyes came a flash of
+pain that startled him.
+
+"Look here. What's the matter with you?" he asked. Deborah looked up
+quickly.
+
+"I'd rather not talk about it, dad--"
+
+"Very well," he answered. And with a slight hesitation, "But I think I know
+the trouble," he said. "And perhaps some other time--when you do feel like
+talking--" He stopped, for on her wide sensitive lips he saw a twitch of
+amusement.
+
+"What do you think is the trouble?" she asked. And Roger looked at her
+squarely.
+
+"Loneliness," he answered.
+
+"Why?" she asked him.
+
+"Well, there's Edith's baby--and Laura getting married--"
+
+"I see--and so I'm lonely for a family of my own. But you're forgetting my
+school," she said.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," he retorted. "But that's not at all the same.
+Interesting work, no doubt, but--well, it isn't personal."
+
+"Oh, isn't it?" she answered, and she drew a quivering breath. Rising from
+the table she went into the living room, and there a few moments later he
+found her walking up and down. "I think I will tell you now," she said.
+"I'm afraid of being alone to-night, of keeping this matter to myself." He
+looked at her apprehensively.
+
+"Very well, my dear," he said.
+
+"This is the trouble," she began. "Down in my school we've a family of
+about three thousand children. A few I get to know so well I try to follow
+them when they leave. And one of these, an Italian boy--his name is Joe
+Bolini--was one of the best I ever had, and one of the most appealing. But
+Joe took to drinking and got in with a gang of boys who blackmailed small
+shopkeepers. He used to come to me at times in occasional moods of
+repentance. He was a splendid physical type and he'd been a leader in our
+athletics, so I took him back into the school to manage our teams in
+basket-ball. He left the gang and stopped drinking, and we had long talks
+together about his great ambition. He wanted to enter the Fire Department
+as soon as he was twenty-one. And I promised to use my influence." She
+stopped, still frowning slightly.
+
+"What happened?" Roger asked her.
+
+"His girl took up with another man, and Joe has hot Italian blood. He got
+drunk one night and--shot them both." There was another silence. "I did
+what I could," she said harshly, "but he had a bad record behind him, and
+the young assistant district attorney had his own record to think of, too.
+So Joe got a death sentence. We appealed the case but it did no good. He
+was sent up the river and is in the death house now--and he sent for me to
+come to-day. His letter hinted he was scared, he wrote that his priest was
+no good to him. So I went up this afternoon. Joe goes to the chair
+to-morrow at six."
+
+Deborah went to the sofa and sat down inertly. Roger remained motionless,
+and a dull chill crept over him.
+
+"So you see my work is personal," he heard her mutter presently. All at
+once she seemed so far away, such a stranger to him in this life of hers.
+
+"By George, it's horrible!" he said. "I'm sorry you went to see the boy!"
+
+"I'm glad," was his daughter's quick retort. "I've been getting much too
+sure of myself--of my school, I mean, and what it can do. I needed this to
+bring me back to the kind of world we live in!"
+
+"What do you mean?" he roughly asked.
+
+"I mean there are schools and prisons! And gallows and electric chairs! And
+I'm for schools! They've tried their jails and gallows for whole black
+hideous centuries! What good have they done? If they'd given Joe back to
+the school and me, I'd have had him a fireman in a year! I know, because I
+studied him hard! He'd have _grown_ fighting fires, he would have _saved_
+lives!"
+
+Again she stopped, with a catch of her breath. In suspense he watched her
+angry struggle to regain control of herself. She sat bolt upright, rigid;
+her birthmark showed a fiery red. In a few moments he saw her relax.
+
+"But of course," she added wearily, "it's much more complex than that. A
+school is nothing nowadays--just by itself alone, I mean--it's only a part
+of a city's life--which for most tenement children is either very dull and
+hard, or cheap and false and overexciting. And behind all that lie the
+reasons for that. And there are so many reasons." She stared straight past
+her father as though at something far away. Then she seemed to recall
+herself: "But I'm talking too much of my family."
+
+Roger carefully lit a cigar:
+
+"I don't think you are, my dear. I'd like to hear more about it." She
+smiled:
+
+"To keep my mind off Joe, you mean."
+
+"And mine, too," he answered.
+
+They had a long talk that evening about her hope of making her school what
+Roger visaged confusedly as a kind of mammoth home, the center of a
+neighborhood, of one prodigious family. At times when the clock on the
+mantle struck the hour loud and clear, there would fall a sudden silence,
+as both thought of what was to happen at dawn. But quickly Roger would
+question again and Deborah would talk steadily on. It was after midnight
+when she stopped.
+
+"You've been good to me to-night, dearie," she said. "Let's go to bed now,
+shall we?"
+
+"Very well," he answered. He looked at his daughter anxiously. She no
+longer seemed to him mature. He could feel what heavy discouragements, what
+problems she was facing in the dark mysterious tenement world which she had
+chosen to make her own. And compared to these she seemed a mere girl, a
+child groping its way, just making a start. And so he added wistfully, "I
+wish I could be of more help to you." She looked up at him for a moment.
+
+"Do you know why you are such a help?" she said. "It's because you have
+never grown old--because you've never allowed yourself to grow absolutely
+certain about anything in life." A smile half sad and half perplexed came
+on her father's heavy face.
+
+"You consider that a strong point?" he asked.
+
+"I do," she replied, "compared to being a bundle of creeds and prejudices."
+
+"Oh, I've got prejudices enough."
+
+"Yes," she said. "And so have I. But we're not even sure of _them_, these
+days."
+
+"The world has a habit of crowding in," her father muttered vaguely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger did not sleep that night. He could not keep his thoughts away from
+what was going to happen at dawn. Yes, the city was crowding in upon this
+quiet house of his. Dimly he could recollect, in the genial years of long
+ago, just glancing casually now and then at some small and unobtrusive
+notice in his evening paper: "Execution at Sing Sing." It had been so
+remote to him. But here it was smashing into his house, through the life
+his own daughter was leading day and night among the poor! Each time he
+thought of that lad in a cell, again a chill crept over him! But savagely
+he shook it off, and by a strong effort of his will he turned his thoughts
+to the things she had told him about her school. Yes, in her main idea she
+was right. He had no use for wild reforms, but here was something solid, a
+good education for every child. More than once, while she had talked,
+something very deep in Roger had leaped up in swift response.
+
+For Deborah, too, was a part of himself. He, too, had had his feeling for
+humanity in the large. For years he had run a boys' club at a little
+mission school in which his wife had been interested, and on Christmas Eve
+he had formed the habit of gathering up a dozen small urchins right off the
+street and taking them 'round and fitting them out with good warm winter
+clothing, after which he had gone home to help Judith trim the Christmas
+tree and fill their children's stockings. And later, when she had gone to
+bed, invariably he had taken "The Christmas Carol" from its shelf and had
+settled down with a glow of almost luxurious brotherhood. There was
+sentiment in Roger Gale, and as he read of "Tiny Tim" his deepset eyes
+would glisten with tears.
+
+And now here was Deborah fulfilling a part of him in herself. "You will
+live on in our children's lives." But this was going much too far! She was
+letting herself be swallowed up completely by this work of hers! It was all
+very well for the past ten years, but she was getting on in age! High time
+to marry and settle down!
+
+Again angrily he shook off the thought of that boy Joe alone in a cell,
+eyes fixed in animal terror upon the steel door which would open so soon.
+
+The day was slowly breaking. It was the early part of June. How fresh and
+lovely it must be up there in the big mountains with Edith's happy little
+lads. Here it was raw and garish, weird. Some sparrows began quarreling
+just outside his window. Roger rose and walked the room. Restlessly he went
+into the hall. The old house appeared so strange in this light--as though
+stripped bare--there was something gone. Softly he came to Deborah's door.
+It was open wide, for the night had been warm, and she lay awake upon her
+bed with her gaze fixed on the ceiling. She turned her head and saw him
+there. He came in and sat down by her window. For a long time neither made
+a sound. Then the great clock on the distant tower, which had been silent
+through the night, resumed its deep and measured boom. It struck six times.
+There was silence again. More and more taut grew his muscles, and suddenly
+it felt to him as though Deborah's fierce agony were pounding into his very
+soul. The slow, slow minutes throbbed away. At last he rose and left her.
+There was a cold sweat on his brow.
+
+"I'll go down and make her some coffee," he thought.
+
+Down in the kitchen it was a relief to bang about hunting for the utensils.
+On picnics up in the mountains his coffee had been famous. He made some now
+and boiled some eggs, and they breakfasted in Deborah's room. She seemed
+almost herself again. Later, while he was dressing, he saw her in the
+doorway. She was looking at her father with bright and grateful,
+affectionate eyes.
+
+"Will you come to school with me to-day? I'd like you to see it," Deborah
+said.
+
+"Very well," he answered gruffly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Out of the subway they emerged into a noisy tenement street. Roger had
+known such streets as this, but only in the night-time, as picturesque and
+adventurous ways in an underground world he had explored in search of
+strange old glittering rings. It was different now. Gone were the Rembrandt
+shadows, the leaping flare of torches, the dark surging masses of weird
+uncouth humanity. Here in garish daylight were poverty and ugliness, here
+were heaps of refuse and heavy smells and clamor. It disgusted and repelled
+him, and he was tempted to turn back. But glancing at Deborah by his side
+he thought of the night she had been through. No, he decided, he would go
+on and see what she was up to here.
+
+They turned into a narrower street between tall dirty tenements, and in a
+twinkling all was changed. For the street, as far as he could see, was gay
+with flaunting colors, torrents of bobbing hats and ribbons, frocks and
+blouses, shirts and breeches, vivid reds and yellows and blues. It was
+deafening with joyous cries, a shrill incessant chatter, chatter, piercing
+yells and shrieks of laughter. Children, swarms of children, children of
+all sizes passed him, clean and dirty, smiling, scowling, hurrying,
+running, pummeling, grabbing, whirling each other 'round and 'round--till
+the very air seemed quivering with wild spirits and new life!
+
+He heard Deborah laughing. Five hilarious small boys had hold of her hands
+and were marching in triumph waving their caps. "Heigh there--heigh there!
+Heigh--heigh--heigh!"
+
+The school was close in front of them. An enormous building of brick and
+tile wedged into a disordered mass of tenements, shops and factories, it
+had been built around a court shut out from the street by a high steel
+fence. They squeezed into the gateway, through which a shouting punching
+mob of urchins were now pushing in; and soon from a balcony above Roger
+looked down into the court, where out of a wild chaos order was appearing.
+Boys to the right and girls to the left were forming in long sinuous lines,
+and three thousand faces were turned toward the building. In front appeared
+the Stars and Stripes. Then suddenly he heard a crash from underneath the
+balcony, and looking down he saw a band made up of some thirty or forty
+boys. Their leader, a dark Italian lad, made a flourish, a pass with his
+baton, and the band broke into a blaring storm, an uproarious, booming
+march. The mob below fell into step, and line after line in single file the
+children marched into their school.
+
+"Look up! Look all around you!" He heard Deborah's eager voice in his ear.
+And as he looked up from the court below he gave a low cry of amazement. In
+hundreds of windows all around, of sweatshops, tenements, factories, on
+tier upon tier of fire escapes and even upon the roofs above, silent
+watchers had appeared. For this one moment in the day the whole congested
+neighborhood had stopped its feverish labor and become an amphitheater with
+all eyes upon the school. And the thought flashed into Roger's mind:
+"Deborah's big family!"
+
+He had a strange confusing time. In her office, in a daze, he sat and heard
+his daughter with her two assistant principals, her clerk and her
+stenographer, plunge into the routine work of the day. What kind of school
+teacher was this? She seemed more like the manager of some buzzing factory.
+Messages kept coming constantly from class-rooms, children came for
+punishment, and on each small human problem she was passing judgment
+quickly. Meanwhile a score of mothers, most of them Italians with colored
+shawls upon their heads, had straggled in and taken seats, and one by one
+they came to her desk. For these women who had been children in peasant
+huts in Italy now had children of their own in the great city of New York,
+and they found it very baffling. How to keep them in at night? How to make
+them go to the priest? How to feed and clothe them? How to live in these
+tenement homes, in this wild din and chaos? They wanted help and they
+wanted advice. Deborah spoke in Italian, but turning to her father she
+would translate from time to time.
+
+A tired scowling woman said, "My boy won't obey me. His father is dead.
+When I slap him he only jumps away. I lock him in and he steals the key, he
+keeps it in his pocket. He steals the money that I earn. He says I'm from
+the country." And a flabby anxious woman said, "My girl runs out to dance
+halls. Sometimes she comes back at two in the morning. She is fifteen and
+she ought to get married. But what can I do? A nice steady man who never
+dances comes sometimes to see her--but she makes faces and calls him a
+fatty, she dances before him and pushes him out and slams the door. What
+can I do?"
+
+"Please come and see our janitor and make him fix our kitchen sink!" an
+angry little woman cried. "When I try to wash the dishes the water spouts
+all over me!" And then a plump rosy mother said in a soft coaxing voice, "I
+have eight little children, all nice and clean. When you tell them to do
+anything they always do it quickly. They smile at you, they are like
+saints. So could the kind beautiful teacher fix it up with a newspaper to
+send them to the country--this summer when it is so hot? The newspaper
+could send a man and he could take our pictures."
+
+"Most of us girls used to be in this school," said a bright looking Jewess
+of eighteen. "And you taught us how we should live nice. But how can we
+live nice when our shop is so rotten? Our boss is trying to kiss the
+girls, he is trying to hug them on the stairs. And what he pays us is a
+joke, and we must work till nine o'clock. So will you help us, teacher, and
+give us a room for our meetings here? We want to have a union."
+
+A truant officer brought in two ragged, frightened little chaps. Found on
+the street during school hours, they had to give an account of themselves.
+Sullenly one of them gave an address far up in the Bronx, ten miles away.
+They had not been home for a week, he said. Was he lying? What was to be
+done? Somewhere in the city their homes must be discovered. And the talk of
+the truant officer made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out
+through the police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He
+thought of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy
+complexity of it all.
+
+And this was part and parcel of his daughter's daily work in school! Still
+dazed, disturbed but curious, he sat and watched and listened, while the
+bewildering demands of Deborah's big family kept crowding in upon her. He
+went to a few of the class-rooms and found that reading and writing,
+arithmetic and spelling were being taught in ways which he had never
+dreamed of. He found a kindergarten class, a carpenter shop and a printing
+shop, a sewing class and a cooking class in a large model kitchen. He
+watched the nurse in her hospital room, he went into the dental clinic
+where a squad of fifty urchins were having their teeth examined, and out
+upon a small side roof he found a score of small invalids in steamer
+chairs, all fast asleep. It was a strange astounding school! He heard
+Deborah speak of a mothers' club and a neighborhood association; and he
+learned of other ventures here, the school doctor, the nurse and the
+visitor endlessly making experiments, delving into the neighborhood for
+ways to meet its problems. And by the way Deborah talked to them he felt
+she had gone before, that years ago by day and night she had been over the
+ground alone. And she'd done all this while she lived in his house!
+
+Scattered memories out of the past, mere fragments she had told him, here
+flashed back into his mind: humorous little incidents of daily battles she
+had waged in rotten old tenement buildings with rags and filth and garbage,
+with vermin, darkness and disease. Mingled with these had been accounts of
+dances, weddings and christenings and of curious funeral rites. And
+struggling with such dim memories of Deborah in her twenties, called forth
+in his mind by the picture of the woman of thirty here, Roger grew still
+more confused. What was to be the end of it? She was still but a pioneer in
+a jungle, endlessly groping and trying new things.
+
+"How many children are there in the public schools?" he asked.
+
+"About eight hundred thousand," Deborah said.
+
+"Good Lord!" he groaned, and he felt within him a glow of indignation rise
+against these immigrant women for breeding so inconsiderately. With the mad
+city growing so fast, and the people of the tenements breeding, breeding,
+breeding, and packing the schools to bursting, what could any teacher be
+but a mere cog in a machine, ponderous, impersonal, blind, grinding out
+future New Yorkers?
+
+He reached home limp and battered from the storm of new impressions coming
+on top of his sleepless night. He had thought of a school as a simple
+place, filled with little children, mischievous at times perhaps and some
+with dirty faces, but still with minds and spirits clean, unsoiled as yet
+by contact with the grim spirit of the town. He had thought of childhood as
+something intimate and pure, inside his home, his family. Instead of that,
+in Deborah's school he had been disturbed and thrilled by the presence all
+around him of something wild, barbaric, dark, compounded of the city
+streets, of surging crowds, of rushing feet, of turmoil, filth, disease and
+death, of poverty and vice and crime. But Roger could still hear that band.
+And behind its blaring crash and din he had felt the vital throbbing of a
+tremendous joyousness, of gaiety, fresh hopes and dreams, of leaping young
+emotions like deep buried bubbling springs bursting up resistlessly to
+renew the fevered life of the town! Deborah's big family! Everybody's
+children!
+
+"You will live on in our children's lives." The vision hidden in those
+words now opened wide before his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+She told him the next morning her night school closed for the summer that
+week.
+
+"I think I should like to see it," her father said determinedly. She gave
+him an affectionate smile:
+
+"Oh, dearie. Haven't you had enough?"
+
+"I guess I can stand it if you can," was his gruff rejoinder, "though if I
+ran a school like yours I think by night I'd have schooled enough. Do most
+principals run night schools too?"
+
+"A good many of them do."
+
+"Isn't it taxing your strength?" he asked.
+
+"Don't you have to tax your strength," his daughter replied good humoredly,
+"to really accomplish anything? Don't you have to risk yourself in order to
+really live these days? Suppose you come down to-morrow night. We won't go
+to the school, for I doubt if the clubs and classes would interest you very
+much. I'll take you through the neighborhood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They went down the following evening. The night was warm and humid, and
+through the narrow tenement streets there poured a teeming mass of life.
+People by the thousands passed, bareheaded, men in shirt sleeves, their
+faces glistening with sweat. Animal odors filled the air. The torches on
+the pushcarts threw flaring lights and shadows, the peddlers shouted
+hoarsely, the tradesmen in the booths and stalls joined in with cries,
+shrill peals of mirth. The mass swept onward, talking, talking, and its
+voice was a guttural roar. Small boys and girls with piercing yells kept
+darting under elbows, old women dozed on doorsteps, babies screamed on
+every side. Mothers leaned out of windows, and by their faces you could see
+that they were screaming angrily for children to come up to bed. But you
+could not hear their cries. Here around a hurdy gurdy gravely danced some
+little girls. A tense young Jew, dark faced and thin, was shouting from a
+wagon that all men and women must be free and own the factories and mills.
+A mob of small boys, clustered 'round a "camp fire" they had made on the
+street, were leaping wildly through the flames. It was a mammoth cauldron
+here, seething, bubbling over with a million foreign lives. Deborah's big
+family.
+
+She turned into a doorway, went down a long dark passage and came into a
+court-yard enclosed by greasy tenement walls that reared to a spot of dark
+blue sky where a few quiet stars were twinkling down. With a feeling of
+repugnance Roger followed his daughter into a tall rear building and up a
+rickety flight of stairs. On the fourth landing she knocked at a door, and
+presently it was opened by a stout young Irish woman with flushed haggard
+features and disheveled hair.
+
+"Oh. Good evening, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"Good evening. Come in," was the curt reply. They entered a small stifling
+room where were a stove, two kitchen chairs and three frowzled beds in
+corners. On one of the beds lay a baby asleep, on another two small
+restless boys sat up and watched the visitors. A sick man lay upon the
+third. And a cripple boy, a boarder here, stood on his crutches watching
+them. Roger was struck at once by his face. Over the broad cheek bones the
+sallow skin was tightly drawn, but there was a determined set to the jaws
+that matched the boy's shrewd grayish eyes, and his face lit up in a
+wonderful smile.
+
+"Hello, Miss Deborah," he said. His voice had a cheery quality.
+
+"Hello, Johnny. How are you?"
+
+"Fine, thank you."
+
+"That's good. I've brought my father with me."
+
+"Howdado, sir, glad to meet you."
+
+"It's some time since you've been to see me, John," Deborah continued.
+
+"I know it is," he answered. And then with a quick jerk of his head, "He's
+been pretty bad," he said. Roger looked at the man on the bed. With his
+thin waxen features drawn, the man was gasping for each breath.
+
+"What's the matter?" Roger whispered.
+
+"Lungs," said the young woman harshly. "You needn't bother to speak so low.
+He can't hear you anyhow. He's dying. He's been dying weeks."
+
+"Why didn't you let me know of this?" Deborah asked gently.
+
+"Because I knew what you'd want to do--take him off to a hospital! And I
+ain't going to have it! I promised him he could die at home!"
+
+"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. There was a moment's silence, and the baby
+whimpered in its sleep. One child had gone to his father's bed and was
+frowning at his agony as though it were a tiresome sight.
+
+"Are any of them coughing?" Deborah inquired.
+
+"No," said the woman sharply.
+
+"Yes, they are, two of 'em," John cheerfully corrected her.
+
+"You shut up!" she said to him, and she turned back to Deborah. "It's my
+home, I guess, and my family, too. So what do you think that _you_ can do?"
+Deborah looked at her steadily.
+
+"Yes, it's your family," she agreed. "And it's none of my business, I
+know--except that John is one of my boys--and if things are to go on like
+this I can't let him board here any more. If he had let me know before I'd
+have taken him from you sooner. You'll miss the four dollars a week he
+pays."
+
+The woman swallowed fiercely. The flush on her face had deepened. She
+scowled to keep back the tears.
+
+"We can all die for all I care! I've about got to the end of my rope!"
+
+"I see you have." Deborah's voice was low. "You've made a hard plucky
+fight, Mrs. Berry. Are there any empty rooms left in this building?"
+
+"Yes, two upstairs. What do you want to know for?"
+
+"I'm going to rent them for you. I'll arrange it to-night with the janitor,
+on condition that you promise to move your children to-morrow upstairs and
+keep them there until this is over. Will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's sensible. And I'll have one of the visiting nurses here within an
+hour."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"And later on we'll have a talk."
+
+"All right--"
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"Good-night, Miss Gale, I'm much obliged.... Say, wait a minute! Will you?"
+The wife had followed them out on the landing and she was clutching
+Deborah's arm. "Why can't the nurse give him something," she whispered, "to
+put him to sleep for good and all? It ain't right to let a man suffer like
+that! I can't stand it! I'm--I'm--" she broke off with a sob. Deborah put
+one arm around her and held her steadily for a moment.
+
+"The nurse will see that he sleeps," she said. "Now, John," she added,
+presently, when the woman had gone into the room, "I want you to get your
+things together. I'll have the janitor move them upstairs. You sleep there
+to-night, and to-morrow morning come to see me at the school."
+
+"All right, Miss Deborah, much obliged. I'll be all right. Good-night,
+sir--"
+
+"Good-night, my boy," said Roger, and suddenly he cleared his throat. He
+followed his daughter down the stairs. A few minutes she talked with the
+janitor, then joined her father in the court.
+
+"I'm sorry I took you up there," she said. "I didn't know the man was
+sick."
+
+"Who are they?" he asked.
+
+"Poor people," she said. And Roger flinched.
+
+"Who is this boy?"
+
+"A neighbor of theirs. His mother, who was a widow, died about two years
+ago. He was left alone and scared to death lest he should be 'put away' in
+some big institution. He got Mrs. Berry to take him in, and to earn his
+board he began selling papers instead of coming to our school. So our
+school visitor looked him up. Since then I have been paying his board from
+a fund I have from friends uptown, and so he has finished his schooling.
+He's to graduate next week. He means to be a stenographer."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Seventeen," she replied.
+
+"How was he crippled? Born that way?"
+
+"No. When he was a baby his mother dropped him one Saturday night when she
+was drunk. He has never been able to sit down. He can lie down or he can
+stand. He's always in pain, it never stops. I learned that from the doctor
+I took him to see. But whenever you ask him how he feels you get the same
+answer always: 'Fine, thank you.' He's a fighter, is John."
+
+"He looks it. I'd like to help that boy--"
+
+"All right--you can help him," Deborah said. "You'll find him quite a
+tonic."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A tonic," she repeated. And with a sudden tightening of her wide and
+sensitive mouth, Deborah added slowly, "Because, though I've known many
+hungry boys, Johnny Geer is the hungriest of them all--hungry to get on in
+life, to grow and learn and get good things, get friends, love, happiness,
+everything!" As she spoke of this child in her family, over her strong
+quiet face there swept a fierce, intent expression which struck Roger
+rather cold. What a fight she was making, this daughter of his, against
+what overwhelming odds. But all he said to her was this:
+
+"Now let's look at something more cheerful, my dear."
+
+"Very well," she answered with a smile. "We'll go and see Isadore Freedom."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Isadore Freedom," said Deborah, "is the beginning of something tremendous.
+He came from Russian Poland--and the first American word he learned over
+there was 'freedom.' So in New York he changed his name to that--very
+solemnly, by due process of law. It cost him seven dollars. He had nine
+dollars at the time. Isadore is a flame, a kind of a torch in the
+wilderness."
+
+"How does the flame earn his living?"
+
+"At first in a sweatshop," she replied. "But he came to my school five
+nights a week, and at ten o'clock when school was out he went to a little
+basement café, where he sat at a corner table, drank one glass of Russian
+tea and studied till they closed at one. Then he went to his room, he told
+me, and used to read himself to sleep. He slept as a rule four hours. He
+said he felt he needed it. Now he's a librarian earning fifteen dollars a
+week, and having all the money he needs he has put the thought of it out of
+his life and is living for education--education in freedom. For Isadore has
+studied his name until he thinks he knows what it means."
+
+They found him in a small public library on an ill-smelling ghetto street.
+The place had been packed with people, but the clock had just struck ten
+and the readers were leaving reluctantly, many with books under their arms.
+At sight of Deborah and her father, Isadore leaped up from his desk and
+came quickly to meet them with outstretched hands.
+
+"Oh, this is splendid! Good evening!" he cried. Hardly more than a boy,
+perhaps twenty-one, he was short of frame but large of limb. He had wide
+stooping shoulders and reddish hollows in his dark cheeks. Yet there was a
+springiness in his step, vigor and warmth in the grip of his hand, in the
+very curl of his thick black hair, in his voice, in his enormous smile.
+
+"Come," he said to Roger, when the greetings were over. "You shall see my
+library, sir. But I want that you shall not see it alone. While you look
+you must close for me your eyes and see other libraries, many, many, all
+over the world. You must see them in big cities and in very little towns
+to-night. You must see people, millions there, hungry, hungry people. Now I
+shall show you their food and their drink." As he spoke he was leading them
+proudly around. In the stacks along the walls he pointed out fiction,
+poetry, history, books of all the sciences.
+
+"They read all, all!" cried Isadore. "Look at this Darwin on my desk. In a
+year so many have read this book it is a case for the board of health. And
+look at this shelf of economics. I place it next to astronomy. And I say to
+these people, 'Yes, read about jobs and your hours and wages. Yes, you must
+strike, you must have better lives. But you must read also about the
+stars--and about the big spaces--silent--not one single little sound for
+many, many million years. To be free you must grow as big as that--inside
+of your head, inside of your soul. It is not enough to be free of a czar, a
+kaiser or a sweatshop boss. What will you do when they are gone? My fine
+people, how will you run the world? You are deaf and blind, you must be
+free to open your own ears and eyes, to look into the books and see what is
+there--great thoughts and feelings, great ideas! And when you have seen,
+then you must think--you must think it all out every time! That is
+freedom!'" He stopped abruptly. Again on his dark features came a huge and
+winning smile, and with an apologetic shrug, "But I talk too much of my
+books," he said. "Come. Shall we go to my café?"
+
+On a neighboring street, a few minutes later, down a flight of steep wooden
+stairs they descended into a little café, shaped like a tunnel, the ceiling
+low, the bare walls soiled by rubbing elbows, dirty hands, the air blue and
+hot with smoke. Young men and girls packed in at small tables bent over
+tall glasses of Russian tea, and gesturing with their cigarettes declaimed
+and argued excitedly. Quick joyous cries of greeting met Isadore from every
+side.
+
+"You see?" he said gaily. "This is my club. Here we are like a family." He
+ordered tea of a waiter who seemed more like a bosom friend. And leaning
+eagerly forward, he began to speak in glowing terms of the men and girls
+from sweatshops who spent their nights in these feasts of the soul,
+talking, listening, grappling, "for the power to think with minds as clear
+as the sun when it rises," he ardently cried. "There is not a night in this
+city, not one, when hundreds do not talk like this until the breaking of
+the day! And then they sleep! A little joke! For at six o'clock they must
+rise to their work! And that is a force," he added, "not only for those
+people but a force for you and me. Do you see? When you feel tired, when
+all your hopes are sinking low, you think of those people and you say, 'I
+will go to their places.' And you go. You listen and you watch their faces,
+and such fire makes you burn! You go home, you are happy, you have a new
+life!
+
+"And perhaps at last you will have a religion," he continued, in fervent
+tones. "You see, with us Jews--and with Christians, too--the old religion,
+it is gone. And in its place there is nothing strong. And so the young
+people go all to pieces. They dance and they drink. If you go to those
+dance halls you say, 'They are crazy!' For dancing alone is not enough. And
+you say, 'These people must have a religion.' You ask, 'Where can I find a
+new God?' And you reply, 'There is no God.' And then you must be very sad.
+You know how it is? You feel too free. And you feel scared and lonely. You
+look up at the stars. There are millions. You are only a speck of dust--on
+one.
+
+"But then you come to my library. And you see those hungry people--more
+hungry than men have ever been. And you see those books upon the shelves.
+And you know when they come together at last, when that power to think as
+clear as the sun comes into the souls of those people so hungry, then we
+shall have a new god for the world. For there is no end to what they shall
+do," Isadore ended huskily.
+
+Roger felt a lump in his throat. He glanced into his daughter's eyes and
+saw a suspicious brightness there. Isadore looked at her happily.
+
+"You see?" he said to Roger. "When she came here to-night she was tired,
+half sick. But now she is all filled with life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, on the street outside when Isadore had left them, Deborah turned to
+her father:
+
+"Before we go home, there's one place more."
+
+And they went to a building not far away, a new structure twelve floors
+high which rose out of the neighboring tenements. It had been built, she
+told him, by a socialist daily paper. A dull night watchman half asleep
+took them in the elevator up to the top floor of the building, where in a
+bustling, clanking loft the paper was just going to press. Deborah seemed
+to know one of the foremen. He smiled and nodded and led the way through
+the noise and bustle to a large glass door at one end. This she opened and
+stepped out upon a fire escape so broad it was more like a balcony. And
+with the noise of the presses subdued, from their high perch they looked
+silently down.
+
+All around them for miles, it seemed, stretched dark uneven fields of
+roofs, with the narrow East River winding its way through the midst of them
+to the harbor below, silvery, dim and cool and serene, opening to the
+distant sea. From the bridges rearing high over the river, lights by
+thousands sparkled down. But directly below the spot where they stood was
+only a dull hazy glow, rising out of dark tenement streets where dimly they
+could just make out numberless moving shadowy forms, restless crowds too
+hot to sleep. The roofs were covered everywhere with men and women and
+children--families, families, families, all merged together in the dark.
+And from them rose into the night a ceaseless murmur of voices, laughing
+and joking, quarreling, loving and hating, demanding, complaining, and
+fighting and slaving and scheming for bread and the means of stark
+existence. But among these struggling multitudes confusedly did Roger feel
+the brighter presence here and there of more aspiring figures, small groups
+in glaring, stilling rooms down there beneath the murky dark, young people
+fiercely arguing, groping blindly for new gods. And all these voices, to
+his ears, merged into one deep thrilling hum, these lights into one
+quivering glow, that went up toward the silent stars.
+
+And there came to him a feeling which he had often had before in many
+different places--that he himself was a part of all this, the great, blind,
+wistful soul of mankind, which had been here before he was born and would
+be here when he was dead--still groping, yearning, struggling upward, on
+and on--to something distant as the sun. And still would he be a part of it
+all, through the eager lives of his children. He turned and looked at
+Deborah and caught the light that was in her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Roger awoke the next morning feeling sore and weary, and later in his
+office it was hard to keep his mind on his work. He thought of young
+Isadore Freedom. He was glad he had met that boy, and so he felt toward
+Deborah's whole terrific family. Confused and deafening as it was, there
+was something inspiring in it all. But God save him from many such
+evenings! For half his life Roger had been a collector, not only of rings
+but of people, too, of curious personalities. These human bits, these
+memories, he had picked up as he lived along and had taken them with him
+and made them his own, had trimmed and polished every one until its rough
+unpleasant edges were all nicely smoothed away and it glittered and shone
+like the gem that it was. For Roger was an idealist. And so he would have
+liked to do here. What a gem could be made of Isadore with a little careful
+polishing.
+
+But Deborah's way was different. She stayed in life, lived in it close,
+with its sharp edges bristling. In this there was something splendid, but
+there was something tragic, too. It was all very well for that young Jew to
+burn himself up with his talk about freedom, his feverish searching for new
+gods. "In five years," Roger told himself, "Mr. Isadore Freedom will either
+tone down or go stark mad."
+
+But quite probably he would tone down, for he was only a youngster, these
+were Isadore's wild oats. But this was no longer Deborah's youth, she had
+been at this job ten years. And she hadn't gone mad, she had kept herself
+sane, she had many sides her father knew. He knew her in the mountains, or
+bustling about at home getting ready for Laura's wedding, or packing
+Edith's children off for their summer up at the farm. But did that make it
+any easier? No. To let yourself go was easy, but to keep hold of yourself
+was hard. It meant wear and tear on a woman, this constant straining effort
+to keep her balance and see life whole.
+
+"Well, it will break her down, that's all, and I don't propose to allow
+it," he thought. "She's got to rest this summer and go easier next fall."
+
+But how could he accomplish it? As he thought about her school, with its
+long and generous arms reaching upon every side out into the tenements, the
+prospect was bewildering. He searched for something definite. What could he
+do to prove to his daughter his real interest in her work? Presently he
+remembered Johnny Geer, the cripple boy whom he had liked, and at once he
+began to feel himself back again upon known ground. Instead of millions
+here was one, one plucky lad who needed help. All right, by George, he
+should have it! And Roger told his daughter he would be glad to pay the
+expense of sending John away for the summer, and that in the autumn perhaps
+he would take the lad into his office.
+
+"That's good of you, dearie," Deborah said. It was her only comment, but
+from the look she gave him Roger felt he was getting on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening not long afterwards, as they sat together at dinner, she rose
+unsteadily to her feet and said in a breathless voice,
+
+"It's rather close in here, isn't it? I think I'll go outside for a while."
+Roger jumped up.
+
+"Look here, my child, you're faint!" he cried.
+
+"No, no, it's nothing! Just the heat!" She swayed and reeled, pitched
+suddenly forward. "Father! Quick!" And Roger caught her in his arms. He
+called to the maid, and with her help he carried Deborah up to her bed.
+There she shuddered violently and beads of sweat broke out on her brow.
+Her breath came hard through chattering teeth.
+
+"It's so silly!" she said fiercely.
+
+But as moments passed the chill grew worse. Her whole body seemed to be
+shaking, and as Roger was rubbing one of her arms she said something to him
+sharply, in a voice so thick he could not understand.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"I can't feel anything."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"In my arm where you're rubbing--I can't feel your hand."
+
+"You'd better have a doctor!"
+
+"Telephone Allan--Allan Baird. He knows about this," she muttered. And
+Roger ran down to the telephone. He was thoroughly frightened.
+
+"All right, Mr. Gale," came Baird's gruff bass, steady and slow, "I think I
+know what the trouble is--and I wouldn't worry if I were you. I'll be there
+in about ten minutes." And it was hardly more than that when he came into
+Deborah's room. A moment he looked down at her.
+
+"Again?" he said. She glanced up at him and nodded, and smiled quickly
+through set teeth. Baird carefully examined her and then turned to Roger:
+"Now I guess you'd better go out. You stay," he added to Sarah, the maid.
+"I may need you here awhile."
+
+About an hour later he came down to Roger's study.
+
+"She's safe enough now, I guess," he said. "I've telephoned for a nurse for
+her, and she'll have to stay in bed a few days."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Acute indigestion."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed Roger brightly, with a rush of deep relief.
+Baird gave him a dry quizzical smile.
+
+"People have died of that," he remarked, "in less than an hour. We caught
+your daughter just in time. May I stay a few moments?"
+
+"Glad to have you! Smoke a cigar!"
+
+"Thanks--I will." As Baird reached out for the proffered cigar, Roger
+suddenly noticed his hand. Long and muscular, finely shaped, it seemed to
+speak of strength and skill and an immense vitality. Baird settled himself
+in his chair. "I want to talk about her," he said. "This little attack is
+only a symptom--it comes from nerves. She's just about ready for a smash.
+She's had slighter attacks of this kind before."
+
+"I never knew it," Roger said.
+
+"No--I don't suppose you did. Your daughter has a habit of keeping things
+like this to herself. She came to me and I warned her, but she wanted to
+finish out her year. Do you know anything about her school work?"
+
+"Yes, I was with her there this week."
+
+"What did she show you?" Baird inquired. Roger tried to tell him. "No,
+that's not what I'm after," he said. "That's just one of her usual
+evenings." For a moment he smoked in silence. "I'm hunting now for
+something else, for some unusual nervous shock which she appears to me to
+have had."
+
+"She has!" And Roger told him of her visit up to Sing Sing. Baird's lean
+muscular right hand slowly tightened on his chair.
+
+"That's a tough family of hers," he remarked.
+
+"Yes," said Roger determinedly, "and she's got to give it up."
+
+"You mean she ought to. But she won't."
+
+"She's got to be made to," Roger growled. "This summer at least." Baird
+shook his head.
+
+"You forget her fresh air work," he replied. "She has three thousand
+children on her mind. The city will be like a furnace, of course, and the
+children must be sent to camps. If you don't see the necessity, go and talk
+to her, and then you will."
+
+"But you can forbid it, can't you?"
+
+"No. Can you?"
+
+"I can try," snapped Roger.
+
+"Let's try what's possible," said Baird. "Let's try to keep her in bed
+three days."
+
+"Sounds modest," Roger grunted. And a glimmer of amusement came into
+Baird's impassive eyes.
+
+"Try it," he drawled. "By to-morrow night she'll ask for her stenographer.
+She'll make you think she is out of the woods. But she won't be, please
+remember that. A few years more," he added, "and she'll have used up her
+vitality. She'll be an old woman at thirty-five."
+
+"It's got to be stopped!" cried Roger.
+
+"But how?" came the low sharp retort. "You've got to know her trouble
+first. And her trouble is deep, it's motherhood--on a scale which has never
+been tried before--for thousands of children, all of whom are living in a
+kind of hell. I know your daughter pretty well. Don't make the mistake of
+mixing her up with the old-fashioned teacher. It isn't what those children
+learn, it's how they live that interests her, and how they are all growing
+up. I say she's a mother--in spirit--but her body has never borne a child.
+And that makes it worse--because it makes her more intense. It isn't
+natural, you see."
+
+A little later he rose to go.
+
+"By the way," he said, at the door, "there's something I meant to tell her
+upstairs--about a poor devil she has on her mind. A chap named
+Berry--dying--lungs. She asked me to go and see him."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I found it was only a matter of days." The tragic pity in Baird's quiet
+voice was so deep as barely to be heard.
+
+"So I shot him full of morphine. He won't wake up. Please tell her that."
+
+Tall, ungainly, motionless, he loomed there in the doorway. With a little
+shrug and a smile he turned and went slowly out of the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Deborah's recovery was rapid and determined. The next night she was sitting
+up and making light of her illness. On the third day she dismissed her
+nurse, and when her father came home from his office he found gathered
+about her bed not only her stenographer but both her assistant principals.
+He frowned severely and went to his room, and a few minutes later he heard
+them leave. Presently she called to him, and he came to her bedside. She
+was lying back on the pillow with rather a guilty expression.
+
+"Up to your old antics, eh?" he remarked.
+
+"Exactly. It couldn't be helped, you see. It's the last week of our school
+year, and there are so many little things that have to be attended to. It's
+simply now or never."
+
+"Humph!" was Roger's comment. "It's now or never with you," he thought. He
+went down to his dinner, and when he came back he found her exhausted. In
+the dim soft light of her room her face looked flushed and feverish, and
+vaguely he felt she was in a mood where she might listen to reason. He felt
+her hot dry hand on his. Her eyes were closed, she was smiling.
+
+"Tell me the news from the mountains," she said. And he gave her the gossip
+of the farm in a letter he had had from George. It told of a picnic supper,
+the first one of the season. They had had it in the usual place, down by
+the dam on the river, "with a bonfire--a perfect peach--down by the big
+yellow rock--the one you call the Elephant." As Roger read the letter he
+could feel his daughter listening, vividly picturing to herself the great
+dark boulders by the creek, the shadowy firs, the stars above and the cool
+fresh tang of the mountain night.
+
+"After this little sickness of yours--and that harum scarum wedding," he
+said, "I feel we're both entitled to a good long rest in mountain air."
+
+"We'll have it, too," she murmured.
+
+"With Edith's little youngsters. They're all the medicine you need." He
+paused for a moment, hesitating. But it was now or never. "The only trouble
+with you," he said, "is that you've let yourself be caught by the same
+disease which has its grip upon this whole infernal town. You're like
+everyone else, you're tackling about forty times what you can do. You're
+actually trying not only to teach but to bring 'em all up as your own,
+three thousand tenement children. And this is where it gets you."
+
+Again he halted, frowning. What next?
+
+"Go on, dear, please," said Deborah, in demure and even tones. "This is
+very interesting."
+
+"Now then," he continued, "in this matter of your school. I wouldn't ask
+you to give it up, I've already seen too much of it. But so long as you've
+got it nicely started, why not give somebody else a chance? One of those
+assistants of yours, for example--capable young women, both. You could
+stand right behind 'em with help and advice--"
+
+"Not yet," was Deborah's soft reply. She had turned her head on her pillow
+and was looking at him affectionately. "Why not?" he demanded.
+
+"Because it's not nicely started at all. There's nothing brilliant about
+me, dear--I'm a plodder, feeling my way along. And what I have done in the
+last ten years is just coming to a stage at last where I can really see a
+chance to make it count for something. When I feel I've done that, say in
+five years more--"
+
+"Those five years," said her father, "may cost you a very heavy price." As
+Deborah faced his troubled regard, her own grew quickly serious.
+
+"I'd be willing to pay the price," she replied.
+
+"But why?" he asked with impatience. "Why pay when you don't have to? Why
+not by taking one year off get strength for twenty years' work later on?
+You'd be a different woman!"
+
+"Yes, I think I should be. I'd never be the same again. You don't quite
+understand, you see. This work of mine with children--well, it's like
+Edith's having a baby. You have to do it while you're young."
+
+"That works both ways," her father growled.
+
+"What do you mean?" He hesitated:
+
+"Don't you want any children of your own?"
+
+Again she turned her eyes toward his, then closed them and lay perfectly
+still. "Now I've done it," he thought anxiously. She reached over and took
+his hand.
+
+"Let's talk of our summer's vacation," she said.
+
+A little while later she fell asleep.
+
+Downstairs he soon grew restless and after a time he went out for a walk.
+But he felt tired and oppressed, and as he had often done of late he
+entered a little "movie" nearby, where gradually the pictures, continually
+flashing out of the dark, drove the worries from his mind. For a half an
+hour they held his gaze. Then he fell into a doze. He was roused by a roar
+of laughter, and straightening up in his seat with a jerk he looked angrily
+around. Something broadly comic had been flashed upon the screen; and men
+and women and children, Italians, Jews and Irish, jammed in close about
+him, a dirty and perspiring mass, had burst into a terrific guffaw. Now
+they were suddenly tense again and watching the screen in absorbed
+suspense, while the crude passions within themselves were played upon in
+the glamorous dark. And Roger scanned their faces--one moment smiling, all
+together, as though some god had pulled a string; then mawkish,
+sentimental, soft; then suddenly scowling, twitching, with long rows of
+animal eyes. But eager--eager all the time! Hungry people--yes, indeed!
+Hungry for all the good things in the town, and for as many bad things,
+too! On one who tried to feed this mob there was no end to their demands!
+What was one woman's life to them? Deborah's big family!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edith came to the house one afternoon, and she was in Deborah's room when
+her father returned from his office. Her convalescence over at last, she
+was leaving for the mountains.
+
+"Do learn your lesson, Deborah dear," she urged upon her sister. "Let Sarah
+pack your trunk at once and come up with me on Saturday night."
+
+"I can't get off for two weeks yet."
+
+"Why can't you?" Edith demanded. And when Deborah spoke of fresh air camps
+and baby farms and other work, Edith's impatience only grew. "You'll have
+to leave it to somebody else! You're simply in no condition!" she cried.
+
+"Impossible," said Deborah. Edith gave a quick sigh of exasperation.
+
+"Isn't it enough," she asked, "to have worked your nerves to a frazzle
+already? Why can't you be sensible? You've got to think of yourself a
+little!"
+
+"You'd like me to marry, wouldn't you, dear?" her sister put in wearily.
+
+"Yes, I should, while there is still time! Just now you look far from it!
+It's exactly as Allan was saying! If you keep on as you're going you'll be
+an old woman at thirty-five!"
+
+"Thank you!" said Deborah sharply. Two spots of color leaped in her checks.
+"You'd better leave me, Edith! I'll come up to the mountains as soon as I
+can! And I'll try not to look any more like a hag than I have to!
+Good-night!"
+
+Roger followed Edith out of the room.
+
+"That last shot of mine struck home," she declared to him in triumph.
+
+"I wouldn't have done it," her father said. "I gave you that remark of
+Baird's in strict confidence, Edith--"
+
+"Now father," was her good-humored retort, "suppose you leave this matter
+to me. I know just what I'm doing."
+
+"Well," he reflected uneasily, after she had left him, "here's more trouble
+in the family. If Edith isn't careful she'll make a fine mess of this whole
+affair."
+
+After dinner he went up to Deborah's room, but through the open doorway he
+caught a glimpse of his daughter which made him instinctively draw back.
+Sitting bolt upright in her bed, sternly she was eyeing herself in a small
+mirror in her hand. Her father chuckled noiselessly. A moment later, when
+he went in, the glass had disappeared from view. Soon afterwards Baird
+himself arrived, and as they heard him coming upstairs Roger saw his
+daughter frown, but she continued talking.
+
+"Hello, Allan," she said with indifference. "I'm feeling much better this
+evening."
+
+"Are you? Good," he answered, and he started to pull up an easy chair. "I
+was hoping I could stay awhile--I've been having one of those long mean
+days--"
+
+"I'd a little rather you wouldn't," Deborah put in softly. Allan turned to
+her in surprise. "I didn't sleep last night," she murmured, "and I feel so
+drowsy." There was a little silence. "And I really don't think there's any
+need of your dropping in to-morrow," she added. "I'm so much
+better--honestly."
+
+Baird looked at her a moment.
+
+"Right--O," he answered slowly. "I'll call up to-morrow night."
+
+Roger followed him downstairs.
+
+"Come into my den and smoke a cigar!" he proposed in hearty ringing tones.
+Allan thanked him and came in, but the puzzled expression was still on his
+face, and through the first moments of their talk he was very
+absent-minded. Roger's feeling of guilt increased, and he cursed himself
+for a meddlesome fool.
+
+"Look here, Baird," he blurted out, "there's something I think you ought to
+know." Allan slightly turned his head, and Roger reddened a little. "The
+worst thing about living in a house chock full of meddling women is that
+you get to be one yourself," he growled. "And the fact is--" he cleared his
+throat--"I've put my foot in it, Baird," he said. "I was fool enough the
+other day to quote you to Edith."
+
+"To what effect?"
+
+"That if Deborah keeps on like this she'll be an old woman at thirty-five."
+
+Allan sat up in his chair:
+
+"Was Edith here this afternoon?"
+
+"She was," said Roger.
+
+"Say no more."
+
+Baird had a wide, likable, generous mouth which wrinkled easily into a
+smile. He leaned back now and enjoyed himself. He puffed a little cloud of
+smoke, looked over at Roger and chuckled aloud. And Roger chuckled with
+relief. "What a decent chap he is," he thought.
+
+"I'm sorry, of course," he said to Baird. "I thought of trying to
+explain--"
+
+"Don't," said Allan. "Leave it alone. It won't do Deborah any harm--may
+even do her a little good. After all, I'm her physician--"
+
+"Are you?" Roger asked with a twinkle. "I thought upstairs you were
+dismissed."
+
+"Oh no, I'm not," was the calm reply. And the two men went on smoking.
+Roger's liking for Baird was growing fast. They had had several little
+talks during Deborah's illness, and Roger was learning more of the man.
+Raised on a big cattle ranch that his father had owned in New Mexico,
+riding broncos on the plains had given him his abounding health of body,
+nerve and spirit, his steadiness and sanity in all this feverish city life.
+
+"Are you riding these days?" he inquired.
+
+"No," said Roger, "the park is too hot--and they don't sprinkle the path as
+they should. I've had my cob sent up to the mountains. By the way," he
+added cordially, "you must come up there and ride with me."
+
+"Thanks, I'd like to," Allan said, and with a little inner smile he added
+dryly to himself, "He's getting ready to meddle again." But whatever
+amusement Baird had in this thought was concealed behind his sober gray
+eyes. Soon after that he took his leave.
+
+"Now then," Roger reflected, with a little glow of expectancy, "if Edith
+will only leave me alone, she may find I'm smarter then she thinks!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening in the following week, after Edith had left town, Roger had
+Bruce to dine at his club, a pleasant old building on Madison Square, where
+comfortably all by themselves they could discuss Baird's chances.
+
+"A. Baird and I have been chums," said Bruce, "ever since we were in
+college. Take it from me I know his brand. And he isn't the kind to be
+pushed."
+
+"Who wants to push him?" Roger demanded, with a sudden guilty twinge.
+
+"Edith does," Bruce answered. "And I tell you that won't do with A. Baird.
+He has his mind set on Deborah sure. He's been setting it harder and harder
+for months--and he knows it--and so does she. But they're both the kind of
+people who don't like interference, they've got to get to it by themselves.
+Edith must keep out of the way. She mustn't take it on herself to ask him
+up to the mountains." Roger gave a little start. "If she does, there'll be
+trouble with Deborah."
+
+Roger smoked for a moment in silence and then sagely nodded his head.
+
+"That's so," he murmured thoughtfully. "Yes, my boy, I guess you're right."
+
+Bruce lifted his mint julep:
+
+"God, but it's hot in here to-night. How about taking a spin up the river?"
+
+"Delighted," replied his father-in-law.
+
+And a half hour later in Bruce's new car, which was the pride and joy of
+his life, they were far up the river. On a long level stretch of road Bruce
+"let her out to show what she could do." And Roger with his heart in his
+mouth and his eye upon the speedometer, saw it creep to sixty-three.
+
+"Almost as good as a horse," remarked Bruce, when the car had slowed a
+little.
+
+"Almost," said Roger, "but not quite. It's--well, it's dissipation."
+
+"And a horse?"
+
+"Is life," was the grave reply. "You'll have a crash some day, my boy, if
+you go on at your present speed. It gets me worried sometimes. You see
+you're a family man."
+
+"I am and I'm glad of it. Edith and the kiddies suit me right down to the
+ground. I'm crazy about 'em--you know that. But a chap with a job like
+mine," Bruce continued pleadingly, as he drove his car rushing around a
+curve, "needs a little dissipation, too. I can't tell you what it means to
+me, when I'm kept late at the office, to have this car for the run up home.
+Lower Broadway's empty then, and I know the cops. I swing around through
+Washington Square, and the Avenue looks clear for miles, nothing but two
+long rows of lights to the big hump at Murray Hill. It's the time between
+crowds--say about ten. And I know the cops."
+
+"That's all right," said Roger. "No one was more delighted than I when you
+got this car. You deserve it. It's the _work_ that I was speaking of.
+You've got it going at such a speed--"
+
+"Only way on earth to get on--to get what I want for my family--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," muttered Roger vaguely. Bruce began talking of his work
+for the steel construction concern downtown.
+
+"Take it from me," he declared at the end, "this town has only just begun!"
+
+"Has, eh," Roger grunted. "Aren't the buildings high enough?"
+
+"My God, I wish they were twenty times higher," Bruce rejoined
+good-humoredly. "But they won't be--we've stopped going up. We've done
+pretty well in the air, and now we're going underground. And when we get
+through, this old rock of Manhattan will be such a network of tunnels
+there'll be a hole waiting at every corner to take you wherever you want to
+go. Speed? We don't even know what it means!"
+
+And again Bruce "let her out" a bit. It was _quite_ a bit. Roger grabbed
+his hat with one hand and the side of the car with the other.
+
+"They'll look back on a mile a minute," said Bruce, "as we look back on
+stage coach days! And in the rush hour there'll be a rush that'll make you
+think of pneumatic tubes! Not a sound nor a quiver--_just pure speed!_
+Shooting people home at night at a couple of hundred miles an hour! The
+city will be as big as that! And there won't be any accidents and there
+won't be any smoke. Instead of coal they'll use the sun! And, my God, man,
+the boulevards--and parks and places for the kids! The way they'll use the
+River--and the ocean and the Sound! The Catskills will be Central Park!
+Sounds funny, don't it--but it's true. I've studied it out from A to Z.
+This town is choking itself to death simply because we're so damn slow! We
+don't know how to spread ourselves! All this city needs is speed!"
+
+"Bruce," said Roger anxiously, "just go a bit easy on that gas. The fact
+is, it was a great mistake for me to eat those crabs to-night."
+
+Bruce slowed down compassionately, and soon they turned and started home.
+And as they drew near the glow of the town, other streets and boulevards
+poured more motors into the line, until at last they were rushing along
+amid a perfect bedlam made up of honks and shrieks of horns. The air grew
+hot and acrid, and looking back through the bluish haze of smoke and dust
+behind him Roger could see hundreds of huge angry motor eyes. Crowding and
+jamming closer, pell mell, at a pace which barely slackened, they sped on,
+a wild uproarious crew, and swept into the city.
+
+Roger barely slept that night. He felt the city clamoring down into his
+very soul. "Speed!" he muttered viciously. "Speed--speed! We need more
+speed!" The words beat in like a savage refrain. At last with a sigh of
+impatience he got up in his nightshirt and walked about. It was good to
+feel his way in the dark in this cool silent house which he knew so well.
+Soon his nerves felt quieter. He went back to his bed and lay there inert.
+How good it would be to get up to the farm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next Saturday evening, with Deborah, he started for the mountains. And
+Bruce came down to see them off.
+
+"Remember, son," said Roger, as the two walked on the platform. "Come up
+this year for a month, my boy. You need it." The train was about to start.
+
+"Oh, I'll be all right," was the answer. "My friend the Judge, who has hay
+fever, tells me he has found a cure."
+
+"Damn his cure! You come to us!"
+
+"Hold on a minute, live and learn. The Judge is quite excited about it.
+You drink little bugs, he says, a billion after every meal. They come in
+tall blue bottles. We're going to dine together next week and drink 'em
+till we're all lit up. Oh, we're going to have a hell of a time. _His_ wife
+left town on Tuesday."
+
+"Bruce," said Roger sternly, as the train began to move, "leave bugs alone
+and come up and breathe! And quit smoking so many cigarettes!" He stepped
+on the car.
+
+"Remember, son, a solid month!" Bruce nodded as the train moved out.
+
+"Good luck--good-bye--fine summer--my love to the wife and the kiddies--"
+and Bruce's dark, tense, smiling face was left behind. Roger went back into
+the smoker.
+
+"Now for the mountains," he thought. "Thank God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+A few hours later Roger awakened. His lower berth was still pitch dark. The
+train had stopped, and he had been roused by a voice outside his window.
+Rough and slow and nasal, the leisurely drawl of a mountaineer, it came
+like balm to Roger's ears. He raised the curtain and looked out. A train
+hand with a lantern was listening to a dairy man, a tall young giant in top
+boots. High overhead loomed a shadowy mountain and over its rim came the
+glow of the dawn. With a violent lurch the train moved on. And Roger, lying
+back on his pillow, looked up at the misty mountain sides all mottled in
+the strange blue light with patches of firs and birches and pines. In the
+narrow valley up which the train was thundering, were small herds of
+grazing cattle, a lonely farmhouse here and there. From one a light was
+twinkling. And the city with its heat and noise, its nervous throb, its
+bedlam nights, all dropped like a fever from his soul.
+
+Now, close by the railroad track, through a shallow rocky gorge a small
+river roared and foamed. Its cool breath came up to his nostrils and
+gratefully he breathed it in. For this was the Gale River, named after one
+of his forefathers, and in his mind's eye he followed the stream back up
+its course to the little station where he and Deborah were to get off.
+There the narrowing river bed turned and wound up through a cleft in the
+hills to the homestead several miles away. On the dark forest road beside
+it he pictured George, his grandson, at this moment driving down to meet
+them in a mountain wagon with one of the two hired men, a lantern swinging
+under the wheels. What an adventure for young George.
+
+Presently he heard Deborah stirring in the berth next to his own.
+
+At the station George was there, and from a thermos bottle which Edith had
+filled the night before he poured coffee piping hot, which steamed in the
+keen, frosty air.
+
+"Oh, how good!" cried Deborah. "How thoughtful of your mother, George. How
+is she, dear?"
+
+"Oh, she's all right, Aunt Deborah." His blunt freckled features flushed
+from his drive, George stood beaming on them both. He appeared, if
+anything, tougher and scrawnier than before. "Everything's all right," he
+said. "There ain't a sick animal on the whole farm."
+
+As Roger sipped his coffee he was having a look at the horses. One of them
+was William, his cob.
+
+"Do you see it?" inquired his grandson.
+
+"What?"
+
+"The boil," George answered proudly, "on William's rump. There it is--on
+the nigh side. Gee, but you ought to have seen it last week. It was a whale
+of a boil," said George, "but we poulticed him, me and Dave did--and now
+the swelling's nearly gone. You can ride him to-morrow if you like."
+
+Luxuriously Roger lit a cigar and climbed to the front seat with George. Up
+the steep and crooked road the stout horses tugged their way, and the wagon
+creaked, and the Gale River, here only a brook, came gurgling, dashing to
+meet them--down from the mountains, from the farm, from Roger's youth to
+welcome him home. And the sun was flashing through the pines. As they drew
+near the farmhouse through a grove of sugar maples, he heard shrill cries
+of, "There they come!" And he glimpsed the flying figures of George's
+brothers, Bob and Tad. George whipped up the horses, the wagon gained upon
+the boys and reached the house but a few rods behind the little runners.
+Edith was waiting by the door, fresh and smiling, blooming with health.
+How well this suited her, Roger thought. Amid a gay chorus of greetings he
+climbed down heavily out of the wagon, looked about him and drew a deep
+breath. The long lazy days on the farm had begun.
+
+From the mountain side the farm looked down on a wide sweeping valley of
+woods and fields. The old house straggled along the road, with addition
+after addition built on through generations by many men and women. Here lay
+the history, unread, of the family of Roger Gale. Inside there were steps
+up and down from one part to another, queer crooks in narrow passageways.
+The lower end was attached to the woodshed, and the woodshed to the barn.
+Above the house a pasture dotted with gray boulders extended up to a wood
+of firs, and out of this wood the small river which bore the name of the
+family came rushing down the field in a gully, went under the road, swept
+around to the right and along the edge of a birch copse just below the
+house. The little stream grew quieter there and widened into a mill pond.
+At the lower end was a broken dam and beside it a dismantled mill. Here was
+peace for Roger's soul. The next day at dawn he awakened, and through the
+window close by his bed he saw no tall confining walls; his eye was carried
+as on wings out over a billowy blanket of mist, soft and white and cool and
+still, reaching over the valley. From underneath to his sensitive ears came
+the numberless voices of the awakening sleepers there, cheeps and tremulous
+warbles from the birch copse just below, cocks crowing in the valley, and
+ducks and geese, dogs, sheep and cattle faintly heard from distant farms.
+Just so it had been when he was a boy. How unchanged and yet how new were
+these fresh hungry cries of life. From the other end of the house he heard
+Edith's tiny son lustily demanding his breakfast, as other wee boys before
+him had done for over a hundred years, as other babies still unborn would
+do in the many years to come. Soon the cry of the child was hushed. Quiet
+fell upon the house. And Roger sank again into deep happy slumber.
+
+Here was nothing new and disturbing. Edith's children? Yes, they were new,
+but they were not disturbing. Their growth each summer was a joy, a renewal
+of life in the battered old house. Here was no huge tenement family
+crowding in with dirty faces, clamorous demands for aid, but only five
+delightful youngsters, clean and fresh, of his own blood. He loved the
+small excitements, the plans and plots and discoveries, the many adventures
+that filled their days. He spent hours with their mother, listening while
+she talked of them. Edith did so love this place and she ran the house so
+beautifully. It was so cool and fragrant, so clean and so old-fashioned.
+
+Deborah, too, came under the spell. She grew as lazy as a cat and day by
+day renewed her strength from the hills and from Edith's little brood.
+Roger had feared trouble there, for he knew how Edith disapproved of her
+sister's new ideas. But although much with the children, Deborah apparently
+had no new ideas at all. She seemed to be only listening. One balmy day at
+sunset, Roger saw her lying on the grass with George sprawled by her side.
+Her head upon one arm, she appeared to be watching the cattle in the
+sloping pasture above. Slowly, as though each one of them was drawn by
+mysterious unseen chains, they were drifting down toward the barn where it
+was almost milking time. George was talking earnestly. She threw a glance
+at him from time to time, and Roger could see how intent were her eyes.
+Yes, Deborah knew how to study a boy.
+
+Only once during the summer did she talk about her work. On a walk with her
+father one day she took him into a small forlorn building, a mere cabin of
+one room. The white paint had long been worn away, the windows were all
+broken, half the old shingles had dropped from the roof and on the
+flagpole was no flag. It was the district schoolhouse where for nearly half
+his life Deborah's grandfather had taught a score of pupils. Inside were a
+blackboard, a rusty stove, a teacher's desk and a dozen forms, grown mouldy
+and worm-eaten now. A torn and faded picture of Lincoln was upon one wall,
+half hidden by a spider's web and by a few old dangling rags which once had
+been red, white and blue. Below, still clinging to the wall, was an old
+scrap of paper, on which in a large rugged hand there had been written long
+ago a speech, but it had been worn away until but three words were
+legible--"conceived and dedicated--"
+
+"Tell me about your school," she said. "All you can remember." Seated at
+her grandfather's desk she asked Roger many questions. And his
+recollections, at first dim and hazy, began to clear a little.
+
+"By George!" he exclaimed. "Here are my initials!"
+
+He stooped over one of the benches.
+
+"Oh, dearie! Where?" He pointed them out, and then while he sat on the rude
+old bench for some time more she questioned him.
+
+"But your school was not all here," she said musingly at last, "it was up
+on the farm, besides, where you learned to plough and sow and reap and take
+care of the animals in the barn, and mend things that were broken, and--oh,
+turn your hand to anything. But millions of children nowadays are growing
+up in cities, you see."
+
+Half frowning and half smiling she began to talk of her work in town. "What
+is there about her," Roger asked, "that reminds me so of my mother?" His
+mind strayed back into the past while the low quiet voice of his daughter
+went on, and a wistful expression crept over his face. What would she do
+with the family name? What life would she lead in those many years?...
+"What a mother she would make." The words rose from within him, but in a
+voice which was not his own. It was Deborah's grandmother speaking, so
+clearly and distinctly that he gave a start almost of alarm.
+
+"And if you don't believe they'll do it," Deborah was saying, "you don't
+know what's in children. Only we've got to help bring it out." What had she
+been talking about? He remembered the words "a new nation"--no more. "We've
+got to grope around in the dark and hunt for new ways and learn as we go.
+And when you've once got into the work and really felt the thrill of it
+all--well, then it seems rather foolish and small to bother about your own
+little life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger spent much of his time alone. He took long rides on William along
+crooked, hilly roads. As the afternoon drew to its end, the shadows would
+creep up the mountain sides to their summits where glowed the last rays of
+the sun, painting the slate and granite crags in lovely pink and purple
+hues. And sometimes mighty banks of clouds would rear themselves high
+overhead, gigantic mountains of the air with billowy, misty caverns, cliffs
+and jagged peaks, all shifting there before his eyes. And he would think of
+Judith his wife. And the old haunting certainty, that her soul had died
+with her body, was gone. There came to him the feeling that he and his wife
+would meet again. Why did this hope come back to him? Was it all from the
+glory of the sun? Or was it from the presence, silent and invisible, of
+those many other mortals, folk of his own flesh and blood, who at their
+deaths had gone to their graves to put on immortality? Or was this
+deepening faith in Roger simply a sign of his growing old age?
+
+He frowned at the thought and shook it off, and again stared up at the
+light on the hills. "You will live on in our children's lives." Was there
+no other immortality?
+
+He often thought of his boyhood here. On a ride one day he stopped for a
+drink at a spring in a grove of maples surrounding a desolate farmhouse not
+more than a mile away from his own. And through the trees as he turned to
+go he saw the stark figure of a woman, poorly clad and gaunt and gray. She
+stood motionless watching him with a look of sullen bitterness. She was the
+last of "the Elkinses," a mountain family run to seed. As he rode away he
+saw in the field a boy with a pitchfork in his hands, a meager ragged
+little chap. He was staring into the valley at a wriggling, blue smoke
+serpent made by the night express to New York. And something leaped in
+Roger, for he had once felt just like that! But the woman's harsh voice cut
+in on his dream, as she shouted to her son below, "Hey! Why the hell you
+standin' thar?" And the boy with a jump of alarm turned back quickly to his
+work. At home a few days later, George with a mysterious air took his
+grandfather into the barn, and after a pledge of secrecy he said in swift
+and thrilling tones, "You know young Bill Elkins? Yes, you do--the boy up
+on the Elkins place who lives alone with his mother. Well, look here!"
+George swallowed hard. "Bill has cleared out--he's run away! I was up at
+five this morning and he came hiking down the road! He had a bundle on his
+back and he told me he was off for good! And was he scared? You bet he was
+scared! And I told him so and it made him mad! 'Aw, you're scared!' I said.
+'I ain't neither!' he said. He could barely talk, but the kid had his
+nerve! 'Where you going?' I asked. 'To New York,' he said. 'Aw, what do you
+know of New York?' I said. And then, by golly, he busted right down. 'Gee!'
+he said, 'Gee! Can't you lemme alone?' And then he beat it down the road!
+You could hear the kid breathe, he was hustling so! He's way off now, he's
+caught the train! He wants to be a cabin boy on a big ocean liner!" For a
+moment there was silence. "Well?" the boy demanded, "What do you think of
+his chances?"
+
+"I don't know," said Roger huskily. He felt a tightening at his throat.
+Abruptly he turned to his grandson.
+
+"George," he asked, "what do _you_ want to be?" The boy flushed under his
+freckles.
+
+"I don't know as I know. I'm thinking," he answered very slowly.
+
+"Talk it over with your mother, son."
+
+"Yes, sir," came the prompt reply. "But he won't," reflected Roger.
+
+"Or if you ever feel you want to, have a good long talk with me."
+
+"Yes, sir," was the answer. Roger stood there waiting, then turned and
+walked slowly out of the barn. How these children grew up inside of
+themselves. Had boys always grown like that? Well, perhaps, but how strange
+it was. Always new lives, lives of their own, the old families scattering
+over the land. So the great life of the nation swept on. He kept noticing
+here deserted farms, and one afternoon in the deepening dusk he rode by a
+graveyard high up on a bare hillside. A horse and buggy were outside, and
+within he spied a lean young woman neatly dressed in a plain dark suit.
+With a lawn mower brought from home she was cutting the grass on her family
+lot. And she seemed to fit into the landscape. New England had grown very
+old.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late one night toward the end of July, there came a loud honk from down the
+hill, then another and another. And as George in his pajamas came rushing
+from his bedroom shouting radiantly, "Gee! It's dad!"--they heard the car
+thundering outside. Bruce had left New York at dawn and had made the run in
+a single day, three hundred and eleven miles. He was gray with dust all
+over and he was worn and hollow eyed, but his dark visage wore a look of
+solid satisfaction.
+
+"I needed the trip to shake me down," he pleaded, when Edith scolded him
+well for this terrific manner of starting his vacation. "I had to have it
+to cut me off from the job I left behind me. Now watch me settle down on
+this farm."
+
+But it appeared he could not settle down. For the first few days, in his
+motor, he was busy exploring the mountains. "We'll make 'em look foolish.
+Eh, son?" he said. And with George, who mutely adored him, he ran all about
+them in a day. Genially he gave everyone rides. When he'd finished with the
+family, he took Dave Royce the farmer and his wife and children, and even
+both the hired men, for Bruce was an hospitable soul. But more than anyone
+else he took George. They spent hours working on the car, and at times when
+they came into the house begreased and blackened from their work, Edith
+reproved them like bad boys--but Deborah smiled contentedly.
+
+But at the end of another week Bruce grew plainly restless, and despite his
+wife's remonstrances made ready to return to town. When she spoke of his
+hay fever he bragged to her complacently of his newly discovered cure.
+
+"Oh, bother your little blue bugs!" she cried.
+
+"The bugs aren't blue," he explained to her, in a mild and patient voice
+that drove Edith nearly wild. "They're so little they have no color at all.
+Poor friendly little devils--"
+
+"Bruce!" his wife exploded.
+
+"They've been almighty good to me. You ought to have heard my friend the
+Judge, the last night I was with him. He patted his bottle and said to me,
+'Bruce, my boy, with all these simple animals right here as our companions
+why be a damn fool and run off to the cows?' And there's a good deal in
+what he says. You ought to be mighty thankful, too, that my summer
+pleasures are so mild. If you could see what some chaps do--"
+
+And Bruce started back for the city. George rode with him the first few
+miles, then left him and came trudging home. His spirits were exceedingly
+low.
+
+As August drew toward a close, Deborah, too, showed signs of unrest. With
+ever growing frequency Roger felt her eagerness to return to her work in
+New York.
+
+"You're as bad as Bruce," he growled at her. "You don't have to be back,"
+he argued. "School doesn't begin for nearly three weeks."
+
+"There's the suffrage campaign," she answered. He gave her a look of
+exasperation.
+
+"Now what the devil has suffrage to do with your schools?" he demanded.
+
+"When the women get the vote, we'll spend more money on the children."
+
+"Suppose the money isn't there," was Roger's grim rejoinder.
+
+"Then we'll act like old-fashioned wives, I suppose," his daughter answered
+cheerfully, "and keep nagging till it is there. We'll keep up such a
+nagging," she added, in sweet even tones, "that you'll get the money by
+hook or crook, to save yourselves from going insane."
+
+After this he caught her reading in the New York papers the list of
+campaign meetings each night, meetings in hot stifling halls or out upon
+deafening corners. And as she read there came over her face a look like
+that of a man who has given up tobacco and suddenly sniffs it among his
+friends. She went down the last night of August.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger stayed on for another two weeks, on into the best time of the year.
+For now came the nights of the first snapping frosts when the dome of the
+heavens was steely blue, and clear sparkling mornings, the woods aflame
+with scarlet and gold. And across the small field below the house, at
+sunset Roger would go down to the copse of birches there and find it filled
+with glints of light that took his glance far in among the slender, creamy
+stems of the trees, all slowly swaying to and fro, the leafage rich with
+autumn hues, warm orange, yellow and pale green. Lovely and silent and
+serene. So it had been when he was a boy and so it would be when he was
+dead. Countless trees had been cut down but others had risen in their
+stead. Now and then he could hear a bird warbling.
+
+Long ago this spot had been his mother's favorite refuge from her busy day
+in the house. She had almost always come alone, but sometimes Roger
+stealing down would watch her sitting motionless and staring in among the
+trees. Years later in his reading he had come upon the phrase, "sacred
+grove," and at once he had thought of the birches. And sitting here where
+she had been, he felt again that boundless faith in life resplendent,
+conquering death, and serenely sweeping him on--into what he did not fear.
+For this had been his mother's faith. Sometimes in the deepening dusk he
+could almost see her sitting here.
+
+"This faith in you has come from me. This is my memory living on in you, my
+son, though you do not know. How many times have I held you back, how many
+times have I urged you on, roused you up or soothed you, made you hope or
+fear or dream, through memories of long ago. For you were once a part of
+me. I moulded you, my little son. And as I have been to you, so you will be
+to your children. In their lives, too, we shall be there--silent and
+invisible, the dim strong figures of the past. For this is the power of
+families, this is the mystery of birth."
+
+Suddenly he started. What was it that had thrilled him so? Only a tall dark
+fir in the birches. But looming in there like a shadowy phantom it had
+recalled a memory of a dusk far back in his boyhood, when seeing a shadow
+just like this he had thought it a ghost in very truth and had run for the
+house like a rabbit! How terribly real that fright had been! The
+recollection suddenly became so vivid in his mind, that as though a veil
+had been lifted he felt the living presence here, close by his side, of a
+small barefoot mountain lad, clothed in sober homespun gray, but filled
+with warm desires, dreams and curiosities, exploring upon every hand, now
+marching boldly forward, now stealing up so cautiously, now galloping away
+like mad! "I was once a child." To most of us these are mere words. To few
+is it ever given to attain so much as even a glimpse into the warm and
+quivering soul of that little stranger of long ago. We do not know how we
+were made.
+
+"I moulded you, my little son. And as I have been to you, so you will be to
+your children. In their lives, too, we shall be there."
+
+Darker, darker grew the copse and the chill of the night descended. But to
+Roger's eyes there was no gloom. For he had seen a vision.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+On his return to the city, Roger found that Deborah's school had apparently
+swept all other interests out of her mind. Baird hardly ever came to the
+house, and she herself was seldom there except for a hasty dinner at night.
+The house had to run itself more or less; and though Annie the cook was
+doing her best, things did not run so smoothly. Roger missed little
+comforts, attentions, and he missed Deborah most of all. When he came down
+to his breakfast she had already left the house, and often she did not
+return until long after he was in bed. She felt the difference herself, and
+though she did not put it in words her manner at times seemed to beg his
+forbearance. But there were many evenings when her father found it
+difficult to hold to the resolve he had made, to go slowly with his
+daughter until he could be more sure of his ground. She was growing so
+intense again. From the school authorities she had secured a still wider
+range and freedom for her new experiment, and she was working day and night
+to put her ideas into effect.
+
+"It's only too easy," she remarked, "to launch an idea in this town. The
+town will put it in headlines at once, and with it a picture of yourself in
+your best bib and tucker, looking as though you loved the whole world. And
+you can make a wonderful splurge, until they go on to the next new thing.
+The real trouble comes in working it out."
+
+And this she had set out to do. Many nights in the autumn Roger went down
+to the school, to try to get some clear idea of this vision of hers for
+children, which in a vague way he could feel was so much larger than his
+own, for he had seen its driving force in the grip it had upon her life. At
+first he could make nothing of it at all; everywhere chaos met his eyes.
+But he found something formless, huge, that made to him a strong appeal.
+
+The big building fairly hummed at night with numberless activities.
+Fathers, mothers and children came pouring in together and went skurrying
+off to their places. They learned to speak English, to read and write;
+grown men and women scowled and toiled over their arithmetic. They worked
+at trades in the various shops; they hammered and sawed and set up type;
+they cooked and sewed and gossiped. "The Young Galician Socialist Girls"
+debated on the question: "Resolved that woman suffrage has worked in
+Colorado." "The Caruso Pleasure Club" gave a dance to "The Garibaldi
+Whirlwinds." An orchestra rehearsed like mad. They searched their memories
+for the songs and all the folk tales they had heard in peasant huts in
+Italy, in hamlets along rocky coasts, in the dark old ghettos of crowded
+towns in Poland and in Russia. And some of these songs were sung in school,
+and some of these tales were dramatized here. Children and parents all took
+part. And speakers emerged from the neighborhood. It was at times
+appalling, the number of young Italians and Jews who had ideas to give
+forth to their friends on socialism, poverty, marriage and religion, and
+all the other questions that rose among these immigrants jammed into this
+tenement hive. But when there were too many of these self-appointed guides,
+the neighborhood shut down on them.
+
+"We don't want," declared one indignant old woman, "that every young loafer
+should shout in our face!"
+
+Roger was slowly attracted into this enormous family life, and yielding to
+an impulse he took charge of a boys' club which met on Thursday evenings
+there. He knew well this job of fathering a small jovial group of lads; he
+had done it before, many years ago, in the mission school, to please his
+wife; he felt himself back on familiar ground. And from this point of
+vantage, with something definite he could do, he watched with an interest
+more clear the school form steadily closer ties with the tenements that
+hedged it 'round, gathering its big family. And this family by slow degrees
+began to make itself a part of the daily life of Roger's house. Committees
+held their meetings here, teachers dropped in frequently, and Roger invited
+the boys in his club to come up and see him whenever they liked.
+
+His most frequent visitor was Johnny Geer, the cripple. He was working in
+Roger's office now and the two had soon become close friends. John kept
+himself so neat and clean, he displayed such a keen interest in all the
+details of office work, and he showed such a beaming appreciation of
+anything that was done for him.
+
+"That boy is getting a hold on me lately almost like a boy of my own,"
+Roger said one evening when Allan Baird was at the house. "He's the
+pluckiest young un I ever met. I've put him to work in my private office,
+where he can use the sofa to rest, and I've made him my own
+stenographer--partly because he's so quick at dictation and partly to try
+to make him slow down. He has the mind of a race horse. He runs at night to
+libraries until I should think he'd go insane. And his body can't stand it,
+he's breaking down--though whenever I ask him how he feels, he always says,
+'Fine, thank you.'" Here Roger turned to Allan. "I wish you'd take the
+boy," he said, "to the finest specialist in town, and see what can be done
+for his spine. I'll pay any price."
+
+"There won't be any price," said Allan, "but I'll see to it at once."
+
+He had John examined the same week.
+
+"Well?" asked Roger when next they met.
+
+"Well," said Baird, "it isn't good news."
+
+"You mean he's hopeless?" Allan nodded:
+
+"It's Pott's disease, and it's gone too far. John is eighteen. He may live
+to be thirty."
+
+"But I tell you, Baird, I'll do anything!"
+
+"There's almost nothing you can do. If he had been taken when he was a
+baby, he might have been cured and given a chance. But the same mother who
+dropped him then, when she was full of liquor, just went to the druggist on
+her block, and after listening to his advice she bought some patent
+medicine, a steel jacket and some crutches, and thought she'd done her
+duty."
+
+"But there must be something we can do!" retorted Roger angrily.
+
+"Yes," said Baird, "we can make him a little more comfortable. And
+meanwhile we can help Deborah here to get hold of other boys like John and
+give 'em a chance before it's too late--keep them from being crippled for
+life because their mothers were too blind and ignorant to act in time."
+Baird's voice had a ring of bitterness.
+
+"Most of 'em love their children," Roger said uneasily. Baird turned on him
+a steady look.
+
+"Love isn't enough," he retorted. "The time is coming very soon when we'll
+have the right to guard the child not only when it's a baby but even before
+it has been born."
+
+Roger drew closer to John after this. Often behind the beaming smile he
+would feel the pain and loneliness, and the angry grit which was fighting
+it down. And so he would ask John home to supper on nights when nobody else
+was there. One day late in the afternoon they were walking home together
+along the west side of Madison Square. The big open space was studded with
+lights sparkling up at the frosty stars, in a city, a world, a universe
+that seemed filled with the zest and the vigor of life. Out of these lights
+a mighty tower loomed high up into the sky. And stopping on his crutches, a
+grim small crooked figure in all this rushing turmoil, John set his jaws,
+and with his shrewd and twinkling eyes fixed on the top of the tower, he
+said,
+
+"I meant to tell you, Mr. Gale. You was asking me once what I wanted to be.
+And I want to be an architect."
+
+"Do, eh," grunted Roger. He, too, looked up at that thing in the stars, and
+there was a tightening at his throat. "All right," he added, presently,
+"why not start in and be one?"
+
+"How?" asked John alertly.
+
+"Well, my boy," said Roger, "I'd hate to lose you in the office--"
+
+"Yes, sir, and I'd hate to go." Just then the big clock in the tower began
+to boom the hour, and a chill struck into Roger.
+
+"You'd have to," he said gruffly. "You haven't any time to lose! I mean,"
+he hastily added, "that for a job as big as that you'd need a lot of
+training. But if it's what you want to be, go right ahead. I'll back you.
+My son-in-law is a builder at present. I'll talk to him and get his advice.
+We may be able to arrange to have you go right into his office, begin at
+the bottom and work straight up." In silence for a moment John hobbled on
+by Roger's side.
+
+"I'd hate to leave your place," he said.
+
+"I know," was Roger's brusque reply, "and I'd hate to lose you. We'll have
+to think it over."
+
+A few days later he talked with Bruce, who said he'd be glad to take the
+boy. And at dinner that night with Deborah, Roger asked abruptly,
+
+"Why not let Johnny come here for a while and use one of our empty
+bedrooms?"
+
+With a quick flush of pleased surprise, Deborah gave her father a look that
+embarrassed him tremendously.
+
+"Well, why not?" he snapped at her. "Sensible, isn't it?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+And sensible it turned out to be. When John first heard about it, he was
+apparently quite overcome, and there followed a brief awkward pause while
+he rapidly blinked the joy from his eyes. But then he said, "Fine, thank
+you. That's mighty good of you, Mr. Gale," in as matter of fact a tone as
+you please. And he entered the household in much the same way, for John had
+a sense of the fitness of things. He had always kept himself neat and
+clean, but he became immaculate now. He dined with Roger the first night,
+but early the next morning he went down to the kitchen and breakfasted
+there; and from this time on, unless he were especially urged to come up to
+the dining room, John took all his meals downstairs. The maids were
+Irish--so was John. They were good Catholics--so was John. They loved the
+movies--so did John. In short, it worked out wonderfully. In less than a
+month John had made himself an unobtrusive and natural part of the life of
+Roger's sober old house. It had had to stretch just a little, no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+But that winter there was more in the house than Deborah's big family.
+Though at times Roger felt it surging in with its crude, immense vitality,
+there were other times when it was not so, and the lives of his other two
+daughters attracted his attention, for both were back again in town.
+
+Laura and her husband had returned from abroad in October, and in a small
+but expensive apartment in a huge new building facing on Park Avenue they
+had gaily started the career of their own little family, or "ménage," as
+Laura called it. This word had stuck in Roger's mind, for he had a
+suspicion that a "ménage" was no place for babies. Grimly, when he went
+there first to be shown the new home by its mistress, he looked about him
+for a room which might be made a nursery. But no such room was in evidence.
+"We decided to have no guest room," he heard Laura say to Deborah. And
+glancing at his daughter then, sleek and smiling and demure, in her
+tea-gown fresh from Paris, Roger darkly told himself that a child would be
+an unwelcome guest. The whole place was as compact and sparkling as a jewel
+box. The bed chamber was luxurious, with a gorgeous bath adjoining and a
+dressing-room for Harold.
+
+"And look at this love of a closet!" said Laura to Deborah eagerly. "Isn't
+it simply enormous?" As Deborah looked, her father did, too, and his eye
+was met by an array of shimmering apparel which made him draw back almost
+with a start.
+
+They found Harold in the pantry. Their Jap, it appeared, was a marvellous
+cook and did the catering as well, so that Laura rarely troubled herself
+to order so much as a single meal. But her husband had for many years been
+famous for his cocktails, and although the Jap did everything else Hal had
+kept this in his own hands.
+
+"I thought this much of the house-keeping ought to remain in the family,"
+he said.
+
+Roger did not like this joke. But later, when he had imbibed the delicious
+concoction Harold had made, and had eaten the dinner created by that
+Japanese artist of theirs, his irritation subsided.
+
+"They barely know we're here," he thought. "They're both in love up to
+their ears."
+
+Despite their genial attempts to be hospitable and friendly, time and again
+he saw their glances meet in an intimate gleaming manner which made him
+rather uncomfortable. But where was the harm, he asked himself. They were
+married all right, weren't they? Still somehow--somehow--no, by George, he
+didn't like it, he didn't approve! The whole affair was decidedly mixing.
+Roger went away vaguely uneasy, and he felt that Deborah was even more
+disturbed than himself.
+
+"Those two," she remarked to her father, "are so fearfully wrapt up in each
+other it makes me afraid. Oh, it's all right, I suppose, and I wouldn't for
+worlds try to interfere. But I can't help feeling somehow that no two
+people with such an abundance of youth and money and happiness have the
+right to be so amazingly--selfish!"
+
+"They ought to have children," Roger said.
+
+"But look at Edith," his daughter rejoined. "She hasn't a single interest
+that I can find outside her home. It seems to have swallowed her, body and
+soul." A frowning look of perplexity swept over Deborah's mobile face, and
+with a whimsical sigh she exclaimed, "Oh, this queer business of families!"
+
+In December there came a little crash. Late one evening Laura came bursting
+in upon them in a perfect tantrum, every nerve in her lithe body tense,
+her full lips visibly quivering, her voice unsteady, and her big black eyes
+aflame with rage. She was jealous of her husband and "that nasty little
+cat!" Roger learned no more about it, for Deborah motioned him out of the
+room. He heard their two voices talk on and on, until Laura's slowly
+quieted down. Soon afterwards she left the house, and Deborah came in to
+him.
+
+"She's gone home, eh?" asked Roger.
+
+"Yes, she has, poor silly child--she said at first she had come here to
+stay."
+
+"By George," he said. "As bad as that?"
+
+"Of course it isn't as bad as that!" Deborah cried impatiently. "She just
+built and built on silly suspicions and let herself get all worked up! I
+don't see what they're coming to!" For a few moments nothing was said.
+"It's so unnatural!" she exclaimed. "Men and women weren't _made_ to live
+like that!" Roger scowled into his paper.
+
+"Better leave 'em alone," he admonished her. "You can't help--they're not
+your kind. Don't you mix into this affair."
+
+But Deborah did. She remembered that her sister had once shown quite a
+talent for amateur theatricals; and to give Laura something to do, Deborah
+persuaded her to take a dramatic club in her school. And Laura, rather to
+Roger's surprise, became an enthusiast down there. She worked like a slave
+at rehearsals, and upon the costumes she spent money with a lavish hand.
+Moreover, instead of being annoyed, as Edith was, at Deborah's prominence
+in the press, Laura gloried in it, as though this "radical" sister of hers
+were a distinct social asset among her giddy friends uptown. For even
+Laura's friends, her father learned with astonishment, had acquired quite
+an appetite for men and women with ideas--the more "radical," the better.
+But the way Laura used this word at times made Roger's blood run cold. She
+was vivid in her approval of her sister's whole idea, as a scheme of
+wholesale motherhood which would give "a perfectly glorious jolt" to the
+old-fashioned home with its overworked mothers who let their children
+absorb their days.
+
+"As though having children and bringing them up," she disdainfully
+declared, "were something every woman must do, whether she happens to like
+it or not, at the cost of any real growth of her own!"
+
+And smilingly she hinted at impending radical changes in the whole relation
+of marriage, of which she was hearing in detail at a series of lectures to
+young wives, delivered on Thursday mornings in a hotel ball-room.
+
+What the devil was getting into the town? Roger frowned his deep dislike.
+Here was Laura with her chicken's mind blithely taking her sister's
+thoughts and turning them topsy-turvy, to make for herself a view of life
+which fitted like a white kid glove her small and elegant "ménage." And
+although her father had only inklings of it all, he had quite enough to
+make him irate at this uncanny interplay of influences in his family. Why
+couldn't the girls leave each other alone?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early in the winter, Edith, too, had entered in. It had taken Edith just
+one glance into the bride's apartment to grasp Laura's whole scheme of
+existence.
+
+"Selfish, indulgent and abnormal," was the way she described it. She and
+Bruce were dining with Roger that night. "I wash my hands of the whole
+affair," continued Edith curtly. "So long as she doesn't want my help, as
+she has plainly made me feel, I certainly shan't stand in her way."
+
+"You're absolutely right," said her father.
+
+"Stick to it," said Bruce approvingly.
+
+But Edith did not stick to it. In her case too, as the weeks wore on, those
+subtle family ties took hold and made her feel the least she could do was
+"to keep up appearances." So she and Bruce dined with the bride and groom,
+and in turn had them to dinner. And these dinners, as Bruce confided to
+Roger, were occasions no man could forget.
+
+"They come only about once a month," he said in a tone of pathos, "but it
+seems as though barely a week had gone by when Edith says to me again,
+'We're dining with Laura and Hal to-night.' Well, and we dine. Young Sloane
+is not a bad sort of a chap--works hard downtown and worships his wife. The
+way he lives--well, it isn't mine--and mine isn't his--and we both let it
+go at that. But the women can't, they haven't it in 'em. Each sits with her
+way of life in her lap. You can't see it over the tablecloth, but, my God,
+how you feel it! The worst of it is," he ended, "that after one of these
+terrible meals each woman is more set than before in her own way of living.
+Not that I don't like Edith's way," her husband added hastily.
+
+Edith also disapproved of the fast increasing publicity which Deborah was
+getting.
+
+"I may be very old-fashioned," she remarked to her father, "but I can't get
+used to this idea that a woman's place is in headlines. And I think it's
+rather hard on you--the use she's making of your house."
+
+One Friday night when she came to play chess, she found her father in the
+midst of a boisterous special meeting of his club of Italian boys. It had
+been postponed from the evening before. And though Roger, overcome with
+dismay at having forgotten Edith's night, apologized profusely, the
+time-honored weekly game took place no more from that day on.
+
+"Edith's pretty sore," said Bruce, who dropped in soon afterwards. "She
+says Deborah has made your house into an annex to her school."
+
+Roger smoked in silence. His whole family was about his ears.
+
+"My boy," he muttered earnestly, "you and I must stick together."
+
+"We sure must," agreed his son-in-law. "And what's more, if we're to keep
+the peace, we've got to try to put some punch into Deborah's so-called love
+affair. She ought to get married and settle down."
+
+"Yes," said Roger, dubiously. "Only let's keep it to ourselves."
+
+"No chance of that," was the cheerful reply. "You can't keep Edith out of
+it. It would only make trouble in _my_ family." Roger gave him a pitying
+look and said,
+
+"Then, for the Lord's sake, let her in!"
+
+So they took Edith into their councils, and she gave them an indulgent
+smile.
+
+"Suppose you leave this to me," she commanded. "Don't you think I've been
+using my eyes? There's no earthly use in stepping in now, for Deborah has
+lost her head. She sees herself a great new woman with a career. But wait
+till the present flare-up subsides, till the newspapers all drop her and
+she is thoroughly tired out. Until then, remember, we keep our hands off."
+
+"Do you think you can?" asked Roger, with a little glimmer of hope.
+
+"I?" she retorted. "Most certainly! I mean to leave her alone
+absolutely--until she comes to me herself. When she does, we'll know it's
+time to begin."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm afraid Edith is hurt about something," said Deborah to her father,
+about a month after this little talk. "She hasn't been near us for over
+three weeks."
+
+"Let her be!" said Roger, in alarm. "I mean," he hastily added, "why can't
+you let Edith come when she likes? There's nothing the matter. It's simply
+her children--they take up her time."
+
+"No," said Deborah calmly, "it's I. She as good as told me so last month.
+She thinks I've become a perfect fanatic--without a spare moment or
+thought for my family."
+
+"Oh, my family!" Roger groaned. "I tell you, Deborah, you're wrong! Edith's
+children are probably sick in bed!"
+
+"Then I'll go and see," she answered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Something has happened to Deborah," Edith informed him blithely, over the
+telephone the next night.
+
+"Has, eh," grunted Roger.
+
+"Yes, she was here to see me to-day. And something has happened--she's
+changing fast. I felt it in all kinds of ways. She was just as dear as she
+could be--and lonely, as though she were feeling her age. I really think we
+can do something now."
+
+"All right, let's do something," Roger growled.
+
+And Edith began to do something. Her hostility to her sister had completely
+disappeared. In its place was a friendly affection, an evident desire to
+please. She even drew Laura into the secret, and there was a gathering of
+the clan. There were consultations in Roger's den. "Deborah is to get
+married." The feeling of it crept through the house. Nothing was said to
+her, of course, but Deborah was made to feel that her two sisters had drawn
+close. And their influence upon her choice was more deep and subtle than
+she knew. For although Roger's family had split so wide apart, between his
+three daughters there were still mysterious bonds reaching far back into
+nursery days. And Deborah in deciding whether to marry Allan Baird was
+affected more than she was aware by the married lives of her sisters. All
+she had seen in Laura's ménage, all that she had ever observed in Edith's
+growing family, kept rising from time to time in her thoughts, as she
+vaguely tried to picture herself a wife and the mother of children.
+
+So the family, with those subtle bonds from the past, began to press
+steadily closer and closer around this one unmarried daughter, and help her
+to make up her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+But she did not appear to care to be helped. Nor did Allan--he rarely came
+to the house, and he went to Edith's not at all. He was even absent from
+her Christmas tree for the children, a jolly little festivity which neither
+he nor Deborah had missed in years.
+
+"What has got into him?" Roger asked. And shortly after Christmas he called
+the fellow up on the 'phone. "Drop in for dinner to-night," he urged. And
+he added distinctly, "I'm alone."
+
+"Are you? I'll be glad to."
+
+"Thank you, Baird, I want your advice." And as he hung up the receiver he
+said, "Now then!" to himself, in a tone of firm decision. But later, as the
+day wore on, he cursed himself for what he had done. "Don't it beat the
+devil," he thought, "how I'm always putting my foot in it?" And when Baird
+came into the room that night he loomed, to Roger's anxious eye, if
+anything taller than before. But his manner was so easy, his gruff voice so
+natural, and he seemed to take this little party of two so quietly as a
+matter of course, that Roger was soon reassured, and at table he and Allan
+got on even better than before. Baird talked of his life as a student, in
+Vienna, Bonn and Edinburgh, and of his first struggles in New York. His
+talk was full of human bits, some tragic, more amusing. And Roger's liking
+for the man increased with every story told.
+
+"I asked you here," he bluntly began, when they had gone to the study to
+smoke, "to talk to you about Deborah." Baird gave him a friendly look.
+
+"All right. Let's talk about her."
+
+"It strikes me you were right last year," said Roger, speaking slowly.
+"She's already showing the strain of her work. She don't look to me as
+strong as she was."
+
+"She looks to me stronger," Allan replied. "You know, people fool doctors
+now and then--and she seems to have taken a fresh start. I feel she may go
+on for years." Roger was silent a moment, chagrined and disappointed.
+
+"Have you had a good chance to watch her?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, and I'm watching her still," said Baird. "I see her down there at the
+school. She tells me you've been there yourself."
+
+"Yes," said Roger, determinedly, "and I mean to keep on going. I'm trying
+not to lose hold of her," he added with harsh emphasis. Baird turned and
+frankly smiled at him.
+
+"Then you have probably seen," he replied, "that to keep any hold at all on
+her, you must make up your mind as I have done that, strength or no
+strength, this job of hers is going to be a life career. When a woman who
+has held a job without a break for eleven years can feel such a flame of
+enthusiasm, you can be pretty sure, I think, it is the deepest part of her.
+At least I feel that way," he said. "And I believe the only way to keep
+near her--for the present, anyhow--is to help her in her work."
+
+When Baird had gone, Roger found himself angry.
+
+"I'm not in the habit, young man," he thought, "of throwing my daughter at
+gentlemen's heads. If you feel as calm and contented as that you can go to
+the devil! Far be it from me to lift a hand! In fact, as I come to think of
+it, you would probably make her a mighty poor husband!" He worked himself
+into quite a rage. But an hour later, when he had subsided, "Hold on," he
+thought. "Am I right about this? Is the man as contented as he talks? No,
+sir, not for a minute he isn't! But what can he do? If he tried making love
+to Deborah he'd simply be killing his chances. Not the slightest doubt in
+the world. She can't think of anything but her career. Yes, sir, when all's
+said and done, to marry a modern woman is no child's play, it means thought
+and care. And A. Baird has made up his mind to it. He has made up his mind
+to marry her by playing a long waiting game. He's just slowly and quietly
+nosing his way into her school, because it's her life. And a mighty shrewd
+way of going about it. You don't need any help from me, my friend; all you
+need is to be let alone."
+
+In talks at home with Deborah, and in what he himself observed at school,
+Roger began to get inklings of "A. Baird's long waiting game." He found
+that several months before Allan had offered to start a free clinic for
+mothers and children in connection with the school, and that he alone had
+put it through, with only the most reluctant aid and gratitude from
+Deborah--as though she dreaded something. Baird took countless hours from
+his busy uptown practice; he hurt himself more than once, in fact, by
+neglecting rich patients to do this work. Where a sick or pregnant mother
+was too poor to carry out his advice, he followed her into her tenement
+home, sent one of his nurses to visit her, and even gave money when it was
+needed to ease the strain of her poverty until she should be well and
+strong. Soon scores of the mothers of Deborah's children were singing the
+praises of Doctor Baird.
+
+Then he began coming to the house.
+
+"I was right," thought Roger complacently.
+
+He laid in a stock of fine cigars and some good port and claret, too; and
+on evenings when Baird came to dine, Roger by a genial glow and occasional
+jocular ironies would endeavor to drag the talk away from clinics,
+adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the new education. But no joke
+was so good that Deborah could not promptly match it with some amusing
+little thing which one of her children had said or done. For she had a
+mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood. It was deep, it was
+uncanny, this queer community motherhood.
+
+"This poor devil," Roger thought, with a pitying glance at Baird, "might
+just as well be marrying a widow with three thousand brats."
+
+But Baird did not seem in the least dismayed. On the contrary, his
+assurance appeared to be deepening every week, and with it Deborah's air of
+alarm. For his clinic, as it swiftly grew, he secured financial backing
+from his rich women patients uptown, many of them childless and only too
+ready to respond to the appeals he made to them. And one Saturday evening
+at the house, while dining with Roger and Deborah, he told of an offer he
+had had from a wealthy banker's widow to build a maternity hospital. He
+talked hungrily of all it could do in co-operation with the school. He said
+nothing of the obvious fact that it would require his whole time, but Roger
+thought of that at once, and by the expression on Deborah's face he saw she
+was thinking, too.
+
+He felt they wanted to be alone, so presently he left them. From his study
+he could hear their voices growing steadily more intense. Was it all about
+work? He could not tell. "They've got working and living so mixed up, a man
+can't possibly tell 'em apart."
+
+Then his daughter was called to the telephone, and Allan came in to bid
+Roger good-night. And his eyes showed an impatience he did not seem to care
+to hide.
+
+"Well?" inquired Roger. "Did you get Deborah's consent?"
+
+"To what?" asked Allan sharply.
+
+"To your acceptance," Roger answered, "of the widow's mite." Baird grinned.
+
+"She couldn't help herself," he said.
+
+"But she didn't seem to like it, eh--"
+
+"No," said Baird, "she didn't." Roger had a dark suspicion.
+
+"By the way," he asked in a casual tone, "what's this philanthropic widow
+like?"
+
+"She's sixty-nine," Baird answered.
+
+"Oh," said Roger. He smoked for a time, and sagely added, "My daughter's a
+queer woman, Baird--she's modern, very modern. But she's still a woman, you
+understand--and so she's jealous--of her job." But A. Baird was in no
+joking mood.
+
+"She's narrow," he said sternly. "That's what's the matter with Deborah.
+She's so centered on her job she can't see anyone else's. She thinks I'm
+doing all this work solely in order to help her school--when if she'd use
+some imagination and try to put herself in my shoes, she'd see the chance
+it's giving _me_!"
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Roger, looking a bit bewildered.
+
+"Why," said Baird with an impatient fling of his hand, "there are men in my
+line all over the country who'd leave home, wives and children for the
+chance I've blundered onto here! A hospital fully equipped for research, a
+free hand, an opportunity which comes to one man in a million! But can she
+see it? Not at all! It's only an annex to her school!"
+
+"Yes," said Roger gravely, "she's in a pretty unnatural state. I think she
+ought to get married, Baird--" To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird
+replied with a rueful smile.
+
+"You do, eh," he growled. "Then tell her to plan her wedding to come before
+her funeral." As he rose to go, Roger took his hand.
+
+"I'll tell her," he said. "It's sound advice. Good-night, my boy, I wish
+you luck."
+
+A few moments later he heard in the hall their brief good-nights to each
+other, and presently Deborah came in. She was not looking quite herself.
+
+"Why are you eyeing me like that?" his daughter asked abruptly.
+
+"Aren't you letting him do a good deal for you?"
+
+Deborah flushed a little:
+
+"Yes, I am. I can't make him stop."
+
+Her father hesitated.
+
+"You could," he said, "if you wanted to. If you were sure," he added
+slowly, "that you didn't love him--and told him so." He felt a little
+panic, for he thought he had gone too far. But his daughter only turned
+away and restlessly moved about the room. At last she came to her father's
+chair:
+
+"Hadn't you better leave this to me?"
+
+"I had, my dear, I most certainly had. I was all wrong to mention it," he
+answered very humbly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From this night on, Baird changed his tack. Although soon busy with the
+plans for the hospital, to be built at once, he said little about it to
+Deborah. Instead, he insisted on taking her off on little evening sprees
+uptown.
+
+"Do you know what's the matter with both of us?" he said to her one
+evening. "We've been getting too durned devoted to our jobs and our ideals.
+You're becoming a regular school marm and I'm getting to be a regular slave
+to every wretched little babe who takes it into his head to be born. We
+haven't one redeeming vice."
+
+And again he took up dancing. The first effort which he made, down at
+Deborah's school one evening, was a failure quite as dismal as his attempts
+of the previous year. But he did not appear in the least discouraged. He
+came to the house one Friday night.
+
+"I knew I could learn to dance," he said, "in spite of all your taunts and
+jibes. That little fiasco last Saturday night--"
+
+"Was perfectly awful," Deborah said.
+
+"Did not discourage me in the least," he continued severely. "I decided the
+only trouble with me was that I'm tall and I've got to bend--to learn to
+bend."
+
+"Tremendously!"
+
+"So I went to a lady professor, and she saw the point at once. Since then
+I've had five lessons, and I can fox-trot in my sleep. To-morrow is
+Saturday. Where shall we go?"
+
+"To the theater."
+
+"Good. We'll start with that. But the minute the play is over we'll gallop
+off to the Plaza Grill--just as the music is in full swing--"
+
+"And we'll dance," she groaned, "for hours. And when I get home, I'll creep
+into bed so tired and sore in every limb--"
+
+"That you'll sleep late Sunday morning. And a mighty good thing for you,
+too--if you ask my advice--"
+
+"I don't ask your advice!"
+
+"You're getting it, though," he said doggedly. "If you're still to be a
+friend of mine we'll dance at the Plaza to-morrow night--and well into the
+Sabbath."
+
+"The principal of a public school--dancing on the Sabbath. Suppose one of
+my friends should see us there."
+
+"Your friends," he replied with a fine contempt, "do not dance in the Plaza
+Grill. I'm the only roisterer you know."
+
+"All right," she conceded grudgingly, "I'll roister. Come and get me. But
+I'd much prefer when the play is done to come home and have milk and
+crackers here."
+
+"Deborah," he said cheerfully, "for a radical school reformer you're the
+most conservative woman I know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+In Deborah's school, in the meantime, affairs had drawn to a climax. The
+moment had come for the city to say whether her new experiment should be
+dropped the following year or allowed to go on and develop. There came a
+day of sharp suspense when Deborah's friends and enemies on the Board of
+Education sat down to discuss and settle her fate. They were at it for
+several hours, but late in the afternoon they decided not only to let her
+go on the next year but to try her idea in four other schools and place her
+in charge with ample funds. The long strain came to an end at last in a
+triumph beyond her wildest hopes; when the news arrived she relaxed, grew
+limp, and laughed and cried a little. And her father felt her tremble as he
+held her a moment in his arms.
+
+"Now, Baird," he thought, "your chance has come. For God's sake, take it
+while it's here!"
+
+But in place of Baird that afternoon came men and women from the press, and
+friends and fellow workers. The door-bell and the telephone kept ringing
+almost incessantly. Why couldn't they leave her a moment's peace? Roger
+buried himself in his study. Later, when he was called to dinner, he found
+that Allan was there, too, but at first the conversation was all upon
+Deborah's victory. Flushed with success, for the moment engrossed in the
+wider field she saw ahead, she had not a thought for anything else. But
+after dinner the atmosphere changed.
+
+"To hear me talk," she told them, "you'd think the whole world depended on
+me, and on my school and my ideas. Me, me, me! And it has been me all
+winter long! What a time I've given both of you!"
+
+She grew repentant and grateful, first to her father and then to Allan, and
+then more and more to Allan, with her happy eyes on his. And with a keen
+worried look at them both, Roger rose and left the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Baird was leaning forward. He had both her hands in his own.
+
+"Well?" he asked. "Will you marry me now?"
+
+Her eyes were looking straight into his. They kept moving slightly,
+searching his. Her wide, sensitive lips were tightly compressed, but did
+not quite hide their quivering. When she spoke her voice was low and a
+little queer and breathless:
+
+"Do you want any children, Allan?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So do I. And with children, what of my work?"
+
+"I don't want to stop your work. If you marry me we'll go right on. You see
+I know you, Deborah, I know you've always grown like that--by risking what
+you've got to-day for something more to-morrow."
+
+"I've never taken a risk like this!"
+
+"I tell you this time it's no risk! Because you're a grown woman--formed!
+I'm not making a saint of you. You're no angel down among the poor because
+you feel it's your duty in life--it's your happiness, your passion! You
+couldn't neglect them if you tried!"
+
+"But the time," she asked him quickly. "Where shall I find the time for it
+all?"
+
+"A man finds time enough," he answered, "even when he's married."
+
+"But I'm not a man, I'm a woman," she said. And in a low voice which
+thrilled him, "A woman who wants a child of her own!" His lean muscular
+right hand contracted sharply upon hers. She winced, drew back a little.
+
+"Oh--I'm sorry!" he whispered. Then he asked her again,
+
+"Will you marry me now?" She looked suddenly up:
+
+"Let's wait awhile, please! It won't be long--I'm in love with you, Allan,
+I'm sure of that now! And I'm not drawing back, I'm not afraid! Oh, I want
+you to feel I'm not running away! What I want to do is to face this square!
+It may be silly and foolish but--you see, I'm made like that. I want a
+little longer--I want to think it out by myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Allan had gone she came in to her father. And her radiant expression
+made him bounce up from his chair.
+
+"By George," he cried, "he asked you!"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"And you've taken him!"
+
+"No!"
+
+Roger gasped.
+
+"Look here!" he demanded, angrily. "What's the matter? Are you mad?" She
+threw back her head and laughed at him.
+
+"No, I'm not--I'm happy!"
+
+"What the devil about?" he snapped.
+
+"We're going to wait a bit, that's all, till we're sure of everything!" she
+cried.
+
+"Then," said Roger disgustedly, "you're smarter than your father is. I'm
+sure of nothing--nothing! I have never been sure in all my days! If I'd
+waited, you'd never have been born!"
+
+"Oh, dearie," she begged him smilingly. "Please don't be so unhappy just
+now--"
+
+"I've a right to be!" said Roger. "I see my house agog with this--in a
+turmoil--in a turmoil!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But again he was mistaken. It was in fact astonishing how the old house
+quieted down. There came again one of those peaceful times, when his home
+to Roger's senses seemed to settle deep, grow still, and gather itself
+together. Day by day he felt more sure that Deborah was succeeding in
+making her work fit into her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy
+woman's life. And why shouldn't they live here, Allan and she? The thought
+of this dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead. How
+smoothly things were working out. The monstrous new buildings around his
+house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of their prey.
+
+On the mantle in Roger's study, for many years a bronze figure there, "The
+Thinker," huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching pose, the heavy chin
+on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon him. And in the years that had
+been so dark, it had been a figure of despair. Often he had looked up from
+his chair and grimly met its frowning gaze. But Roger seldom looked at it
+now, and even when it caught his eye it had little effect upon him. It
+appeared to brood less darkly. For though he did not think it out, there
+was this feeling in his mind:
+
+"There is to be nothing startling in this quiet home of mine, no crashing
+deep calamity here."
+
+Only the steadily deepening love between a grown man and a woman mature,
+both sensible, strong people with a firm control of their destinies. He
+felt so sure of this affair. For now, her tension once relaxed with the
+success which had come to her after so many long hard years, a new Deborah
+was revealed, more human in her yieldings. She let Allan take her off on
+the wildest little sprees uptown and out into the country. To Roger she
+seemed younger, more warm and joyous and more free. He loved to hear her
+laugh these nights, to catch the glad new tones in her voice.
+
+"There is to be no tragedy here."
+
+So, certain of this union and wistful for all he felt it would bring, Roger
+watched its swift approach. And when the news came, he was sure he'd been
+right. Because it came so quietly.
+
+"It's settled, dear, at last it's sure. Allan and I are to be married." She
+was standing by his chair. Roger reached up and took her hand:
+
+"I'm glad. You'll be very happy, my child."
+
+She bent over and kissed him, and putting his arm around her he drew her
+down on the side of his chair.
+
+"Now tell me all your plans," he said. And her answer brought him a deep
+peace.
+
+"We're going abroad for the summer--and then if you'll have us we want to
+come here." Roger abruptly shut his eyes.
+
+"By George, Deborah," he said, "you do have a way of getting right into the
+heart of things!" His arm closed about her with new strength and he felt
+all his troubles flying away.
+
+"What a time we'll have, what a rich new life." Her deep sweet voice was a
+little unsteady. "Listen, dearie, how quiet it is." And for some moments
+nothing was heard but the sober tick-tick of the clock on the mantle. "I
+wonder what we're going to hear."
+
+And they thought of new voices in the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Edith was radiant at the news.
+
+"I do hope they're not going to grudge themselves a good long wedding
+trip!" she exclaimed.
+
+"They're going abroad," said Roger.
+
+"Oh, splendid! And the wedding! Church or home?"
+
+"Home," said Roger blissfully, "and short and simple, not a frill. Just the
+family."
+
+"Oh, that's so nice," sighed Edith. "I was afraid she'd want to drag in her
+school."
+
+"School will be out by then," he said.
+
+"Well, I hope it stays out--for the remainder of her days. She can't do
+both, and she'll soon see. Wait till she has a child of her own."
+
+"Well, she wants one bad enough."
+
+"Yes, but can she?" Edith asked, with the engrossed expression which came
+on her pretty florid face whenever she neared such a topic. She spoke with
+evident awkwardness. "That's the trouble. Is it too late? Deborah's
+thirty-one, you know, and she has lived her life so hard. The sooner she
+gives up her school the better for her chances."
+
+The face of her father clouded.
+
+"Look here," he said uneasily, "I wouldn't go talking to her--quite along
+those lines, my dear."
+
+"I'm not such an idiot," she replied. "She thinks me homely enough as it
+is. And she's not altogether wrong. Bruce and I were talking it over last
+night. We want to be closer, after this, to Deborah and Allan. Bruce says
+it will do us _all_ good, and for once I think he's right. I _have_ given
+too much time to my children, and Bruce to his office--I see it now. Not
+that I regret it, but--well, we're going to blossom out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She struck the same note with Deborah. And so did Bruce.
+
+"Oh, Deborah dear," he said smiling, when he found a chance to see her
+alone, "if you knew how long I've waited for this big fine thing to happen.
+A. Baird is my best chum in the world. Don't yank him gently away from us
+now. We'll keep close--eh?--all four of us."
+
+"Very," said Deborah softly.
+
+"And you mustn't get too solemn, you know. You won't pull too much of the
+highbrow stuff."
+
+"Heaven forbid!"
+
+"That's the right idea. We'll have some fine little parties together. You
+and A. Baird will give us a hand and get us out in the evenings. We need
+it, God knows, we've been getting old." Deborah threw him a glance of
+affection.
+
+"Why, Brucie," she said, in admiring tones, "I knew you had it in you."
+
+"So has Edith," he sturdily declared. "She only needs a little shove. We'll
+show you two that we're regular fellows. Don't you be all school and we
+won't be all home. We'll jump out of our skins and be young again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In pursuance of this gay resolve, Bruce planned frequent parties to
+theaters and musical shows, and to Edith's consternation he even began to
+look about for a teacher from whom he could learn to dance. "A. Baird," he
+told her firmly, "isn't going to be the only soubrette in this family."
+
+One of the most hilarious of these small celebrations came early in June,
+when they dined all four together and went to the summer's opening of "The
+Follies of 1914." The show rather dragged a bit at first, but when Bert
+Williams took the stage Bruce's laugh became so contagious that people in
+seats on every hand turned to look at him and join in his glee. Only one
+thing happened to mar the evening's pleasure. When they came outside the
+theater Bruce found in his car something wrong with the engine. He tinkered
+but it would not go. Allan hailed a taxi.
+
+"Why not come with us?" asked Deborah.
+
+"No, thanks," said Bruce. "I've got this car to look after."
+
+"Oh, let it wait," urged Allan.
+
+"It does look a little like rain," put in Edith. Bruce glanced up at the
+cloudy sky and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Rain, piffle," he said good-humoredly. "Come on, wifey, stick by me. I
+won't be long." And he and Edith went back to his car.
+
+"What a dear he is," said Deborah. Allan put his arm around her, and they
+looked at each other and smiled. It was only nine days to the wedding.
+
+Out of the street's commotion came a sharp cry of warning. It was followed
+by a shriek and a crash. Allan looked out of the window, and then with a
+low exclamation he jumped from the taxi and slammed the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Roger had been spending a long quiet evening at home. He had asked John to
+dine with him and they had chatted for a time. Then John had started up to
+his room. And listening to the slow shuffling step of the cripple going
+upstairs, Roger had thought of the quick eager feet and the sudden scampers
+that would be heard as the silent old house renewed its life. Later he had
+gone to bed.
+
+He awakened with a start. The telephone bell was ringing.
+
+"Nice time to be calling folks out of bed," he grumbled, as he went into
+the hall. The next moment he heard Deborah's voice. It was clear and sharp
+with a note of alarm.
+
+"Father--it's I! You must come to Edith's apartment at once! Bruce is hurt
+badly! Come at once!"
+
+When Roger reached the apartment, it was Deborah who opened the door. Her
+face had changed, it was drawn and gray. She took him into the living room.
+
+"Tell me," he said harshly.
+
+"It was just outside the theater. Bruce and Edith were out in the street
+and got caught by some idiot of a chauffeur. Bruce threw Edith out of the
+way, but just as he did it he himself got struck in the back and went under
+a wheel. Allan brought him here at once, while I telephoned for a friend of
+his--a surgeon. They're with Bruce now."
+
+"Where's Edith?"
+
+"She's trying to quiet the children. They all woke up--" Deborah
+frowned--"when he was brought in," she added.
+
+"Well!" breathed Roger. "I declare!" Dazed and stunned, he sank into a
+chair. Soon the door opened and Allan came in.
+
+"He's gone," he said. And Deborah jumped. "No, no, I meant the doctor."
+
+"What does he say?"
+
+"Bruce can't live," said Allan gently. In the tense silence there came a
+chill. "And he knows it," Allan added. "He made me tell him--he said he
+must know--for business reasons. He wants to see you both at once, before
+Edith gets that child asleep."
+
+As they entered the room they saw Bruce on his bed. He was breathing
+quickly through his narrow tight-set jaws and staring up at the ceiling
+with a straining fixed intensity. As they entered he turned his head. His
+eyes met theirs and lighted up in a hard and terrible manner.
+
+"I'm not leaving them a dollar!" he cried.
+
+"We'll see to them, boy," said Roger, hoarsely, but Bruce had already
+turned to Baird.
+
+"I make you my executor, Allan--don't need it in writing--there isn't
+time." He drew a sudden quivering breath. "I have no will," he muttered on.
+"Never made one--never thought of this. Business life just
+starting--booming!--and I put in every cent!" There broke from him a low,
+bitter groan. "Made my money settling other men's muddles! Never thought of
+making this mess of my own! But even in mine--I could save something
+still--if I could be there--if I could be there--"
+
+The sweat broke out on his temples, and Deborah laid her hand on his head.
+"Sh-h-h," she breathed. He shut his eyes.
+
+"Hard to think of anything any more. I can't keep clear." He shuddered with
+pain. "Fix me for _them_," he muttered to Baird. "George and his mother.
+Fix me up--give me a couple of minutes clear. And Deborah--when you bring
+'em in--don't let 'em know. You understand? No infernal last good-byes!"
+Deborah sharply set her teeth.
+
+"No, dear, no," she whispered. She followed her father out of the room,
+leaving Allan bending over the bed with a hypodermic in his hand. And when,
+a few moments later, George came in with his mother, they found Bruce
+soothed and quieted. He even smiled as he reached up his hand.
+
+"They say I've got to sleep, old girl--just sleep and sleep--it'll do me
+good. So you mustn't stay in the room to-night. Stay with the kiddies and
+get 'em to sleep." He was still smiling up at her. "They say it'll be a
+long time, little wife--and I'm so sorry--I was to blame. If I'd done as
+you wanted and gone in their taxi. Remember? You said it might rain." He
+turned to George: "Look here, my boy, I'm counting on you. I'll be sick,
+you know--no good at all. You must stand by your mother."
+
+George gulped awkwardly:
+
+"Sure I will, dad." His father sharply pressed his hand:
+
+"That's right, old fellow, I know what you are. Now good-night, son.
+Good-night, Edith dear." He looked at her steadily just for a moment, then
+closed his eyes. "Oh, but I'm sleepy," he murmured. "Good-night."
+
+And they left him. Alone with Allan, Bruce looked up with a savage glare.
+
+"Look here!" he snarled, between his teeth. "If you think I'm going to lie
+here and die you're mistaken! I won't! I won't let go! I'll show you chaps
+you can be wrong! Been wrong before, haven't you, thousands of times! Why
+be so damnably sure about _me_?" He fell back suddenly, limp and weak. "So
+damnably sure," he panted.
+
+"We're never sure, my dear old boy," said Allan very tenderly. Again he
+was bending close over the bed. "We're not sure yet--by any means. You're
+so strong, old chap, so amazingly strong. You've given me hope--"
+
+"What are you sticking into my arm?" But Allan kept talking steadily on:
+
+"You've given me hope you'll pull through still. But not like this. You've
+got to rest. Let go, and try to go to sleep."
+
+"I'm afraid to," came the whisper. But soon, as again the drug took hold,
+he mumbled in a drowsy tone, "Afraid to go to sleep in the dark.... Say,
+Allan--get Deborah in here, will you--just for a minute. One thing more."
+
+When she came, he did not open his eyes.
+
+"That you, Deborah? Where's your hand?... Oh--there it is. Just one more
+point. You--you--" Again his mind wandered, but with an effort he brought
+it back. "You and Edith," he said in a whisper. "So--so--so different.
+Not--not like each other at all. But you'll stick together--eh?
+Always--always. Don't let go--I mean of my hand."
+
+"No, dear, no."
+
+And with her hand holding his, she sat for a long time perfectly still.
+Then the baby was heard crying, and Deborah went to the nursery.
+
+"Now, Edith, I'll see to the children," she said. "Allan says you can go to
+Bruce if you like."
+
+Edith looked up at Deborah quickly, and as quickly turned away. She went in
+to her husband. And there, hour by hour through the night, while he lay
+inert with his hand in hers, little by little she understood. But she asked
+no question of anyone.
+
+At last Bruce stirred a little and began breathing deep and fast.
+
+And so death came into the family.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Roger went through the next two days in a kind of a stupor. He remembered
+holding Edith and feeling her shudder as though from a chill. He remembered
+being stopped in the hall by George who had dressed himself with care in
+his first suit with long trousers. "I just wanted you to remember," the boy
+whispered solemnly, "that I'm nearly sixteen and I'll be here. He said to
+stand by her and I will." The rest of that ghastly time was a blank,
+punctuated by small quiet orders which Roger obeyed. Thank God, Deborah was
+there, and she was attending to everything.
+
+But when at last it was over, and Roger had spent the next day in his
+office, had found it impossible to work and so had gone home early, Deborah
+came to him in his room.
+
+"Now we must have a talk," she said. "Allan has gone through Bruce's
+affairs, and there are still debts to be settled, it seems."
+
+"How much do they come to, Deborah?"
+
+"About five thousand dollars," she said. And for a moment neither spoke. "I
+wish I could help you out," she went on, "but I have nothing saved and
+neither has Allan. We've both kept using our money downtown--except just
+enough for the trip abroad--and we'll need almost all of that to settle for
+the funeral."
+
+"I can manage," Roger said, and again there was a silence.
+
+"Edith will have to come here to live," Deborah said presently. Her
+father's heavy face grew stern.
+
+"I'd thought of that," he answered. "But it will be hard on her,
+Deborah--"
+
+"I know it will--but I don't see anything else to be done." The deep quiet
+voice of his daughter grew sweet with pity as she spoke. "At least we can
+try to make it a little easier for her. You can take her up to the
+mountains and I can close her apartment. But of course she won't agree to
+it unless she knows how matters stand." Deborah waited a little. "Don't you
+think you're the best one to tell her?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger, after a pause.
+
+"Then suppose we go to her. I'm sleeping up there for the next few nights."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They found Edith in her living room. She had sent the nurse out, put the
+children to bed, and left alone with nothing to do she had sat facing her
+first night. Her light soft hair was disheveled, her pretty features pale
+and set. But the moment Roger entered he saw that she had herself in hand.
+
+"Well, father," she said steadily. "You'd better tell me about our affairs.
+_My_ affairs," she corrected herself. When he had explained, she was silent
+a moment, and then in a voice harsh, bitter, abrupt, "That will be hard on
+the children," she said. On an impulse he started to take her hand, but she
+drew a little away from him.
+
+"The children, my dear," he said huskily, "will be taken care of always."
+
+"Yes." And again she was silent. "I've been thinking I'd like to go up to
+the mountains--right away," she continued.
+
+"Just our idea," he told her. "Deborah will arrange it at once."
+
+"That's good of Deborah," she replied. And after another pause: "But take
+her home with you--will you? I'd rather not have her here to-night."
+
+"I think she'd better stay, my dear."
+
+"All right." In a tone of weariness. "Madge Deering called me up to-night.
+She's coming in town to-morrow, and she means to stay till I go."
+
+"I'm glad," he said approvingly. Madge had been a widow for years. Living
+out in Morristown with four daughters to bring up, she had determinedly
+fought her way and had not only regained her hold but had even grown in
+strength and breadth since the death of her husband long ago. "I'm glad,"
+he said. "You and Madge--" he paused.
+
+"Yes, we'll have a good deal in common," Edith finished out his thought.
+"You look tired, dad. Hadn't you better go home now?" she suggested after a
+moment.
+
+"Yes," said Roger, rising. "Good-night, my child. Remember."
+
+In the outer hallway he found Deborah with Laura. Laura had been here
+several times. She was getting Edith's mourning.
+
+"There's a love of a hat at Thurn's," she was saying softly, "if only we
+can get her to wear it. It's just her type." And Laura drew an anxious
+breath. "Anything," she added, "to escape that hideous heavy crepe."
+
+Roger slightly raised his brows. He noticed a faint delicious perfume that
+irritated him suddenly. But glancing again at his daughter, trim, fresh and
+so immaculate, the joy of life barely concealed in her eyes, he stopped and
+talked and smiled at her, as Deborah was doing, enjoying her beauty and her
+youth, her love and all her happiness. And though they spoke of her sister,
+she knew they were thinking of herself, and that it was quite right they
+should, for it gave them a little relief from their gloom. She was honestly
+sorry for Edith, but she was sorrier still for Bruce, who she knew had
+always liked her more than he would have cared to say. She was sorrier for
+Bruce because, while Edith had lost only her husband, Bruce had lost his
+very life. And life meant so much to Laura, these days, the glowing,
+coursing, vibrant life of her warm beautiful body. She was thinking of that
+as she stood in the hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the evening, at home in his study, Roger heard a slight knock at the
+door. He looked up and saw John.
+
+"May I come in, Mr. Gale, for a minute?"
+
+"Yes, my boy." John hobbled in.
+
+"Only a minute." His voice was embarrassed. "Just two or three things I
+thought of," he said. "The first was about your son-in-law. You see, I was
+his stenographer--and while I was in his office--this morning helping
+Doctor Baird--I found a good deal I can do there still--about things no one
+remembers but me. So I'll stay there awhile, if it's all right. Only--" he
+paused--"without any pay. See what I mean?"
+
+"Yes, I see," said Roger. "And you'd better stay--in that way if you like."
+
+"Thanks," said John. "Then about his wife and family. You're to take them
+up to the mountains, I hear--and--well, before this happened you asked _me_
+up this summer. But I guess I'd better not."
+
+"I don't think you'd be in the way, my boy."
+
+"I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind. When I'm through in your
+son-in-law's office I thought I might go back to yours. I could send you
+your mail every two or three days."
+
+"I'd like that, John--it will be a great help."
+
+"All right, Mr. Gale." John stopped at the door. "And Miss Deborah," he
+ventured. "Is she to get married just the same?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I think so--later on."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+And John went out of the room.
+
+When _would_ Deborah be married? It came over Roger, when he was alone, how
+his family had shifted its center. Deborah would have come here to live,
+to love and be happy, a mother perhaps, but now she must find a home of her
+own. In her place would come Edith with her children. All would center on
+her in her grief.
+
+And for no cause! Just a trick of chance, a street accident! And Roger grew
+bitter and rebelled. Bruce was not the one of the family to die. Bruce, so
+shrewd and vigorous, so vital, the practical man of affairs. Bruce had been
+going the pace that kills--yes, Roger had often thought of it. But that had
+nothing to do with this! If Bruce had died at fifty, say, as a result of
+the life he had chosen, the fierce exhausting city which he had loved as a
+man will love drink, then at least there would have been some sense of
+fairness in it all! If the town had let him alone till his time! But to be
+knocked down by an automobile! The devilish irony of it! No
+reason--nothing! Just hideous luck!
+
+Well, life was like that. As for Edith and her children, he would be glad
+to have them here. Only, it would be different, the house would have to
+change again. He was sorry, too, for Deborah. No wedding trip as she had
+planned, no home awaiting her return.
+
+So his mind went over his family.
+
+But suddenly such thoughts fell away as trivial and of small account. For
+these people would still be alive. And Bruce was dead, and Roger was old.
+So he thought about Bruce and about himself, and all his children grew
+remote. "You will live on in our children's lives." Was there no other
+immortality? The clock ticked on the mantle and beside it "The Thinker"
+brooded down. And Roger looked up unafraid, but grim and gravely wondering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+But there was a rugged practical side to the character of Roger Gale, and
+the next morning he was ashamed of the brooding thoughts which had come in
+the night. He shook them off as morbid, and resolutely set himself to what
+lay close before him. There was work to be done on Bruce's affairs, and the
+work was a decided relief. Madge Deering, in the meantime, had offered to
+go with Edith and the children to the mountains and see them all well
+settled there. And a little talk he had with Madge relieved his mind still
+further. What a recovery _she_ had made from the tragedy of years ago. How
+alert and wide-awake she seemed. If Edith could only grow like that.
+
+Soon after their departure, one night when he was dining alone, he had a
+curious consciousness of the mingled presence of Edith and of Judith his
+wife. And this feeling grew so strong that several times he looked about in
+a startled, questioning manner. All at once his eye was caught by an old
+mahogany sideboard. It was Edith's. It had been her mother's. Edith, when
+she married, had wanted something from her old home. Well, now it was back
+in the family.
+
+The rest of Edith's furniture, he learned from Deborah that night, had been
+stored in the top of the house.
+
+"Most of it," she told him, "Edith will probably want to use in fitting up
+the children's rooms." With a twinge of foreboding, Roger felt the
+approaching change in his home.
+
+"When do you plan to be married?" he asked.
+
+"About the end of August. We couldn't very well till then, without hurting
+poor Edith a little, you see. You know how she feels about such things--"
+
+"Yes, I guess you're right," he agreed.
+
+How everything centered 'round Edith, he thought. To pay the debts which
+Bruce had left would take all Roger had on hand; and from this time on his
+expenses, with five growing children here, would be a fast increasing
+drain. He would have to be careful and husband his strength, a thing he had
+always hated to do.
+
+In the next few weeks, he worked hard in his office. He cut down his
+smoking, stayed home every evening and went to bed at ten o'clock. He tried
+to shut Deborah out of his mind. As for Laura, he barely gave her a
+thought. She dropped in one evening to bid him good-bye, for this summer
+again she was going abroad. She and her husband, she told him, were to
+motor through the Balkans and down into Italy. Her father gruffly answered
+that he hoped she would enjoy herself. It seemed infernally unfair that it
+should not be Deborah who was sailing the next morning. But when he felt
+himself growing annoyed, abruptly he put a check on himself. It was Edith
+he must think of now.
+
+But curiously it happened, in this narrowing of his attention, that while
+he shut out two of his daughters, a mere outsider edged closer in.
+
+Johnny Geer was a great help. He was back in Roger's office, and with the
+sharp wits he had gained in his eighteen years of fighting for a chance to
+stay alive, now at Roger's elbow John was watching like a hawk for all the
+little ways and means of pushing up the business. What a will the lad had
+to down bodily ills, what vim in the way he tackled each job. His shrewd
+and cheery companionship was a distraction and relief. John was so funny
+sometimes.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Gale," he said, as Roger came into the office one day.
+
+"Hello, Johnny. How are you?" Roger replied.
+
+"Fine, thank you." And John went on with his work of opening the morning's
+mail. But a few minutes later he gave a cackling little laugh.
+
+"What's so funny?" Roger asked.
+
+"Fellers," was the answer. "Fellers. Human nature. Here's a letter from
+Shifty Sam."
+
+"Who the devil is he? A friend of yours?"
+
+"No," said John, "he's a 'con man.' He works about as mean a graft as any
+you ever heard of. He reads the 'ads' in the papers--see?--of servant girls
+who're looking for work. He makes a specialty of cooks. Then he goes to
+where they live and talks of some nice family that wants a servant right
+away. He claims to be the butler, and he's dressed to look the part. 'There
+ain't a minute to lose,' he says. 'If you want a chawnce, my girl, come
+quick.' He says 'chawnce' like a butler--see? 'Pack your things,' he tells
+her, 'and come right along with me.' So she packs and hustles off with
+him--Sam carrying her suit case. He puts her on a trolley and says, 'I
+guess I'll stay on the platform. I've got a bit of a headache and the air
+will do me good.' So he stays out there with her suit case--and as soon as
+the car gets into a crowd, Sam jumps and beats it with her clothes."
+
+"I see," said Roger dryly. "But what's he writing _you_ about?"
+
+"Oh, it ain't me he's writing to--it's you," was John's serene reply. Roger
+started.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"Well," said the boy in a cautious tone, vigilantly eyeing his chief, "you
+see, a lot of these fellers like Sam have been in the papers lately.
+They're being called a crime wave."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Sam is up for trial this week--and half the Irish cooks in town are
+waiting 'round to testify. And Shifty seems to enjoy himself. His
+picture's in the papers--see? And he wants all the clippings. So he
+encloses a five dollar bill."
+
+"He does, eh--well, you write to Sam and send his money back to him!" There
+was a little silence.
+
+"But look here," said John with keen regret. "We've had quite a lot of
+these letters this week."
+
+Roger wheeled and looked at him.
+
+"John," he demanded severely, "what game have you been up to here?"
+
+"No game at all," was the prompt retort. "Just getting a little business."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, there's a club downtown," said John, "where a lot of these petty
+crooks hang out. I used to deliver papers there. And I went around one
+night this month--"
+
+"_To drum up business?_"
+
+"Yes, sir." Roger looked at him aghast.
+
+"John," he asked, in deep reproach, "do you expect this office to feed the
+vanity of thieves?"
+
+"Where's the vanity," John rejoined, "in being called a crime wave?" And
+seeing the sudden tremor of mirth which had appeared on Roger's face, "Look
+here, Mr. Gale," he went eagerly on. "When every paper in the town is
+telling these fellers where they belong--calling 'em crooks, degenerates,
+and preaching regular sermons right into their faces--why shouldn't we help
+'em to read the stuff? How do we know it won't do 'em good? It's church to
+'em, that's what it is--and business for this office. Nine of these guys
+have sent in their money just in the last week or so--"
+
+"Look out, my boy," said Roger, with slow and solemn emphasis. "If you
+aren't extremely careful you'll find yourself a millionaire."
+
+"But wait a minute, Mr. Gale--"
+
+"Not in this office," Roger said. "Send 'em back, every one of 'em!
+Understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir," was the meek reply. And with a little sigh of regret John
+turned his wits to other kinds and conditions of New Yorkers who might care
+to see themselves in print.
+
+As they worked together day by day, Roger had occasional qualms over
+leaving John here in the hot town while he himself went up to the
+mountains. He even thought of writing to Edith that he was planning to
+bring John, too. But no, she wouldn't like it. So he did something else
+instead.
+
+"John," he said, one morning, "I'm going to raise your salary to a hundred
+dollars a month." Instantly from the lad's bright eyes there shot a look of
+triumph.
+
+"Thanks, Mr. Gale," was his hearty response.
+
+"And in the meantime, Johnny, I want you to take a good solid month off."
+
+"All right, sir, thank you," John replied. "But I guess it won't be quite a
+month. I don't feel as if I needed it."
+
+The next day at the office he appeared resplendent in a brand-new suit of
+clothes, a summer homespun of light gray set off by a tie of flaming red.
+There was nothing soft about that boy. No, Johnny knew how to look out for
+himself.
+
+And Roger went up to the farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+George met him at the station, as he had done a year before. But at once
+Roger noticed a difference. In the short time since his father's death
+certain lines had come in the boy's freckled face, and they gave him a
+thoughtful, resolute look. George's voice was changing. One moment it was
+high and boyish, again a deep and manly bass. As he kept his eyes on the
+horses and talked about his mother, his grandfather from time to time threw
+curious side glances.
+
+"Oh, yes," George was saying, "mother's all right, she's doing fine. It was
+pretty bad at first, though. She wouldn't let me sit up with her any--she
+treated me like a regular kid. But any fellow with any sense could see how
+she was feeling. She'd get thinking of the accident." George stopped short
+and clamped his jaws. "You know, my dad did a wonderful thing," he
+continued presently. "Even when he was dying, and mother and I were there
+by his bed, he remembered how she'd get thinking alone--all about the
+accident. You see he knew mother pretty darned well. So he told her to
+remember that he was the one to blame for it. If it hadn't been for him, he
+said, they would have gone home in the taxi. That's a pretty good point to
+keep in her mind. Don't you think so?" he inquired. And Roger glanced
+affectionately into the anxious face by his side.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it's a mighty good point. Did you think of it?"
+
+"Yes, sir," George replied. "I've told it to her a good many times--that
+and two other points I thought of."
+
+"What are they, son?" asked Roger.
+
+"First," the boy said awkwardly, "about how good she was to him. And
+second, that she let him buy the new car before he died. He had such a lot
+of fun out of that car--"
+
+On the last words the lad's changing voice went from an impressive bass to
+a most undignified treble. He savagely scowled.
+
+"Those three points," he continued, in more careful measured tones, "were
+about all I could think of. I had to use 'em over and over--on mother when
+things got bad, I mean." A flush of embarrassment came on his face. "And
+hold her and kiss her," he muttered. Then he whipped his horses. "We've had
+some pretty bad times this month," he continued, loud and manfully. "You
+see, mother isn't so young as she was. She's well on in her thirties." A
+glimmer of amusement appeared in Roger's heavy eyes. "But she don't cry
+often any more, and with you here we'll pull her through." He shot a quick
+look at his grandfather. "Gee, but I'm glad you're here!" he said.
+
+"So am I," said Roger. And with a little pressure of his hand on George's
+shoulder, "I guess you've had about your share. Now tell me the news. How
+are things on the farm?"
+
+With a breath of evident relief, the lad launched into the animal world.
+And soon he was talking eagerly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the next few days with his daughter Roger found that George was right.
+She had been through the worst of it. But she still had her reactions, her
+spells of emptiness, bleak despair, her moods of fierce rebellion or of
+sudden self-reproach for not having given Bruce more while he lived. And in
+such hours her father tried to comfort her with poor success.
+
+"Remember, child, I'm with you, and I know how it feels," he said. "I went
+through it all myself: When your mother died--"
+
+"But mother was so much older!" He looked at his daughter compassionately.
+
+"How old are you?" he inquired.
+
+"Thirty-six."
+
+"Your mother was thirty-nine," he replied. And at that Edith turned and
+stared at him, bewildered, shocked, brought face to face with a new and
+momentous fact in her life.
+
+"Mother only my age when she died?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger gently, "only three years older." With a twinge of pain
+he noticed two quite visible streaks of gray in his daughter's soft blonde
+hair. "And she felt as you do now--as though she were just starting out.
+And I felt the same way, my dear. If I'm not mistaken, everyone does. You
+still feel young--but the new generation is already growing up--and you can
+feel yourself being pushed on. And it is hard--it is very hard." Clumsily
+he took her hand. "Don't let yourself drop out," he said. "Be as your
+mother would have been if she had been left instead of me. Go straight on
+with your children."
+
+To this note he could feel her respond. And at first, as he felt what a
+fight she was making, Roger glorified her pluck. As he watched her with her
+children at table, smiling at their talk with an evident effort to enter
+in, and again with her baby snug in her lap while she read bedtime stories
+to Bob and little Tad at her side, he kept noticing the resemblance between
+his daughter and his wife. How close were these two members of his family
+drawing together now, one of them living, the other dead.
+
+But later, as the weeks wore on, she began to plan for her children. She
+planned precisely how to fit them all into the house in town, she planned
+the hours for their meals, for their going alone or with the nurse or a
+maid to their different private schools, to music lessons, to dancing
+school and uptown to the park to play. She planned their fall clothes and
+she planned their friends. And there came to her father occasional moods of
+anxiety. He remembered Bruce's grim remarks about those "simple" schools
+and clothes, the kind that always cost the most. And he began to realize
+what Bruce's existence must have been. For scarcely ever in their talks did
+Edith speak of anything outside of her family. Night after night, with a
+tensity born of her struggle with her grief, she talked about her children.
+And Roger was in Bruce's place, he was the one she planned with. At moments
+with a vague dismay he glimpsed the life ahead in his home.
+
+George was hard at work each day down by the broken dam at the mill. He had
+an idea he could patch it up, put the old water-wheel back into place and
+make it run a dynamo, by which he could light the house and barn and run
+the machines in the dairy. In his new rôle as the man of his family, George
+was planning out his career. He was wrestling with a book entitled "Our New
+Mother Earth" and a journal called "The Modern Farm." And to Roger he
+confided that he meant to be a farmer. He wanted to go in the autumn to the
+State Agricultural College. But when one day, very cautiously, Roger spoke
+to Edith of this, with a hard and jealous smile which quite transformed her
+features, she said,
+
+"Oh, I know all about that, father dear. It's just a stage he's going
+through. And it's the same way with Elizabeth, too, and her crazy idea of
+becoming a doctor. She took that from Allan Baird, and George took his from
+Deborah! They'll get over it soon enough--"
+
+"They won't get over it!" Roger cried. "Their dreams are parts of something
+new! Something I'm quite vague about--but some of it has come to stay!
+You're losing all your chances--just as I did years ago! You'll never know
+your children!"
+
+But he uttered this cry to himself alone. Outwardly he only frowned. And
+Edith had gone on to say,
+
+"I do hope that Deborah won't come up this summer. She's been very good and
+kind, of course, and if she comes she'll be doing it entirely on my
+account. But I don't want her here--I want her to marry, the sooner the
+better, and come to her senses--be happy, I mean. And I wish you would tell
+her so."
+
+Within a few days after this Deborah wrote to her father that she was
+coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at first, he had
+William saddled and went for a ride to try to determine what he should do.
+But it was a ticklish business. For women were queer and touchy, and once
+more he felt the working of those uncanny family ties.
+
+"Deborah," he reflected, "is coming up here because she feels it's selfish
+of her to stay away. If she marries at once, as she told me herself, she
+thinks Edith will be hurt. Edith won't be hurt--and if Deborah comes,
+there'll be trouble every minute she stays. But can I tell her so? Not at
+all. I can't say, 'You're not wanted here.' If I do, _she'll_ be hurt. Oh
+Lord, these girls! And Deborah knows very well that if she does get married
+this month, with Laura abroad and Edith up here and only me at the wedding,
+Edith will smile to herself and say, 'Now isn't that just like Deborah?'"
+
+As Roger slowly rode along a steep and winding mountain road, gloomily he
+reflected to what petty little troubles a family of women could descend, so
+soon after death itself. And he lifted his eyes up to the hills and decided
+to leave this matter alone. If women would be women, let them settle their
+own affairs. Deborah was due to arrive on the following Friday evening. All
+right, let her come, he thought. She would soon see she was in the way, and
+then in a little affectionate talk he would suggest that she marry right
+off and have a decent honeymoon before the school year opened.
+
+So he dismissed it from his mind. And as he listened in the dusk to the
+numberless murmuring voices of living creatures large and small which rose
+out of the valley, and as from high above him the serenity of the mountains
+there towering over thousands of years stole into his spirit, Roger had a
+large quieting sense of something high and powerful looking down upon the
+earth, a sense of all humanity honeycombed with millions upon millions of
+small sorrows, absorbing joys and hopes and fears, and in spite of them all
+the Great Life sweeping on, with no Great Death to check its course, no
+immense catastrophe, all these little troubles like mere tiny specks of
+foam upon the surface of the tide.
+
+Deborah's visit, the following week, was as he had expected. Within an hour
+after her coming he could feel the tension grow. Deborah herself was tense,
+both from the work she had left in New York where she was soon to have five
+schools, and from the thought of her marriage, only a few weeks ahead. She
+said nothing about it, however, until as a sisterly duty Edith tried to
+draw her out by showing an interest in her plans. But the cloud of Bruce's
+death was there, and Deborah shunned the topic. She tried to talk of the
+children instead. But Edith at once was on the defensive, vigilant for
+trouble, and as she unfolded her winter plans she grew distinctly brief and
+curt.
+
+"If Deborah doesn't see it now, she's a fool," her father told himself.
+"I'll just wait a few days more, and then we'll have that little talk."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+It had rained so hard for the past two days that no one had gone to the
+village, which was nearly three miles from the farm. But when the storm was
+over at last, George and Elizabeth tramped down and came back at dusk with
+a bag full of mail. Their clothes were mud-bespattered and they hurried
+upstairs to change before supper, while Roger settled back in his chair and
+spread open his New York paper. It was July 30, 1914.
+
+From a habit grown out of thirty odd years of business life, Roger read his
+paper in a fashion of his own. By instinct his eye swept the page for news
+dealing with individual men, for it was upon people's names in print that
+he had made his living. And so when he looked at this strange front page it
+gave him a swift twinge of alarm. For the news was not of men but of
+nations. Austria was massing her troops along the Serbian frontier, and
+Germany, Italy, Russia, France and even England, all were in a turmoil,
+with panics in their capitals, money markets going wild.
+
+Edith came down, in her neat black dress with its narrow white collar,
+ready for supper. She glanced at her father.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Look at this." And he tossed her a paper.
+
+"Oh-h-h," she murmured softly. "Oh, how frightful that would be." And she
+read on with lips compressed. But soon there came from a room upstairs the
+sudden cry of one of her children, followed by a shrill wail of distress.
+And dropping the paper, she hurried away.
+
+Roger continued his reading.
+
+Deborah came. She saw the paper Edith had dropped, picked it up and sat
+down to read, and there were a few moments of absolute silence. Then Roger
+heard a quivering breath, and glancing up he saw Deborah's eyes, intent and
+startled, moving down the columns of print in a swift, uncomprehending way.
+
+"Pretty serious business," he growled.
+
+"It can't happen!" she exclaimed.
+
+And they resumed their reading.
+
+In the next three days, as they read the news, they felt war like a
+whirlpool sucking in all their powers to think or feel, felt their own
+small personal plans whirled about like leaves in a storm. And while their
+minds--at first dazed and stunned by the thought of such appalling armies,
+battles, death and desolation--slowly cleared and they strove to think, and
+Roger thought of business shivered to atoms in every land, and Deborah
+thought of schools by thousands all over Europe closing down, in cities and
+in villages, in valleys and on mountain sides, of homes in panic
+everywhere, of all ideals of brotherhood shaken, bending, tottering--war
+broke out in Europe.
+
+"What is this going to mean to me?"
+
+Millions of people were asking that. And so did Roger and Deborah. The same
+night they left for New York, while Edith with a sigh of relief settled
+back into her family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning at his office Roger found John waiting with misery stamped
+on his face. John had paid small heed to war. Barely stopping for sleep in
+the last two days he had gone through scores and hundreds of papers,
+angrily skipping all those names of kings and emperors and czars, and
+searching instead for American names, names of patrons--business! Gone!
+Each hour he had been opening mail and piling up letters cancelling
+contracts, ordering service discontinued.
+
+Roger sat down at his desk. As he worked and figured and dictated letters,
+glancing into the outer rooms he saw the long rows of girls at tables
+obviously trying to pretend that there was work for them to do. He felt
+them anxiously watching him--as in other offices everywhere millions of
+other employees kept furtively glancing at their chiefs.
+
+"War," he thought. "Shall I close _down?_" He shrank from what it would
+mean to those girls. "Business will pick up again soon. A few
+days--weeks--that's all I need."
+
+And he went to his bank. No credit there. He tried other sources, all he
+could think of, racking his brains as he went about town, but still he
+could not raise a loan. Finally he went to the firm which had once held a
+mortgage on his house. The chief partner had been close to Bruce, an old
+college friend. And when even this friend refused him aid, "It's a question
+of Bruce's children," Roger muttered, reddening. He felt like a beggar, but
+he was getting desperate. The younger man had looked away and was nervously
+tapping his desk with his pen.
+
+"Bad as that, eh," he answered. "Then I guess it's got to be done." He
+looked anxiously up at Roger, who just at that moment appeared very old.
+"Don't worry, Mr. Gale," he said. "Somehow or other we'll carry you
+through."
+
+"Thank you, sir." Roger rose heavily, feeling weak, and took his departure.
+"This is war," he told himself, "and I've got to look after my own."
+
+But he had a sensation almost of guilt, as upon his return to his office he
+saw those suddenly watchful faces. He walked past them and went into his
+room, and again he searched for ways and means. He tried to see his
+business as it would be that autumn, to see the city, the nation, the world
+as it would be in the months ahead. Repeatedly he fought off his fears.
+But slowly and inexorably the sense of his helplessness grew clear.
+
+"No, I must shut down," he thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On his way home that evening, in a crush at a turbulent corner he saw a big
+truck jam into a taxi, and with a throb of rebellion he thought of his
+son-in-law who was dead. Just the turn of a hair and Bruce might have lived
+and been here to look after the children! At the prospect of the crisis,
+the strain he saw before him, Roger again felt weak and old. He shook off
+his dread and strode angrily on.
+
+In his house, the rooms downstairs were still dismantled for the summer.
+There was emptiness and silence but no serenity in them now, only the quiet
+before the storm which he could feel from far and near was gathering about
+his home. He heard Deborah on the floor above, and went up and found her
+making his bed, for the chambermaid had not yet come. Her voice was a
+little unnatural.
+
+"It has been a hard day, hasn't it. I've got your bath-room ready," she
+said. "Don't you want a nice cool bath? Supper will be ready soon."
+
+When, a half hour later, somewhat refreshed, Roger came down to the table,
+he noticed it was set for two.
+
+"Isn't Allan coming?" he asked. Her mobile features tightened.
+
+"Not till later," she replied.
+
+They talked little and the meal was short. But afterwards, on the wooden
+porch, Deborah turned to her father,
+
+"Now tell me about your office," she said.
+
+"There's not enough business to pay the rent."
+
+"That won't last--"
+
+"I'm not so sure."
+
+"I am," she said determinedly. Her father slowly turned his head.
+
+"Are you, with this war?" he asked. Her eyes met his and moved away in a
+baffled, searching manner. "She has troubles of her own," he thought.
+
+"How much can we run the house on, Deborah?" he asked her. At first she did
+not answer. "What was it--about six thousand last year?"
+
+"I think so," she said restlessly. "We can cut down on that, of course--"
+
+"With Edith and the children here?"
+
+"Edith will have to manage it! There are others to be thought of!"
+
+"The children in your schools, you mean."
+
+"Yes," she answered with a frown. "It will be a bad year for the tenements.
+But please go on and tell me. What have you thought of doing?"
+
+"Mortgage the house again," he replied. "It hasn't been easy, for money is
+tight, but I think I'll be able to get enough to just about carry us
+through the year. At home, I mean," he added.
+
+"And the office?"
+
+"Shut down," he said. She turned on him fiercely.
+
+"You won't do that!"
+
+"What else can I do?"
+
+"Turn all those girls away?" she cried. At her tone his look grew troubled.
+
+"How can I help myself, Deborah? If I kept open it would cost me over five
+hundred a week to run. Have I five hundred dollars a week to lose?"
+
+"But I tell you it won't last!" she cried, and again the baffled, driven
+expression swept over her expressive face. "Can't you see this is only a
+panic--and keep going somehow? Can't you see what it means to the
+tenements? Hundreds of thousands are out of work! They're being turned off
+every day, every hour--employers all over are losing their heads! And City
+Hall is as mad as the rest! They've decided already down there to
+retrench!"
+
+He turned with a quick jerk of his head:
+
+"Are they cutting you down?" She set her teeth:
+
+"Yes, they are. But the work in my schools is going on--every bit of it
+is--for every child! I'm going to find a way," she said. And he felt a
+thrill of compassion.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear it," he muttered.
+
+"You needn't be." She paused a moment, smiled and went on in a quieter
+voice: "Don't think I'm blind--I'm sensible--I see you can't lose five
+hundred a week. But why not try what other employers, quite a few, have
+decided to do? Call your people together, explain how it is, and ask them
+to choose a committee to help you find which ones need jobs the most. Keep
+all you can--on part time, of course--but at least pay them something,
+carry them through. You'll lose money by it, I haven't a doubt. But you've
+already found you can mortgage the house, and remember besides that I shall
+be here. I'm not going to marry now"--her father looked at her
+quickly--"and of course I'll expect to do my share toward meeting the
+expenses. Moreover, I know we can cut down."
+
+"Retrench," said Roger grimly. "Turn off the servants instead of the
+clerks."
+
+"No, only one of them, Martha upstairs--and she is to be married. We'll
+keep the cook and the waitress. Edith will have to give up her nurse--and
+it will be hard on her, of course--but she'll have to realize this is war,"
+Deborah said sharply. "Besides," she urged, "it's not going to last.
+Business everywhere will pick up--in a few weeks or months at most. The war
+_can't_ go on--it's too horribly big!" She broke off and anxiously looked
+at him. Her father was still frowning.
+
+"I'm asking you to risk a good deal," she continued, her voice intense and
+low. "But somehow, dearie, I always feel that this old house of ours is
+strong. It can _stand_ a good deal. We can all of us stand so much, as soon
+as we know we have to." The lines of her wide sensitive mouth tightened
+firmly once again. "It's all so vague and uncertain, I know. But one thing
+at least is sure. This is no time for people with money--no matter how
+little--to shut themselves up in their own little houses and let the rest
+starve or beg or steal. This is the time to do our share."
+
+And she waited. But he made no reply.
+
+"Every nation at war is doing it, dad--become like one big family--with
+everyone helping, doing his share. Must a nation be at war to do that?
+Can't we be brothers without the guns? Can't you see that we're all of us
+stunned, and trying to see what war will mean to all the children in the
+world? And while we're groping, groping, can't we give each other a hand?"
+
+Still he sat motionless there in the dark. At last he stirred heavily in
+his chair.
+
+"I guess you're right," he told her. "At least I'll think it over--and try
+to work out something along the lines you spoke of."
+
+Again there was a silence. Then his daughter turned to him with a little
+deprecating smile.
+
+"You'll forgive my--preaching to you, dad?"
+
+"No preaching," he said gruffly. "Just ordinary common sense."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later Allan came in, and Roger soon left them and went to bed.
+Alone with Baird she was silent a moment.
+
+"Well? Have you thought it over?" she asked. "Wasn't I right in what I
+said?" At the anxious ring in her low clear voice, leaning over he took her
+hand; and he felt it hot and trembling as it quickly closed on his. He
+stroked it slowly, soothingly. In the semi-darkness he seemed doubly tall
+and powerful.
+
+"Yes, I'm sure you were right," he said.
+
+"Spring at the latest--I'll marry you then--"
+
+Her eyes were intently fixed on his.
+
+"Come here!" she whispered sharply, and Baird bent over and held her
+tight. "Tighter!" she whispered. "Tighter!... There!... I said, spring at
+the latest! I can't lose you, Allan--now--"
+
+She suddenly quivered as though from fatigue.
+
+"I'm going to watch you close down there," he said in a moment, huskily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Roger saw little of Deborah in the weeks that followed. She was gathering
+her forces for the long struggle she saw ahead. And his own worries filled
+his mind. On his house he succeeded in borrowing five thousand dollars at
+ten per cent, and in his office he worked out a scheme along the lines of
+Deborah's plan. At first it was only a struggle to save the remnants of
+what was left. Later the tide began to turn, new business came into the
+office again. But only a little, and then it stopped. Hard times were here
+for the winter.
+
+Soon Edith would come with the children. He wondered how sensible she would
+be. It was going to mean a daily fight to make ends meet, he told himself,
+and guiltily he decided not to let his daughter know how matters stood in
+his office. Take care of your own flesh and blood, and then be generous as
+you please--that had always been his way. And now Deborah had upset it by
+her emotional appeal. "How dramatic she is at times!" he reflected in
+annoyance. "Just lets herself out and enjoys herself!" He grew angry at her
+interference, and more than once he resolved to shut down. But back in the
+office, before those watchful faces, still again he would put it off.
+
+"Wait a little. We'll see," he thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime, in this interplay, these shifting lights and shadows which
+played upon the history of the life of Roger's home, there came to him a
+diversion from an unexpected source. Laura and Harold returned from abroad.
+Soon after landing they came to the house, and talking fast and eagerly
+they told how they had eluded the war.
+
+For them it had been a glorious game. In Venice in early August, Harold
+had seen a chance for a big stroke of business. He had a friend who lived
+in Rome, an Italian close to his government. At once they had joined
+forces, worked day and night, pulled wires, used money judiciously here and
+there, and so had secured large orders for munitions from the U.S.A. Then
+to get back to God's country! There came the hitch, they were too late.
+Naples, Genoa, and Milan, all were filled with tourist mobs. They took a
+train for Paris, and reaching the city just a week before the end of the
+German drive they found it worse than Italy. But there Hal had a special
+pull--and by the use of those wits of his, not to be downed by refusals, he
+got passage at last for Laura, himself and his new Italian partner. At
+midnight, making their way across the panic-stricken city, and at the
+station struggling through a wild and half crazed multitude of men and
+women and children, they boarded a train and went rushing westward right
+along the edge of the storm. To the north the Germans were so close that
+Laura was sure she could hear the big guns. The train kept stopping to take
+on troops. At dawn some twenty wounded men came crowding into their very
+car, bloody and dirty, pale and worn, but gaily smiling at the pain, and
+saying, "Ça n'fait rien, madame." Later Harold opened his flask for some
+splendid Breton soldier boys just going into action. And they stood up with
+flashing eyes and shouted out the Marseillaise, while Laura shivered and
+thrilled with delight.
+
+"I nearly kissed them all!" she cried.
+
+Roger greatly enjoyed the evening. He had heard so much of the horrors of
+war. Here was something different, something bright and vibrant with youth
+and adventure! Here at last was the thrill of war, the part he had always
+read about!
+
+He glanced now and then at Deborah and was annoyed by what he saw. For
+although she said nothing and forced a smile, he could easily tell by the
+set of her lips that Deborah thoroughly disapproved. All right, that was
+her way, he thought. But this was Laura's way, shedding the gloom and the
+tragic side as a duck will shed water off its back, a duck with bright new
+plumage fresh from the shops of the Rue de la Paix and taking some pleasure
+out of life! What an ardent gleaming beauty she was, he thought as he
+watched this daughter of his. And underneath his enjoyment, too, though
+Roger would not have admitted it, was a sense of relief in the news that at
+least one man in the family was growing rich instead of poor. Already Hal
+and his partner--a fascinating creature according to Laura's
+description--were fast equipping shrapnel mills. Plainly they expected a
+tremendous rush of business. And no matter how you felt about war, the word
+"profits" at least had a pleasant sound.
+
+"How has the war hit you, sir?" Harold asked his father-in-law.
+
+"Oh, so-so, I'll get on, my boy," was Roger's quiet answer. For Harold was
+not quite the kind he would ever like to ask for aid. Still, if the worst
+came to the worst, he would have someone to turn to.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long after they had left the house, he kept thinking over all they had
+said. What an amazing time they had had, the two young scalawags.
+
+Deborah was still in the room. As she sat working at her desk, her back was
+turned and she did not speak. But little by little her father's mood
+changed. Of course she was right, he admitted. For now they were gone, the
+spell they had cast was losing a part of its glamor. Yes, their talk had
+been pretty raw. Sheer unthinking selfishness, a bold rush for plunder and
+a dash to get away, trampling over people half crazed, women and children
+in panicky crowds, and leaving behind them, so to speak, Laura's joyous
+rippling laugh over their own success in the game. Yes, there was no
+denying the fact that Hal was rushing headlong into a savage dangerous
+game, a scramble and a gamble, with adventurers from all over Europe
+gathering here and making a little world of their own. He would work and
+live at a feverish pitch, and Laura would go it as hard as he. Roger
+thought he could see their winter ahead. How they would pile up money and
+spend!
+
+All at once, as though some figure silent and invisible were standing close
+beside him, from far back in his childhood a memory flashed into his mind
+of a keen and clear October night, when Roger, a little shaver of nine, had
+stood with his mother in front of the farmhouse and listened to the faint
+sharp roll of a single drum far down in the valley. And his mother's grip
+had hurt his hand, and a lump had risen in his throat--as Dan, his oldest
+brother, had marched away with his company of New Hampshire mountain boys.
+"We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." Dan had been
+killed at Shiloh.
+
+And it must be like that now in France. No, he did not like the look which
+he had seen on Laura's face as she had talked about the war and the fat
+profits to be made. Was this all we Yankees had to say to the people over
+in Europe?
+
+Frowning and glancing at Deborah's back, he saw that she was tired. It was
+nearly midnight, but still she kept working doggedly on, moving her
+shoulder muscles at times as though to shake off aches and pains, then
+bending again to her labor, her fight against such heavy odds in the winter
+just beginning for those children in the tenements. He recalled a fragment
+of the appeal she had made to him only the month before:
+
+"Can't you see that we're all of us stunned, and trying to see what war
+will mean to all the children in the world? And while we're groping,
+groping, can't we give each other a hand?"
+
+And as he looked at his daughter, she made him think of her grandmother,
+as she had so often done before. For Deborah, too, was a pioneer. She, too,
+had lived in the wilderness. Clearing roads through jungles? Yes. And
+freeing slaves of ignorance and building a nation of new men. And now she
+was doggedly fighting to save what she had builded--not from the raids of
+the Indians but from the ravages of this war which was sweeping
+civilization aside. With her school behind her, so to speak, she stood
+facing this great enemy with stern and angry, steady eyes. Her pioneer
+grandmother come to life.
+
+So, with the deep craving which was a part of his inmost self, Roger tried
+to bind together what was old and what was new. But his thoughts grew vague
+and drifting. He realized how weary he was, and said good-night and went to
+bed. There, just before he fell asleep, again he had a feeling of relief at
+the knowledge that one at least in the family was to be rich this year.
+With a guilty sensation he shook off the thought, and within a few moments
+after that his harsh regular breathing was heard in the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+It was only a few days later that Edith arrived with her children.
+
+Roger met her at the train at eight o'clock in the evening. The fast
+mountain express of the summer had been taken off some time before, so
+Edith had had to be up at dawn and to change cars several times on the
+trip. "She'll be worn out," he thought as he waited. The train was late. As
+he walked about the new station, that monstrous sparkling hive of travel
+with its huge halls and passageways, its little village of shops
+underground and its bewildering levels for trains, he remembered the
+interest Bruce had shown in watching this immense puzzle worked out, the
+day and night labor year after year without the stopping of a train, this
+mighty symbol of the times, of all the glorious power and speed in an age
+that had been as the breath to his nostrils. How Bruce had loved the city!
+As Roger paced slowly back and forth with his hands clasped behind his
+back, there came over his heavy visage a look of affection and regret which
+made even New Yorkers glance at him as they went nervously bustling by.
+From time to time he smiled to himself. "The Catskills will be Central
+Park! All this city needs is speed!"
+
+But suddenly he remembered that Bruce had always been here before to meet
+his wife and children, and that Edith on her approaching train must be
+dreading her arrival. And when at last the train rolled in, and he spied
+her shapely little head in the on-coming throng of travellers, Roger saw by
+her set steady smile and the strained expression on her face that he had
+guessed right. With a quick surge of compassion he pressed forward, kissed
+her awkwardly, squeezed her arm, then hastily greeted the children and
+hurried away to see to the trunks. That much of it was over. And to his
+relief, when they reached the house, Edith busied herself at once in
+helping the nurse put the children to bed. Later he came up and told her
+that he had had a light supper prepared.
+
+"Thank you, dear," she answered, "it was so thoughtful in you. But I'm too
+tired to eat anything." And then with a little assuring smile, "I'll be all
+right--I'm going to bed."
+
+"Good-night, child, get a fine long sleep."
+
+And Roger went down to his study, feeling they had made a good start.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What has become of Martha?" Edith asked her father at breakfast the next
+morning.
+
+"She left last month to be married," he said.
+
+"And Deborah hasn't replaced her yet?" In her voice was such a readiness
+for hostility toward her sister, that Roger shot an uneasy glance from
+under his thick grayish brows.
+
+"Has Deborah left the house?" he asked, to gain time for his answer.
+Edith's small lip slightly curled.
+
+"Oh, yes, long ago," she replied. "She had just a moment to see the
+children and then she had to be off to school--to her office, I mean. With
+so many schools on her hands these days, I don't wonder she hasn't had time
+for the servants."
+
+"No, no, you're mistaken," he said. "That isn't the trouble, it's not her
+fault. In fact it was all my idea."
+
+"_Your_ idea," she retorted, in an amused affectionate tone. And Roger
+grimly gathered himself. It would he extremely difficult breaking his
+unpleasant news.
+
+"Yes," he answered. "You see this damnable war abroad has hit me in my
+business."
+
+"Oh, father! How?" she asked him. In an instant she was all alert. "You
+don't mean seriously?" she said.
+
+"Yes, I do," he answered, and he began to tell her why. But she soon grew
+impatient. Business details meant nothing to Edith. "I see," she kept
+saying, "yes, yes, I see." She wanted him to come to the point.
+
+"So I've had to mortgage the house," he concluded. "And for very little
+money, my dear. And a good deal of that--" he cleared his throat--"had to
+go back into the business."
+
+"I see," said Edith mechanically. Her mind was already far away, roving
+over her plans for the children. For in Roger's look of suspense she
+plainly read that other plans had been made for them in her absence.
+"Deborah's in this!" flashed through her mind. "Tell me what it will mean,"
+she said.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to try to do without your nurse for a while."
+
+"Let Hannah go? Oh, father!" And Edith flushed with quick dismay. "How can
+I, dad? Five children--five! And two of them so little they can't even
+dress themselves alone! And there are all their meals--their baths--and the
+older ones going uptown to school! I can't let them go way uptown on the
+'bus or the trolley without a maid--"
+
+"But, Edith!" he interrupted, his face contracting with distress. "Don't
+you see that they can't go to school?" She turned on him. "Uptown, I mean,
+to those expensive private schools."
+
+"Father!" she demanded. "Do you mean you want my children to go to common
+public schools?" There was rage and amazement upon her pretty countenance,
+and with it an instant certainty too. Yes, this was Deborah's planning! But
+Roger thought that Edith's look was all directed at himself. And for the
+first time in his life he felt the shame and humility of the male provider
+no longer able to provide. He reddened and looked down at his plate.
+
+"You don't understand," he said. "I'm strapped, my child--I can't help
+it--I'm poor."
+
+"Oh. Oh, dad. I'm sorry." He glanced up at his daughter and saw tears
+welling in her eyes. How utterly miserable both of them were.
+
+"It's the war," he said harshly and proudly. This made a difference to his
+pride, but not to his daughter's anxiety. She was not interested in the
+war, or in any other cause of the abyss she was facing. She strove to think
+clearly what to do. But no, she must do her thinking alone. With a sudden
+quiet she rose from the table, went around to her father's chair and kissed
+him very gently.
+
+"All right, dear--I see it all now--and I promise I'll try my best," she
+said.
+
+"You're a brave little woman," he replied.
+
+But after she had gone, he reflected. Why had he called her a brave little
+woman? Why had it all been so intense, the talk upon so heroic a plane? It
+would be hard on Edith, of course; but others were doing it, weren't they?
+Think of the women in Europe these days! After all, she'd be very
+comfortable here, and perhaps by Christmas times would change.
+
+He shook off these petty troubles and went to his office for the day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As she busied herself unpacking the trunks, Edith strove to readjust her
+plans. By noon her head was throbbing, but she took little notice of that.
+She had a talk with Hannah, the devoted Irish girl who had been with her
+ever since George was born. It was difficult, it was brutal. It was almost
+as though in Edith's family there had been two mothers, and one was sending
+the other away.
+
+"There, there, poor child," Edith comforted her, "I'll find you another
+nice family soon where you can stay till I take you back. Don't you see it
+will not be for long?" And Hannah brightened a little.
+
+"But how in the wide wurrld," she asked, "will you ever do for the
+children, me gone?"
+
+"Oh, I'll manage," said Edith cheerfully. And that afternoon she began at
+once to rearrange her whole intricate schedule, with Hannah and school both
+omitted, to fit her children into the house. But instead of this, as the
+days wore on, nerve-racking days of worry and toil, sternly and quite
+unconsciously she fitted the house to her children. And nobody made her
+aware of the fact. All summer long in the mountains, everyone by tacit
+consent had made way for her, had deferred to her grief in the little
+things that make up the everyday life in a home. And to this precedent once
+established Edith now clung unawares.
+
+Her new day gave her small time to think. It began at five in the morning,
+when Roger was awakened by the gleeful cries of the two wee boys who slept
+with their mother in the next room, the room which had been Deborah's. And
+Edith was busy from that time on. First came the washing and dressing and
+breakfast, which was a merry, boisterous meal. Then the baby was taken out
+to his carriage on the porch at the back of the house. And after that, in
+her father's study from which he had fled with his morning cigar, for two
+hours Edith held school for her children, trying her best to be patient and
+clear, with text-books she had purchased from their former schools uptown.
+For two severe hours, shutting the world all out of her head, she tried to
+teach them about it. At eleven, their nerves on edge like her own, she sent
+them outdoors "to play," intrusting the small ones to Betsy and George, who
+took them to Washington Square nearby with strict injunctions to keep them
+away from all other children. No doubt there were "nice" children there,
+but she herself could not be along to distinguish the "nice" from the
+"common"--for until one o'clock she was busy at home, bathing the baby and
+making the beds, and then hurrying to the kitchen to pasteurize the baby's
+milk and keep a vigilant oversight on the cooking of the midday meal. And
+the old cook's growing resentment made it far from easy.
+
+After luncheon, thank heaven, came their naps. And all afternoon, while
+again they went out, Edith would look over their wardrobes, mend and alter
+and patch and contrive how to make last winter's clothes look new. At times
+she would drop her work in her lap and stare wretchedly before her. This
+was what she had never known; this was what made life around her grim and
+hard, relentless, frightening; this was what it was to be poor. How it
+changed the whole city of New York. Behind it, the sinister cause of it
+all, she thought confusedly now and then of the Great Death across the sea,
+of the armies, smoking battle-fields, the shrieks of the dying, the
+villages blazing, the women and children flying away. But never for more
+than a moment. The war was so remote and dim. And soon she would turn back
+again to her own beloved children, whose lives, so full of happiness, so
+rich in promise hitherto, were now so cramped and thwarted. Each day was
+harder than the last. It was becoming unbearable!
+
+No, they must go back to school. But how to manage it? How? How? It would
+cost eight hundred dollars, and this would take nearly all the money she
+would be able to secure by the sale of her few possessions. And then what?
+What of sickness, and the other contingencies which still lay ahead of her?
+How old her father seemed, these days! In his heavy shock of hair the
+flecks of white had doubled in size, were merging one into the other, and
+his tall, stooping, massive frame had lost its look of ruggedness. Suppose,
+suppose.... Her breath came fast. Was his life insured, she wondered.
+
+On such afternoons, in the upstairs room as the dusk crept in and
+deepened, she would bend close to her sewing--planning, planning, planning.
+At last she would hear the children trooping merrily into the house. And
+making a very real effort, which at times was in truth heroic, to smile,
+she would rise and light the gas, would welcome them gaily and join in
+their chatter and bustle about on the countless tasks of washing them,
+getting their suppers, undressing the small ones and hearing their prayers.
+With smiling good-night kisses she would tuck her two babies into their
+cribs. Afterward, just for a moment or two, she would linger under the gas
+jet, her face still smiling, for a last look. A last good-night. Then
+darkness.
+
+Darkness settling over her spirit, together with loneliness and fatigue.
+She would go into Betsy's room and throw herself dressed on her daughter's
+bed, and a dull complete indifference to everything under the moon and the
+stars would creep from her body up into her mind. At times she would try to
+fight it off. To-night at dinner she must not be what she knew she had been
+the night before, a wet blanket upon all the talk. But if they only knew
+how hard it was--what a perfect--hell it was! Her breath coming faster, she
+would dig her nails into the palms of her hands. One night she noticed and
+looked at her hand, and saw the skin was actually cut and a little blood
+was appearing. She had read of women doing this, but she had never done it
+before--not even when her babies were born. She had gripped Bruce's hand
+instead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+Roger found her like that one evening. He heard what he thought was a sob
+from the room, for she had forgotten to close the door. He came into the
+doorway but drew back, and closed the door with barely a sound. Frowning
+and irresolute, he stood for a moment in the hall, then turned and went
+into his room. Soon he heard Deborah enter the house and come slowly up the
+stairs. She too had had a hard day, he recalled, a day all filled with
+turbulence, with problems and with vexing toil, in her enormous family. And
+he felt he could not blame her for not being of more help at home. Still,
+he had been disappointed of late in her manner toward her sister. He had
+hoped she would draw closer to Edith, now that again they were living
+together in their old home where they had been born. But no, it had worked
+just the opposite way. They were getting upon each other's nerves. Why
+couldn't she make overtures, small kindly proffers of help and advice and
+sympathy, the womanly things?
+
+From his room he heard her knock softly at the same door he had closed. And
+he heard her low clear voice:
+
+"Are you there, Edith dear?" He listened a moment intently, but he could
+not hear the reply. Then Deborah said, "Oh, you poor thing. I'm awfully
+sorry. Edith--don't bother to come downstairs--let me bring you up your
+supper." A pause. "I wish you would. I'd love to."
+
+He heard Deborah come by his door and go up the second flight of stairs to
+the room she had taken on the third floor.
+
+"I was wrong," he reflected, "she has been trying--but it doesn't do any
+good. Women simply haven't it in 'em to see each other's point of view.
+Deborah doesn't admire Edith--she can't, she only pities her and puts her
+down as out of date. And Edith feels that, and it gets her riled, and she
+sets herself like an angry old hen against all Deborah's new ideas. Why the
+devil can't they live and let live?"
+
+And he hesitated savagely between a pearl gray _and_ a black cravat. Then
+he heard another step on the stairs. It was much slower than Deborah's, and
+cautious and dogged, one foot lifted carefully after the other. It was
+John, who had finished his kitchen supper and was silently making his way
+up through the house to his room at the top, there to keep out of sight for
+the evening. And it came into Roger's mind that John had been acting in
+just this fashion ever since Edith had been in the house.
+
+"We'll have trouble there, too!" he told himself, as he jerked the black
+satin cravat into place, a tie he thoroughly disliked. Yes, black, by
+George, he felt like it to-night! These women! These evenings! This worry!
+This war! This world gone raving, driveling mad!
+
+And frowning with annoyance, Roger went down to his dinner.
+
+As he waited he grew impatient. He had eaten no lunch, he was hungry; and
+he was very tired, too, for he had had his own hard day. Pshaw! He got up
+angrily. _Somebody_ must be genial here. He went into the dining room and
+poured himself a good stiff drink. Roger had never been much of a drinker.
+Ever since his marriage, cigars had been his only vice. But of late he had
+been having curious little sinking spells. They worried him, and he told
+himself he could not afford to get either too tired or too faint.
+
+Nevertheless, he reflected, it was setting a bad example for George. But
+glancing into his study he saw that the lad was completely absorbed. With
+knees drawn up, his long lank form all hunched and huddled on the lounge,
+hair rumpled, George was reading a book which had a cover of tough gray
+cloth. At the sight of it his grandfather smiled, for he had seen it once
+before. Where George had obtained it, the Lord only knew. Its title was
+"Bulls and Breeding." A thoroughly practical little book, but nothing for
+George's mother to see. As his grandfather entered behind him, the boy
+looked up with a guilty start, and resumed with a short breath of relief.
+
+Young Elizabeth, too, had a furtive air, for instead of preparing her
+history lesson she was deep in the evening paper reading about the war
+abroad. Stout and florid, rather plain, but with a frank, attractive face
+and honest, clear, appealing eyes, this curious creature of thirteen was
+sitting firmly in her chair with her feet planted wide apart, eagerly
+scanning an account of the work of American surgeons in France. And again
+Roger smiled to himself. (He was feeling so much better now.) So Betsy was
+still thinking of becoming a surgeon. He wondered what she would take up
+next. In the past two years in swift succession she had made up her mind to
+be a novelist, an actress and a women's college president. And Roger liked
+this tremendously.
+
+He loved to watch these two in the house. Here again his family was
+widening out before him, with new figures arising to draw his attention
+this way and that. But these were bright distractions. He took a deep,
+amused delight in watching these two youngsters caught between two fires,
+on the one side their mother and upon the other their aunt; both obviously
+drawn toward Deborah, a figure who stood in their regard for all that
+thrilling outside world, that heaving sparkling ocean on which they too
+would soon embark; both sternly repressing their eagerness as an insult to
+their mother, whom they loved and pitied so, regarding her as a brave and
+dear but rapidly ageing creature "well on in her thirties," whom they must
+cherish and preserve. They both had such solemn thoughts as they looked at
+Edith in her chair. But as Roger watched them, with their love and their
+solemnity, their guilt and their perplexity, with quiet enjoyment he would
+wait to see the change he knew would come. And it always did. The sudden
+picking up of a book, the vanishing of an anxious frown, and in an instant
+their young minds had turned happily back into themselves, into their own
+engrossing lives, their plans, their intimate dreams and ambitions, all so
+curiously bound up with memories of small happenings which had struck them
+as funny that day and at which they would suddenly chuckle aloud.
+
+And this was only one stage in their growth. What would be the next, he
+asked, and all the others after that? What kind of world would they live
+in? Please heaven, there would be no wars. Many old things, no doubt, would
+be changed, by the work of Deborah and her kind--but not too many, Roger
+hoped. And these young people, meanwhile, would be bringing up children in
+their turn. So the family would go on, and multiply and scatter wide, never
+to unite again. And he thought he could catch glimpses, very small and far
+away but bright as patches of sunlight upon distant mountain tops, into the
+widening vista of those many lives ahead. A wistful look crept over his
+face.
+
+"In their lives too we shall be there, the dim strong figures of the past."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Deborah came into the room, and at once the whole atmosphere changed. Her
+niece sprang up delightedly.
+
+"Why, Auntie, how lovely you look!" she exclaimed. And Roger eyed Deborah
+in surprise. Though she did not believe in mourning, she had been wearing
+dark gowns of late to avoid hurting Edith's feelings. But to-night she had
+donned bright colors instead; her dress was as near décolleté as anything
+that Deborah wore, and there was a band of dull blue velvet bound about
+her hair.
+
+"Thanks, dearie," she said, smiling. "Shall we go in to dinner now?" she
+added to her father. "Edith said not to wait for her--and I'll have to be
+off rather early this evening."
+
+"What is it to-night?" he inquired.
+
+"A big meeting at Cooper Union."
+
+And at dinner she went on to say that in her five schools the neighborhood
+clubs had combined to hold this meeting, and she herself was to preside. At
+once her young niece was all animation.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could go and hear you!" she sighed.
+
+"Afraid you can't, Betsy," her aunt replied. And at this, with an
+instinctive glance toward the door where her mother would soon come in to
+stop by her mere presence all such conversation, Elizabeth eagerly threw
+out one inquiry after the other, pell mell.
+
+"How on earth do you do it?" she wanted to know. "How do you get a speech
+ready, Aunt Deborah--how much of it do you write out ahead? Aren't you just
+the least bit nervous--now, I mean--this minute? And how will you feel on
+the platform? _What on earth do you do with your feet?_"
+
+As the girl bent forward there with her gaze fixed ardently on her aunt,
+her grandfather thought in half comic dismay, "Lord, now she'll want to be
+a great speaker--like her aunt. And she will tell her mother so!"
+
+"What's the meeting all about?" he inquired. And Deborah began to explain.
+
+In her five schools the poverty was rapidly becoming worse. Each week more
+children stayed away or came to school ragged and unkempt, some without any
+overcoats, small pitiful mites wearing shoes so old as barely to stick on
+their feet. And when the teachers and visitors followed these children into
+their homes they found bare, dirty, chilly rooms where the little folk
+shivered and wailed for food and the mothers looked distracted, gaunt and
+sullen and half crazed. Over three hundred thousand workers were idle in
+the city. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, half the money from uptown
+which had gone in former years into work for the tenements was going over
+to Belgium instead. And the same relentless drain of war was felt by the
+tenement people themselves; for all of them were foreigners, and from their
+relatives abroad, in those wide zones of Europe already blackened and laid
+waste, in endless torrents through the mails came wild appeals for money.
+
+In such homes her children lived. And Deborah had set her mind on vigorous
+measures of relief. Landlords must be made to wait and the city be
+persuaded to give work to the most needy, food and fuel must be secured. As
+she spoke of the task before her, with a flush of animation upon her bright
+expressive face at the thought that in less than an hour she would be
+facing thousands of people, the gloom of the picture she painted was
+dispelled in the spirit she showed.
+
+"These things always work out," she declared, with an impatient shrug of
+her shoulders. And watching her admiringly, young Betsy thought, "How
+strong she is! What a wonderful grown-up woman!" And Roger watching
+thought, "How young."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What things?" It was Edith's voice at the door, and among those at the
+table there was a little stir of alarm. She had entered unnoticed and now
+took her seat. She was looking pale and tired. "What things work out so
+finely?" she asked, and with a glance at Deborah's gown,
+
+"Where are you going?" she added.
+
+"To a meeting," Deborah answered.
+
+"Oh." And Edith began her soup. In the awkward pause that followed, twice
+Deborah started to speak to her sister, but checked herself, for at other
+dinners just like this she had made such dismal failures.
+
+"By the way, Edith," she said, at last, "I've been thinking of all that
+furniture of yours which is lying in storage." Her sister looked up at her,
+startled.
+
+"What about it?" she asked.
+
+"There's so much of it you don't care for," Deborah answered quietly. "Why
+don't you let a part of it go? I mean the few pieces you've always
+disliked."
+
+"For what purpose?"
+
+"Why, it seems such a pity not to have Hannah back in the house. She would
+make things so much easier." Roger felt a glow of relief.
+
+"A capital plan!" he declared at once.
+
+"It would be," Edith corrected him, "if I hadn't already made _other_
+plans." And then in a brisk, breathless tone, "You see I've made up my
+mind," she said, "to sell not only part but _all_ my furniture--very
+soon--and a few other belongings as well--and use the money to put George
+and Elizabeth and little Bob back in the schools where they belong."
+
+"Mother!" gasped Elizabeth, and with a prolonged "Oh-h" of delight she ran
+around to her mother's chair.
+
+"But look here," George blurted worriedly, "I don't like it, mother, darned
+if I do! You're selling everything--just for school!"
+
+"School is rather important, George," was Edith's tart rejoinder. "If you
+don't think so, ask your aunt." "What do you think of it, Auntie?" he
+asked. The cloud which had come on Deborah's face was lifted in an instant.
+
+"I think, George," she answered gently, "that you'd better let your mother
+do what she thinks best for you. It _will_ make things easier here in the
+house," she added, to her sister, "but I wish you could have Hannah, too."
+
+"Oh, I'll manage nicely now," said Edith. And with a slight smile of
+triumph she resumed her dinner.
+
+"The war won't last forever," muttered Roger uneasily. And to himself: "But
+suppose it _should_ last--a year or more." He did not approve of Edith's
+scheme. "It's burning her bridges all at once, for something that isn't
+essential," he thought. But he would not tell her so.
+
+Meanwhile Deborah glanced at the clock.
+
+"Oh! It's nearly eight o'clock! I must hurry or I'll be late," she said.
+"Good-night, all--"
+
+And she left them.
+
+Roger followed her into the hall.
+
+"What do you think of this?" he demanded. Her reply was a tolerant shrug.
+
+"It's her own money, father--"
+
+"All her money!" he rejoined. "Every dollar she has in the world!"
+
+"But I don't just see how it can be helped."
+
+"Can't you talk to her, show her what folly it is?"
+
+"Hardly," said Deborah, smiling. Already she had on her coat and hat and
+was turning to go. And her father scowled with annoyance. She was always
+going, he told himself, leaving him to handle her sister alone. He would
+like to go out himself in the evenings--yes, by George, this very night--it
+would act like a tonic on his mind. Just for a moment, standing there, he
+saw Cooper Union packed to the doors, he heard the ringing speeches, the
+cheers. But no, it was not to be thought of. With this silent war going on
+in his house he knew he must stay neutral. Watchful waiting was his course.
+If he went out with Deborah, Edith would be distinctly hurt, and sitting
+all evening here alone she would draw still deeper into herself. And so it
+would be night after night, as it had been for many weeks. He would be
+cooped up at home while Deborah did the running about.... In half the time
+it takes to tell it, Roger had worked himself into a state where he felt
+like a mighty badly used man.
+
+"I wish you _would_ speak to her," he said. "I wish you could manage to
+find time to be here more in the evenings. Edith worries so much and she's
+trying so hard. A little sympathy now and then--"
+
+"But she doesn't seem to want any from me," said his daughter, a bit
+impatiently. "I know it's hard--of course it is. But what can I do? She
+won't let me help. And besides--there are other families, you
+know--thousands--really suffering--for the lack of all that we have here."
+She smiled and kissed him quickly. "Good-night, dad dear, I've got to run."
+
+And the door closed behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+After dinner that night, in the living room the two older children studied
+their lessons and Edith sat mending a pair of rompers for little Tad.
+Presently Roger came out from his den with the evening paper in his hand
+and sat down close beside her. He did this conscientiously almost every
+evening. With a sigh he opened his paper to read, again there was silence
+in the room, and in this silence Roger's mind roamed far away across the
+sea.
+
+For the front page of his paper was filled with the usual headlines,
+tidings which a year before would have made a man's heart jump into his
+throat, but which were getting commonplace now. Dead and wounded by the
+thousands, famine, bombs and shrapnel, hideous atrocities, submarines and
+floating mines, words once remote but now familiar, always there on the
+front page and penetrating into his soul, becoming a part of Roger Gale, so
+that never again when the war was done would he be the same man he was
+before. For he had forever lost his faith in the sanity and steadiness of
+the great mind of humanity. Roger had thought of mankind as mature, but
+there had come to him of late the same feeling he had had before in the
+bosom of his family. Mankind had suddenly unmasked and shown itself for
+what it was--still only a precocious child, with a terrible precocity. For
+its growth had been one sided. Its strength was growing at a speed
+breathless and astounding. But its vision and its poise, its sense of human
+justice, of kindliness and tolerance and of generous brotherly love, these
+had been neglected and were being left behind. Vaguely he thought of its
+ships of steel, its railroads and its flaming mills, its miracles, its
+prodigies. And the picture rose in his mind of a child, standing there of
+giant's size with dangerous playthings in its hands, and boastfully
+declaring,
+
+"I can thunder over the earth, dive in the ocean, soar on the clouds! I can
+shiver to atoms a mountain, I can drench whole lands with blood! I can look
+up and laugh at God!"
+
+And Roger frowned as he read the news. What strange new century lay ahead?
+What convulsing throes of change? What was in store for his children?
+Tighter set his heavy jaw.
+
+"It shall be good," he told himself with a grim determination. "For them
+there shall be better things. Something great and splendid shall come out
+of it at last. They will look back upon this time as I look on the French
+Revolution."
+
+He tried to peer into that world ahead, dazzling, distant as the sun. But
+then with a sigh he returned to the news, and little by little his mind
+again was gripped and held by the most compelling of all appeals so far
+revealed in humanity's growth, the appeal of war to the mind of a man. He
+frowned as he read, but he read on. Why didn't England send over more men?
+
+The clock struck nine.
+
+"Now, George. Now, Elizabeth," Edith said. With the usual delay and
+reluctance the children brought their work to an end, kissed their mother
+and went up to bed. And Edith continued sewing. Presently she smiled to
+herself. Little Tad had been so droll that day.
+
+On the third page of his paper, Roger's glance was arrested by a full
+column story concerning Deborah's meeting that night. And as in a long
+interview he read here in the public print the same things she had told him
+at supper, he felt a little glow of pride. Yes, this daughter of his was a
+wonderful woman, living a big useful life, taking a leading part in work
+which would certainly brighten the lives of millions of children still
+unborn. Again he felt the tonic of it. Here was a glimmer of hope in the
+world, here was an antidote to war. He finished the column and glanced up.
+
+Edith was still sewing. He thought of her plan to sell all she possessed in
+order to put her children back in their expensive schools uptown.
+
+"Why can't she save her money?" he thought. "God knows there's little
+enough of it left. But I can't tell her that. If I do she'll sell
+everything, hand me the cash and tell me she's sorry to be such a burden.
+She'll sit like a thundercloud in my house."
+
+No, he could say nothing to stop her. And over the top of his paper her
+father shot a look at her of keen exasperation. Why risk everything she had
+to get these needless frills and fads? Why must she cram her life so full
+of petty plans and worries and titty-tatty little jobs? For the Lord's
+sake, leave their clothes alone! And why these careful little rules for
+every minute of their day, for their washing, their dressing, their eating,
+their napping, their play and the very air they breathed! He crumpled his
+paper impatiently. She was always talking of being old-fashioned. Well
+then, why not be that way? Let her live as her grandmother had, up there in
+the mountain farmhouse. _She_ had not been so particular. With one hired
+girl she had thought herself lucky. And not only had she cooked and sewed,
+but she had spun and woven too, had churned and made cheese and pickles and
+jam and quilts and even mattresses. Once in two months she had cut Roger's
+hair, and the rest of the time she had let him alone, except for something
+really worth while--a broken arm, for example, or church. She had stuck to
+the essentials!... But Edith was not old-fashioned, nor was she alive to
+this modern age. In short, she was neither here nor there!
+
+Then from the nursery above, her smallest boy was heard to cry. With a
+little sigh of weariness, quickly she rose and went upstairs, and a few
+moments later to Roger's ears came a low, sweet, soothing lullaby. Years
+ago Edith had asked him to teach her some of his mother's cradle songs. And
+the one which she was singing to-night was a song he had heard when he was
+small, when the mountain storms had shrieked and beat upon the rattling old
+house and he had been frightened and had cried out and his mother had come
+to his bed in the dark. He felt as though she were near him now. And as he
+listened to the song, from the deep well of sentiment which was a part of
+Roger Gale rose memories that changed his mood, and with it his sense of
+proportions.
+
+Here was motherhood of the genuine kind, not orating in Cooper Union in the
+name of every child in New York, but crooning low and tenderly, soothing
+one little child to sleep, one of the five she herself had borne, in agony,
+without complaint. How Edith had slaved and sacrificed, how bravely she had
+rallied after the death of her husband. He remembered her a few hours ago
+on the bed upstairs, spent and in anguish, sobbing, alone. And remorse came
+over him. Deborah's talk at dinner had twisted his thinking, he told
+himself. Well, that was Deborah's way of life. She had her enormous family
+and Edith had her small one, and in this hell of misery which war was
+spreading over the earth each mother was up in arms for her brood. And, by
+George, of the two he didn't know but that he preferred his own flesh and
+blood. All very noble, Miss Deborah, and very dramatic, to open your arms
+to all the children under the moon and get your name in the papers. But
+there was something pretty fine in just sitting at home and singing to one.
+
+"All right, little mother, you go straight ahead. This is war and panic and
+hard times. You're perfectly right to look after your own."
+
+He would show Edith he did not begrudge her this use of her small
+property. And more than that, he would do what he could to take her out of
+her loneliness. How about reading aloud to her? He had been a capital
+reader, during Judith's lifetime, for he had always enjoyed it so. Roger
+rose and went to his shelves and began to look over the volumes there.
+Perhaps a book of travel.... Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."
+
+Meanwhile Edith came into the room, sat down and took up her sewing. As she
+did so he turned and glanced at her, and she smiled brightly back at him.
+Yes, he thought with a genial glow, from this night on he would do his
+part. He came back to his chair with a book in his hand, prepared to start
+on his new course.
+
+"Father," she said quietly. Her eyes were on the work in her lap.
+
+"Yes, my child, what is it?"
+
+"It's about John," she answered. And with a movement of alarm he looked at
+his daughter intently.
+
+"What's the matter with John?" he inquired.
+
+"He has tuberculosis," she said.
+
+"He has no such thing!" her father retorted. "John has Pott's Disease of
+the spine!"
+
+"Yes, I know he has," she replied. "And I'm sorry for him, poor lad. But in
+the last year," she added, "certain complications have come. And now he's
+tubercular as well."
+
+"How do you know? He doesn't cough--his lungs are sound as yours or mine!"
+
+"No, it's--" Edith pursed her lips. "It's different," she said softly.
+
+"Who told you?" he demanded.
+
+"Not Deborah," was the quick response. "She knew it, I'm certain, for I
+find that she's been having Mrs. Neale, the woman who comes in to wash, do
+John's things in a separate tub. I found her doing it yesterday, and she
+told me what Deborah had said."
+
+"It's the first I'd heard of it," Roger put in.
+
+"I know it is," she answered. "For if you'd heard of it before, I don't
+believe you'd have been as ready as Deborah was, apparently, to risk
+infecting the children here." Edith's voice was gentle, slow and
+relentless. There was still a reflection in her eyes of the tenderness
+which had been there as she had soothed her child to sleep. "As time goes
+on, John is bound to get worse. The risk will be greater every week."
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" cried her father. "No such thing! You're just scaring yourself
+over nothing at all!"
+
+"Doctor Lake didn't think I was." Lake was the big child specialist in
+whose care Edith's children had been for years. "I talked to him to-day on
+the telephone, and he said we should get John out of the house."
+
+Roger heartily damned Doctor Lake!
+
+"It's easy to find a good home for the boy," Edith went on quietly, "close
+by, if you like--in some respectable family that will be only too thankful
+to take in a boarder."
+
+"How about the danger to that family's children?" Roger asked malignantly.
+
+"Very well, father, do as you please. Take any risk you want to."
+
+"I'm taking no risk," he retorted. "If there were any risk they would have
+told me--Allan and Deborah would, I mean."
+
+"They wouldn't!" burst from Edith with a vehemence which startled him.
+"They'd take the same risk for my children they would for any street urchin
+in town! All children are the same in their eyes--and if you feel as they
+do--"
+
+"I don't feel as they do!"
+
+"Don't you? Then I'm telling you that Doctor Lake said there was very
+serious risk--every day this boy remains in the house!" Roger rose angrily
+from his chair:
+
+"So you want me to turn him out! To-night!"
+
+"No, I want you to wait a few days--until we can find him a decent home."
+
+"All right, I won't do it!"
+
+"Very well, father--it's your house, not mine."
+
+For a few moments longer she sat at her sewing, while her father walked the
+floor. Then abruptly she rose, her eyes brimming with tears, and left the
+room. And he heard a sob as she went upstairs.
+
+"Now she'll shut herself up with her children," he reflected savagely, "and
+hold the fort till I come to terms!" Rather than risk a hair on their
+heads, Edith would turn the whole world out of doors! He thought of Deborah
+and he groaned. She would have to be told of this; and when she was, what a
+row there would be! For Johnny was one of _her_ family. He glanced at the
+clock. She'd be coming home soon. Should he tell her? Not to-night! Just
+for one evening he'd had enough!
+
+He picked up the book he had meant to read--Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."
+And Roger snorted wrathfully. By George, how _he'd_ like to go to Japan--or
+to darkest Africa! Anywhere!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+But later in the evening, when Allan and Deborah came in, Roger, who in the
+meantime had had a good hour in Japan and was somewhat relaxed and soothed,
+decided at once this was the time to tell her and have done with it. For
+Deborah was flushed with triumph, the meeting had been a huge success.
+Cooper Union had been packed to the walls, with an overflow meeting out on
+the street; thousands of dollars had been pledged and some big politicians
+had promised support; and men and women, rich and poor, had volunteered
+their services. She started to tell him about it, but noticed his troubled
+expression and asked him what was on his mind.
+
+"Oh, nothing tremendous," Roger said. "I hate to be any damper to-night. I
+hadn't meant to tell you to-night--but I think I will now, for you look as
+though you could find a solution for anything."
+
+"Then I must look like an idiot," his daughter said good-humoredly. "What
+is it?" she demanded.
+
+"It's about John." Her countenance changed.
+
+"Oh. Is he worse?"
+
+"Edith thinks he is--and she says it's not safe."
+
+"I see--she wants him out of the house. Tell me what she said to you." As
+he did so she listened intently, and turning to Allan at the end, "What do
+you say to this, Allan?" she asked. "Is there any real risk to the
+children?"
+
+"A little," he responded. "As much as they take every day in the trolley
+going to school."
+
+"They never go in the trolley," Deborah answered dryly. "They always go on
+the top of the 'bus." She was silent for a moment. "Well, there's no use
+discussing it. If Edith feels that way, John must go. The house won't be
+livable till he does."
+
+Roger looked at her in surprise. He felt both relieved and disappointed.
+"John's only one of thousands to her," he told himself aggrievedly. "He
+isn't close to her, she hasn't room, she has a whole mass meeting in her
+head. But I haven't, by George, I like the boy--and I'm the one who will
+have to tell him to pack up and leave the house! Isn't it the very devil,
+how things all come back on me?"
+
+"Look here, father," Deborah said, "suppose you let me manage this." And
+Roger's heavy visage cleared.
+
+"You mean you'll tell him?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, "and he'll understand it perfectly. I think he has been
+expecting it. I have, for a good many weeks," she added, with some
+bitterness. "And I know some people who will be glad enough to take him in.
+I'll see that he's made comfortable. Only--" her face clouded.
+
+"It has meant a lot to him, being here," her father put in gruffly.
+
+"Oh, John's used to getting knocks in this world." Her quiet voice grew
+hard and stern. "I wasn't thinking of John just now. What frightens me at
+times like this is Edith," she said slowly. "No, not just
+Edith--motherhood. I see it in so many mothers these days--in the women
+downtown, in their fight for their children against all other children on
+earth. It's the hardest thing we have to do--to try to make them see and
+feel outside of their own small tenement homes--and help each other--pull
+together. They can't see it's their only chance! And all because of this
+mother love! It's so blind sometimes, like an animal!" She broke off, and
+for a moment she seemed to be looking deep into herself. "And I suppose
+we're all like that, we women are," she muttered, "when we marry and have
+children. If the pinch is ever hard enough--"
+
+"_You_ wouldn't be," said Allan. And a sudden sharp uneasiness came into
+Roger's mind.
+
+"When are you two to be married?" he asked, without stopping to think. And
+at once he regretted his question. With a quick impatient look at him,
+Allan bent over a book on the table.
+
+"I don't know," Deborah answered. "Next spring, I hope." The frown was
+still on her face.
+
+"Don't make it too long," said her father brusquely. He left them and went
+up to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Deborah sat motionless. She wished Allan would go, for she guessed what was
+coming and did not feel equal to it to-night. All at once she felt tired
+and unnerved from her long exciting evening. If only she could let go of
+herself and have a good cry. She locked her hands together and looked up at
+him with impatience. He was still at the table, his back was turned.
+
+"Don't you _know_ I love you?" she was thinking fiercely. "Can't you see
+it--haven't you seen it--growing, growing--day after day? But I don't want
+you here to-night! Why can't you see you must leave me alone? Now! This
+minute!"
+
+He turned and came over in front of her, and stood looking steadily down.
+
+"I wonder," he said slowly, "how well you understand yourself."
+
+"I think I do," she muttered. With a sudden twitching of her lip she looked
+quickly up at him. "Go on, Allan--let's talk it all over now if you must!"
+
+"Not if you feel like that," he said. At his tone of displeasure she caught
+his hand.
+
+"Yes, yes, I want to! Please!" she cried. "It's better--really! Believe me,
+it is--"
+
+He hesitated a moment, his wide generous mouth set hard, and then in a tone
+as sharp as hers he demanded, "Are you sure you'll marry me next spring?
+Are you sure you _hope_ you will next spring? Are you sure this sister of
+yours in the house, on your nerves day and night, with this blind narrow
+motherhood, this motherhood which frightens you--isn't frightening you too
+much?"
+
+"No--a little--but not too much." Her deep sweet voice was trembling.
+"You're the one who frightens me. If you only knew! When you come like
+this--with all you've done for me back of you--"
+
+"Deborah! Don't be a fool!"
+
+"Oh, I know you say you've done nothing, except what you've been glad to
+do! You love me like that! But it's just that love! Giving up all your
+practice little by little, and your reputation uptown--all for the sake of
+me, Allan, me!"
+
+"You're wrong," he replied. "Compared to what I'm getting, I've given up
+nothing! Can't you see? You're just as narrow in your school as Edith is
+right here in her home! You look upon my hospital as a mere annex to your
+schools, when the truth of it is that the work down there is a chance I've
+wanted all my life! Can't you understand," he cried, "that instead of your
+being in debt to me it's I who am in debt to you? You're a suffragist, eh,
+a feminist--whatever you want to call it! All right! So you want to be
+equal with man! Then, for God's sake, why not begin? _Feel_ equal! I'm no
+annex to you, nor you to me! It has happened, thank God, that our work fits
+in--each with the other!"
+
+He stopped and stared, seemed to shake himself; he walked the floor. And
+when he turned back his expression had changed.
+
+"Look here, Deborah," he asked, with an appealing humorous smile, "will you
+tell me what I'm driving at?"
+
+Deborah threw back her head and laughed, and her laughter thrilled with
+relief. "How sure I feel now that I love him," she thought.
+
+"You've proved I owe you nothing!" she cried. "And that men and women of
+our kind can work on splendidly side by side, and never bother our poor
+little heads about anything else--even marriage!"
+
+"We will, though!" he retorted. The next moment she was in his arms. "Now,
+Deborah, listen to reason, child. Why can't you marry me right away?"
+
+"Because," she said, "when I marry you I'm going to have you all to
+myself--for weeks and weeks as we planned before! And afterwards, with a
+wonderful start--and with the war over, work less hard and the world less
+dark and gloomy--we're going to find that at last we can live! But this
+winter it couldn't be like that. This winter we've got to go on with our
+work--and without any more silly worries or talk about whether or not we're
+in love. _For we are_!" Her upturned face was close to his, and for some
+moments nothing was said, "Well?" she asked. "Are you satisfied?"
+
+"No--I want to get married. But it is now a quarter past one. And I'm your
+physician. Go straight to bed."
+
+She stopped him a minute at the front door:
+
+"Are you sure, absolutely, you understand?"
+
+He told her he did. But as he walked home he reflected. How tense she had
+been in the way she had talked. Yes, the long strain was telling. "Why was
+she so anxious to get me out of the house," he asked, "when we were alone
+for the first time in days? And why, if she's really sure of her love, does
+she hate the idea that she's in my debt?"
+
+He walked faster, for the night was cold. And there was a chill, too, in
+this long waiting game.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger heard Deborah come up to bed, and he wondered what they had been
+talking about. Of the topic he himself had broached--each other, love and
+marriage?
+
+"Possibly--for a minute or two--but no more," he grumbled. "For don't
+forget there's work to discuss, there's that mass meeting still on her
+mind. And God knows a woman's mind is never any child's play. But when you
+load a mass meeting on top--"
+
+Here he yawned long and noisily. His head ached, he felt sore and
+weak--"from the evening's entertainment my other daughter gave me." No, he
+was through, he had had enough. They could settle things to suit
+themselves. Let Edith squander her money on frills, the more expensive the
+better. Let her turn poor Johnny out of the house, let her give full play
+to her motherhood. And if that scared Deborah out of marrying, let her stay
+single and die an old maid. He had worried enough for his family. He wanted
+a little peace in his house.
+
+Drowsily he closed his eyes, and a picture came into his mind of the city
+as he had seen it only a few nights before. It had been so cool, so calm
+and still. At dusk he had been in the building of the great tower on
+Madison Square; and when he had finished his business there, on an impulse
+he had gone up to the top, and through a wide low window had stood a few
+moments looking down. A soft light snow was falling; and from high up in
+the storm, through the silent whirling flakes, he had looked far down upon
+lights below, in groups and clusters, dancing lines, between tall phantom
+buildings, blurred and ghostly, faint, unreal. From all that bustle and
+fever of life there had risen to him barely a sound. And the town had
+seemed small and lonely, a little glow in the infinite dark, fulfilling its
+allotted place for its moment in eternity. Suddenly from close over his
+head like a brazen voice out of the sky, hard and deafening and clear, the
+great bell had boomed the hour. Then again had come the silence, and the
+cool, soft, whirling snow.
+
+Like a dream it faded all away, and with a curious smile on his face
+presently Roger fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+And now he felt the approach at last of another season of quiet, one of
+those uneventful times which come in family histories. As he washed and
+dressed for dinner, one night a little later, he thought with satisfaction,
+"How nicely things are smoothing out." His dressing for dinner, as a rule,
+consisted in changing his low wing collar and his large round detachable
+cuffs; but to-night he changed his cravat as well, from a black to a pearl
+gray one. He hoped the whole winter would be pearl gray.
+
+The little storm which Edith had raised over John's presence in the house
+had been allayed. Deborah had talked to John, and had moved him with his
+belongings to a comfortable sunny room in the small but neat apartment of a
+Scotch family nearby. And John had been so sensible. "Oh, I'm fine, thank
+you," he had answered simply, when in the office Roger had asked him about
+his new home. So that incident was closed. Already Edith was disinfecting
+John's old room to her heart's content, for George was to occupy it now.
+She was having the woodwork repainted and a new paper put on the walls. She
+had already purchased a small new rug, and a bed and a bureau and one easy
+chair, and was making a pair of fresh pretty curtains. All right, let her
+do it--if only there could be peace in the house.
+
+With his cravat adjusted and his thick-curling silver hair trim from having
+just been cut by "Louis" over at the Brevoort, Roger went comfortably down
+to his dinner. Edith greeted him with a smile.
+
+"Deborah's dining out," she said.
+
+"Very well," he replied, "so much the better. We'll go right in--I'm
+hungry. And we'll have the evening to ourselves. No big ideas nor problems.
+Eh, daughter?" He slipped his hand in hers, and she gave it a little
+affectionate squeeze. With John safely out of the way, and not only the
+health of her children but their proper schooling assured, Edith was
+herself again, placid, sweet and kindly. And dinner that night was a
+cheerful meal. Later, in the living room, as Roger contentedly lit his
+cigar, Edith gave an appreciative sniff.
+
+"You do smoke such good cigars, father," she said, smiling over her needle.
+And glancing up at her daughter, "Betsy, dear," she added, "go and get your
+grandfather's evening paper."
+
+In quiet perusal of the news he spent the first part of his evening. The
+war did not bother him to-night, for there had come a lull in the fighting,
+as though even war could know its place. And times were better over here.
+As, skipping all news from abroad his eye roved over the pages for what his
+business depended upon, Roger began to find it now. The old familiar
+headliness were reappearing side by side--high finance exposures, graft,
+the antics and didos cut up by the sons and daughters of big millionaires;
+and after them in cheery succession the Yale-Harvard game, a new man for
+the Giants, a new college building for Cornell, a new city plan for
+Seattle, a woman senator in Arizona and in Chicago a "sporting mayor." In
+brief, all over the U.S.A., men and women old and new had risen up, to
+power, fame, notoriety, whatever you chose to call it. Men and women?
+Hardly. "Children" was the better word. But the thought did not trouble
+Roger to-night. He had instead a heartening sense of the youth, the wild
+exuberance, the boundless vigor in his native land. He could feel it rising
+once again. Life was soon to go on as before; people were growing hungry to
+see the names of their countrymen back in the headlines where they
+belonged. And Roger's business was picking up. He was not sure of the
+figure of his deficit last week--he had always been vague on the
+book-keeping side--but he knew it was down considerably.
+
+When Betsy and George had gone to bed, Roger put down his paper.
+
+"Look here, Edith," he proposed, "how'd you like me to read aloud while you
+sew?" She looked up with a smile of pleased surprise.
+
+"Why, father dear, I'd love it." At once, she bent over her needle again,
+so that if there were any awkwardness attending this small change in their
+lives it did not reveal itself in her pretty countenance. "What shall we
+read?" she affably asked.
+
+"I've got a capital book," he replied. "It's about travel in Japan."
+
+"I'd like nothing better," Edith replied. And with a slight glow of pride
+in himself Roger took his book in hand. The experiment was a decided
+success. He read again the next night and the next, while Edith sat at her
+sewing. And so this hour's companionship, from nine to ten in the evening,
+became a regular custom--just one hour and no more, which Roger spent with
+his daughter, intimately and pleasantly. Yes, life was certainly smoothing
+out.
+
+Edith's three older children had been reinstated in school. And although at
+first, when deprived of their aid, she had found it nearly impossible to
+keep her two small boys amused and give them besides the four hours a day
+of fresh air they required, she had soon met this trouble by the same
+simple process as before. Of her few possessions still unsold, she had
+disposed of nearly all, and with a small fund thus secured she had sent for
+Hannah to return. The house was running beautifully.
+
+Christmas, too, was drawing near. And though Roger knew that in Edith's
+heart was a cold dread of this season, she bravely kept it to herself; and
+she set about so determinedly to make a merry holiday, that her father
+admiring her pluck drew closer still to his daughter. He entered into her
+Christmas plans and into all the conspiracies which were whispered about
+the house. Great secrets, anxious consultations, found in him a ready
+listener.
+
+So passed three blessed quiet weeks, and he had high hopes for the winter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+If there were any cloud upon his horizon, it was the thought of Laura. She
+had barely been to the house since Edith had come back to town; and at
+times, especially in the days when things had looked dark for Roger, he had
+caught himself reproaching this giddy-gaddy youngest child, so engrossed in
+her small "ménage" that apparently she could not spare a thought for her
+widowed sister. Laura on her return from abroad had brought as a gift for
+Edith a mourning gown from Paris, a most alluring creation--so much so, in
+fact, that Edith had felt it simply indecent, insulting, and had returned
+it to her sister with a stilted note of thanks. But Roger did not know of
+this. There were so many ways, he thought, in which Laura might have been
+nice to Edith. She had a gorgeous limousine in which she might so easily
+have come and taken her sister off on little trips uptown. But no, she kept
+her car to herself. And from her small apartment, where a maid whom she had
+brought from Rome dressed her several times each day, that limousine rushed
+her noiselessly forth, gay and wild as ever, immaculate and elegant,
+radiant and very rich. To what places did she go? What new friends was she
+making? What was Laura up to?
+
+He did not like her manner, one evening when she came to the house. As he
+helped her off with her cloak, a sleek supple leopard skin which fitted her
+figure like a glove, he asked,
+
+"Where's Hal this evening?" And she answered lightly,
+
+"Oh, don't ask _me_ what he does with himself."
+
+"You mean, I suppose," said Edith, with quiet disapproval, "that he is
+rushed to death this year with all this business from the war."
+
+"Yes, it's business," Laura replied, as she deftly smoothed and patted her
+soft, abundant, reddish hair. "And it's war, too," she added.
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked. He knew what she meant, war with her
+husband. But before Laura could answer him, Edith cut in hastily, for two
+of her children were present. At dinner she turned the talk to the war. But
+even on this topic, Laura's remarks were disturbing. She did not consider
+the war wholly bad--by no means, it had many good points. It was clearing
+away a lot of old rubbish, customs, superstitions and institutions out of
+date. "Musty old relics," she called them. She spoke as though repeating
+what someone else had told her. Laura with her chicken's mind could never
+have thought it all out by herself. When asked what she meant, she was
+smilingly vague, with a glance at Edith's youngsters. But she threw out
+hints about the church and even Christianity, as though it were falling to
+pieces. She spoke of a second Renaissance, "a glorious pagan era" coming.
+And then she exploded a little bomb by inquiring of Edith.
+
+"What do you think the girls over there are going to do for husbands, with
+half the marriageable men either killed or hopelessly damaged? They're not
+going to be nuns all their lives!"
+
+Again her sister cut her off, and the rest of the brief evening was
+decidedly awkward. Yes, she was changing, growing fast. And Roger did not
+like it. Here she was spending money like water, absorbed in her pleasures,
+having no baby, apparently at loose ends with her husband, and through it
+all so cocksure of herself and her outrageous views about war, and smiling
+about them with such an air, and in her whole manner, such a tone of amused
+superiority. She talked about a world for the strong, bits of gabble from
+Nietzsche and that sort of rot; she spoke blithely of a Rome reborn, the
+"Wings of the Eagles" heard again. This part of it she had taken, no doubt,
+from her new Italian friend, her husband's shrapnel partner.
+
+Pshaw! What was Laura up to?
+
+But that was only one evening. It was not repeated, another month went
+quickly by, and Roger had soon shaken it from him, for he had troubles
+enough at home. One daughter at a time, he had thought. And as the dark
+clouds close above him had cleared, the other cloud too had drifted away,
+until it was small, just on the horizon, far away from Roger's house. What
+was Laura up to? He barely ever thought of that now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But one night when he came home, Edith, who sat in the living room reading
+aloud to her smaller boys, gave him a significant look which warned him
+something had happened. And turning to take off his overcoat, in the hall
+he almost stumbled upon a pile of hand luggage, two smart patent leather
+bags, a hat trunk and a sable cloak.
+
+"Hello," he exclaimed. "What's this? Who's here?"
+
+"Laura," Edith answered. "She's up in Deborah's room, I think--they've been
+up there for over an hour." Roger looked indignantly in at his daughter.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Edith replied. "They didn't seem to need me.
+They made it rather plain, in fact. Another quarrel, I presume. She came
+into the house like a whirlwind, asked at once for Deborah and flew up to
+Deborah's room."
+
+"Pshaw!" Roger heavily mounted the stairs. He at least did not feel like
+flying. A whirlwind, eh--a nice evening ahead!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, in her room upstairs Deborah sat motionless, sternly holding her
+feelings down, while in a tone now kindly but more often full of a sharp
+dismay, she threw out question after question to Laura who was walking the
+floor in a quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her
+voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.
+
+"No, this time it's divorce!" she declared, at the end of her first
+outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband's double life.
+"I've stood it long enough! I'm through!"
+
+"You mean you don't care for him," Deborah said. She was fighting for time
+to think it out. "You want a divorce. Very well, Laura dear--but how do you
+think you are going to get it? The laws are rather strict in this state.
+They allow but one cause. Have you any proofs?"
+
+"No, I haven't--but I don't need any proofs! He wants it as badly as I do!
+Wait--I'll give you his very words!" Laura's face grew white with fury.
+"'It's entirely up to you, Sweetie'--the beast!--'You can have any kind of
+divorce you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to
+fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the
+reporters and tell them all about yourself!'"
+
+"_Your husband is to bring suit against you_?" Deborah's voice was loud and
+harsh. "For God's sake, Laura, what do you mean?"
+
+"Mean? I mean that _he has proofs_! He has used a detective, the mean
+little cur, and he's treating me like the dirt under his feet! Just as
+though it were one thing for a man, and another--quite--for a woman! He
+even had the nerve to be mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn
+me!--turn me out on the street!" Deborah winced as though from a blow. "Oh,
+it was funny, funny!" Laura was almost sobbing now.
+
+"Stop, this minute!" Deborah said. "You say that you've been doing--what he
+has?" she demanded.
+
+"Why shouldn't I? What do you know about it? Are you going to turn against
+me, too?"
+
+"I am--pretty nearly--"
+
+"Oh, good God!" Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her walking.
+
+"Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain."
+
+"Explain--to you? How can I? _You_ don't understand--you know nothing about
+it--all you know about is schools! You're simply a nun when it comes to
+this. I see it now--I didn't before--I thought you a modern woman--with
+your mind open to new ideas. But it isn't, it seems, when it comes to a
+pinch--it's shut as tight as Edith's is--"
+
+"Yes, tight!"
+
+"Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you kindly leave me
+alone! I'll have a talk with father!"
+
+"You will _not_ have a talk with father--"
+
+"I most certainly will--and he'll understand! He's a man, at least--and he
+led a man's life before he was married!"
+
+"Laura!"
+
+"_You_ can't see it in him--_but I can_!"
+
+"You'll say not a word to him, not one word! He has had enough this year as
+it is!"
+
+"Has he? Then I'm sorry! If _you_ were any help to me--instead of acting
+like a nun--"
+
+"Will you please stop talking like a fool?"
+
+"I'm not! I'm speaking the truth and you know it! You know no more about
+love like mine than a nun of the middle ages! You needn't tell me about
+Allan Baird. You think you're in love with him, don't you? Well then, I'll
+tell you that you're not--your love is the kind that can wait for
+years--because it's cold, it's cold, it's cold--it's all in your mind and
+your reason! And so I say you're no help to me now! Here--look at yourself
+in the glass over there! You're just plain angry--frightened!"
+
+"Yes--I am--I'm frightened." While she strove to think clearly, to form
+some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly on:
+
+"I know you are! And you can't be fair! You're like nearly all American
+women--married or single, young or old--you're all of you scared to death
+about sex--just as your Puritan mothers were! And you leave it alone--you
+keep it down--you never give it a chance--you're afraid! But I'm not
+afraid--and I'm living my life! And let me tell you I'm not alone! There
+are hundreds and thousands doing the same--right here in New York City
+to-night! It's been so abroad for years and years--in Rome and Berlin, in
+Paris and London--and now, thank God, it has come over here! If our
+husbands can do it, why can't we? And we are--we're starting--it's come
+with the war! You think war is hell and nothing else, don't you--but you're
+wrong! It's not only killing men--it's killing a lot of hypocrisies
+too--it's giving a jolt to marriage! You'll see what the women will do soon
+enough--when there aren't enough men any longer--"
+
+"Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you've done,"
+Deborah interrupted. A simple course of action had just flashed into her
+mind.
+
+"All right, I will. I'm not ashamed. I've given you this 'tirade' to show
+you exactly how I feel--that it's not any question of sin or guilt or any
+musty old rubbish like that! I know I'm right! I know just what I'm doing!"
+
+"Who's the man? That Italian?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Right here in New York."
+
+"Does he mean to stand by you?"
+
+"Of course he does."
+
+"Will he marry you, Laura?"
+
+"Yes, he will--the minute I'm free from my beast of a husband!"
+
+"And your husband will keep his suit quiet, you said, if you agree not to
+fight him."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Deborah rose abruptly.
+
+"Then will you stay right here to-night, and leave this matter to me?" she
+asked.
+
+"What do _you_ mean to do?"
+
+"See your husband."
+
+"What for? When?"
+
+"To-night, if I can. I want to be sure."
+
+Laura looked for the moment nonplussed.
+
+"And what of my wishes?" she inquired.
+
+"_Your_ wishes," said Deborah steadily. "You want a divorce, don't you--so
+do I. And you want it quiet--and so do I. I want it so hard that I want to
+make sure." Deborah's tone was kinder now, and she came over close to her
+sister. "Look here, Laura, if I've been hard, forgive me--please--and let
+me help. I'm not so narrow as you think. I've been through a good deal of
+this before--downtown, I mean, with girls in my school. They come to me, we
+have long talks. Maybe I _am_ a nun--as you say--but I'm one with a
+confessional. Not for sins," she added, as Laura looked up angrily. "Sins
+don't interest me very much. But troubles do. And heaven knows that
+marriage is one," she said with a curious bitterness. "And when it has
+failed and there's no love left--as in your case--I'm for divorce. Only--"
+her wide sensitive lips quivered just a little, "I'm sorry it had to come
+like this. But I love you, dear, and I want to help, I want to see you
+safely through. And while I'm doing it, if we can, I want to keep dad out
+of it--at least until it's settled." She paused a moment. "So if you agree,
+I'll go to your husband. I want to be sure, absolutely, just what we can
+count on. And until I come back, stay here in my room. You don't want to
+talk to father and Edith--"
+
+"Most certainly not!" Laura muttered.
+
+"Good. Then stay here until I return. I'll send you up some supper."
+
+"I don't want any, thank you."
+
+Laura went and threw herself on the bed, while her sister finished
+dressing.
+
+"It's decent of you, Deborah." Her voice was muffled and relaxed. "I wasn't
+fair," she added. "I'm sorry for some of the things I said."
+
+"About me and marriage?" Deborah looked at herself in the glass in a
+peculiar searching way. A slight spasm crossed her features. "I'm not sure
+but that you were right. At times I feel far from certain," she said. Laura
+lifted her head from the pillow, watched her sister a moment, dropped back.
+
+"Don't let this affect _you_, Deborah."
+
+"Oh, don't worry, dearie." And Deborah moved toward the door. "My affair is
+just mine, you see, and this won't make any difference."
+
+But in her heart she knew it would. What an utter loathing she had to-night
+for all that people meant by sex! Suddenly she was quivering, her limbs and
+her whole body hot.
+
+"You say I'm cold," she was thinking. "Cold toward Allan, calm and cool,
+nothing but mind and reason! You say it means little to me, all that! But
+if I had had trouble with Allan, would I have come running home to talk?
+Wouldn't I have hugged it tight? And isn't that love? What do _you_ know of
+me and the life I've led? Do you know how it feels to want to work, to be
+something yourself, without any man? And can't _that_ be a passion? Have
+you had to live with Edith here and see what motherhood can be, what it can
+do to a woman? And now you come with _another_ side, just as narrow as
+hers, devouring everything else in sight! And because I'm a little afraid
+of that, for myself and all I want to do, you say I don't know what love
+is! But I do! And my love's worth more than yours! It's deeper, richer, it
+will last!... Then why do I loathe it _all_ to-night?... But I don't, I
+only loathe _your_ side!... But yours is the very heart of it!... All
+right, then what am I going to do?"
+
+She was going slowly down the stairs. She stopped for a moment, frowning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+On the floor below she met her father, who was coming out of his room. He
+looked at her keenly:
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Laura's here," she answered. "Trouble again with her husband. Better leave
+her alone for the present--she's going to stay in my room for a while."
+
+"Very well," her father grunted, and they went down to dinner. There
+Deborah was silent, and Edith did most of the talking. Edith, quite aware
+of the fact that Laura and all Laura's ways were in disgrace for the
+moment, and that she and her ways with her children shone by the
+comparison, was bright and sweet and tactful. Roger glanced at her more
+than once, with approval and with gratitude for the effort she was making
+to smooth over the situation. Deborah rose before they had finished.
+
+"Where are you off to?" Roger asked.
+
+"Oh, there's something I have to attend to--"
+
+"School again this evening, dear?" inquired Edith cheerfully, but her
+sister was already out of the room. She looked at her father with quiet
+concern. "I'm sorry she has to be out to-night--to-night of all nights,"
+she murmured.
+
+"Humph!" ejaculated her father. This _eternal_ school business of Deborah's
+was beginning to get on his nerves. Yes, just a little on his nerves! Why
+couldn't she give up one evening, just one, and get Laura out of this snarl
+she was in? He heard her at the telephone, and presently she came back to
+them.
+
+"Oh, Edith," she said casually, "don't send any supper up to Laura. She
+says she doesn't want any to-night. And ask Hannah to put a cot in my room.
+Will you?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I'll attend to it."
+
+"Thanks." And again she left them. In silence, when the front door closed,
+Edith looked at her father. This must be rather serious, Roger thought
+excitedly. So Laura was to stay all night, while Deborah gallivanted off to
+those infernal schools of hers! He had little joy in his paper that night.
+The news of the world had such a trick of suddenly receding a million miles
+away from a man the minute he was in trouble. And Roger was in trouble.
+With each slow tick of the clock in the hall he grew more certain and more
+disturbed. An hour passed. The clock struck nine. With a snort he tossed
+his paper aside.
+
+"Well, Edith," he said glumly, "how about some chess this evening?" In
+answer she gave him a quick smile of understanding and sympathy.
+
+"All right, father dear." And she fetched the board. But they had played
+only a short time when Deborah's latchkey was heard in the door. Roger gave
+an angry hitch to his chair. Soon she appeared in the doorway.
+
+"May I talk to you, father?" she asked.
+
+"I suppose so." Roger scowled.
+
+"You'll excuse us, Edith?" she added.
+
+"Oh, assuredly, dear." And Edith rose, looking very much hurt. "Of course,
+if I'm not needed--"
+
+At this her father scowled again. Why couldn't Deborah show her sister a
+little consideration?
+
+"What is it?" he demanded.
+
+"Suppose we go into the study," she said.
+
+He followed her there and shut the door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well?" he asked, from his big leather chair. Deborah had remained
+standing.
+
+"I've got some bad news," she began.
+
+"What is it?" he snapped. "School burnt down?" Savagely he bit off a
+cigar.
+
+"I've just had a talk with Harold," she told him. He shot a glance of
+surprise and dismay.
+
+"Have, eh--what's it all about?"
+
+"It's about a divorce," she answered.
+
+The lighted match dropped from Roger's hand. He snatched it up before it
+was out and lit his cigar, and puffing smoke in a vigilant way again he
+eyed his daughter.
+
+"I've done what I could," she said painfully, "but they seem to have made
+up their minds."
+
+"Then they'll unmake 'em," he replied, and he leaned forward heavily.
+"They'll unmake 'em," he repeated, in a thick unnatural tone. "I'm not
+a'goin' to hear to it!" In a curious manner his voice had changed. It
+sounded like that of a man in the mountains, where he had been born and
+raised. This thought flashed into Deborah's mind and her wide resolute
+mouth set hard. It would be very difficult.
+
+"I'm afraid this won't do, father dear. Whether you give your consent or
+not--"
+
+"Wun't, wun't it! You wait and see if it wun't!" Deborah came close to him.
+
+"Suppose you wait till you understand," she admonished sternly.
+
+"All right, I'm waiting," he replied. She felt herself trembling deep
+inside. She did not want him to understand, any more than she must to
+induce him to keep out of this affair.
+
+"To begin with," she said steadily, "you will soon see yourself, I think,
+that they fairly loathe the sight of each other--that there is no real
+marriage left."
+
+"That's fiddlesticks!" snapped Roger. "Just modern talk and new
+ideas--ideas you're to blame for! Yes, you are--you put 'em in her
+head--you and your gabble about woman's rights!" He was angry now. He was
+glad he was angry. He'd just begun!
+
+"If you want me to leave her alone," his daughter cut in sharply, "just say
+so! I'll leave it all to you!" And she saw him flinch a little. "What would
+be _your_ idea?" she asked.
+
+"My idea? She's to go straight home and make up with him!"
+
+She hesitated. Then she said:
+
+"Suppose there's another woman."
+
+"Then he's a beast," growled Roger.
+
+"And yet you want her to live with him?"
+
+He scowled, he felt baffled, his mind in a whirl. And a wave of
+exasperation suddenly swept over him.
+
+"Well, why shouldn't she?" he cried. "Other wives have done it--millions!
+Made a devilish good success of it, too--made new men of their husbands!
+Let her show him she's ready to forgive! That's only Christian, ain't it?
+Hard? Of course it's hard on her! But can you tell me one hard thing she
+has ever had to do in her life? Hasn't it been pleasure, pleasure from the
+word go? Can't she stand something hard? Don't we all of us have to? I
+do--God knows--with all of you!" And he puffed his cigar in a fury. His
+daughter smiled. She saw her chance.
+
+"Father," she said, in a low clear voice, "You've had so _many_ troubles.
+Why not leave this one to me? You can't help--no matter how hard you
+try--you'll only make it worse and worse. And you've been through so much
+this year--you've earned the right to be quiet. And that's what _they_
+want, both of them--they both want it quiet, without any scandal." Her
+father glared, for he knew about scandal, he handled it in his office each
+day. "Let me manage this--please," she said. And her offer tempted him. He
+struggled for a moment.
+
+"No, I won't!" he burst out in reply. "I want quiet right enough, but not
+at the price of her peace with her God!" This sounded foolish, he felt
+that it did, and he flushed and grew the angrier. "No, I won't," he said
+stubbornly. "She'll go back to him if I take her myself. And what's more,"
+he added, rising, "she's to go straight back to-night!"
+
+"She is not going back to-night, my dear." And Deborah caught her father's
+arm. "Sit down, please--"
+
+"I've heard enough!"
+
+"I'm afraid you haven't," she replied.
+
+"Very well." His smile was caustic. "Give me some more of it," he said.
+
+"Her husband won't have her," said Deborah bluntly. "He told me so
+himself--to-night."
+
+"Did, eh--then _I'll_ talk to him!"
+
+"He thinks," she went on in a desperate tone, "that Laura has been
+leading--'her own little life'--as he put it to me."
+
+"_Eh_?"
+
+"He is bringing suit himself."
+
+"_Oh! He is_!" cried Roger hoarsely. "Then I _will_ talk to this young
+man!" But she put out a restraining hand:
+
+"Father! Don't try to fight this suit!"
+
+"You watch me!" he snarled. Tears showed in her eyes:
+
+"Think! Oh, please! Think what you're doing! Have you ever seen a
+divorce-court--here, in New York? Do you know what it's like? What it _can_
+be like?"
+
+"Yes," Roger panted. He did know, and the picture came vividly into his
+mind--a mass of eager devouring eyes fixed on a girl in a witness chair.
+"To-morrow I see a lawyer!" he said.
+
+"No--you won't do that, my dear," Deborah told him sadly. "Laura's husband
+has got proofs."
+
+Her father looked up slowly and glared into his daughter's face.
+
+"I've seen them myself," she added. "And Laura has admitted it, too."
+
+Still for a moment he stared at her. Then slowly he settled back in his
+chair, his eyes dropped in their sockets, and very carefully, with a hand
+which was trembling visibly, he lifted his cigar to his lips. It had gone
+nearly out, but he drew on it hard until it began to glow again.
+
+"Well," he asked simply, "what shall we do?"
+
+Sharply Deborah turned away. To be quiet, to be matter of fact, to act as
+though nothing had happened at all--she knew this was what he wanted now,
+what he was silently begging her to be for his sake, for the family's sake.
+For he had been raised in New England. And so, when she turned back to him,
+her voice was flat and commonplace.
+
+"Keep her here," she said. "Let him do what he likes. There'll be nothing
+noisy, he promised me that. But keep her here till it's over."
+
+Roger smoked for a moment, and said,
+
+"There's Edith and her children."
+
+"The children needn't know anything--and Edith only part of it."
+
+"The less, the better," he grunted.
+
+"Of course." She looked at him anxiously. This tractable mood of his might
+not last. "Why not go up and see her now--and get it all over--so you can
+sleep."
+
+Over Roger's set heavy visage flitted a smile of grim relish at that.
+Sleep! Deborah was funny. Resolutely he rose from his chair.
+
+"You'll be careful, of course," she admonished him, and he nodded in reply.
+At the door he turned back:
+
+"Where's the other chap?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered. "Surely you don't want to see _him_--." Her
+father snorted his contempt:
+
+"See him? No. Nor she neither. _She's_ not to see him. Understand?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell her that to-night."
+
+"Look here." Roger eyed his daughter a moment.
+
+"You've done well. I've no complaint. But don't try to manage everything."
+
+He went out and slowly climbed the stairs. Outside the bedroom door he
+paused. When had he stood like this before? In a moment he remembered. One
+evening some two years ago, the night before Laura's wedding, when they had
+had that other talk. And so it had come to this, had it. Well, there was no
+use making a scene. Again, with a sigh of weariness, Laura's father knocked
+at her door.
+
+"Come in, Deborah," she said.
+
+"It isn't Deborah, it's I." There was a little silence.
+
+"Very well, father, come in, please." Her voice sounded tired and lifeless.
+He opened the door and found the room dark. "I'm over on the bed," she
+said. "I've had a headache this evening."
+
+He came over to the bedside and he could just see her there, a long shadow
+upon the white. She had not taken off her clothes. He stood a moment
+helplessly.
+
+"Please don't _you_ talk to me!" His daughter fiercely whispered. "I can't
+stand any more to-night!"
+
+"I won't," he answered. "It's too late." Again there was a pause.
+
+"What time is it?" she asked him. But he did not answer.
+
+"Well, Laura," he said presently, "your sister has told me everything. She
+has seen your husband--it's all arranged--and you're to stay here till it's
+over ... You want to stay here, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then it's settled," he went on. "There's only one thing--the other man. I
+don't know who he is and I don't want to know. And I don't want you to know
+him again. You're not to see him. Understand?" For a moment Laura was
+silent.
+
+"I'm going to marry him, father," she said. And standing in the darkened
+room Roger stiffened sharply.
+
+"Well," he answered, after a pause, "that's your affair. You're no longer a
+child. I wish you were," he added.
+
+Suddenly in the darkness Laura's hand came out clutching for his. But he
+had already turned to the door.
+
+"Good-night," he said, and left her.
+
+In the hallway below he met Deborah, and to her questioning look he
+replied, "All right, I guess. Now I'm going to bed." He went into his room
+and closed the door.
+
+As soon as Roger was alone, he knew this was the hardest part--to be here
+by himself in this intimate room, with this worn blue rug, these pictures
+and this old mahogany bed. For he had promised Judith his wife to keep
+close to the children. What would she think of him if she knew?
+
+Judith had been a broad-minded woman, sensible, big-hearted. But she never
+would have stood for this. Once, he recollected, she had helped a girl
+friend to divorce her husband, a drunkard who ran after chorus girls. But
+that had been quite different. There the wife had been innocent and had
+done it for her children. Laura was guilty, she hadn't a child, she was
+already planning to marry again. And then what, he asked himself. "From bad
+to worse, very likely. A woman can't stop when she's started downhill." His
+eye was caught by the picture directly before him on the wall--the one his
+wife had given him--two herdsmen with their cattle high up on a shoulder of
+a sweeping mountain side, tiny blue figures against the dawn. It had been
+like a symbol of their lives, always beginning clean glorious days. What
+was Laura beginning?
+
+"Well," he demanded angrily, as he began to jerk off his clothes, "what can
+I do about it? Try to keep her from re-marrying, eh? And suppose I
+succeeded, how long would it last? She wouldn't stay here and I couldn't
+keep her. She'll be independent now--her looks will be her bank account.
+There'd be some other chap in no time, and he might not even marry her!" He
+tugged ferociously at his boots. "No, let well enough alone!"
+
+He finished undressing, opened the window, turned out the gas and got into
+bed. Wearily he closed his eyes. But after a time he opened them and stared
+long through the window up at the beetling cliff of a building close by,
+with its tier upon tier of lighted apartments, a huge garish hive of homes.
+Yes, the town was crowding down on him to-night, on his house and on his
+family. He realized it had never stopped, and that his three grown
+children, each one of them a part of himself, had been struggling with it
+all the time. Laura--wasn't she part of himself? Hadn't he, too, had his
+little fling, back in his early twenties? "You will live on in our
+children's lives." She was a part of him gone wild. She gave it free rein,
+took chances. God, what a chance she had taken this time! The picture of
+that court he had seen, with the girl in the witness chair and those many
+rows of eyes avidly fixed upon her, came back to his mind so vividly they
+seemed for a moment right here in the room, these eyes of the town boring
+into his house. Angrily he shut out the scene. And alone in the darkness,
+Roger said to his daughter all the ugly furious things he had not said to
+her upstairs--until at last he was weary of it.
+
+"Why am I working myself all up? I've got to take this. It's my medicine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+But as he watched Laura in the house, Roger's first emotions were
+complicated more and more by a feeling of bewilderment. At dinner the next
+evening he noticed with astonishment that she appeared like her natural
+self. "She's acting," he decided. But this explanation he soon dismissed.
+No, it was something deeper. She was actually unashamed, unafraid. That
+first display of feelings, the night of her arrival, had been only the
+scare of an hour. Within a few days she was back on her feet; and her cure
+for her trouble, if trouble she felt, was not less but more pleasure, as
+always. She went out nearly every evening now; and when she had spent what
+money she had, she sold a part of her jewelry to the little old Galician
+Jew in the shop around the corner. Yes, she was her natural self. And she
+was as before to her father. Her attitude said plainly,
+
+"It isn't fair to you, poor dear, to expect you to fully understand how
+right I am in this affair. And considering your point of view, you're
+acting very nicely."
+
+Often as she talked to him a note of good-humored forgiveness crept into
+his daughter's voice. And looking at her grimly out of the corner of his
+eye, he saw that she looked down on him, far, far down from heights above.
+
+"Yes," he thought, "this is modern." Then he grew angry all at once. "No,"
+he added, "this is wrong! You can't fool me, young woman, you know it as
+well as I do myself! You're not going to carry this off with an air--not
+with your father! No, by George!"
+
+And he would grow abrupt and stern. But days would pass and in spite of
+himself into their talks would creep a natural friendly tone. Again he
+found himself friends with her--friends as though nothing whatever had
+happened! Could it be that a woman who had so sinned could go right on?
+Here was Laura, serenely unconscious of guilt, and smiling into her future,
+dreaming still of happiness, quite plainly sure of it, in fact! With a
+curious dismayed relief Roger would scowl at this daughter of his--a
+radiant enigma in his quiet sober house.
+
+But Edith was not at all perplexed. When she learned from Deborah that
+there was soon to be a divorce, she came at once to her father. Her face
+was like a thundercloud.
+
+"A nice example for my children!" she indignantly exclaimed.
+
+"I'm sorry, my dear. But what can I do?"
+
+"You can make her go back to her husband, can't you?"
+
+"No, I can't," he flatly replied.
+
+"Then I'd better try it myself!"
+
+"You'll do no such thing!" he retorted. "I've gone clear to the bottom of
+this--and I say you're to leave her alone!"
+
+"Very well," she answered. And she did leave her sister alone, so severely
+that Laura soon avoided being home for lunch or dinner. She had taken the
+room which George had occupied ever since John had been turned out, and
+there she breakfasted late in bed, until Edith put a stop to it. They
+barely spoke to each other now. Laura still smiled defiance.
+
+Days passed. Christmas came at last, and despite Edith's glum resolution to
+make it a happy time for the children, the happiness soon petered out.
+After the tree in the morning, the day hung heavy on the house. Roger
+buried himself in his study. Laura had motored off into the country with a
+gay party of her friends. Or was this just a ruse, he wondered, and was
+she spending the day with her lover? Well, what if she was? Could he lock
+her in?
+
+About twilight he thought he heard her return, and later from his bedroom
+he heard her voice and Edith's. Both voices sounded angry, but he would not
+interfere.
+
+At the Christmas dinner that evening Laura did not put in an appearance,
+but Edith sat stiff and silent there; and despite the obvious efforts which
+Deborah and Allan made to be genial with the children, the very air in the
+room was charged with the feeling of trouble close ahead. Again Roger
+retreated into his den, and presently Laura came to him.
+
+"Good-night--I'm going out," she said, and she pressed her cheek lightly to
+his own. "What a dear you've been to me, dad," she murmured. And then she
+was gone.
+
+A few minutes later Edith came in. She held a small note in her hand, which
+Roger saw was addressed to himself.
+
+"Well, father, I learned this afternoon what you've been keeping from me,"
+she said. Roger gave her a steady look.
+
+"You did, eh--Laura told you?"
+
+"Yes, she did!" his daughter exclaimed. "And I can't help wondering,
+father--"
+
+"Why did she tell you? Have you been at her again to-day?"
+
+"Again? Not at all," she answered. "I've done as you asked me to, let her
+alone. But to-day--mother's day--I got thinking of _her_."
+
+"Leave your mother out of it, please. What did you say to Laura?"
+
+"I tried to make her go back, of course--"
+
+"And she told you--"
+
+"He wouldn't have her! And then in a perfect tantrum she went on to tell me
+why!" Edith's eyes were cold with disgust. "And I'm wondering why you let
+her stay here--in the same house with my children!"
+
+Roger reached out his hand.
+
+"Give me that note," he commanded. He read it quickly and handed it back.
+The note was from Laura, a hasty good-bye.
+
+"Edith will explain," she wrote, "and you will see I cannot stay any
+longer. It is simply too impossible. I am going to the man I love--and in a
+few days we shall sail for Naples. I know you will not interfere. It will
+make the divorce even simpler and everything easier all round. Please don't
+worry about me. We shall soon be married over there. You have been so dear
+and sensible and I do so love you for it." Then came her name scrawled
+hastily. And at the bottom of the page: "I have paid every bill I can think
+of."
+
+Edith read it in silence, her color slowly mounting.
+
+"All right," said her father, "your children are safe." She gave him a
+quick angry look, burst into tears and ran out of the room.
+
+Roger sat without moving, his heavy face impassive. And so he remained for
+a long time. Well, _Laura_ was gone--no mistake about that--and this time
+she was gone for good. She was going to live in Rome. Try to stop her? No.
+What good would it do? Wings of the Eagles, Rome reborn. That was it, she
+had hit it, struck the keynote of this new age. Rome reborn, all clean,
+old-fashioned Christian living swept away by millions of men at each
+others' throats like so many wolves. And at last quite openly to himself
+Roger admitted that he felt old. Old and beaten, out of date. Moments
+passed, and hours--he took little note of time. Nor did he see on the
+mantle the dark visage of "The Thinker" there, resting on the huge clinched
+fist and brooding down upon him. Lower, imperceptibly, he sank into his
+leather chair.
+
+Quiet had returned to his house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+But the quiet was dark to Roger now. Each night he spent in his study
+alone, for instinctively he felt the need of being by himself for a while,
+of keeping away from his children--out of whose lives he divined that other
+events would soon come forth to use up the last of the strength that was in
+him.
+
+And Roger grew angry with the world. Why couldn't it let a man alone, an
+old man in a silent house alive for him with memories? Repeatedly in such
+hours his mind would go groping backward into the years behind him. What a
+long and winding road, half buried in the jungle, dim, almost impenetrable,
+made up of millions of small events, small worries, plans and dazzling
+dreams, with which his days had all been filled. But the more he recalled
+the more certain he grew that he was right. Life had never been like this:
+the world had never come smashing into his house, his very family, with its
+dirty teeming tenements, its schools, its prisons, electric chairs, its
+feverish rush for money, its luxuries, its scandals. These things had
+existed in the world, but remote and never real, mere things which he had
+read about. War? Did he not remember wars that had come and gone in Europe?
+But they hadn't come into his home like this, first making him poor when he
+needed money for Edith and her children, then plunging Deborah into a
+struggle which might very probably ruin her life, and now taking Laura and
+filling her mind with thoughts of pagan living. Why was every man, woman
+and child, these days, bound up in the whole life of the world? What would
+come of it all? A new day out of this deafening night? Maybe so. But for
+him it would come too late.
+
+"What have I left to live for?"
+
+One night with a sigh he went to his desk, lit a cigar and laid his hand
+upon a pile of letters which had been mounting steadily. It was made up of
+Laura's bills, the ones she had not remembered. Send them after her to Rome
+for that Italian fellow to pay? No, it could not be thought of. Roger
+turned to his dwindling bank account. He was not yet making money, he was
+still losing a little each week. But he would not cut expenses. To the few
+who were left in his employ, to be turned away would mean dire need. And
+angrily he determined that they should not starve to pay Laura's bills.
+"The world for the strong, eh? Not in my office!" In Rome or Berlin or
+Vienna, all right! But not over here!
+
+Grimly, when he had made out the checks, Roger eyed his balance. By spring
+he would be penniless. And he had no one to turn to now, no rich young
+son-in-law who could aid.
+
+He set himself doggedly to the task of forcing up his business, and
+meanwhile in the evenings he tried with Edith to get back upon their former
+footing. To do this was not easy at first, for his bitterness still rankled
+deep: "When you were in trouble I took you in, but when she was in trouble
+you turned her out, as you turned out John before her." In the room again
+vacated, young George had been reinstalled. One night Edith found her
+father there looking in through the open doorway, and the look on his
+massive face was hard.
+
+"Better have the room disinfected again," he muttered when he saw her. He
+turned and went slowly down the stairs. And she was late for dinner that
+night.
+
+But Edith had her children. And as he watched her night by night hearing
+their lessons patiently, reading them fairy stories and holding them
+smilingly in her arms, the old appeal of her motherhood regained its hold
+upon him. One evening when the clock struck nine, putting down his paper he
+suggested gruffly,
+
+"Well, daughter, how about some chess?"
+
+Edith flushed a little:
+
+"Why, yes, dear, I'd be glad to."
+
+She rose and went to get the board. So the games were resumed, and part at
+least of their old affection came to life. But only a part. It could never
+be quite the same again.
+
+And though he saw little of Deborah, slowly, almost unawares to them both,
+she assumed the old place she had had in his home--as the one who had been
+right here in the house through all the years since her mother had died,
+the one who had helped and never asked help, keeping her own troubles to
+herself. He fell back into his habit of going before dinner to his
+daughter's bedroom door to ask whether she would be home that night. At one
+such time, getting no response and thinking Deborah was not there, he
+opened the door part way to make sure. And he saw her at her dresser,
+staring at herself in the glass, rigid as though in a trance. Later in the
+dining room he heard her step upon the stairs. She came in quietly and sat
+down; and as soon as dinner was over, she said her good-nights and left the
+house. But when she came home at midnight, he was waiting up for her. He
+had foraged in the kitchen, and on his study table he had set out some
+supper. While she sat there eating, her father watched her from his chair.
+
+"Things going badly in school?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes," she replied. There was silence.
+
+"What's wrong?"
+
+"To-night we had a line of mothers reaching out into the street. They had
+come for food and coal--but we had to send most of them home empty-handed.
+Some of them cried--and one of them fainted. She's to have a baby soon."
+
+"Can't you get any money uptown?" he asked.
+
+"I have," she answered grimly. "I've been a beggar--heaven knows--on every
+friend I can think of. And I've kept a press agent hard at work trying to
+make the public see that Belgium is right here in New York." She stopped
+and went on with her supper. "But it's a bad time for work like mine," she
+continued presently. "If we're to keep it going we must above all keep it
+cheap. That's the keynote these days, keep everything cheap--at any
+cost--so that men can expensively kill one another." Her voice had a bitter
+ring to it. "You try to talk peace and they bowl you over, with facts on
+the need of preparedness--for the defence of your country. And that doesn't
+appeal to me very much. I want a bigger preparedness--for the defence of
+the whole world--for democracy, and human rights, no matter who the people
+are! I'd like to train every child to that!"
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked.
+
+"To teach him what his life can be!" she replied in a hard quivering tone.
+"A fight? Oh yes! So long as he lives--and even with guns if it must be so!
+But a fight for all the people on earth!--and a world so full of happy
+lives that men will think hard--before ever again letting themselves be led
+by the nose--into war and death--for a place in the sun!" She rose from her
+chair, with a weary smile: "Here I am making a speech again. I've made so
+many lately it's become a habit. I'm tired out, dad, I'm going to bed." Her
+father looked at her anxiously.
+
+"You're seeing things out of proportion," he said. "You've worked so hard
+you're getting stale. You ought to get out of it for a while."
+
+"I can't!" she answered sharply. "You don't know--you don't even guess--how
+it takes every hour--all the demands!"
+
+"Where's Allan these days?"
+
+"Working," was her harsh reply. "Trying to keep his hospital going with
+half its staff. The woman who was backing him is giving her money to
+Belgium instead."
+
+"Do you see much of him?"
+
+"Every day. Let's drop it. Shall we?"
+
+"All right, my dear--"
+
+And they said good-night ...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime, in the house, Edith had tried to scrimp and save, but it
+was very difficult. Her children had so many needs, they were all growing
+up so fast. Each month brought fresh demands on her purse, and the fund
+from the sale of her belongings had been used up long ago. Her sole
+resource was the modest allowance her father gave her for running the
+house, and she had not asked him for more. She had put off trouble from
+month to month. But one evening early in March, when he gave her the
+regular monthly check, she said hesitatingly:
+
+"I'm very sorry, father dear, but I'm afraid we'll need more money this
+month." He glanced up from his paper:
+
+"What's the matter?" She gave him a forced little smile, and her father
+noticed the gray in her hair.
+
+"Oh, nothing in particular. Goodness knows I've tried to keep down
+expenses, but--well, we're a pretty large household, you know--"
+
+"Yes," said Roger kindly, "I know. Are the month's bills in?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Let me see them." She brought him the bills and he looked relieved. "Not
+so many," he ventured.
+
+"No, but they're large."
+
+"Why, look here, Edith," he said abruptly, "these are bills for two
+months--some for three, even four!"
+
+"I know--that's just the trouble. I couldn't meet them at the time."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Laura was here--and I didn't want to bother you--you had enough on your
+mind as it was. I've done the best I could, father dear--I've sold
+everything, you know--but I've about come to the end of my rope." And her
+manner said clearly, "I've done my part. I'm only a woman. I'll have to
+leave the rest to you."
+
+"I see--I see." And Roger knitted his heavy brows. "I presume I can get it
+somehow." This would play the very devil with things!
+
+"Father." Edith's voice was low. "Why don't you let Deborah help you? She
+does very little, it seems to me--compared to the size of her salary."
+
+"She can't do any more than she's doing now," was his decisive answer.
+Edith looked at him, her color high. She hesitated, then burst out:
+
+"I saw her check book the other day, she had left it on the table! She's
+spending thousands--every month!"
+
+"That's not her own money," Roger said.
+
+"No--it's money she gets for her fads--her work for those tenement
+children! She can get money enough for _them!_" He flung out his hand:
+
+"Leave her out of this, please!"
+
+"Very well, father, just as you say." And she sat there hurt and silent
+while again he looked slowly through the bills. He jotted down figures and
+added them up. They came to a bit over nine hundred dollars. Soon Deborah's
+key was heard in the door, and Roger scowled the deeper. She came into the
+room, but he did not look up. He heard her voice:
+
+"What's the matter, Edith?"
+
+"Bills for the house."
+
+"Oh." And Deborah came to her father. "May I see what's the trouble, dear?"
+
+"I'd rather you wouldn't. It's nothing," he growled. He wanted her to keep
+out of this.
+
+"Why shouldn't she see?" Edith tartly inquired. "Deborah is living
+here--and before I came she ran the house. In her place I should certainly
+want to know."
+
+Deborah was already glancing rapidly over the bills.
+
+"Why, Edith," she exclaimed, "most of these bills go back for months. Why
+didn't you pay them when they were due?"
+
+"Simply because I hadn't the money!"
+
+"You've had the regular monthly amount."
+
+"That didn't last long--"
+
+"Why didn't you tell us?"
+
+"Laura was here."
+
+Deborah gave a shrug of impatience, and Roger saw how tired she was, her
+nerves on edge from her long day.
+
+"Never mind about it now," he put in.
+
+"What a pity," Deborah muttered. "If we had been told, we could have cut
+down."
+
+"I don't agree with you!" Edith rejoined. "I have already done that myself!
+I've done nothing else!"
+
+"Have the servants been paid?" her sister asked.
+
+"No, they haven't-"
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"Three months!"
+
+Roger got up and walked the room. Deborah tried to speak quietly:
+
+"I can't quite see where the money has gone."
+
+"Can't you? Then look at my check book." And Edith produced it with a
+glare. Her sister turned over a few of the stubs.
+
+"What's this item?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here. A hundred and twenty-two dollars."
+
+"The dentist," Edith answered. "Not extravagant, is it--for five children?"
+
+"I see," said Deborah. "And this?"
+
+"Bedding," was Edith's sharp response. "A mattress and more blankets. I
+found there weren't half enough in the house."
+
+"You burned John's, didn't you?"
+
+"Naturally!"
+
+All at once both grew ashamed.
+
+"Let's be sensible," Deborah said. "We must do something, Edith--and we
+can't till we're certain where we stand."
+
+"Very well--"
+
+They went on more calmly and took up the items one by one. Deborah finished
+and was silent.
+
+"Well, father, what's to be done?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know," he answered shortly.
+
+"Somehow or other," Deborah said, "we've got to cut our expenses down."
+
+"I'm afraid that's impossible," Edith rejoined. "I've already cut as much
+as I can."
+
+"So did I, in my school," said her sister. "And when I thought I had
+reached the end, I called in an expert. And he showed me ways of saving I
+had never dreamed of."
+
+"What kind of expert would you advise here?" Edith's small lip curled in
+scorn.
+
+"Domestic science, naturally--I have a woman who does nothing else. She
+shows women in their homes just how to make money count the most."
+
+"What women? And what homes? Tenements?"
+
+"Yes. She's one of my teachers."
+
+"Thank you!" said Edith indignantly. "But I don't care to have my children
+brought down to tenement standards!"
+
+"I didn't mean to _have_ them! But I know she could show you a great many
+things you can buy for less!"
+
+"I'm afraid I shouldn't agree with her!"
+
+"Why not, Edith?"
+
+"Because she knows only tenement children--nothing of children bred like
+mine!"
+
+Deborah drew a quick short breath, her brows drew tight and she looked
+away. She bit her lip, controlled herself:
+
+"Very well, I'll try again. This house is plenty large enough so that by a
+little crowding we could make room for somebody else. And I know a teacher
+in one of my schools who'd be only too glad--"
+
+"Take a boarder, you mean?"
+
+"Yes, I do! We've got to do something!"
+
+"No!"
+
+Deborah threw up her hands:
+
+"All right, Edith, I'm through," she said. "Now what do you propose?"
+
+"I can try to do without Hannah again--"
+
+"That will be hard--on all of us. But I guess you'll have to."
+
+"So it seems."
+
+"But unfortunately that won't he enough."
+
+Edith's face grew tenser:
+
+"I'm afraid it will have to be--just now--I've had about all I can stand
+for one night!"
+
+"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. For a moment they confronted each other. And
+Edith's look said to Deborah plainly, "You're spending thousands,
+thousands, on those tenement children! You can get money enough for them,
+but you won't raise a hand to help with mine!" And as plainly Deborah
+answered, "My children are starving, shivering, freezing! What do yours
+know about being poor?" Two mothers, each with a family, and each one
+baffled, brought to bay. There was something so insatiable in each angry
+mother's eyes.
+
+"I think you'd better leave this to me," said Roger very huskily. And both
+his daughters turned with a start, as though in their bitter absorption
+they had forgotten his presence there. Both flushed, and now the glances of
+all three in that room avoided each other. For they felt how sordid it had
+been. Deborah turned to her sister.
+
+"I'm sorry, Edith," she said again, and this time there were tears in her
+eyes.
+
+"So am I," said Edith unsteadily, and in a moment she left the room.
+Deborah stood watching her father.
+
+"I'm ashamed of myself," she said. "Well? Shall we talk it over?"
+
+"No," he replied. "I can manage it somehow, Deborah, and I prefer that you
+leave it to me."
+
+Roger went into his study and sank grimly into his chair. Yes, it had been
+pretty bad; it had been ugly, ominous. He took paper and pencil and set to
+work. How he had come to hate this job of wrestling with figures. Of the
+five thousand dollars borrowed in August he had barely a thousand left. The
+first semi-annual interest was due next week and must be paid. The balance
+would carry them through March and on well into April. By that time he
+hoped to be making money, for business was better every week. But what of
+this nine hundred dollars in debts? Half at least must be paid at once.
+Lower and lower he sank in his chair. But a few moments later, his blunt
+heavy visage cleared, and with a little sigh of relief he put away his
+papers, turned out the lights and went upstairs. The dark house felt
+friendly and comforting now.
+
+In his room he opened the safe in the corner where his collection of
+curious rings had lain unnoticed for many months. He drew out a tray, sat
+down by the light and began to look them over. At first only small
+inanimate objects, gradually as from tray after tray they glittered duskily
+up at him, they began to yield their riches as they had so often done
+before. Spanish, French, Italian, Bohemian, Hungarian, Russian and Arabian,
+rings small and rings enormous, religious rings and magic rings, poison
+rings, some black with age for all his careful polishing--again they
+stole deep into Roger's imagination with suggestions of the many hands that
+had worn them through the centuries, of women kneeling in old churches,
+couples in dark crooked streets, adventures, love, hate, jealousy. Youth
+and fire, dreams and passion....
+
+At last he remembered why he was here. He thought of possible purchasers.
+He knew so many dealers, but he knew, too, that the war had played the
+devil with them as with everyone else. Still, he thought of several who
+would find it hard to resist the temptation. He would see them to-morrow,
+one by one, and get them bidding, haggling. Roger frowned disgustedly.
+
+No help for it, though, and it was a relief. It would bring a truce in his
+house for a time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the truce was brief.
+
+On the afternoon when he sold his collection Roger came home all out of
+sorts. He had been forced to haggle long; it had been a mean inglorious
+day; one of the brightest paths in his life had ended in a pigstie. But at
+least he had bought some peace in his home! Women, women, women! He shut
+the front door with a slam and went up to his room for a little rest, a
+little of what he had paid for! On the stairs he passed young Betsy, and he
+startled the girl by the sudden glare of reproach he bestowed upon her.
+Savagely he told himself he was no "feminist" that night!
+
+The brief talk he had with Edith was far from reassuring. With no Deborah
+there to wound her pride, Edith quickly showed herself friendly to her
+father; but when he advised her to keep her nurse, she at once refused to
+consider it.
+
+"I want you to," he persisted, with an anxious note in his voice. He had
+tried life without Hannah here and he did not care to try it again.
+
+"It is already settled, father, I sent her away this morning."
+
+"Then you get her right back!" he exclaimed. But Edith's face grew
+obstinate.
+
+"I don't care to give Deborah," she replied, "another chance to talk as she
+did."
+
+Roger looked at her gloomily. "You will, though," he was thinking. "You two
+have only just begun. Let any little point arise, which a couple of men
+would settle offhand, and you two will get together and go it! There'll be
+no living in the house!"
+
+With deepening displeasure he watched the struggle between them go on.
+Sometimes it seemed to Roger there was not a topic he could bring up which
+would not in some way bring on a clash. One night in desperation he
+proposed the theatre.
+
+"I'm afraid we can't afford it," said Edith, glancing at Deborah. And she
+had the same answer, again and again, for the requests her children made,
+if they involved but the smallest expense. "No, dear, I'm afraid we can't
+afford that," she would say gently, with a sigh. And under this constant
+pressure, these nightly little thrusts and jabs, Deborah would grow rigid
+with annoyance and impatience.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Edith," she burst out, one night when the children had
+gone to their lessons, "can you think of nothing on earth, except your own
+little family?"
+
+"Here it comes again," thought Roger, scowling into his paper. He heard
+Edith's curt reply:
+
+"No, I can't, not nowadays. Nobody _else_ seems to think of them."
+
+"You mean that I don't!"
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"Yes! I'm thinking of George! Do you want him killed in the trenches--in a
+war with Germany or Japan?"
+
+"Are you utterly mad?" demanded Edith.
+
+"No, I'm awake--my eyes are open! But yours are shut so tight, my dear, you
+can't see what has happened! You know this war has made us poor and your
+own life harder, but that's all. The big thing it has done you know nothing
+about!"
+
+"Suppose you teach me," Edith said, with a prim provoking little smile.
+Deborah turned on her angrily:
+
+"It has shown that all such mothers as you are out of date and have got to
+change! That we're bound together--all over the world--whether we like it
+or whether we don't! And that if we want to keep out of war, we've got to
+do it by coming right out of our own little homes--_and thinking, Edith,
+thinking!_"
+
+"Votes for women," Edith said. Deborah looked at her, rose with a shrug.
+
+"All right, Edith, I give up."
+
+"Thank you. I'm not worth it. You'd better go back to your office now and
+go on with your work of saving the world. And use every hour of your time
+and every dollar you possess. I'll stay here and look after my children."
+
+Deborah had gone into the hall. Roger, buried deep in his paper, heard the
+heavy street door close. He looked up with a feverish sigh--and saw at the
+open door of his study George and Betsy standing, curious, solemn and wide
+eyed. How long had they been listening?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+There came a season of sleet and rain when the smaller children were shut
+indoors and it was hard to keep them amused. They did not look well, and
+Edith was worried. She had always dreaded the spring, and to carry her
+family safely through she had taken them, in former years, to Atlantic City
+for two weeks. That of course was impossible now. Trouble was bound to
+come, she thought. And it was not long in coming. Bobby, who was ten years
+old and went to school with his brother George, caught a wretched cold one
+day. Edith popped him into bed, but despite her many precautions he gave
+his cold to Bruce and Tad.
+
+"Suppose I ask Allan Baird to come," Deborah suggested. "He's wonderful
+with children, you know."
+
+Edith curtly accepted his services. She felt he had been sent for to
+prevent her getting Doctor Lake. But she said nothing. She would wait.
+Through long hard days and longer nights she slaved upstairs. All Deborah's
+proffers of aid she declined. She kept Elizabeth home from school to help
+her with the many meals, the medicines and the endless task of keeping her
+lively patients in bed. She herself played with them by the hour, while the
+ache in her head was a torment. At night she was up at the slightest sound.
+Heavy circles came under her eyes. Within a few days her baby, Bruce, had
+developed pneumonia.
+
+That evening after dinner, while Deborah was sitting with Roger in the
+living room, she heard her sister coming downstairs. She listened acutely,
+and glancing around she saw that Roger was listening, too. Edith passed the
+doorway and went on down the hall, where they heard her voice at the
+telephone. She came back and looked in at the door.
+
+"I've called Doctor Lake," she said. "I've just taken Bruce's temperature.
+It's a hundred and five and two fifths." Deborah glanced up with a start.
+
+"Oh, Edith!" she said softly. Her sister turned and looked at her.
+
+"I ought to have had him before," she said. "When he comes, please bring
+him right up to the room." And she hurried upstairs.
+
+"Pshaw!" breathed Roger anxiously. He had seen Bruce an hour ago; and the
+sight of the tiny boy, so exhausted and so still, had given him a sudden
+scare. Could it be that _this_ would happen? Roger rose and walked the
+floor. Edith was right, he told himself, they should have had Lake long
+before. And they would have, by George, if it had not been for Deborah's
+interference! He glanced at her indignantly. Bringing in Baird to save
+money, eh? Well, it was just about time they stopped saving money on their
+own flesh and blood! What had Bruce to do with tenement babies? But he had
+had tenement treatment, just that! Deborah had had her way at last with
+Edith's children, and one of them might have to pay with its life! Again
+Roger glared at his silent daughter. And now, even in his excited state, he
+noticed how still and rigid she was, how unnatural the look she bent on the
+book held tightly in her hands.
+
+Still Deborah said nothing. She could feel her father's anger. Both he and
+Edith held her to blame. She felt herself in a position where she could not
+move a hand. She was stunned, and could not think clearly. A vivid picture
+was in her mind, vivid as a burning flame which left everything else in
+darkness. It was of Bruce, one adorable baby, fighting for breath. "What
+would I do if he were mine?"
+
+When the doctor arrived she took him upstairs and then came down to her
+father.
+
+"Well?" he demanded.
+
+"I don't know. We'll have to wait." And they both sat silent. At last they
+heard a door open and close, and presently steps coming down the stairs.
+Roger went out into the hall:
+
+"Come right in here, doctor, won't you? I want to hear about this myself."
+
+"Very well, sir." And Lake entered the room, with Edith close behind him.
+He took no notice of anyone else. "Write this down," he said to her. "And
+give it to the nurse when she comes." A heavy man of middle age, with
+curious dark impassive eyes that at times showed an ironic light, Lake was
+a despot in a world of mothers to whom his word was law. He was busy
+to-night, with no time to waste, and his low harsh voice now rattled out
+orders which Edith wrote down in feverish haste--an hourly schedule, night
+and day. He named a long list of things needed at once. "Night nurse will
+be here in an hour," he ended. "Day nurse, to-morrow, eight a.m. Get sleep
+yourself and plenty of it. As it is you're not fit to take care of a cat."
+Abruptly he turned and left the room. Edith followed. The street door
+closed, and in a moment after that his motor was off with a muffled roar.
+Edith came back, picked up her directions and turned to her sister:
+
+"Will you go up and sit with Bruce? I'll telephone the druggist," she said.
+
+Deborah went to the sick room. Bruce's small face, peaked and gray in the
+soft dim light, turned as she entered and came to the bed.
+
+"Well, dear?" she whispered. The small boy's eyes, large and heavy with
+fever, looked straight into hers.
+
+"Sick," said the baby hoarsely. The next instant he tossed up his hands and
+went through a spasm, trying to breathe. It passed, he relaxed a little,
+and again stared solemnly at his aunt. "Sick," he repeated. "Wery sick."
+
+Deborah sat silent. The child had another fight for his breath; and this
+time as he did so, Deborah's body contracted, too. A few moments later
+Edith came in. Deborah returned downstairs, and for over an hour she sat by
+herself. Roger was in his study, Betsy and George had gone to bed. The
+night nurse arrived and was taken upstairs. Still Deborah's mind felt numb
+and cold. Instinctively again and again it kept groping toward one point:
+"If I had a baby as sick as that, what would I do? What would I do?"
+
+When the doorbell rang again, she frowned, rose quickly and went to the
+door. It was Allan.
+
+"Allan--come in here, will you?" she said, and he followed her into the
+living room.
+
+"What is it?" he inquired.
+
+"Bruce is worse."
+
+"Oh--I'm sorry. Why didn't Edith let me know?"
+
+"She had Lake to-night," said Deborah. He knitted his brows in annoyance,
+then smiled.
+
+"Well, I don't mind that," he replied. "I'm rather glad. She'll feel easier
+now. What did he tell her?"
+
+"He seemed to consider it serious--by the number of things he ordered."
+
+"Two nurses, of course--"
+
+"Yes, day and night." Deborah was silent a moment.
+
+"I may be wrong," she continued, "but I still feel sure the child will
+live. But I know it means a long hard fight. The expense of it all will be
+heavy."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Whatever it is, I'll meet it," she said. "Father can't, he has reached the
+end. But even if he could help still, it wouldn't make much difference in
+what I've been deciding. Because when I was with Bruce to-night, I saw as
+clear as I see you now that if I had a child like that--as sick as
+that--I'd sacrifice anything--everything--schools, tenement children,
+thousands! I'd use the money which should have been theirs, and the time
+and the attention! I'd shut them all out, they could starve if they liked!
+I'd be like Edith--exactly! I'd center on this one child of mine!"
+
+Deborah turned her eyes to his, stern and gleaming with her pain. And she
+continued sharply:
+
+"But I don't mean to shut those children out! And so it's clear as day to
+me that I can't ever marry you! That baby to-night was the finishing
+stroke!"
+
+She made a quick restless movement. Baird leaned slowly forward. Her hands
+in her lap were clenched together. He took them both and held them hard.
+
+"No, this isn't clear," he said. "I can feel it in your hands. This is
+nerves. This is the child upstairs. This is Edith in the house. This is
+school, the end of the long winter's strain."
+
+"No, it's what I've decided!"
+
+"But this is the wrong decision," Allan answered steadily.
+
+"It's made!"
+
+"Not yet, it isn't, not to-night. We won't talk of it now, you're in no
+condition." Deborah's wide sensitive lips began to quiver suddenly:
+
+"We _will_ talk of it now, or never at all! I want it settled--done with!
+I've had enough--it's killing me!"
+
+"No," was Allan's firm reply, "in a few days things will change. Edith's
+child will be out of danger, your other troubles will clear away!"
+
+"But what of next winter, and the next? What of Edith's children? Can't you
+see what a load they are on my father? Can't you see he's ageing fast?"
+
+"Suppose he dies," Baird answered. "It will leave them on your hands.
+You'll have _these_ children, won't you, whether you marry or whether you
+don't! And so will I! I'm their guardian!"
+
+"That won't be the same," she cried, "as having children of our own--"
+
+"Look into my eyes."
+
+"I'm looking--" Her own eyes were bright with tears.
+
+"Why are you always so afraid of becoming a mother?" Allan asked. In his
+gruff low voice was a fierce appeal. "It's this obsession in your mind that
+you'll be a mother like Edith. And that's absurd! You never will! You say
+you're afraid of not keeping school the first thing in your life! But you
+always do and you always will! You're putting it ahead of me now!"
+
+"Yes, I can put it ahead of _you_! But I couldn't put it ahead of _my
+child_!" He winced at this and she noticed it. "Because you are strong, and
+the child would be weak! The child would be like Bruce to-night!"
+
+"Are you sure if you marry you must have a child?"
+
+"Yes," she answered huskily, "if I married you I'd want a child. And that
+want in me would grow and grow until it made both of us wretched. I'm that
+kind of a woman. That's why my work has succeeded so far--because I've a
+passion for children! They're not my work, they're my very life!" She bowed
+her head, her mouth set hard. "But so are you," she whispered. "And since
+this is settled, Allan, what do you think? Shall we try to go on--working
+together side by side--seeing each other every day as we have been doing
+all these months? Rather hard on both of us, don't you think? I do, I feel
+that way," she said. Again her features quivered. "The kind of feeling I
+have--for you--would make that rather--difficult!"
+
+His grip tightened on her hands.
+
+"I won't give you up," he said. "Later you will change your mind."
+
+He left the room and went out of the house. Deborah sat rigid. She
+trembled and the tears came. She brushed them angrily away. Struggling to
+control herself, presently she grew quieter. Frowning, with her clear gray
+eyes intently staring before her, she did not see her father come into the
+doorway. He stopped with a jerk at sight of her face.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked. She started.
+
+"Nothing's the matter! How is Bruce?"
+
+"I don't know. Who went out a few minutes ago?"
+
+"Allan Baird," she answered.
+
+"Oh. You explained to him, of course, about Lake--"
+
+"Yes, he understands," she said. "He won't come here after this--"
+
+Roger looked at her sharply, wondering just what she meant. He hesitated.
+No, he would wait.
+
+"Good-night," he said, and went upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+On the morrow Bruce did not grow better. If anything, the child grew worse.
+But by the next morning the crisis had passed. In the house the tension
+relaxed, and Roger suddenly felt so weak that he went to see his own
+physician. They had a long and serious talk. Later he went to his office,
+but he gave little heed to his work. Sitting there at his desk, he stared
+through the window far out over the city. A plan was forming in his mind.
+
+At home that night, at dinner, he kept watching Deborah, who looked tired
+and pale and rather relaxed. And as soon as she was out of the house he
+telephoned Allan to come at once.
+
+"It's something which can't wait," he urged.
+
+"Very well, I'll come right up."
+
+When Baird arrived a little later, Roger opened the door himself, and they
+went back into his study.
+
+"Sit down," he said. "Smoke, Allan?"
+
+"No, thanks." Baird looked doubly tall and lean, his face had a gaunt
+appearance; and as he sat down, his lithe supple right hand slowly closed
+on the arm of his chair.
+
+"Now then," began Roger, "there are two things we want to get clear on. The
+first is about yourself and Deborah. There has been trouble, hasn't there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She has made up her mind not to marry you."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I guessed as much." And Roger paused. "Do you mind my asking questions?
+
+"No--"
+
+"Are you still in love with her, Allan?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"And she with you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Then it's the same old trouble."
+
+"Yes." And he told a part of what she had said. As he talked in clear,
+terse, even tones, Baird's steady eyes had a tortured light, the look of a
+man who has almost reached the end of his endurance. Roger smoked in
+silence.
+
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Wait," said Allan, "a few days more. Then try again. If I fail I'm
+through." Roger shot a quick look at him.
+
+"I don't think you'll fail, my boy--and what's more I think I can help you.
+This is a large house, Allan--there's more in it than you know. My second
+point concerns myself. I'm going to die within a year."
+
+As Baird turned on him suddenly, Roger grimly smiled and said, "We won't go
+into the details, but I've been examined lately and I have quite positive
+knowledge of what I've suspected for some time. So far, I have told no one
+but you. And I'm telling you only because of the bearing it has on
+Deborah." Roger leaned forward heavily. "She's the one of my daughters who
+means the most, now that I'm so near the end. When I die next year that may
+be all--I may simply end--a blank, a grave--I am not sure. But I've made up
+my mind above everything else to see Deborah happy before I go. And I mean
+to do it by setting her free--so free I think it will frighten her."
+
+Roger went on to explain his plan, and they talked together for some time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another week had soon gone by. Bruce still recovered rapidly, and the other
+sick children were up and about. Deborah, in the meantime, had barely been
+in the house at all. But late on Saturday evening Roger found her in her
+room. She was working. He came behind her.
+
+"What is it, dad?"
+
+"Busy, eh?" He hesitated, and laid his hand on her shoulder with a little
+affectionate pressure. "You've kept so busy lately," he said, "I haven't
+had time to see anything of you. How's your work going?"
+
+"Much better, thanks--now that the winter is over."
+
+He questioned her about her schools. And then after a brief pause,
+
+"Well, daughter," he said, "it has been a great fight, and I'm proud of you
+for it. And if I've got anything to say--" his hand was still on her
+shoulder, and he felt her tighten suddenly--"it isn't by way of
+criticism--please be sure of that ahead. In this damnable war my faith in
+men has been badly shaken up. Humanity seems to me still a child--a child
+who needs to go to school. God knows we need men and women like you--and
+I'm proud of all you've accomplished, I'd be the last man to hold you back.
+I only want to help you go on--by seeing to it that you are free--from
+anything which can hinder you." He stopped again for a moment.
+
+"To begin with," he said, "I understand you're not going to marry Allan
+Baird." She stirred slightly:
+
+"Did he tell you so?"
+
+"Yes--I asked him," Roger replied. "I had Allan here a few nights ago, and
+he told me you had decided to give up your happiness for the sake of all
+those children in that big family of yours. You felt you must keep yourself
+free for them. Very well, if that is your decision I propose to clear the
+way." She looked intently up at his face. "You're not free now," he
+continued. "We have Edith and her children here. And I'm growing old--that
+has got to be thought of--I don't want to leave them on your hands. So as
+soon as the baby is well enough, I'm going to move them up to the
+mountains--not only for the summer--they are to stay the whole year
+'round. From this time on they're to make it their home."
+
+"Father! But they can't do that! Think of the winters!" Deborah cried.
+
+"It's already settled," he answered. "I've talked to Edith and she has
+agreed. She has always loved the farm, and it will be good for her
+children. In the meantime I've been talking to George. 'George,' I told
+him, 'I'm going to talk to you, man to man, about a man's job I want you to
+tackle.'"
+
+"The farm? But, dearie! He's only a boy!"
+
+"He's nearly seventeen," said Roger, "and a young moose for his age. And
+old Dave Royce will still be there. It's the work George has been dreaming
+about ever since he was a child. You should have seen how he was thrilled
+by the scheme. I told him we'd spend the summer together up there laying
+all our plans, investing our money carefully to make every dollar count."
+
+"What money?" Deborah sharply asked. But her father was talking steadily
+on:
+
+"We already have a fine lot of cattle. We'll add to it and enlarge the barn
+and put in some new equipment. In short, we'll put it in fine shape, make
+it a first class dairy farm. 'And then, George,' I said to him, 'I'm going
+to turn it over to you. I shall give the farm to your mother, and the rest
+of the money I have I mean to invest in her name down here, so that she'll
+have a small income until you can make your dairy pay.'"
+
+"What money are you speaking of?" Deborah's voice was thick and hard, her
+sensitive lips were parted and she was breathing quickly.
+
+"I've sold the house," he told her. Convulsively she gripped his arms:
+
+"Then tell me where _you_ mean to live!"
+
+"I'm not going to live--I'm going to die--very soon--I have definite
+knowledge."
+
+Without speaking Deborah rose; her face went white. Her father kept tight
+hold of her hands, and he felt them trembling, growing cold.
+
+"You're soon to be free of everyone," he continued painfully. "I know this
+is hurting you, but I see so plain, so plain, my child, just what it is
+I've got to do. I'm trying to clear the way for you to make a simple
+definite choice--a choice which is going to settle your life one way or the
+other. I want to make sure you see what you're doing. Because you mean so
+much to me. We're flesh and blood--eh, my daughter?--and in this family of
+ours we've been the closest ones of all!" She seemed to sway a little.
+
+"_You're not going to die_!" she whispered.
+
+"So it hurts you to lose me," he replied. "It will be hard to be so free.
+Would you rather not have had me at all? I've been quite a load on your
+back, you know. A fearful job you had of it, dragging me up when I was
+down. And since then Edith and Bruce and the rest, what burdens they have
+been at times. What sharp worries, heavy sorrows, days and nights you and I
+have gone through, when we should have been quietly resting--free--to keep
+up our strength for our next day's work. Suppose you had missed them, lived
+alone, would you have worked better? You don't know. But you will know
+soon, you're to give it a trial. For I've cleared the way--so that if you
+throw over Baird to be free you shall get the freedom you feel you need!"
+
+"Father! Please! Is this fair? Is this kind?" She asked in a harsh
+frightened tone. Her eyes were wet with angry tears.
+
+"This isn't a time to be kind, my dear." His voice was quivering like her
+own. "I'm bungling it--I'm bungling it--but you must let me stumble along
+and try to show you what I mean. You will have your work, your crowded
+schools, to which you'll be able to give your life. But I look ahead, I
+who know you--and I don't see you happy, I don't even see you whole. For
+you there will be no family. None of the intimate sorrows and joys that
+have been in this house will come to you. I look back and I see them
+all--for a man who has come so near the end gets a larger vision." He shut
+his eyes, his jaw set tight. "I look into my family back and back, and I
+see how it has been made of many generations. Certain figures stand out in
+my mind--they cover over a hundred years. And I see how much they've meant
+to me. I see that I've been one of them--a link in a long chain of
+lives--all inter-bound and reaching on. In my life they have all been
+here--as I shall be in lives to come.
+
+"And this is what I want for you." He held her close a moment. The tears
+were rolling down her cheeks. "Until now you have been one of us, too. You
+have never once been free. You have been the one in this house to step in
+and take hold and try to decide what's best to be done. I'm not putting you
+up on a pedestal, I don't say you've made no mistakes--but I say you're the
+kind of a woman who craves what's in a family. You're the one of my
+daughters who has loved this house the most!"
+
+"Yes," she said, "I've loved this house--"
+
+"But now for you all this will stop--quite suddenly," he told her. "This
+house of ours will soon be sold. And within a few months I shall be dead,
+and your family will have dropped out of your life."
+
+"Stop! Can't you? Stop! It's brutal! It isn't true about you!" she cried.
+"I won't believe it!" Her voice broke.
+
+"Go and see my physician," he said.
+
+"How long have you known it? Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Because we had troubles enough as it was, other things to think of. But
+there's only one thing now, this freedom you are facing."
+
+"Please! Please!" she cried imploringly. "I don't want to talk of myself
+but of you! This physician--"
+
+"No," he answered with stern pain, "you'll have to hear me out, my child.
+We're talking of you--of you alone when I am gone. How will it be? Are you
+quite sure? You will have your work, that vision of yours, and I know how
+close it has been to you, vivid and warm, almost like a friend. But so was
+my business once like that, when I was as young as you. And the business
+grew and it got cold--impersonal, a mere machine. Thank God I had a family.
+Isn't your work growing too? Are you sure it won't become a machine? And
+won't you lose touch with the children then, unless you have a child of
+your own? Friends won't be enough, you'll find, they're not bound up into
+yourself. The world may reach a stage at last where we shall live on in the
+lives of all--we may all be one big family. But that time is still far
+off--we hold to our own flesh and blood. And so I'm sure it will be with
+you. You see you have been young, my dear, and your spirit has been fresh
+and new. But how are you going to keep it so, without the ties you've
+always had?" He felt the violent clutch of her hand.
+
+"_You won't die_!" she whispered. But he went on relentlessly:
+
+"And what will you do without Allan Baird? For you see you have not even
+worked alone. You have had this man who has loved you there. I've seen how
+much he has helped you--how you have grown and he has grown since you two
+got together. And if you throw him over now, it seems to me you are not
+only losing what has done the most for your work, but you're running away
+from life as well. You've never won by doing that, you've always won by
+meeting life, never evading it, taking it all, living it full, taking
+chances! If you marry Baird, I see you both go on together in your work,
+while in your home you struggle through the troubles, tangles, joys and
+griefs which most of us mortals know so well! I see you in a world of
+children, but with children, too, of your own--to keep your spirit always
+young! Living on in your children's lives!"
+
+Roger stopped abruptly. He groped for something more to say.
+
+"On the one side, all that," he muttered, "and on the other, a lonely life
+which will soon grow old."
+
+There fell a dangerous silence. And sharply without warning, the influence,
+deep and invisible, of many generations of stolid folk in New England made
+itself felt in each of them. Father and daughter grew awkward, both. The
+talk had been too emotional. Each made, as by an instinct, a quick strong
+effort at self-control, and felt about for some way to get back upon their
+old easy footing. Roger turned to his daughter. Her head was still bent,
+her hands clasped tight, but she was frowning down at them now, although
+her face was still wet with tears. She drew a deep unsteady breath.
+
+"Well, Deborah," he said simply, "here I've gone stumbling on like a fool.
+I don't know what I've said or how you have listened."
+
+"I've listened," she said thickly.
+
+"I have tried," he went on in a steadier tone, "to give you some feeling of
+what is ahead--and to speak for your mother as well as myself. And more
+than that--much more than that--for the world has changed since she was
+here. God knows I've tried to be modern." A humorous glint came into his
+eyes, "Downright modern," he declared. "Have I asked you to give up your
+career? Not at all, I've asked you to marry Baird, and go right on with him
+in your work. And if you can't marry Allan Baird, after what he has done
+for you, how in God's name can you modern women ever marry anyone? Now what
+do you say? Will you marry him? Don't laugh at me! I'm serious! Talk!"
+
+But Deborah was laughing--although her father felt her hands still cold
+and trembling in his. Her gray eyes, bright and luminous, were shining up
+into his own.
+
+"What a time you've been having, haven't you, dear!" his daughter cried
+unsteadily. "Fairly lying awake at night and racking your brains for
+everything modern I've ever said--to turn it and twist it and use it
+against me!"
+
+"Well?" he demanded. "How does it twist?"
+
+"It twists hard, thank you," she declared. "You've turned and twisted me
+about till I barely see how I can live at all!"
+
+"You can, though! Marry Allan Baird!"
+
+"I'll think it over--later on."
+
+"What is there left to think about? Can you point to one hole in all I've
+said?"
+
+"Yes, a good many--and one right off."
+
+"Out with it!"
+
+"You're not dying," Deborah told him calmly, "I feel quite certain you'll
+live for years."
+
+"Oh, you do, eh--then see my physician!"
+
+"I will, I'll see him to-morrow. How long did you give yourself? Just a few
+months?"
+
+"No, he said it might be more," admitted Roger grudgingly. "If I had no
+worries to wear me out--"
+
+"Me, you mean."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Well, you've worried quite enough. You're going to leave it to me to
+decide."
+
+"Very well," he agreed. He looked at her. "You have listened--hard?" he
+gruffly asked.
+
+"Yes, dear." Her hands slowly tightened on his. "But don't speak of this
+again. You're to leave it to me. You promise?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And Roger left her.
+
+He went to bed but he could not sleep. With a sudden sag in his spirits he
+felt what a bungler he had been. He was not used to these solemn talks, he
+told himself irately. What a fool to try it! And how had Deborah taken it
+all? He did not mind her laughter, nor that lighter tone of hers. It was
+only her way of ending the talk, an easy way out for both of them. But what
+had she thought underneath? Had his points gone home? He tried to remember
+them. Pshaw! He had been too excited, and he could recall scarcely
+anything. He had not meant to speak of Baird--he had meant to leave him
+out! Yes, how he must have bungled it! Doubtless she was smiling still.
+Even the news about himself she had not taken seriously.
+
+But as he thought about that news, Roger's mood completely changed. The
+talk of the evening grew remote, his family no longer real, mere little
+figures, shadowy, receding swiftly far away.... Much quieter now, he lay a
+long time listening to the life of the house, the occasional sounds from
+the various rooms. From the nursery adjoining came little Bruce's piping
+laugh, and Roger could hear the nurse moving about. Afterwards for a long
+time he could hear only creaks and breathings. Never had the old house
+seemed so like a living creature. For nearly forty years it had held all
+that he had loved and known, all he had been sure of. Outside of it was the
+strange, the new, the uncertain, the vast unknown, stretching away to
+infinity....
+
+Again he heard Bruce's gay little laugh. What did it remind him of? He
+puzzled. Then he had it. Edith had been a baby here. Her cradle had been in
+this very room, close by the bed. And how she had laughed! What gurgles and
+ripples of bursting glee! The first child in his family....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+On the next day, which was Sunday, Deborah made an appointment with her
+father's physician, and had a long talk with him at his house. Upon her
+return she went to her room and stayed there until evening, but when she
+came down to supper her manner was as usual. At the table she joined in the
+talk of Edith and the children, already deep in their preparations for the
+move up to the farm. George could hardly wait to start. That life would be
+a change indeed in Edith's plans for her family, and as they talked about
+it now the tension of hostility which had so long existed between the two
+sisters passed away. Each knew the clash had come to an end, that they
+would live together no more; and as though in remorse they drew close,
+Deborah with her suggestions, Edith in her friendly way of taking and
+discussing each one. Then Deborah went again to her room. Her room was just
+over Roger's, and waking several times in the night he heard his daughter
+walking the floor.
+
+The next day she was up early and off to her school before he came down. It
+was a fine spring morning, Roger had had a good night's sleep, and as he
+walked to his office he was buoyed up by a feeling both of hope for his
+daughter and of solid satisfaction in himself as he remembered all that he
+had said to her. Curiously enough he could recall every word of it now.
+Every point which he had made rose up before him vividly. How clear he had
+been, how simple and true, and yet with what a tremendous effect he had
+piled the points one on the other. "By George," he thought with a little
+glow, "for a fellow who's never been in a pulpit I put up a devilish strong
+appeal." And he added sagely, "Let it work on the girl, give it a chance.
+She'll come out of this all right. This idea some fellows have, that every
+woman is born a fool, isn't fair, it isn't true. Just let a line of
+argument be presented to her strong and clear--straight from the
+shoulder--by some man--"
+
+And again with a tingle of pleasure his mind recurred to his sermon. His
+pleasures had been few of late, so he dwelt on this little glow of pride
+and made the most of it while it was here.
+
+At the office, as he entered his room, he stopped with a slight shock of
+surprise. John, standing on his crutches in front of a large table, had
+been going through the morning's mail, sorting out the routine letters
+Roger did not need to see. To-day he had just finished and was staring at
+the window. The light fell full on his sallow face and showed an amazing
+happiness. At Roger's step he started.
+
+"Well, Johnny, how goes it this morning?"
+
+"Fine, thank you," was the prompt reply. And John hobbled briskly over to
+his typewriter in the corner. Roger sat down at his desk. As he did so he
+glanced again at the cripple and felt a little pang of regret. "What will
+become of him," he asked, "when I close out my business?" He still thought
+of him as a mere boy, for looking at the small crooked form it was
+difficult to remember that John was twenty years of age. The lad had worked
+like a Trojan of late. Even Roger, engrossed as he had been in family
+anxieties, had noticed it in the last few weeks. He would have to make some
+provision for John. Deborah would see to it.... Roger went slowly through
+his mail. One letter was from the real estate firm through whom he was to
+sell the house. The deal had not been closed as yet, there were certain
+points still to be settled. So Roger called John to his desk and dictated a
+reply. When he finished there was a brief pause.
+
+"That's all," said Roger gruffly.
+
+"So you're sellin' the house," John ventured.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The lad limped back to his corner and went to work at his machine. But
+presently he came over again and stood waiting awkwardly.
+
+"What is it, Johnny?" Roger inquired, without looking up.
+
+"Say, Mr. Gale," the boy began, in a carefully casual tone, "would you mind
+talking business a minute or two?"
+
+"No. Fire ahead."
+
+"Well, sir, you've had your own troubles lately, you haven't had much time
+for things here. The last time you went over the books was nearly a couple
+of weeks ago."
+
+John paused and his look was portentous.
+
+"Well," asked Roger, "what about it? Business been picking up any since
+then?"
+
+"Yes, sir!" was the answer. "We didn't lose a cent last week! We made
+money! Fifteen dollars!"
+
+"Good Lord, Johnny, we're getting rich."
+
+"But that's nothing," John continued. "The fact of the matter is, Mr. Gale,
+I have been working lately on a new line I thought of. And now it's got
+agoing so fast it's getting clean away from me!" Again he stopped, and
+swallowed hard.
+
+"Out with it, then," said Roger.
+
+"I got it from the war," said John. "The papers are still half full of war
+news, and that's what's keeping our business down--because we ain't
+adopting ourselves to the new war conditions. So I figured it like this.
+Say there are a million people over here in America who've got either
+friends or relations in the armies over there. Say that all of 'em want to
+get news--not just this stuff about battles, but real live news of what's
+happened to Bill. Has Bill still got his legs and arms? Can he hold down a
+job when he gets home? News which counts for something! See? A big new
+market! Business for us! So I tried to see what I could do!" John
+excitedly shifted his crutches. Roger was watching intently.
+
+"Go on, Johnny."
+
+"Sure, I'll go on! One night I went to a library where they have English
+papers. I went over their files for about a month. I took one Canadian
+regiment--see?--and traced it through, and I got quite a story. Then I used
+some of the money I've saved and bought a whole bunch of papers. I piled
+'em up in the room where I sleep and went through 'em nights. I hired two
+kids to help me. Well, Mr. Gale, the thing worked fine! In less than a week
+I had any amount of little bunches of clippings. See how I mean? Each bunch
+was the story of one regiment for a month. So I knew we could deliver the
+goods!
+
+"Well, this was about ten days ago. And then I went after the market. I
+went to a man I met last year in an advertising office, and for fifty
+dollars we put an 'ad' in the Sunday Times. After that there was nothing to
+do but wait. The next day--nothing doing! I was here at seven-thirty and I
+went through every mail. Not a single answer to my 'ad'--and I thought I
+was busted! But Tuesday morning there were three, with five dollar checks
+inside of 'em! In the afternoon there were two more and the next day
+eleven! By the end of last week we'd had forty-six! Friday I put in another
+'ad' and there've been over seventy more since then! That makes a hundred
+and twenty in all--six hundred dollars! And I'm swamped! I ain't done
+nothing yet--I've just kept 'em all for you to see!"
+
+He went quickly to the table, gathered a pile of letters there and brought
+them over to Roger's desk. Roger glanced over a few of them, dazed. He
+looked around into John's shrewd face, where mingled devotion and triumph
+and business zeal were shining.
+
+"Johnny," he said huskily, "you've adopted my business and no mistake."
+John swallowed again and scowled with joy.
+
+"Let's figure it out!" he proposed.
+
+"We will!"
+
+They were at it all day, laying their plans, "adopting" the work of the
+office to the new conditions. They found they would need a larger force,
+including a French and a German translator. They placed other "ads" in the
+papers. They forgot to have lunch and worked steadily on, till the outer
+rooms were empty and still. At last they were through. Roger wearily put on
+his cuffs, and went and got his coat and hat.
+
+"Say, Mr. Gale," John asked him, "how about this letter--the one you
+dictated this morning to that firm about your house?" Roger turned and
+looked at him.
+
+"Throw it into the basket," he said. "We'll write 'em another to-morrow and
+tell 'em we have changed our minds." He paused for just a moment, and then
+he added brusquely, "If this goes through as I hope it will, I guess you'd
+better come into the firm."
+
+And he left the room abruptly. Behind him there was not a sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home in his study, that evening, he made some more calculations. In a
+few weeks he would have money enough to start Edith and her family in their
+new life on the farm. For the present at least, the house was safe.
+
+"Why, father." Edith came into the room. "I didn't know you had come home.
+What kept you so long at the office?"
+
+"Oh, business, my dear--"
+
+"Have you had any supper?"
+
+"No, and I'd like some," he replied.
+
+"I'll see to it myself," she said. Edith was good at this sort of thing,
+and the supper she brought was delicious. He ate it with keen relish. Then
+he went back to his study and picked up a book, an old favorite. He
+started to read, but presently dozed. The book dropped from his hands and
+he fell asleep.
+
+He awakened with a start, and saw Deborah looking down at him. For a moment
+he stared up, as he came to his senses, and in his daughter's clear gray
+eyes he thought he saw a happiness which set his heart to beating fast.
+
+"Well?" he questioned huskily.
+
+"We're to be married right away."
+
+He stared a moment longer; "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad, my dear. I was afraid
+you--" he stopped short. Deborah bent close to him, and he felt her squeeze
+his arm:
+
+"I've been over and over all you said," she told him, in a low sweet voice.
+"I had a good many ups and downs. But I'm all through now--I'm sure you
+were right." And she pressed her cheek to his. "Oh, dad, dad--it's such a
+relief! And I'm so happy!... Thank you, dear."
+
+"Where is Allan?" he asked presently.
+
+"I'll get him," she said. She left the room, and in a moment Allan's tall
+ungainly form appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Well, Allan, my boy," Roger cried.
+
+"Oh, Roger Gale," said Allan softly. He was wringing Roger's hand.
+
+"So she decided to risk you, eh," Roger said unsteadily. "Well, Baird, you
+look like a devilish risk for a woman like her--who has the whole world on
+her back as it is--"
+
+"I know--I know--and how rash she has been! Only two years and her mind was
+made up!"
+
+"But that's like her--that's our Deborah--always acting like a flash--"
+
+"Stop acting like children!" Deborah cried. "And be sensible and listen to
+me! We're to be married to-morrow morning--"
+
+"Why to-morrow?" Roger asked.
+
+"Because," she said decidedly, "there has been enough fuss over this
+affair. So we'll just be married and have it done. And when Edith and the
+children go up next week to the mountains, we want to move right into this
+house."
+
+"This house?" exclaimed her father.
+
+"I know--it's sold," she answered. "But we're going to get a lease. We'll
+see the new owner and talk him around."
+
+"Then you'll have to talk _your father_ around--"
+
+"_You_ around?" And Deborah stared. "You mean to say you're not going to
+sell?"
+
+"I do," said Roger blithely. He told them the story of John's new scheme.
+"And if things turn out in the office as I hope they will," he ended,
+"we'll clear the mortgage on the house and then make it your wedding
+gift--from the new firm to the new family."
+
+Deborah choked a little:
+
+"Allan! What do you think of us now?"
+
+"I think," he answered, in a drawl, "that we'd better try to persuade the
+new firm to live with the new family."
+
+"We will, and the sooner the better!" she said.
+
+"I'm going up to the mountains," said Roger.
+
+"Yes, but you're coming back in the fall, and when you do you're coming
+here! And you're going to live here years and years!"
+
+"You're forgetting my doctor."
+
+"Not at all. I had a long talk with him Sunday and I know just what I'm
+saying."
+
+"You don't look it, my dear," said Roger, "but of course you may be right.
+If you take the proper care of me here--and John keeps booming things for
+the firm--"
+
+"And George makes a huge success of the farm," Deborah added quickly.
+
+"And Deborah of teaching the world--"
+
+"Oh, Allan, hush up!"
+
+"Look here," he said. "You go upstairs and tell Edith all this. Your father
+and I want to be alone."
+
+And when the two men were left alone, they smoked and said nothing. They
+smiled at each other.
+
+"It's hard to decide," grunted Roger at last. "Which did it--my wonderful
+sermon or your own long waiting game? I'm inclined to think it was the
+game. For any other man but you--with all you've done, without any
+talk--no, sir, there wouldn't have been a chance. For she's modern, Baird,
+she's modern. And I'm going to live just as long as I can. I want to see
+what happens here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next night in his study, how quiet it was. Edith was busy packing
+upstairs, Deborah and Allan were gone. Thoughts drifted slowly across his
+mind. Well, she was married, the last of his daughters, the one whom he
+cared most for, the one who had taken the heaviest risks. And this was the
+greatest risk of all. For although she had put it happily out of her
+thoughts for the moment, Roger knew the old troublesome question was still
+there in Deborah's mind. The tenement children or her own, the big family
+or the small? He felt there would still be struggles ahead. And with a kind
+of a wistfulness he tried to see into the future here.
+
+He gave a sudden start in his chair.
+
+"By George!" he thought. "They forgot the ring!" Scowling, he tried to
+remember. Yes, in the brief simple service that day, in which so much had
+been omitted--music, flowers, wedding gown--even the ring had been left
+out. Why? Not from any principle, he knew that they were not such fools.
+No, they had simply forgotten it, in the haste of getting married at once.
+Well, by thunder, for a girl whose father had been a collector of rings for
+the best part of his natural life, it was pretty shabby to say the least!
+Then he recollected that he, too, had forgotten it. And this quieted him
+immediately.
+
+"I'll get one, though," he promised himself. "And no plain wedding ring
+either. I'll make A. Baird attend to that. No, I'll get her a ring worth
+while."
+
+He sank deep in his chair and took peace to his soul by thinking of the
+ring he would choose. And this carried his thoughts back over the years.
+For there had been so many rings....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+It was a clear beautiful afternoon toward the end of May. And as the train
+puffing up the grade wound along the Connecticut River, Roger sat looking
+out of the window. The orchards were pink and white on the hills. Slowly
+the day wore away. The river narrowed, the hills reared high, and in the
+sloping meadows gray ribs and shoulders of granite appeared. The air had a
+tang of the mountains. Everywhere were signs of spring, of new vigor and
+fresh life. But the voices at each station sounded drowsier than at the
+last, the eyes appeared more stolid, and to Roger it felt like a journey
+far back into old ways of living, old beliefs and old ideals. He had always
+had this feeling, and always he had relished it, this dive into his
+boyhood. But it was different to-day, for this was more than a journey, it
+was a migration, too. Close about him in the car were Edith and her
+children, bound for a new home up there in the very heart and stronghold of
+all old things in America.
+
+Old things dear to Edith's heart. As she sat by the window staring out, he
+watched her shapely little head; he noted the hardening lines on her
+forehead and the gray which had come in her hair. It had been no easy move
+for her, this, she'd shown pluck to take it so quietly. He saw her smile a
+little, then frown and go on with her thinking. What was she thinking
+about, he wondered--all she had left behind in New York, or the rest of her
+life which lay ahead? She had always longed for things simple and old.
+Well, she would have them now with a vengeance, summer and winter, the year
+'round, in the battered frame house on the mountain side, the birthplace of
+her family. A recollection came to him of a summer's dusk two years ago
+and a woman with a lawn mower cutting the grass on the family graves. Would
+Edith ever be like that, a mere custodian of the past? If she did, he
+thought, she would be false to the very traditions she tried to preserve.
+For her forefathers had never been mere guardians of things gone by. Always
+they had been pioneers. That house had not been old to them, but a
+thrilling new adventure. Their old homes they had left behind, far down in
+the valleys to the east. And even those valley homes had been new to the
+rugged men come over the sea. Would Edith ever understand? Would she see
+that for herself the new must emerge from her children, from the ideas,
+desires and plans already teeming in their minds? Would she show keen
+interest, sympathy? Would she be able to keep her hold?
+
+In the seat behind her mother, Betsy was sitting with Bruce in her lap,
+looking over a picture book. Quietly Roger watched the girl.
+
+"What are you going to be?" he asked. "A woman's college president, a
+surgeon or a senator? And what will your mother think of you then?"
+
+They changed cars, and on a train made up of antiquated coaches they wound
+through a side valley, down which rushing and tumbling came the river that
+bore Roger's name. He went into the smoking car, and presently George
+joined him there. George did not yet smoke, (with his elders), but he had
+bought a package of gum and he was chewing absorbedly. Plainly the lad was
+excited over the great existence which he saw opening close ahead. Roger
+glanced at the boy's broad shoulders, noticed the eager lines of his jaw,
+looked down at his enormous hands, unformed as yet, ungainly; but in them
+was a hungriness that caused a glow in Roger's breast. One more of the
+family starting out.
+
+"It's all going to depend on you," Roger gravely counseled. "Your whole
+life will depend on the start you make. Either you're going to settle down,
+like so many of your neighbors up there, or you're going to hustle, plan
+out your day, keep on with your studies and go to college--the State
+Agricultural College, I mean. In short, keep up to date, my boy, and become
+in time a big figure in farming."
+
+"I'm going to do it," George replied. His grandfather glanced again at his
+face, so scowling, so determined. And a gleam of compassion and yearning
+came for a moment in Roger's eyes. His heavy hand lay on George's knee.
+
+"That's right, son," he grunted. "Make the family proud of you. I'll do all
+I can to help you start. My business is picking up, thank God, and I'll be
+able to back you now. I'll stay up here a good part of the summer. We've
+both of us got a lot to learn--and not only from books--we want to remember
+we've plenty to learn from the neighbors, too. Take old Dave Royce, for
+instance, who when all is said and done has worked our farm for twenty odd
+years and never once run me into debt."
+
+"But, Gee!" demurred George. "He's so 'way out of date!"
+
+"I know he is, son, but we've got to go slow." And Roger's look passed
+furtively along the faces in the car. "We don't want to forget," he warned,
+"that this is still New England. Every new idea we have we want to go easy
+with, snake it in."
+
+"I've got an awful lot of 'em," the boy muttered hungrily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the farm, the next morning at daybreak, Roger was awakened by the sound
+of George's voice. It was just beneath his window:
+
+"But cattle are only part of it, Dave," the boy declared, in earnest tones,
+"just part of what we can have up here. Think what we've got--over three
+hundred acres! And we want to make every acre count! We want to get in a
+whole lot more of hogs--Belted Hampshires, if we can afford 'em--and a
+couple of hundred hens. White Leghorns ought to fill the bill. Of course
+that's just a starter. I've got a scheme for some incubators--electric--run
+by the dynamo which we'll put in down by the dam. And we can do wonders
+with bees, too, Dave--I've got a book on 'em I'd like you to read. And
+besides, there's big money in squab these days. Rich women in New York
+hotels eat thousands of 'em every night. And ducks, of course, and turkeys.
+I'd like a white gobbler right at the start, if we knew where we could get
+one cheap." The voice broke off and there was a pause. "We can do an awful
+lot with this place."
+
+Then Dave's deep drawl:
+
+"That's so, George--yes, I guess that's so. Only we don't want to fool
+ourselves. That ain't Noah's Ark over thar--it's a barn. And just for a
+starter, if I was you--" Here Dave deliberated. "Of course it's none of my
+business," he said, "it's for you and your grandfather to decide--and I
+don't propose to interfere in what ain't any of my affair--"
+
+"Yes, yes, Dave, sure! That's all right! But go on! _What_, just for a
+starter?"
+
+"Cows," came the tranquil answer. "I've been hunting around since you wrut
+me last month. And I know of three good milkers--"
+
+"Three? Why, Dave, I wrote we want thirty or forty!"
+
+"Yes--you wrut," Dave answered. "But I've druv all around these parts--and
+there ain't but three that I can find. And I ain't so sure of that third
+one. She looks like she might--" George cut in.
+
+"But you only had a buggy, Dave! Gee! I'm going to have a Ford!"
+
+"That so, George?"
+
+"You bet it's so! And we'll go on a cow hunt all over the State!"
+
+"Well--I dunno but what you're right," Dave responded cautiously. "You
+might get more cows if you had a Ford--an' got so you could run it. Yes, I
+guess it's a pretty good scheme. I believe in being conservative,
+George--but I dunno now but what a Ford--"
+
+Their voices passed from under the window, and Roger relaxed and smiled to
+himself. It was a good beginning, he thought.
+
+They bought a Ford soon afterwards and in the next few weeks of June they
+searched the farms for miles around, slowly adding to their herd. To
+Roger's surprise he found many signs of a new life stirring there--the
+farmers buying "autos" and improved machinery, thinking of new processes;
+and down in the lower valleys they found several big stock farms which were
+decidedly modern affairs. At one such place, the man in charge took a fancy
+to George and asked him to drop over often.
+
+"You bet I'll drop over often!" George replied, as he climbed excitedly
+into his Ford. "I want to see more of those milking machines! We're going
+to have 'em some day ourselves! A dynamo too!"
+
+And at home, down by the ruined mill he again set about rebuilding the dam.
+
+Roger felt himself growing stronger. His sleeps were sound, and his
+appetite had come back to a surprising degree. The mountain air had got
+into his blood and George's warm vigor into his soul. One afternoon,
+watching the herd come home, some thirty huge animals swinging along with a
+slow heavy power in their limbs, he breathed the strong sweet scent of them
+on the mountain breeze. George came running by them and stopped a moment by
+Roger's side, watching closely and eagerly every animal as it passed. And
+Roger glanced at George's face. The herd passed on and George followed
+behind, his collie dog leaping and barking beside him. And Roger looked up
+at a billowy cloud resting on a mountain top and wondered whether after all
+that New York doctor had been right.
+
+He followed the herd into the barn. In two long rows, the great heads of
+the cattle turned hungrily, lowing and sniffing deep, breathing harshly,
+stamping, as the fodder cart came down the lines. What a splendidly
+wholesome work for a lad, growing up with his roots in the soil, in these
+massive simple forces of life. What of Edith's other children? Would they
+be willing to stay here long? Each morning Roger breakfasted with Bruce the
+baby by his side. "What a thing for you, little lad," he thought, "if you
+could live here all your days. But will you? Will you want to stay? Won't
+you, too, get the fever, as I did, for the city?" In the joyous, shining,
+mysterious eyes of the baby he found no reply. He had many long talks with
+Betsy, who was eager to go away to school, and with Bob and little Tad who
+were going to school in the village that fall. And the feeling came to
+Roger that surely he would see these lives, at least for many years ahead.
+They were so familiar and so real, so fresh and filled with hopes and
+dreams. And he felt himself so a part of them all.
+
+But one morning, climbing the steep upper field to a spring George wanted
+to show him, Roger suddenly swayed, turned faint. He caught hold of a
+boulder on the wall and held himself rigid, breathing hard. It passed, and
+he looked at his grandson. But George had noticed nothing. The boy had
+turned and his brown eyes were fixed on a fallow field below. Wistfully
+Roger watched his face. They both stood motionless for a long time.
+
+As the summer drew slowly to a close, Roger spent many quiet hours alone by
+the copse of birches, where the glory of autumn was already stealing in and
+out among the tall slender stems of the trees. And he thought of the silent
+winter there, and of the spring which would come again, and the long
+fragrant summer. And he watched the glow on the mountains above and the
+rolling splendors of the clouds. At dusk he heard the voices of animals,
+birds and insects, murmuring up from all the broad valley, then gradually
+sinking to deep repose, many never to wake again. And the span of his life,
+from the boyhood which he could recall so vividly here among these
+children, seemed brief to him as a summer's day, only a part of a mighty
+whole made up of the innumerable lives, the many generations, of his
+family, his own flesh and blood, come out of a past he could never know,
+and going on without him now, branching, dividing, widening out to what his
+eyes would never see.
+
+Vaguely he pictured them groping their way, just as he himself had done. It
+seemed to Roger that all his days he had been only entering life, as some
+rich bewildering thicket like this copse of birches here, never getting
+very deep, never seeing very clearly, never understanding all. And so it
+had been with his children, and so it was with these children of Edith's,
+and so it would be with those many others--always groping, blundering,
+starting--children, only children all. And yet what lives they were to
+lead, what joys and revelations and disasters would be theirs, in the
+strange remote world they would live in--"my flesh and blood that I never
+shall know."
+
+But the stars were quiet and serene. The meadows and the forests on the
+broad sweep of the mountain side took on still brighter, warmer hues. And
+there was no gloom in these long good-byes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a frosty night in September, he left the farm to go to the city. From
+his seat in the small automobile Roger looked back at the pleasant old
+house with its brightly lighted windows, and then he turned to George by
+his side:
+
+"We're in good shape for the winter, son."
+
+But George did not get his full meaning.
+
+At the little station, there were no other passengers. They walked the
+platform for some time. Then the train with a scream came around the curve.
+A quick grip on George's hand, and Roger climbed into the car. Inside, a
+moment later, he looked out through the window. By a trainman with a
+lantern, George stood watching, smiling up, and he waved his hand as the
+train pulled out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+The next morning on his arrival in town, Roger went to his office. He had
+little cause for uneasiness there, for twice in the summer he had come down
+to keep an eye on the business, while John had taken brief vacations at a
+seaside place nearby. The boy had no color now in his cheeks; as always,
+they were a sallow gray with the skin drawn tight over high cheek bones;
+his vigor was all in his eyes. But here was a new John, nevertheless, a
+successful man of affairs. He had on a spruce new suit of brown, no cheap
+ready-made affair but one carefully fitted to conceal and soften his
+deformity. He was wearing a bright blue tie and a cornflower in his
+buttonhole, and his sandy hair was sleekly brushed. He showed Roger into
+his private room, a small place he had partitioned off, where over his desk
+was a motto in gold: "This is no place for your troubles or mine."
+
+"Lord, but you've got yourself fixed up fine in here," said Roger. John
+smiled broadly. "And you're looking like a new man, Johnny."
+
+"I had a great time at the seashore. Learned to sail a boat alone. What do
+you think of this chair of mine?" And John complacently displayed the
+ingenious contrivance in front of his desk, somewhat like a bicycle seat.
+It was made of steel and leather pads.
+
+"Wonderful," said Roger. "Where'd you ever pick it up?"
+
+"I had it made," was the grave reply. "When a fellow has got up in life
+enough to have a stenographer, it's high time he was sitting down."
+
+"Let's see you do it." John sat down. "Now how is business?" Roger asked.
+
+"Great. Since the little slump we had in August it has taken a new
+start--and not only war business, at that--the old people are sending in
+orders again. I tell you what it is, Mr. Gale, this country is right on the
+edge of a boom!"
+
+And the junior member of the firm tilted triumphantly back in his chair.
+
+With the solid comfort which comes to a man when he returns to find his
+affairs all going well, Roger worked on until five o'clock, and then he
+started for his home.
+
+Deborah had not yet come in, and a deep silence reigned in the house. He
+looked through the rooms downstairs, and with content he noticed how little
+had been altered. His beloved study had not been touched. On the third
+floor, in the large back room, he found John comfortably installed. There
+were gay prints upon the walls, fresh curtains at the windows, a mandolin
+lying on a chair. And Roger, glancing down at the keen glad face of his
+partner, told himself that the doctor who had said this lad would die was a
+fool.
+
+"These doctors fool themselves often," he thought.
+
+Deborah and Allan had the front room on the floor below. Roger went in, and
+for a moment he stood looking about him. How restful and how radiant was
+this large old-fashioned chamber, so softly lighted, waiting. Through a
+passageway lined with cupboards he went into his room at the back. Deborah
+had repapered it, but with a pattern so similar that Roger did not notice
+the change. He only felt a vague freshness here, as though even this old
+chamber, too, were making a new start in life. And he felt as though he
+were to live here for years. Slowly he unpacked his trunk and took a bath
+and dressed at his leisure. Then he heard Deborah's voice at the door.
+
+"Come in, come in!" he answered.
+
+"Why, father! Dearie!" Deborah cried "Oh, how well you're looking, dad!"
+And she kissed him happily. "Oh, but I'm glad to have you back--"
+
+"That's good," he said, and he squeezed her hand "Here, come to the light,
+let me look at you." He saw her cheeks a little flushed, the gladness in
+her steady eyes. "Happy? Everything just right?" His daughter nodded,
+smiling, and he gave a whimsical frown. "No ups and down at all? That's
+bad."
+
+"Oh, yes, plenty--but all so small."
+
+"Good fellow to live with."
+
+"Very."
+
+"And your work?
+
+"It's going splendidly. I'll tell you about it this evening, after you give
+me the news from the farm."
+
+They chatted on for a short while, but he saw she was barely listening.
+
+"Can't you guess what it means," she asked him softly, "to a woman of my
+age--after she has been so afraid she was too old, that she'd married too
+late--to know at last--to be sure at last--that she's to have a baby, dad?"
+He drew back a little, and a lump rose in his throat.
+
+"By George!" he huskily exclaimed. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" And he held her
+close in his arms for some time, till both of them grew sensible.
+
+Soon after she had gone to her room, he heard Allan coming upstairs. He
+heard her low sweet cry of welcome, a silence, then their voices. He heard
+them laughing together and later Deborah humming a song. And still thinking
+of what she had told him, he felt himself so close to it all. And again the
+feeling came to him that surely he would live here for years.
+
+Allan came in and they had a talk.
+
+"Deborah says she has told you the news."
+
+"Yes. Everything's all right, I suppose--her condition, I mean," said
+Roger.
+
+"Couldn't be better."
+
+"Just as I thought."
+
+"Those six weeks we had up in Maine--"
+
+"Yes, you both show it. Working hard?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"And Deborah?" Roger asked.
+
+"You'll have to help me hold her in."
+
+They talked a few moments longer and went down to the living room. John was
+there with Deborah. All four went in to dinner. And through the
+conversation, from time to time Roger noticed the looks that went back and
+forth between husband and wife; and again he caught Deborah smiling as
+though oblivious of them all. After dinner she went with him into his den.
+
+"Well! Do you like the house?" she inquired.
+
+"Better than ever," he replied.
+
+"I wonder if you'll mind it. There'll be people coming to dinner, you
+know--"
+
+"That won't bother me any," he said.
+
+"And committee meetings now and then. But you're safe in here, it's a good
+thick door."
+
+"Let 'em talk," he retorted, "as hard as they please. You're married
+now--they can't scare me a bit. Only at ten o'clock, by George, you've got
+to knock off and go to bed."
+
+"Oh, I'll take care of myself," she said.
+
+"If you don't, Allan will. We've had a talk."
+
+"Scheming already."
+
+"Yes. When will it be?"
+
+"In April, I think."
+
+"You'll quit work in your schools?"
+
+"A month before."
+
+"And in the meantime, not too hard."
+
+"No, and not too easy. I'm so sure now that I can do both." And Deborah
+kissed him gently. "I'm so happy, dearie--and oh, so very glad you're
+here!"
+
+There followed for Roger, after that, many quiet evenings at home,
+untroubled days in his office. Seldom did he notice the progress of his
+ailment. His attention was upon his house, as this woman who mothered
+thousands of children worked on for her great family, putting all in order,
+making ready for the crisis ahead when she would become the mother of one.
+
+Now even more than ever before, her work came crowding into his home. The
+house was old, but the house was new. For from schools and libraries, cafés
+and tenements and streets, the mighty formless hunger which had once so
+thrilled her father poured into the house itself and soon became a part of
+it. He felt the presence of the school. He heard the daily gossip of that
+bewildering system of which his daughter was a part: a world in itself,
+with its politics, its many jarring factions, its jealousies, dissensions,
+its varied personalities, ambitions and conspiracies; but in spite of these
+confusions its more progressive elements downing all distrusts and fears
+and drawing steadily closer to life, fearlessly rousing everywhere the
+hunger in people to live and learn and to take from this amazing world all
+the riches that it holds: the school with its great challenge steadily
+increasing its demands in the name of its children, demands which went deep
+down into conditions in the tenements and ramified through politics to the
+City Hall, to Albany, and even away to Washington--while day by day and
+week by week, from cities, towns and villages came the vast prophetic story
+of the free public schools of the land.
+
+And meanwhile, in the tenements, still groping and testing, feeling her
+way, keeping close watch on her great brood, their wakening desires, their
+widening curiosities, Deborah was bringing them, children, mothers and
+fathers too, together through the one big hope of brighter and more ample
+lives for everybody's children. Step by step this hope was spread out into
+the surrounding swamps and jungles of blind driven lives, to find
+surprising treasures there deep buried under dirt and din, locked in the
+common heart of mankind--old songs and fables, hopes and dreams and visions
+of immortal light, handed down from father to son, nurtured, guarded,
+breathed upon and clothed anew by countless generations, innumerable
+millions of simple men and women blindly struggling toward the sun. Over
+the door of one of the schools, were these words carved in the stone:
+
+"Humanity is still a child. Our parents are all people who have lived upon
+the earth--our children, all who are to come. And the dawn at last is
+breaking. The great day has just begun."
+
+This spirit of triumphal life poured deep into Roger's house. It was as
+though his daughter, in these last months which she had left for undivided
+service, were strengthening her faith in it all and pledging her
+devotion--as communing with herself she felt the crisis drawing near.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+There came an interruption. One night when Deborah was out and Roger sat in
+his study alone, the maid came in highly flustered and said,
+
+"Mr. Gale! It's Miss Laura to see you!"
+
+He turned with a startled jerk of his head and his face slowly reddened.
+But when he saw the maid's eager expression and saw that she was expecting
+a scene, with a frown of displeasure he rose from his chair.
+
+"Very well," he said, and he went to his daughter. He found her in the
+living room. No repentant Magdalene, but quite unabashed and at her ease,
+she came to her father quickly.
+
+"Oh, dad, I'm so glad to see you, dear!" And she gave him a swift impetuous
+kiss, her rich lips for an instant pressing warmly to his cheek.
+
+"Laura!" he said thickly. "Come into my study, will you? I'm alone this
+evening."
+
+"I'm so glad you are!" she replied. She followed him in and he closed the
+door. He glanced at her confusedly. In her warmth, her elegance, an
+indefinable change in the tone and accent of her high magnetic voice, and
+in her ardent smiling eyes, she seemed to him more the foreigner now. And
+Roger's thoughts were in a whirl. What had happened? Had she married again?
+
+"Is Edith here still?" she was asking.
+
+"No, she's up in the mountains. She's living there," he answered.
+
+"Edith? In the mountains?" demanded Laura, in surprise. And she asked
+innumerable questions. He replied to each one of them carefully, slowly,
+meanwhile getting control of himself.
+
+"And Deborah married--married at last! How has it worked? Is she happy,
+dad?"
+
+"Very," he said.
+
+"And is she still keeping up her schools?"
+
+"Yes, for the present. She'll have to stop soon." Laura leaned forward,
+curious:
+
+"Tell me, dad--a baby?"
+
+"Yes." She stared a moment.
+
+"Deborah!" she softly exclaimed; and in a moment, "I wonder."
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked, but Laura evaded his question. She
+plied him with her inquiries for a few minutes longer, then turned to him
+with a challenging smile:
+
+"Well, father, don't you think you had better ask me now about myself?" He
+looked away a moment, but turned resolutely back:
+
+"I suppose so. When did you land?"
+
+"This morning, dear, from Italy--with my husband," she replied. And Roger
+started slightly. "I want you to meet him soon," she said.
+
+"Very well," he answered. At his disturbed, almost guilty expression Laura
+laughed a little and rose and came over and hugged him tight.
+
+"Oh, but, father dearest--it's working out so splendidly! I want you to
+know him and see for yourself! We've come to live in New York for a
+while--he has more to do here about war supplies."
+
+"More shrapnel, eh, machine guns. More wholesale death," her father
+growled. But Laura smiled good-naturedly.
+
+"Yes, love, from America. Aren't you all ashamed of yourselves--scrambling
+so, to get rich quick--out of this war you disapprove of."
+
+"_You_ look a bit rich," her father retorted.
+
+"Rather--for the moment," was her cheerful answer.
+
+"And you still like living in Italy?"
+
+"Tremendously! Rome is wonderful now!"
+
+"Reborn, eh. Wings of the Eagles."
+
+"Yes, and we're doing rather well."
+
+"I haven't noticed it," Roger said. "Why don't you send a few of your
+troops to help those plucky Frenchmen?"
+
+"Because," she replied, "we have a feeling that this is a war where we had
+much better help ourselves."
+
+"High ideals," he snorted.
+
+"Rome reborn," she remarked, unabashed. And her father scowled at her
+whimsically.
+
+"You're a heathen. I give you up," he declared. Laura had risen, smiling.
+
+"Oh, no, don't give me up," she said. "For you see," she added softly, "I'm
+a heathen with a great deal of love in her heart for thee, my dearest dad.
+May I bring him down, my husband?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I'll telephone to Deborah to-morrow and arrange it."
+
+When she had gone he returned to his chair and sat for a long time in a
+daze. He was still disturbed and bewildered. What a daughter of his! And
+what did it mean? Could she really go on being happy like this? Sinning?
+Yes, she was sinning! Laura had broken her marriage vows, she had "run off
+with another fellah." Those were the plain ugly facts. And now, divorced
+and re-married, she was careering gayly on! And her views of the war were
+plain heathenish! And yet there was something about her--yes, he thought,
+he loved her still! What for? For being so happy! And yet she was wrong to
+be happy, all wrong! His thoughts went 'round in circles.
+
+And his confusion and dismay grew even deeper the next night when Laura
+brought her new husband to dine. For in place of the dark polished
+scoundrel whom Roger had expected, here was a spruce and affable youth with
+thick light hair and ruddy cheeks, a brisk pleasant manner of talking and a
+decidedly forcible way of putting the case of his country at war. They kept
+the conversation to that. For despite Deborah's friendly air, she showed
+plainly that she wanted to keep the talk impersonal. And Laura, rather
+amused at this, replied by treating Deborah and Allan and her father, too,
+with a bantering forbearance for their old-fashioned, narrow views and
+Deborah's religion of brotherhood, democracy. All that to Laura was passé.
+
+From time to time Roger glanced at her face, into her clear and luminous
+eyes so warm with the joy of living with this new man, her second. How his
+family had split apart. He wrote Edith the news of her sister, and he
+received but a brief reply. Nor did Deborah speak of it often. She seemed
+to want to forget Laura's life as the crisis in her own drew near.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+Deborah had not yet stopped work. Again and again she put it off. For in
+her busy office so many demands both old and new kept pressing in upon her,
+such unexpected questions and vexing little problems kept cropping up as
+Deborah tried to arrange her work for the colleague who was to take her
+place in the spring, that day after day she lingered there--until one
+afternoon in March her husband went to her office, gave her an hour to
+finish up, and then brought her home with him. She had a fit of the blues
+that night. Allan was called out on a case, and a little while later Roger
+found his daughter alone in the living room, a book unopened in her lap,
+her gray eyes glistening with tears. She smiled when she caught sight of
+him.
+
+"It's so silly!" she muttered unsteadily. "Just my condition, I suppose. I
+feel as though I had done with school for the remainder of my days!...
+Better leave me now, dearie," she added. "I'm not very proud of myself
+to-night--but I'll be all right in the morning."
+
+The next day she was herself again, and went quietly on with her
+preparations for the coming of her child. But still the ceaseless interests
+of those hordes of other children followed her into the house. Not only her
+successor but principals and teachers came for counsel or assistance. And
+later, when reluctantly she refused to see such visitors, still the
+telephone kept ringing and letters poured in by every mail. For in her
+larger family there were weddings, births and deaths, and the endless
+savage struggle for life; and there were many climaxes of dreams and
+aspirations, of loves and bitter jealousies. And out of all this straining
+and this fever of humanity, came messages to Deborah: last appeals for aid
+and advice, and gifts for the child who was to be born; tiny garments
+quaintly made by women and girls from Italy, from Russia and from Poland;
+baby blankets, wraps and toys and curious charms and amulets. There were so
+many of these gifts.
+
+"There's enough for forty babies," Deborah told her father. "What on earth
+am I to do, to avoid hurting anyone's feelings? And isn't it rather awful,
+the way these inequalities will crop up in spite of you? I know of eight
+tenement babies born down there in this one week. How much fuss and
+feathers is made over them, and their coming into the world, poor mites?"
+Roger smiled at his daughter.
+
+"You remind me of Jekyll and Hyde," he said.
+
+"Father! What a horrible thought! What have Jekyll and Hyde to do with me?"
+
+"Nothing, my dear," he answered. "Only it's queer and a little uncanny,
+something I've never seen before, this double mother life of yours."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was only a few days later when coming home one evening he found that
+Deborah's doctor had put her to bed and installed a nurse. There followed a
+week of keen suspense when Roger stayed home from the office. She liked to
+have him with her, and sitting at her bedside he saw how changed his
+daughter was, how far in these few hours she had drawn into herself. He had
+suspected for some time that all was not well with Deborah, and Allan
+confirmed his suspicions. There was to be grave danger both for the mother
+and the child. It would come out all right, of course, he strove to
+reassure himself. Nothing else could happen now, with her life so
+splendidly settled at last. That Fate could be so pitiless--no, it was
+unthinkable!
+
+"This is what comes of your modern woman!" Roger exclaimed to Allan one
+night. "This is the price she's paying for those nerve-racking years of
+work!"
+
+The crisis came toward the end of the week. And while for one entire night
+and through the day that followed and far into the next night the doctors
+and nurses fought for life in the room upstairs, Roger waited, left to
+himself, sitting in his study or restlessly moving through the house. And
+still that thought was with him--the price! It was kept in his mind by the
+anxious demands which her big family made for news. The telephone kept
+ringing. Women in motors from uptown and humbler visitors young and old
+kept coming to make inquiries. More gifts were brought and flowers. And
+Roger saw these people, and as he answered their questions he fairly
+scowled in their faces--unconsciously, for his mind was not clear.
+Reporters came. Barely an hour passed without bringing a man or a woman
+from some one of the papers. He gave them only brief replies. Why couldn't
+they leave his house alone? He saw her name in headlines: "Deborah Gale at
+Point of Death." And he turned angrily away. Vividly, on the second night,
+there came to him a picture of Deborah's birth so long ago in this same
+house. How safe it had been, how different, how secluded and shut in. No
+world had clamored _then_ for news. And so vivid did this picture grow,
+that when at last there came to his ears the shrill clear cry of a new
+life, it was some time before he could be sure whether this were not still
+his dream of that other night so long ago.
+
+But now a nurse had led him upstairs, and he stood by a cradle looking down
+at a small wrinkled face almost wholly concealed by a soft woolly blanket.
+And presently Allan behind him said,
+
+"It's a boy, and he's to be named after you." Roger looked up.
+
+"How's the mother?" he asked.
+
+"Almost out of danger," was the reply. Then Roger glanced at Allan's face
+and saw how drawn and gray it was. He drew a long breath and turned back to
+the child. Allan had gone and so had the nurse, and he was alone by the
+cradle. Relief and peace and happiness stole into his spirit. He felt the
+deep remoteness of this strange new little creature from all the clamoring
+world without--which he himself was soon to leave. The thought grew
+clearer, clearer, as with a curious steady smile Roger stood there looking
+down.
+
+"Well, little brother, you're here, thank God. And nobody knows how close
+we'll be--for a little while," he thought. "For we're almost out of the
+world, you and I."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Days passed, Deborah's strength increased, and soon they let Roger come
+into the room. She, too, was remote from the world for a time. That great
+family outside was anxious no longer, it left her alone. But soon it would
+demand her. Never again, he told himself, would she be so close, so
+intimate, as here in her bed with this child of hers to whom she had given
+her father's name. "These hours are my real good-byes."
+
+Two long quiet weeks of this happiness, and then in a twinkling it was
+gone. The child fell sick, within a few hours its small existence hung by a
+thread--and to Roger's startled eyes a new Deborah was revealed! Tense and
+silent on her bed, her sensitive lips compressed with pain, her birthmark
+showing a jagged line of fiery red upon her brow as her ears kept straining
+to catch every sound from the nursery adjoining, through hours of stern
+anguish she became the kind of mother that she had once so
+dreaded--shutting out everything else in the world: people, schools, all
+other children, rich or poor, well, sick or dying! Here was the crisis of
+Deborah's life!
+
+One night as she lay listening, with her hand gripping Roger's tight,
+frowning abruptly she said to him, in a harsh, unnatural voice:
+
+"They don't care any longer, none of them care! _I'm_ safe and they've
+stopped worrying, for they know they'll soon have me back at work! The
+work," she added fiercely, "that made my body what it is, not fit to bear a
+baby!" She threw a quick and tortured look toward the door of the other
+room. "My work for those others, all those years, will be to blame if this
+one dies! And if it doesn't live I'm through! I won't go on! I couldn't!
+I'd be too bitter after this--toward all of them--_those children_!"
+
+These last two words were whispers so bitter they made Roger cold.
+
+"But this child is going to live," he responded hoarsely. Its mother stared
+up with a quivering frown. The next moment her limbs contracted as from an
+electric shock. There had come a faint wail from the other room.
+
+And this went on for three days and nights. Again Roger lived as in a
+dream. He saw haggard faces from time to time of doctors, nurses, servants.
+He saw Allan now and then, his tall ungainly figure stooped, his features
+gaunt, his strong wide jaw set like a vise, but his eyes kind and steady
+still, his low voice reassuring. And Roger noticed John at times hobbling
+quickly down a hall and stopping on his crutches before a closed door,
+listening. Then these figures would recede, and it was as though he were
+alone in the dark.
+
+At last the nightmare ended. One afternoon as he sat in his study, Allan
+came in slowly and dropped exhausted into a chair. He turned to Roger with
+a smile.
+
+"Safe now, I think," he said quietly.
+
+Roger went to Deborah and found her asleep, her face at peace. He went to
+his room and fell himself into a long dreamless slumber.
+
+In the days which followed, again he sat at her bedside and together they
+watched the child in her arms. So feeble still the small creature appeared
+that they both spoke in whispers. But as little by little its strength
+returned, Deborah too became herself. And though still jealously watchful
+of its every movement, she had time for other thinking. She had talks with
+her husband, not only about their baby but about his work and hers. Slowly
+her old interest in all they had had in common returned, and to the
+messages from outside she gave again a kindlier ear.
+
+"Allan tells me," she said one day, when she was alone with her father,
+"that I can have no more children. And I'm glad of that. But at least I
+have one," she added, "and he has already made me feel like a different
+woman than before. I feel sometimes as though I'd come a million miles
+along in life. And yet again it feels so close, all that I left back there
+in school. Because I'm so much closer now--to every mother and every child.
+At last I'm one of the family."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+Of that greater family, one member had been in the house all through the
+month which had just gone by. But he had been so quiet, so carefully
+unobtrusive, that he had been scarcely noticed. Very early each morning,
+day after day, John had gone outside for his breakfast and thence to the
+office where he himself had handled the business as well as he could, only
+coming to Roger at night now and then with some matter he could not settle
+alone, but always stoutly declaring that he needed no other assistance.
+
+"Don't come, Mr. Gale," he had urged. "You look worn out. You'll be sick
+yourself if you ain't careful. And anyhow, if you hang around you'll be
+here whenever she wants you."
+
+Early in Deborah's illness, John had offered to give up his room for the
+use of one of the nurses.
+
+"That's mighty thoughtful of you, Johnny," Allan had responded. "But we've
+got plenty of room as it is. Just you stick around. We want you here."
+
+"All right, Doc. If there's any little thing, you know--answering the
+'phone at night or anything else that I can do--"
+
+"Thank you, so; I'll let you know. But in the meantime go to bed."
+
+From that day on, John had taken not only his breakfast but his supper,
+too, outside, and no one had noticed his absence. Coming in late, he had
+hobbled silently up to his room, stopping to listen at Deborah's door. He
+had kept so completely out of the way, it was not till the baby was three
+weeks old, and past its second crisis, that Deborah thought to ask for
+John. When he came to her bed, she smiled up at him with the baby in her
+arms.
+
+"I thought we'd see him together," she said. John stood on his crutches
+staring down. And as Deborah watched him, all at once her look grew intent.
+"Johnny," she said softly, "go over there, will you, and turn up the light,
+so we can see him better."
+
+And when this was done, though she still talked smilingly of the child,
+again and again she glanced up at John's face, at the strange self-absorbed
+expression, stern and sad and wistful, there. When he had gone the tears
+came in her eyes. And Deborah sent for her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day, at the office, John came into Roger's room. Roger had been at
+work several days and they had already cleared up their affairs.
+
+"Here's something," said John gruffly, "that I wish you'd put away
+somewhere."
+
+And he handed to his partner a small blue leather album, filled with the
+newspaper clippings dealing with Deborah's illness. On the front page was
+one with her picture and a long record of her service to the children of
+New York.
+
+"She wouldn't want to see it now," John continued awkwardly. "But I thought
+maybe later on the boy would like to have it. What do you think?" he
+inquired. Roger gave him a kindly glance.
+
+"I think he will. It's a fine thing to keep." And he handed it back. "But I
+guess you'd better put it away, and give it to her later yourself."
+
+John shifted his weight on his crutches, so quickly that Roger looked up in
+alarm:
+
+"Look here! You're not well!" He saw now that the face of the cripple was
+white and the sweat was glistening on his brow. John gave a harsh little
+nervous laugh.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing much, partner," he replied. "That's another thing I
+wanted to tell you. I've had some queer pains lately--new ones!" He caught
+his breath.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, you young fool?"
+
+"You had your own troubles, didn't you?" John spoke with difficulty. "But
+I'll be all right, I guess! All I need is a few days off!"
+
+Roger had pressed a button, and his stenographer came in.
+
+"Call a taxi," he said sharply. "And, John, you go right over there and lie
+down. I'm going to take you home at once!"
+
+"I've got a better scheme," said John, setting his determined jaws. The
+sweat was pouring down his cheeks. "It may be a week--but there's just a
+chance it--may be a little worse than that! So I've got a room in a
+hospital! See? Be better all round!" He swayed forward.
+
+"Johnny!" Roger caught him just in time, and the boy lay senseless in his
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home, a few hours later, Allan came with another physician down from
+John's small bedroom. He saw his colleague to the door and then came in to
+Roger.
+
+"I'm afraid Johnny has come to the end."
+
+For a moment Roger stared at him.
+
+"Has, eh," he answered huskily. "You're absolutely sure he has? There's
+nothing--nothing on earth we can do?"
+
+"Nothing more than we're doing now."
+
+"He has fooled you fellows before, you know--"
+
+"Not this time."
+
+"How long will it be?"
+
+"Days or hours--I don't know."
+
+"He mustn't suffer!"
+
+"I'll see to that." Roger rose and walked the floor.
+
+"It was the last month did it, of course--"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I blame myself for that."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Allan gently. "You've done a good deal for Johnny Geer."
+
+"He has done a good deal for this family! Can Deborah see him?"
+
+"I wish she could."
+
+"Better stretch a point for her, hadn't you? She's been a kind of a mother
+to John."
+
+"I know. But she can't leave her bed."
+
+"Then you won't tell her?"
+
+"I think she knows. She talked to me about him last night."
+
+"That's it, a mother!" Roger cried. "She was watching! We were blind!" He
+came back to his chair and dropped into it.
+
+"Does John know this himself?" he asked.
+
+"He suspects it, I think," said Allan.
+
+"Then go and tell him, will you, that he's going to get well. And after
+you've done it I'll see him myself. I've got something in mind I want to
+think out."
+
+After Allan had left the room, Roger sat thinking about John. He thought of
+John's birth and his drunken mother, the accident and his struggle for
+life, through babyhood and childhood, through ignorance and filth and pain,
+through din and clamor and hunger, fear; of the long fierce fight which
+John had made not to be "put away" in some big institution, of his battle
+to keep up his head, to be somebody, make a career for himself. He thought
+of John's becoming one of Deborah's big family, only one of thousands, but
+it seemed now to Roger that John had stood out from them all, as the figure
+best embodying that great fierce hunger for a full life, and as the link
+connecting, the one who slowly year by year had emerged from her greater
+family and come into her small one. And last of all he thought of John as
+his own companion, his only one, in the immense adventure on which he was
+so soon to embark.
+
+A few moments later he stood by John's bed.
+
+"Pretty hard, Johnny?" he gently asked.
+
+"Oh, not so bad as it might be, I guess--"
+
+"You'll soon feel better, they tell me, boy." John shut his eyes.
+
+"Yes," he muttered.
+
+"Can you stand my talking, just a minute?"
+
+"Sure I can," John whispered. "I'm not suffering any now. He's given me
+something to put me to sleep. What is it you want to talk about? Business?"
+
+"Not exactly, partner. It's about the family. You've got so you're almost
+one of us. I guess you know us pretty well."
+
+"I guess I do. It's meant a lot to me, Mr. Gale--"
+
+"But I'll tell you what you don't know, John," Roger went on slowly. "I had
+a son in the family once, and he died when he was three months old. That
+was a long time ago--and I never had another, you see--to take his
+place--till you came along." There fell a breathless silence. "And I've
+been thinking lately," Roger added steadily. "I haven't long to live, you
+know. And I've been wondering whether--you'd like to come into the
+family--take my name. Do you understand?"
+
+John said nothing. His eyes were still closed. But presently, groping over
+the bed, he found Roger's hand and clutched it tight. After this, from time
+to time his throat contracted sharply. Tears welled from under his eyelids.
+Then gradually, as the merciful drug which Allan had given did its work,
+his clutch relaxed and he began breathing deep and hard. But still for some
+time longer Roger sat quietly by his side.
+
+The next night he was there again. Death had come to the huddled form on
+the bed, but there had been no relaxing. With the head thrown rigidly far
+back and all the features tense and hard, it was a fighting figure still,
+a figure of stern protest against the world's injustice. But Roger was not
+thinking of this, but of the discovery he had made, that in their talk of
+the night before John had understood him--completely. For upon a piece of
+paper which Allan had given the lad that day, these words had been
+painfully inscribed:
+
+"This is my last will and testament. I am in my right mind--I know what I
+am doing--though nobody else does--nobody is here. To my partner Roger Gale
+I leave my share in our business. And to my teacher Deborah Baird I leave
+my crutches for her school."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+After John had gone away the house was very quiet. Only from the room
+upstairs there could be heard occasionally the faint clear cry of Deborah's
+child. And once again to Roger came a season of repose. He was far from
+unhappy. His disease, although progressing fast, gave him barely any pain;
+it rather made its presence felt by the manner in which it affected his
+mind. His inner life grew uneven. At times his thoughts were as in a fog,
+again they were amazingly clear and vistas opened far ahead. He could not
+control his thinking.
+
+This bothered him at the office, in the work he still had to do. For some
+months he had been considering an offer from one of his rivals, a modern
+concern which wished to buy out his business together with that of three
+other firms and consolidate them all into one corporation. And Roger was
+selling, and it was hard; for the whole idea of bargaining was more
+distasteful than ever now. He had to keep reminding himself of Edith and
+her children.
+
+At last it was over, his books were closed, and there was nothing left to
+be done. Nor did he care to linger. These rooms had meant but little to
+him; they had been but a place of transition from the old office far
+downtown, so full of memories of his youth, to the big corporation looming
+ahead, the huge impersonal clipping mill into which his business was to
+merge. And it came to his mind that New York was like that--no settled calm
+abiding place cherishing its memories, but only a town of transition, a
+great turbulent city of change, restlessly shaking off its past, tearing
+down and building anew, building higher, higher, higher, rearing to the
+very stars, and shouting, "Can you see me now?" What was the goal of this
+mad career? What dazzling city would be here? For a time he stared out of
+his window as into a promised land. Slowly at last he rose from his desk.
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. He looked at those long rows of girls
+gleaning in items large and small the public reputations of all kinds of
+men and women, new kinds in a new nation seething with activities, sweeping
+on like some wide river swollen at flood season to a new America, a world
+which Roger would not know. And yet it would be his world still, for in it
+he would play a part.
+
+"In their lives, too, we shall be there--the dim strong figures of the
+past."
+
+From his desk he gathered a few belongings. Then he looked into John's
+small room, with the big gold motto over the desk: "This is no place for
+your troubles or mine." On the desk lay that small album, John's parting
+gift to Deborah's boy. Roger picked it up and walked out of the office. He
+had never liked good-byes.
+
+In the elevator he noticed that his shoes needed shining, and when he
+reached the street below he stopped at the stand on the corner. The stocky
+Greek with bushy black hair, who had run the stand for many years, gave him
+a cheery greeting; for Roger had stopped there frequently--not that he
+cared about his shoes, but he had always liked to watch the crowds of
+people passing.
+
+"No hurry, boss?"
+
+"None," said Roger.
+
+"Then I give a fine shine! Polish, too?"
+
+"Yes, polish, too." And Roger settled back to watch.
+
+"And put in new shoe strings," he added, with a whimsical smile.
+
+Men and women, girls and boys by thousands passed him, pushing, hurrying,
+shuffling by. Girls tittering and nudging and darting quick side glances.
+Bobbing heads and figures, vigorous steps and dancing eyes. Life bubbling
+over everywhere, in laughter, in sharp angry tones, in glad expectant
+chatter. Deborah's big family. Across the street was a movie between two
+lurid posters, and there was a dance hall overhead. The windows were all
+open, and faintly above the roar of the street he could hear the piano,
+drum, fiddle and horn. The thoroughfare each moment grew more tumultuous to
+his ears, with trolley cars and taxis, motor busses, trucks and drays. A
+small red motor dashed uptown with piles of evening papers; a great black
+motor hearse rushed by. In a taxi which had stopped in a jam, a man was
+kissing a girl in his arms, and both of them were laughing. The smart
+little toque of blue satin she wore was crushed to one side. How red were
+her lips as she threw back her head....
+
+"Silk or cotton, boss? Which you like?" Roger glanced at the shoe strings
+and pondered.
+
+"Silk," he grunted in reply. Idly for a moment he watched this busy little
+man. From whence had he come in far away Greece? What existence had he
+here, and what kind of life would he still have through those many years to
+come? A feeling half of sadness crept into Roger's heavy eyes as he looked
+at the man, at his smiling face and then at other faces in the multitudes
+sweeping past. The moment he tried to single them out, how doubly chaotic
+it became. What an ocean of warm desires, passions, vivid hopes and
+worries. Vaguely he could feel them pass. Often in the midst of his life,
+his active and self-centered life, Roger had looked at these crowds on the
+street and had thought these faces commonplace. But now at the end it was
+not so.
+
+A woman with a baby carriage stopped directly in front of him and stood
+there anxiously watching for a chance to cross the street. And Roger
+thought of Deborah. Heavily he climbed down from his seat, paid the man and
+bade him good-night, and went home to see Deborah's baby.
+
+For a long time he sat by the cradle. Presently Deborah joined him, and
+soon they were laughing heartily at the astonishing jerks and kicks and
+grimaces of the tiny boy. He was having his bath and he hated it. But safe
+at last on his mother's lap, wrapped to his ears in a big soft towel, he
+grew very gay and contented and looked waggishly about.
+
+There followed long lazy days of spring, as April drifted into May. Early
+in the morning Roger could hear through his window the cries of the vendors
+of flowers and fruits. And he listened drowsily. He rose late and spent
+most of the day in the house; but occasionally he went out for a stroll.
+And one balmy evening when groups of youths came trooping by, singing in
+close harmony, Roger called a taxi and went far down through the tenement
+streets to a favorite haunt of his, a little Syrian pawnshop, where after
+long delving he purchased a ring to put in the new collection that he had
+been making lately. He had nearly a dozen now.
+
+Days passed. The house was still so quiet, Deborah was still upstairs. At
+last, one night upon leaving his study, he stopped uncertainly in the hall.
+He took more time than was his wont in closing up the house for the night,
+in trying all the windows, in turning out the various lights. Room after
+room he left in the dark. Then he went slowly up the stairs, his hand
+gratefully feeling those guiding points grown so familiar to his touch
+through many thousand evenings. His hand lingered on the banister and he
+stopped again to listen there.
+
+He did not come downstairs again.
+
+He was able to sleep but little at night. Turning restlessly on his bed, he
+would glance out of the window up at the beetling wall close by, tier on
+tier of apartments from which faint voices dropped out of the dark.
+Gradually as the night wore on, these voices would all die away into long
+mysterious silences--for to him at least such silences had grown to be
+very mysterious. Alone in the hours that followed, even these modern
+neighbors and this strange new eager town pressing down upon his house
+seemed no longer strange to him nor so appallingly immense, seemed even
+familiar and small to him, as the eyes of his mind looked out ahead.
+
+From his bed he could see on the opposite wall the picture Judith had given
+him, always so fresh and cool and dim with its deep restful tones of blue,
+of the herdsmen and the cattle on the dark mountain rim at dawn. And
+vaguely he wondered whether it was because he saw more clearly, or whether
+his mind in this curious haze could no longer see so well, that as he
+looked before him he felt no fear nor any more uncertainty. All his doubts
+had lifted, he was so sure of Judith now. As though she were coming to meet
+him, her image grew more vivid, with memories emerging out of all the years
+gone by. What memories, what vivid scenes! What intimate conversations they
+had, her voice so natural, close in his ear, as together they planned for
+their children.... Wistfully he would search the years for what he should
+soon tell his wife--until the drowsiness returned, and then again came
+visions.
+
+But by day it was not so, for the life of the house would rouse him and at
+intervals hold his attention.
+
+One evening a slight rustle, a faint fragrance in the room, made Roger
+suddenly open his eyes. And he saw Laura by his bed, her slender figure
+clad in blue silk, something white at her full bosom. He noticed her
+shapely shoulders, her glossy hair and moist red lips. She was smiling down
+at him.
+
+"See what I've brought you, dear," she said. And she turned to a chair
+where, one on the other, tray after tray, was piled his whole collection of
+rings. At sight of them his eyes grew fixed; he could feel his pulse beat
+faster.
+
+"How did you ever find them?" he asked his daughter huskily.
+
+"Oh, I had a long hunt all by myself. But I found them at last and I've
+brought them home. Shall we look them over a little while?"
+
+"Yes," he said. She turned up the light, and came and sat down at the
+bedside with a tray of rings in her lap. One by one she held them up to his
+gaze, still smiling and talking softly on in that rich melodious voice of
+hers, of which he heard but snatches. How good it felt to be so gay. No
+solemn thoughts nor questionings, just these dusky glittering beauties
+here, deep soft gleams of color, each with its suggestion of memories for
+Roger, a procession of adventures reaching back into his life. He smiled
+and lay in silence watching, until at last she bent over him, kissed him
+softly, breathed a good-night and went out of the room. Roger followed her
+with his glance. He knew he would never see her again. How graceful of her
+to go like that.
+
+He lay there thinking about her. In her large blue limousine he saw his gay
+young daughter speeding up the Avenue, the purple gleaming pavement
+reflecting studded lines of lights. And he thought he could see her smiling
+still. He recalled scattered fragments of her life--the first luxurious
+little ménage, and the second. How many more would there be? She was only
+in her twenties still. Uneasily he tried to see into the years ahead for
+her, and he thought he saw a lonely old age, childless, loveless, cynical,
+hard. But this fear soon fell from his mind. No, whatever happened, she
+would do it gracefully, an artist always, to the end. He sighed and gave up
+the effort. For he could not think of Laura as old, nor could he think of
+her any more as being a part of his family.
+
+Edith came to him several times, and there was something in her face which
+gave him sharp forebodings. Making a great effort he tried to talk to her
+clearly.
+
+"It's hard to keep up with your children," he said. "It means keeping up
+with everything new. And you stay in your rut and then it's too late.
+Before you know it you are old."
+
+But his words subsided in mutterings, and Roger wearily closed his eyes.
+For a glance up into Edith's face had shown him only pity there and no heed
+to his warning. He saw that she looked upon him as old and still upon
+herself as young, though he noticed the threads of gray in her hair....
+Then he realized she had gone and that his chamber had grown dark. He must
+have been dreaming. Of what, he asked. He tried to remember. And suddenly
+out of the darkness, so harsh and clear it startled him, a picture rose in
+Roger's mind of a stark lonely figure, a woman in a graveyard cutting the
+grass on family graves. Where had he seen it? He could not recall. What had
+it to do with Edith? Was she not living in New York?... What had so
+startled him just now? Some thought, some vivid picture, some nightmare he
+could not recall.
+
+His last talks were with Deborah. All through those days and the long
+nights, too, he kept fancying she was in the room, and it brought deep balm
+to his restless soul. He asked her to tell him about the schools, and
+Deborah talked to him quietly. She was going back to her work in the fall.
+She felt very humble about it--she told him she felt older now and she saw
+that her work was barely begun. But she was even happier than before. Her
+hand lay in his, and it tightened there. He opened his eyes and looked up
+into hers.
+
+"All so strange," he muttered, "life." There was a sharp contracting of her
+wide and sensitive mouth.
+
+"Yes, dear, strange!" she whispered.
+
+"But I'm so glad you're going on." He frowned as he tried to be simple and
+clear, and make her feel he understood what she had set herself to do. "All
+people," he said slowly, "never counted so much as now. And never so
+hungry--all--as now--for all of life--like children--children who should go
+to school. Your work will grow--I can see ahead. Never a time when every
+man and woman and child could grow so much--and hand it on--and hand it
+on--as you will do to your small son."
+
+He felt her hand on his forehead, and for some moments nothing was said.
+Vaguely in glimpses Roger saw his small grandson growing up; and he
+pictured other children here, not her own but of her greater family, as the
+two merged into one. He felt that she would not grow old. Children, lives
+of children; work, dreams and aspirations. How bright it seemed as he
+stared ahead. Then he heard the cry of her baby.
+
+"Shall I nurse him here?" he heard her ask. He pressed her hand in answer.
+And when again he opened his eyes she was by his side with the child at her
+breast. Its large round eyes, so pure and clear, gazed into his own for a
+long, long time.
+
+"Now he's so sleepy," she whispered. "Would you like him beside you a
+moment?"
+
+"Please."
+
+He felt the faint scent of the tiny boy, and still those eyes looked into
+his. He forgot his daughter standing there; and as he watched, a sweet
+fresh sense of the mystery of this life so new stole deep into his spirit.
+All at once the baby fell asleep.
+
+"Good-night, little brother," he whispered. "God grant the world be very
+kind." He could feel the mother lift it up, and he heard the door close
+softly.
+
+Smiling he, too, fell asleep. And after that there were only dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+And his dreams were of children. Their faces passed before him. Now they
+were young again in the house. They were eating their suppers, three small
+girls, chattering like magpies. From her end of the table their mother
+smiled quietly across at him. "Come children," she was saying, "that will
+do for a little while." But Roger said, "Oh, let them talk."... Then he saw
+new-comers. Bruce came in with Edith, and George and young Elizabeth, and
+Allan came with Deborah who had a baby in her arms, and Laura stood beside
+them. Here were his three daughters, grown, but still in some uncanny way
+they looked to him like children still; and behind them he detected figures
+long forgotten, of boys and girls whom he had known far back in his own
+childhood. John, too, had come into the house. Strangely now the walls were
+gone, had lifted, and a clamorous throng, laughing, shouting, pummeling,
+hedged him in on every hand--Deborah's big family!
+
+Soon the uproar wearied him, and Roger tried to shut them out, to bring
+back again the walls to his house. And sometimes he succeeded, and he was
+left for a while in peace with Judith and his three small girls. But
+despite his efforts to keep them there, new faces kept intruding. Swiftly
+his small family grew, split into other families, and these were merged
+with other figures pressing in from every side. Again he felt the presence
+of countless families all around, dividing, reuniting, with ceaseless
+changes and fresh life--a never ending multitude. Here they were singing
+and dancing, and Laura gaily waved to him. At another place were only men,
+and they were struggling savagely to clutch things from each other's
+hands. A sea of scowling visages, angry shouts, fists clinched in air. And
+he thought he saw Bruce for an instant. Behind them lay wide valleys
+obscured by heavy clouds of smoke, and he could hear the roar of guns. But
+they vanished suddenly, and he saw women mourning now, and Edith with her
+children turned to him her anxious eyes. He tried to reach and help her,
+but already she had gone. And behind her came huge bending forms, men
+heaving at great burdens, jaws set in scowls of fierce revolt. And John was
+there on his crutches, and near him was a figure bound into a chair of
+steel, with terror in the straining limbs, while in desperation Deborah
+tried to wrench him free. Abruptly Roger turned away.
+
+And in a twinkling all was gone, the tumult and the clamor, and he was in a
+silent place high up on a mountain side. It was dusk. A herd of cattle
+passed, and George came close behind them. And around him Roger saw,
+emerging from the semi-dark, faces turning like his own to the summits of
+the mountains and the billowy splendors there. It grew so dark he could see
+no more. There fell a deep silence, not a sound but the occasional chirp of
+a bird or the faint whirr of an insect. Even the glow on the peaks was
+gone. Darkness, only darkness.
+
+"Surely this is death," he thought. After that he was alone. And presently
+from far away he heard the booming of a bell, deep and slow, sepulchral, as
+it measured off his life. Another silence followed, and this time it was
+more profound; and with a breathless awe he knew that all the people who
+had ever lived on earth were before him in the void to which he himself was
+drifting: people of all nations, of countless generations reaching back and
+back and back to the beginnings of mankind: the mightiest family of all,
+that had stumbled up through the ages, had slaved and starved and dreamed
+and died, had blindly hated, blindly killed, had raised up gods and idols
+and yearned for everlasting life, had laughed and played and danced along,
+had loved and mated, given birth, had endlessly renewed itself and handed
+on its heritage, had striven hungrily to learn, had groped its way in
+darkness, and after all its struggles had come now barely to the dawn. And
+then a voice within him cried,
+
+"What is humanity but a child? In the name of the dead I salute the
+unborn!"
+
+Slowly a glow appeared in his dream, and once again the scene had changed.
+The light was coming from long rows of houses rising tall and steep out of
+a teeming city street. And from these lighted houses children now came
+pouring forth. They filled the street from wall to wall with a torrent of
+warm vivid hues, they joined in mad tempestuous games, they shouted and
+they danced with glee, they whirled each other 'round and 'round. The very
+air seemed quivering. Then was heard the crash of a band, and he saw them
+marching into school. In and in and in they pressed, till the school seemed
+fairly bursting. Out they came by another way, and went off marching down
+the street with the big flag waving at their head. He followed and saw the
+street divide into narrower streets and bye-ways, into roads and country
+lanes. And all were filled with children. In endless multitudes they
+came--marching, marching, spreading, spreading, like wide bobbing fields of
+flowers rolling out across the land, toward a great round flashing sun
+above a distant rim of hills.
+
+The sun rose strangely dazzling. It filled the heavens with blinding light.
+He felt himself drawn up and up--while from somewhere far behind he heard
+the cry of Deborah's child. A clear sweet thrill of happiness came. And
+after that--we do not know.
+
+For he had left his family.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Family, by Ernest Poole
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14396 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14396 ***</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>HIS FAMILY</h1>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><b>CHAPTER XXXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><b>CHAPTER XXXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV"><b>CHAPTER XXXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XL"><b>CHAPTER XL</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI"><b>CHAPTER XLI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII"><b>CHAPTER XLII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII"><b>CHAPTER XLIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV"><b>CHAPTER XLIV</b></a></p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+<h5>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h5>
+<h5>NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS</h5>
+<h5>ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO</h5>
+<h5>MACMILLAN &amp; CO., LIMITED</h5>
+<h5>LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA</h5>
+<h5>MELBOURNE</h5>
+<h5>THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO</h5>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>HIS FAMILY</h1>
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>ERNEST POOLE</h2>
+<h3>AUTHOR OF "THE HARBOR"</h3>
+<h5>New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1917</h5>
+<h5><i>All rights reserved</i></h5>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917</h5>
+<h5>BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY</h5>
+<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h5>
+<h5>Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917.</h5>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="TO_MA" id="TO_MA"></a>TO M.A.</h2>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>HIS FAMILY</h1>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<p>He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of <i>old</i> New
+York&mdash;he had heard of that from old, old men when he himself
+had still been young and had smiled at their garrulity. He was
+thinking of a <i>young</i> New York, the mighty throbbing city to
+which he had come long ago as a lad from the New Hampshire
+mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting drivers,
+hurrying crowds, the crack of whips and the clatter of wheels; an
+uproarious, thrilling town of enterprise, adventure, youth; a city
+of pulsing energies, the center of a boundless land; a port of
+commerce with all the world, of stately ships with snowy sails; a
+fascinating pleasure town, with throngs of eager travellers
+hurrying from the ferry boats and rolling off in hansom cabs to the
+huge hotels on Madison Square. A city where American faces were
+still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner and a kindlier
+town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar scramble.
+A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling
+trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and
+groups of youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark.
+A place of music and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on
+those dazzling evenings when as a boy he had ushered there for the
+sake of hearing the music, how the rich joy of being alive, of
+being young, of being loved, had shone out of women's eyes.
+Shimmering satins, dainty gloves and little jewelled slippers,
+shapely arms and shoulders, vivacious movements, nods and smiles,
+swift glances, ripples, bursts <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span>of laughter, an exciting hum of
+voices. Then silence, sudden darkness&mdash;and music, and the
+curtain. The great wide curtain slowly rising....</p>
+<p>But all that had passed away.</p>
+<p>Roger Gale was a rugged heavy man not quite sixty years of age.
+His broad, massive features were already deeply furrowed, and there
+were two big flecks of white in his close-curling, grayish hair. He
+lived in a narrow red brick house down on the lower west side of
+the town, in a neighborhood swiftly changing. His wife was dead. He
+had no sons, but three grown daughters, of whom the oldest, Edith,
+had been married many years. Laura and Deborah lived at home, but
+they were both out this evening. It was Friday, Edith's evening,
+and as was her habit she had come from her apartment uptown to dine
+with her father and play chess. In the living room, a cheerful
+place, with its lamp light and its shadows, its old-fashioned
+high-back chairs, its sofa, its book cases, its low marble mantel
+with the gilt mirror overhead, they sat at a small oval table in
+front of a quiet fire of coals. And through the smoke of his cigar
+Roger watched his daughter.</p>
+<p>Edith had four children, and was soon to have another. A small
+demure woman of thirty-five, with light soft hair and clear blue
+eyes and limbs softly rounded, the contour of her features was full
+with approaching maternity, but there was a decided firmness in the
+lines about her little mouth. As he watched her now, her father's
+eyes, deep set and gray and with signs of long years of suffering
+in them, displayed a grave whimsical wistfulness. For by the way
+she was playing the game he saw how old she thought him. Her play
+was slow and absent-minded, and there came long periods when she
+did not make a move. Then she would recall herself and look up with
+a little affectionate smile that showed she looked upon him as too
+heavy with his age to have noticed her small lapses.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id=
+"Page_3"></a>[3]</span>He was grimly amused at her attitude, for he
+did not feel old at all. With that whimsical hint of a smile which
+had grown to be a part of him, he tried various moves on the board
+to see how far he could go without interrupting her reveries. He
+checkmated her, re-lit his cigar and waited until she should notice
+it. And when she did not notice, gravely he moved back his queen
+and let the game continue. How many hundreds of games, he thought,
+Edith must have played with him in the long years when his spirit
+was dead, for her now to take such chances. Nearly every Friday
+evening for nearly sixteen years.</p>
+<p>Before that, Judith his wife had been here. It was then that the
+city had been young, for to Roger it had always seemed as though he
+were just beginning life. Into its joys and sorrows too he had
+groped his way as most of us do, and had never penetrated deep. But
+he had meant to, later on. When in his busy city days distractions
+had arisen, always he had promised himself that sooner or later he
+would return to this interest or passion, for the world still lay
+before him with its enthralling interests, its beauties and its
+pleasures, its tasks and all its puzzles, intricate and baffling,
+all some day to be explored.</p>
+<p>This deep zest in Roger Gale had been bred in his boyhood on a
+farm up in the New Hampshire mountains. There his family had lived
+for many generations. And from the old house, the huge shadowy barn
+and the crude little sawmill down the road; from animals, grown
+people and still more from other boys, from the meadows and the
+mountain above with its cliffs and caves and forests of pine, young
+Roger had discovered, even in those early years, that life was
+fresh, abundant, new, with countless glad beginnings.</p>
+<p>At seventeen he had come to New York. There had followed hard
+struggles in lean years, but his rugged health had buoyed him up.
+And there had been genial friendships and dreams and explorations,
+a search for romance, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id=
+"Page_4"></a>[4]</span>the strange glory of love, a few furtive
+ventures that left him dismayed. But though love had seemed sordid
+at such times it had brought him crude exultations. And if his
+existence had grown more obscure, it had been somber only in
+patches, the main picture dazzling still. And still he had been
+just making starts.</p>
+<p>He had ventured into the business world, clerking now at this,
+now at that, and always looking about him for some big opportunity.
+It had come and he had seized it, despite the warnings of his
+friends. What a wild adventure it had been a bureau of news
+clippings, a business new and unheard of but he had been sure that
+here was growth, he had worked at it day and night, and the
+business widening fast had revealed long ramifications which went
+winding and stretching away into every phase of American life. And
+this life was like a forest, boundless and impenetrable,
+up-springing, intertwining. How much could <i>he</i> ever know of
+it all?</p>
+<p>Then had come his marriage. Judith's family had lived long in
+New York, but some had died and others had scattered until only she
+was left. This house had been hers, but she had been poor, so she
+had leased it to some friends. It was through them he had met her
+here, and within a few weeks he had fallen in love. He had felt
+profound disgust for the few wild oats he had sown, and in his
+swift reaction he had overworshipped the girl, her beauty and her
+purity, until in a delicate way of her own she had hinted that he
+was going too far, that she, too, was human and a passionate lover
+of living, in spite of her low quiet voice and her demure and sober
+eyes.</p>
+<p>And what beginnings for Roger now, what a piling up of intimate
+joys, surprises, shocks of happiness. There had come
+disappointments, too, sudden severe little checks from his wife
+which had brought him occasional questionings. This love had not
+been quite <i>all</i> he had dreamed, this woman not so ardent. He
+had glimpsed couples here and <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span>there that set him to imagining
+more consuming passions. Here again he had not explored very deep.
+But he had dismissed regrets like these with only a slight
+reluctance. For if they had settled down a bit with the coming of
+their children, their love had grown rich in sympathies and silent
+understandings, in humorous enjoyment of their funny little
+daughters' chattering like magpies in the genial old house. And
+they had looked happily far ahead. What a woman she had been for
+plans. It had not been all smooth sailing. There had come reverses
+in business, and at home one baby, a boy, had died. But on they had
+gone and the years had swept by until he had reached his forties.
+Absorbed in his growing business and in his thriving family, it had
+seemed to Roger still as though he were just starting out.</p>
+<p>But one day, quite suddenly, the house had become a strange
+place to him with a strange remote figure in it, his wife. For he
+had learned that she must die. There had followed terrible weeks.
+Then Judith had faced their disaster. Little by little she had won
+back the old intimacy with her husband; and through the slow but
+inexorable progress of her ailment, again they had come together in
+long talks and plans for their children. At this same chessboard,
+in this room, repeatedly she would stop the game and smiling she
+would look into the future. At one such time she had said to
+him,</p>
+<p>"I wonder if it won't be the same with the children as it has
+been with us. No matter how long each one of them lives, won't
+their lives feel to them unfinished like ours, only just beginning?
+I wonder how far they will go. And then their children will grow up
+and it will be the same with them. Unfinished lives. Oh, dearie,
+what children all of us are."</p>
+<p>He had put his arm around her then and had held her very tight.
+And feeling the violent trembling of her husband's fierce revolt,
+slowly bending back her <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id=
+"Page_6"></a>[6]</span>head and looking up into his eyes she had
+continued steadily:</p>
+<p>"And when you come after me, my dear, oh, how hungry I shall be
+for all you will tell me. For you will live on in our children's
+lives."</p>
+<p>And she had asked him to promise her that.</p>
+<p>But he had not kept his promise. For after Judith's dying he had
+felt himself terribly alone, with eternity around him, his wife
+slipping far away. And the universe had grown stark and hard,
+impersonal, relentless, cold. A storm of doubts had attacked his
+faith. And though he had resisted long, for his faith in God had
+been rooted deep in the mountains of New England, in the end it had
+been wrenched away, and with it he had lost all hope that either
+for Judith or himself was there any existence beyond the grave. So
+death had come to Roger's soul. He had been deaf and blind to his
+children. Nights by the thousand spent alone. Like a gray level
+road in his memory now was the story of his family.</p>
+<p>When had his spirit begun to awaken? He could not tell, it had
+been so slow. His second daughter, Deborah, who had stayed at home
+with her father when Laura had gone away to school, had done little
+things continually to rouse his interest in life. Edith's winsome
+babies had attracted him when they came to the house. Laura had
+returned from school, a joyous creature, tall and slender, with
+snapping black eyes, and had soon made her presence felt. One day
+in the early afternoon, as he entered the house there had burst on
+his ears a perfect gale of laughter; and peering through the
+porti&egrave;res he had seen the dining-room full of young girls, a
+crew as wild as Laura herself. Hastily he had retreated upstairs.
+But he had enjoyed such glimpses. He had liked to see her fresh
+pretty gowns and to have her come in and kiss him good-night.</p>
+<p>Then had come a sharp heavy jolt. His business had suffered from
+long neglect, and suddenly for two anxious <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>weeks he had
+found himself facing bankruptcy. Edith's husband, a lawyer, had
+come to his aid and together they had pulled out of the hole. But
+he had been forced to mortgage the house. And this had brought to a
+climax all the feelings of guiltiness which had so long been
+stirring within him over his failure to live up to the promise he
+had made his wife.</p>
+<p>And so Roger had looked at his children.</p>
+<p>And at first to his profound surprise he had had it forced upon
+him that these were three grown women, each equipped with her own
+peculiar feminine traits and desires, the swift accumulations of
+lives which had expanded in a city that had reared to the skies in
+the many years of his long sleep. But very slowly, month by month,
+he had gained a second impression which seemed to him deeper and
+more real. To the eye they were grown women all, but inwardly they
+were children still, each groping for her happiness and each held
+back as he had been, either by checks within herself or by the gay
+distractions of the absorbing city. He saw each of his daughters,
+parts of himself. And he remembered what Judith had said: "You will
+live on in our children's lives." And he began to get glimmerings
+of a new immortality, made up of generations, an endless succession
+of other lives extending into the future.</p>
+<p>Some of all this he remembered now, in scattered fragments here
+and there. Then from somewhere far away a great bell began booming
+the hour, and it roused him from his revery. He had often heard the
+bell of late. A calm deep-toned intruder, it had first struck in
+upon his attention something over two years ago. Vaguely he had
+wondered about it. Soon he had found it was on the top of a tower a
+little to the north, one of the highest pinnacles of this
+tumultuous modern town. But the bell was not tumultuous. And as he
+listened it seemed to say, "There is still time, but you have not
+long."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id=
+"Page_8"></a>[8]</span>Edith, sitting opposite him, looked up at
+the sound with a stir of relief. Ten o'clock. It was time to go
+home.</p>
+<p>"I wonder what's keeping Bruce," she said. Bruce was still in
+his office downtown. As a rule on Friday evenings he came with his
+wife to supper here, but this week he had some new business on
+hand. Edith was vague about it. As she tried to explain she knitted
+her brows and said that Bruce was working too hard. And her father
+grunted assent.</p>
+<p>"Bruce ought to knock off every summer," he said, "for a good
+solid month, or better two. Can't you bring him up to the mountains
+this year?" He referred to the old New Hampshire home which he had
+kept as a summer place. But Edith smiled at the idea.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I could bring him," she replied, "and in a week he'd be
+perfectly crazy to get back to his office again." She compressed
+her lips. "I know what he needs&mdash;and we'll do it some day, in
+spite of him."</p>
+<p>"A suburb, eh," her father said, and his face took on a look of
+dislike. They had often talked of suburbs.</p>
+<p>"Yes," his daughter answered, "I've picked out the very house."
+He threw at her a glance of impatience. He knew what had started
+her on this line. Edith's friend, Madge Deering, was living out in
+Morristown. All very well, he reflected, but her case was not at
+all the same. He had known Madge pretty well. Although the death of
+her husband had left her a widow at twenty-nine, with four small
+daughters to bring up, she had gone on determinedly. Naturally
+smart and able, Madge was always running to town, keeping up with
+all her friends and with every new fad and movement there, although
+she made fun of most of them. Twice she had taken her girls abroad.
+But Edith was quite different. In a suburb she would draw into her
+house and never grow another inch. And Bruce, poor devil, would
+commute and take work home from the office. But Roger couldn't tell
+her that.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id=
+"Page_9"></a>[9]</span>I'd be sorry to see you do it," he said.
+"I'd miss you up in the mountains."</p>
+<p>"Oh, we'd come up in the summer," she answered. "I wouldn't miss
+the mountains for worlds!"</p>
+<p>Then they talked of summer plans. And soon again Edith's smooth
+pretty brows were wrinkling absorbedly. It was hard in her planning
+not to be sure whether her new baby would come in May or early
+June. It was only the first of April now. While she talked her
+father watched her. He liked her quiet fearlessness in facing the
+ordeal ahead. Into the bewildering city he felt her searching
+anxiously to find good things for her small brood, to make every
+dollar count, to keep their little bodies strong, to guard their
+hungry little souls from many things she thought were bad. Of all
+his daughters, he told himself, she was the one most like his
+wife.</p>
+<p>While she was talking Bruce came in. Of medium height and a wiry
+build, his quick kindly smile of greeting did not conceal the fine
+tight lines about his mouth and between his eyes. His small trim
+moustache was black, but his hair already showed streaks of gray
+although he was not quite thirty-eight, and as he lit a cigarette
+his right hand twitched perceptibly.</p>
+<p>Bruce Cunningham had married just after he left law school. He
+had worked in a law office which took receiverships by the score,
+and through managing bankrupt concerns by slow degrees he had made
+himself a financial surgeon. He had set up an office of his own and
+was doing splendidly. But he worked under fearful tension. Bruce
+had to deal with bankrupts who had barely closed their eyes for
+weeks, men half out of their minds from the strain, the struggle to
+keep up their heads in those angry waters of finance which Roger
+vaguely pictured as a giant whirlpool. Though honest enough in his
+own affairs, Bruce showed a genial relish for all the tricks of the
+savage world which was as the breath to his nostrils. And at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id=
+"Page_10"></a>[10]</span>times he appeared so wise and keen he made
+Roger feel like a child. But again it was Bruce who seemed the
+child. He seemed to be so na&iuml;ve at times, and Edith had him so
+under her thumb. Roger liked to hear Bruce's stories of business,
+when Edith would let her husband talk. But this she would not often
+do, for she said Bruce needed rest at night. She reproved him now
+for staying so late, she wrung from him the fact that he'd had no
+supper.</p>
+<p>"Well, Bruce," she exclaimed impatiently, "now isn't that just
+like you? You're going straight home&mdash;that's where you're
+going&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"To be fed up and put to bed," her husband grumbled
+good-naturedly. And while she made ready to bundle him off he
+turned to his father-in-law.</p>
+<p>"What do you think's my latest?" he asked, and he gave a low
+chuckle which Roger liked. "Last week I was a brewer, to-day I'm an
+engineer," he said. "Can you beat it? A building contractor. Me."
+And as he smoked his cigarette, in laconic phrases he explained how
+a huge steel construction concern had gone to the wall, through
+building skyscrapers "on spec" and outstripping even the growth of
+New York. "They got into court last week," he said, "and the judge
+handed me the receivership. The judge and I have been chums for
+years. He has hay fever&mdash;so do I."</p>
+<p>"Come, Bruce, I'm ready," said his wife.</p>
+<p>"I've been in their office all day," he went on. "Their general
+manager was stark mad. He hadn't been out of the office since last
+Sunday night, he said. You had to ask him a question and
+wait&mdash;while he looked at you and held onto his chair. He broke
+down and blubbered&mdash;the poor damn fool&mdash;he'll be in
+Matteawan in a week&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"You'll be there yourself if you don't come home," broke in
+Edith's voice impatiently.</p>
+<p>"And out of that poor devil, and out of the mess his books are
+in, I've been learning engineering!"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id=
+"Page_11"></a>[11]</span>He had followed his wife out on the steps.
+He turned back with a quick appealing smile:</p>
+<p>"Well, good-night&mdash;see you soon&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Good-night, my boy," said Roger. "Good luck to the
+engineering."</p>
+<p>"Oh, father dear," cried Edith, from the taxi down below.
+"Remember supper Sunday night&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I won't forget," said Roger.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>He watched them start off up the street. The night was soft,
+refreshing, and the place was quiet and personal. The house was one
+of a dozen others, some of red brick and some of brown stone, that
+stood in an uneven row on a street but a few rods in length, one
+side of a little triangular park enclosed by a low iron fence,
+inside of which were a few gnarled trees and three or four park
+benches. On one of these benches his eye was caught by the figure
+of an old woman there, and he stood a moment watching her, some
+memory stirring in his mind.</p>
+<p>Occasionally somebody passed. Otherwise it was silent here. But
+even in the silence could be felt the throes of change; the very
+atmosphere seemed charged with drastic things impending. Already
+the opposite house line had been broken near the center by a high
+apartment building, and another still higher rose like a cliff just
+back of the house in which Roger lived. Still others, and many
+factory lofts, reared shadowy bulks on every hand. From the top of
+one an enormous sign, a corset pictured forth in lights, flashed
+out at regular intervals; and from farther off, high up in the
+misty haze of the night, could be seen the gleaming pinnacle where
+hour by hour that great bell slowly boomed the time away. Yes, here
+the old was passing. Already the tiny parklet was like the dark
+bottom of a pit, with the hard sparkling modern town towering on
+every side, slowly pressing, pressing in and glaring down with
+yellow eyes.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id=
+"Page_12"></a>[12]</span>But Roger noticed none of these things. He
+watched the old woman on the bench and groped for the memory she
+had stirred. Ah, now at last he had it. An April night long, long
+ago, when he had sat where she was now, while here in the house his
+wife's first baby, Edith, had begun her life....</p>
+<p>Slowly he turned and went inside.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>CHAPTER
+II</h2>
+<p>Roger's hearing was extremely acute. Though the room where he
+was sitting, his study, was at the back of the house, he heard
+Deborah's key at the street door and he heard the door softly open
+and close.</p>
+<p>"Are you there, dearie?" Her voice from the hallway was low; and
+his answer, "Yes, child," was in the same tone, as though she were
+with him in the room. This keen sense of hearing had long been a
+peculiar bond between them. To her father, Deborah's voice was the
+most distinctive part of her, for often as he listened the memory
+came of her voice as a girl, unpleasant, hurried and stammering.
+But she had overcome all that. "No grown woman," she had declared,
+when she was eighteen, "has any excuse for a voice like mine." That
+was eleven years ago; and the voice she had acquired since, with
+its sweet magnetic quality, its clear and easy articulation, was to
+him an expression of Deborah's growth. As she took off her coat and
+hat in the hall she said, in the same low tone as before,</p>
+<p>"Edith has been here, I suppose&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I'm so sorry I missed her. I tried to get home early, but it
+has been a busy night."</p>
+<p>Her voice sounded tired, comfortably so, and she looked that way
+as she came in. Though only a little taller than Edith, she was of
+a sturdier build and more decided features. Her mouth was large
+with a humorous droop and her face rather broad with high
+cheekbones. As she put her soft black hair up over her high
+forehead, her father noticed her birthmark, a faint curving line of
+red <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id=
+"Page_14"></a>[14]</span>running up from between her eyes.
+Imperceptible as a rule, it showed when she was tired. In the big
+school in the tenements where she had taught for many years, she
+gave herself hard without stint to her work, but she had such a
+good time through it all. She had a way, too, he reflected, of
+always putting things in their place. As now she came in and kissed
+him and sank back on his leather lounge with a tranquil breath of
+relief, she seemed to be dropping school out of her life.</p>
+<p>Roger picked up his paper and continued his reading. Presently
+they would have a talk, but first he knew that she wanted to lie
+quite still for a little while. Vaguely he pictured her work that
+night, her class-room packed to bursting with small Jews and
+Italians, and Deborah at the blackboard with a long pointer in her
+hand. The fact that for the last two years she had been the
+principal of her school had made little impression upon him.</p>
+<p>And meanwhile, as she lay back with eyes closed, her mind still
+taut from the evening called up no simple class-room but far
+different places&mdash;a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall where she
+had just been speaking, some schools which she had visited out in
+Indiana, a block of tenements far downtown and the private office
+of the mayor. For her school had long curious arms these days.</p>
+<p>"Was Bruce here too this evening?" she asked her father
+presently. Roger finished what he was reading, then looked over to
+the lounge, which was in a shadowy corner.</p>
+<p>"Yes, he came in late." And he went on to tell her of Bruce's
+"engineering." At once she was interested. Rising on one elbow she
+questioned him good-humoredly, for Deborah was fond of Bruce.</p>
+<p>"Has he bought that automobile he wanted?"</p>
+<p>"No," replied her father. "Edith said they couldn't afford
+it."</p>
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id=
+"Page_15"></a>[15]</span>This time it's the dentist's bills. Young
+Betsy's teeth aren't straightened yet&mdash;and as soon as she's
+been beautified they're going to put the clamps on George."</p>
+<p>"Poor Georgie," Deborah murmured. At the look of pain and
+disapproval on her father's heavy face, she smiled quietly to
+herself. George, who was Edith's oldest and the worry of her days,
+was Roger's favorite grandson. "Has he been bringing home any more
+sick dogs?"</p>
+<p>"No, this time it was a rat&mdash;a white one," Roger answered.
+A glint of dry relish appeared in his eyes. "George brought it home
+the other night. He had on a pair of ragged old pants."</p>
+<p>"What on earth&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"He had traded his own breeches for the rat," said Roger
+placidly.</p>
+<p>"No! Oh, father! Really!" And she sank back laughing on the
+lounge.</p>
+<p>"His school report," said Roger, "was quite as bad as ever."</p>
+<p>"Of course it was," said Deborah. And she spoke so sharply that
+her father glanced at her in surprise. She was up again on one
+elbow, and there was an eager expression on her bright attractive
+face. "Do you know what we're going to do some day? We're going to
+put the rat in the school," Deborah said impatiently. "We're going
+to take a boy like George and study him till we think we know just
+what interests him most. And if in his case it's animals, we'll
+have a regular zoo in school. And for other boys we'll have other
+things they really want to know about. And we'll keep them until
+five o'clock&mdash;when their mothers will have to drag them away."
+Her father looked bewildered.</p>
+<p>"But arithmetic, my dear."</p>
+<p>"You'll find they'll have learned their arithmetic without
+knowing it," Deborah answered.</p>
+<p>"Sounds a bit wild," murmured Roger. Again to his <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>mind came
+the picture of hordes of little Italians and Jews. "My dear, if I
+had <i>your children</i> to teach, I don't think I'd add a zoo," he
+said. And with a breath of discomfort he turned back to his
+reading. He knew that he ought to question her, to show an interest
+in her work. But he had a deep aversion for those millions of
+foreign tenement people, always shoving, shoving upward through the
+filth of their surroundings. They had already spoiled his
+neighborhood, they had flowed up like an ocean tide. And so he read
+his paper, frowning guiltily down at the page. He glanced up in a
+little while and saw Deborah smiling across at him, reading his
+dislike of such talk. The smile which he sent back at her was half
+apologetic, half an appeal for mercy. And Deborah seemed to
+understand. She went into the living room, and there at the piano
+she was soon playing softly. Listening from his study, again the
+feeling came to him of her fresh and abundant vitality. He mused a
+little enviously on how it must feel to be strong like that, never
+really tired.</p>
+<p>And while her father thought in this wise, Deborah at the piano,
+leaning back with eyes half closed, could feel her tortured nerves
+relax, could feel her pulse stop throbbing so and the dull aching
+at her temples little by little pass away. She played like this so
+many nights. Soon she would be ready for sleep.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>After she had gone to bed, Roger rose heavily from his chair. By
+long habit he went about the house trying the windows and turning
+out lights. Last he came to the front door. There were double outer
+doors with a ponderous system of locks and bolts and a heavy chain.
+Mechanically he fastened them all; and putting out the light in the
+hall, in the darkness he went up the stairs. He could so easily
+feel his way. He put his hand lightly, first on the foot of the
+banister, then on a curve in it halfway up, again on the sharper
+curve at the top and last on the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>knob of his bedroom door. And
+it was as though these guiding objects came out to meet him like
+old friends.</p>
+<p>In his bedroom, while he slowly undressed, his glance was caught
+by the picture upon the wall opposite his bed, a little landscape
+poster done in restful tones of blue, of two herdsmen and their
+cattle far up on a mountainside in the hour just before the dawn,
+tiny clear-cut silhouettes against the awakening eastern sky. So
+immense and still, this birth of the day&mdash;the picture always
+gave him the feeling of life everlasting. Judith his wife had
+placed it there.</p>
+<p>From his bed through the window close beside him he looked up at
+the cliff-like wall of the new apartment building, with tier upon
+tier of windows from which murmurous voices dropped out of the
+dark: now soft, now suddenly angry, loud; now droning, sullen,
+bitter, hard; now gay with little screams of mirth; now low and
+amorous, drowsy sounds. Tier upon tier of modern homes, all
+overhanging Roger's house as though presently to crush it down.</p>
+<p>But Roger was not thinking of that. He was thinking of his
+children&mdash;of Edith's approaching confinement and all her
+anxious hunting about to find what was best for her family, of
+Bruce and the way he was driving himself in the unnatural world
+downtown where men were at each other's throats, of Deborah and
+that school of hers in the heart of a vast foul region of tenement
+buildings swarming with strange, dirty little urchins. And last he
+thought of Laura, his youngest daughter, wild as a hawk, gadding
+about the Lord knew where. She even danced in restaurants! Through
+his children he felt flowing into his house the seething life of
+this new town. And drowsily he told himself he must make a real
+effort, and make it soon, to know his family better. For in spite
+of the storm of long ago which had swept away his faith in God, the
+feeling had come to him of late that somewhere, in some manner, he
+was to meet his wife again. He rarely tried to think <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>this out,
+for as soon as he did it became a mere wish, a hungry longing,
+nothing more. So he had learned to let it lie, deep down inside of
+him. Sometimes he vividly saw her face. After all, who could tell?
+And she would want to hear of her children. Yes, he must know them
+better. Some day soon he must begin.</p>
+<p>Suddenly he remembered that Laura had not yet come home. With a
+sigh of discomfort he got out of bed and went downstairs, re-lit
+the gas in the hallway, unfastened the locks and the chain at the
+door. He came back and was soon asleep. He must have dozed for an
+hour or two. He was roused by hearing the front door close and a
+big motor thundering. And then like a flash of light in the dark
+came Laura's rippling laughter.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>CHAPTER
+III</h2>
+<p>On the next evening, Saturday, while Roger ate his dinner, Laura
+came to sit with him. She herself was dining out. That she should
+have dressed so early in order to keep him company had caused her
+father some surprise, and a faint suspicion entered his mind that
+she had overdrawn at the bank, as she had the last time she sat
+with him like this. Her manner certainly was a bit strange.</p>
+<p>But Roger put the thought aside. Whatever she wanted, Laura was
+worth it. In a tingling fashion he felt what a glorious time she
+was having, what a gorgeous town she knew. It was difficult to
+realize she was his own daughter, this dashing stranger sitting
+here, playing idly with a knife and caressing him with her voice
+and her eyes. The blue evening gown she was wearing to-night
+(doubtless not yet paid for) made her figure even more supple and
+lithe, set off her splendid bosom, her slender neck, her creamy
+skin. Her hair, worn low over her temples, was brown with just a
+tinge of red. Her eyes were black, with gleaming lights; her lips
+were warm and rich, alive. He did not approve of her lips. Once
+when she had kissed him Roger had started slightly back. For his
+daughter's lips were rouged, and they had reminded him of his
+youth. He had asked her sister to speak to her. But Deborah had
+told him she did not care to speak to people in that
+way&mdash;"especially women&mdash;especially sisters," she had
+said, with a quiet smile. All very well, he reflected, but somebody
+ought to take Laura in hand.</p>
+<p>She had been his favorite as a child, his pet, his tiny
+daughter. He remembered her on his lap like a kitten. How she had
+liked to cuddle there. And she had liked to <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>bite his
+hand, a curious habit in a child. "I hurt daddy!" He could still
+recollect the gay little laugh with which she said that, looking up
+brightly into his face.</p>
+<p>And here she was already grown, and like a light in the sober
+old house, fascinating while she disturbed him. He liked to hear
+her high pitched voice, gossiping in Deborah's room or in her own
+dainty chamber chatting with the adoring maid who was dressing her
+to go out. He loved her joyous thrilling laugh. And he would have
+missed her from the house as he would have missed Fifth Avenue if
+it had been dropped from the city. For the picture Roger had formed
+of this daughter was more of a symbol than of a girl, a symbol of
+the ardent town, spending, wasting, dancing mad. It was Laura who
+had kept him living right up to his income.</p>
+<p>"Where are you dining to-night?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"With the Raymonds." He wondered who they were. "Oh, Sarah," she
+added to the maid. "Call up Mrs. Raymond's apartment and ask what
+time is dinner to-night."</p>
+<p>"Are you going to dance later on?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I guess so," she replied. "On the Astor Roof, I think they
+said&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Her father went on with his dinner. These hotel dances, he had
+heard, ran well into Sunday morning. How Judith would have
+disapproved. He hesitated uneasily.</p>
+<p>"I don't especially care for this dancing into Sunday," he said.
+For a moment he did not look up from his plate. When he did he saw
+Laura regarding him.</p>
+<p>"Oh, do you mind? I'm sorry. I won't, after this," she answered.
+And Roger colored angrily, for the glint of amusement in Laura's
+mischievous black eyes revealed quite unmistakably that she
+regarded both her father and his feeling for the Sabbath as very
+dear and quaint and old. Old? Of course he seemed old to
+<i>her</i>, Roger thought indignantly. For what was Laura but a
+child? Did she ever think of anything except having a good time?
+Had <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id=
+"Page_21"></a>[21]</span>she ever stopped to think out her own
+morals, let alone anyone else's? Was she any judge of what was
+old&mdash;or of <i>who</i> was old? And he determined then and
+there to show her he was in his prime. Impatiently he strove to
+remember the names of her friends and ask her about them, to show a
+keen lively interest in this giddy gaddy life she led. And when
+that was rather a failure he tried his daughter next on books,
+books of the most modern kind. Stoutly he lied and said he was
+reading a certain Russian novel of which he had heard Deborah
+speak. But this valiant falsehood made no impression whatever, for
+Laura had never heard of the book.</p>
+<p>"I get so little time for reading," she murmured. And meanwhile
+she was thinking, "As soon as he finishes talking, poor dear, I'll
+break the news."</p>
+<p>Then Roger had an audacious thought. He would take her to a
+play, by George! Mustering his courage he led up to it by speaking
+of a play Deborah had seen, a full-fledged modern drama all
+centered upon the right of a woman "to lead her own life." And as
+he outlined the story, he saw he had caught his daughter's
+attention. With her pretty chin resting on one hand, watching him
+and listening, she appeared much older, and she seemed suddenly
+close to him.</p>
+<p>"How would you like to go with me and see it some evening?" he
+inquired.</p>
+<p>"See what, my love?" she asked him, her thoughts plainly far
+away; and he looked at her in astonishment:</p>
+<p>"That play I've just been speaking of!"</p>
+<p>"Why, daddy, I'd love to!" she exclaimed.</p>
+<p>"When?" he asked. And he fixed a night. He was proud of himself.
+Eagerly he began to talk of opening nights at Wallack's. Roger and
+Judith, when they were young, had been great first nighters there.
+And now it was Laura who drew him out, and as he talked on she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id=
+"Page_22"></a>[22]</span>seemed to him to be smilingly trying to
+picture it all.... "Now I'd better tell him," she thought.</p>
+<p>"Do you remember Harold Sloane?" she asked a little
+strangely.</p>
+<p>"No," replied her father, a bit annoyed at the interruption.</p>
+<p>"Why&mdash;you've met him two or three times&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Have I?" The queer note in her voice made him look up. Laura
+had risen from her chair.</p>
+<p>"I want you to know him&mdash;very soon." There was a moment's
+silence. "I'm going to marry him, dad," she said. And Roger looked
+at her blankly. He felt his limbs beginning to tremble. "I've been
+waiting to tell you when we were alone," she added in an awkward
+tone. And still staring up at her he felt a rush of tenderness and
+a pang of deep remorse. Laura in love and settled for life! And
+what did he know of the affair? What had he ever done for her? Too
+late! He had begun too late! And this rush of emotion was so
+overpowering that while he still looked at her blindly she was the
+first to recover her poise. She came around the table and kissed
+him softly on the cheek. And now more than ever Roger felt how old
+his daughter thought him.</p>
+<p>"Who is he?" he asked hoarsely. And she answered smiling,</p>
+<p>"A perfectly nice young man named Sloane."</p>
+<p>"Don't, Laura&mdash;tell me! What does he do?"</p>
+<p>"He's in a broker's office&mdash;junior member of the firm, Oh,
+you needn't worry, dear, he can even afford to marry
+<i>me</i>."</p>
+<p>They heard a ring at the front door.</p>
+<p>"There he is now, I think," she said. "Will you see him? Would
+you mind?"</p>
+<p>"See him? No!" her father cried.</p>
+<p>"But just to shake hands," she insisted. "You needn't talk or
+say a word. We've only a moment, anyway." And she went swiftly out
+of the room.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id=
+"Page_23"></a>[23]</span>Roger rose in a panic and strode up and
+down. Before he could recover himself she was back with her man, or
+rather her boy&mdash;for the fellow, to her father's eyes, looked
+ridiculously young. Straight as an arrow, slender, his dress suit
+irreproachable, the chap nevertheless was more than a dandy. He
+looked hard, as though he trained, and his smooth and ruddy face
+had a look of shrewd self-reliance. So much of him Roger fathomed
+in the indignant cornered glance with which he welcomed him into
+the room.</p>
+<p>"Why, good evening, Mr. Gale&mdash;glad to see you again, sir!"
+Young Sloane nervously held out his hand. Roger took it and
+muttered something. For several moments, his mind in a whirl, he
+heard their talk and laughter and his own voice joining in. Laura
+seemed enjoying herself, her eyes brimming with amusement over both
+her victims. But at last she had compassion, kissed her father
+gaily and took her suitor out of the room.</p>
+<p>Soon Roger heard them leave the house. He went into his study,
+savagely bit off a cigar and gripped his evening paper as though he
+meant to choke it. The maid came in with coffee. "Coffee? No!" he
+snapped at her. A few moments later he came to his senses and found
+himself smoking fast and hard. He heartily damned this fellow
+Sloane for breaking into the family and asking poor Laura to risk
+her whole life&mdash;just for his own selfish pleasure, his whim!
+Yes, "whim" was the very word for it! Laura's attitude, too! Did
+she look at it seriously? Not at all! Quite plainly she saw her
+career as one long Highland fling and dance, with this Harry boy as
+her partner! Who had he danced with in his past? The fellow's past
+must be gone into, and at once, without delay!</p>
+<p>Here indeed was a jolt for Roger Gale, a pretty shabby trick of
+fate. This was not what he had planned, this was a little way life
+had of jabbing a man with surprises. For months he had been slowly
+and comfortably feeling <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id=
+"Page_24"></a>[24]</span>his way into the lives of his children,
+patiently, conscientiously. But now without a word of warning in
+popped this young whipper-snapper, turning the whole house upside
+down! Another young person to be known, another life to be dug
+into, and with pick and shovel too! The job was far from pleasant.
+Would Deborah help him? Not at all. She believed in letting people
+alone&mdash;a devilish easy philosophy! Still, he wanted to tell
+her at once, if only to stir her up a bit. He did not propose to
+bear this alone! But Deborah was out to-night. Why must she always
+be out, he asked, in that infernal zoo school? But no, it was not
+school to-night. She was dining out in some caf&eacute; with a tall
+lank doctor friend of hers. Probably she was to marry him!</p>
+<p>"I'll have that news for breakfast!" Roger smote his paper
+savagely. Why couldn't Laura have waited a little? Restlessly he
+walked the room. Then he went into the hall, took his hat and a
+heavy stick which he used for his night rambles, and walked off
+through the neighborhood. It was the first Saturday evening of
+Spring, and on those quiet downtown streets he met couples
+strolling by. A tall thin lad and a buxom girl went into a cheap
+apartment building laughing gaily to themselves, and Roger thought
+of Laura. A group of young Italians passed, humming "Trovatore,"
+and it put him in mind of the time when he had ushered at the
+opera. Would Laura's young man be willing to usher? More like him
+to <i>tango</i> down the aisle!</p>
+<p>He reached Washington Square feeling tired but even more
+restless than before. He climbed to the top of a motor 'bus, and on
+the lurching ride uptown he darkly reflected that times had
+changed. He thought of the Avenue he had known, with its long lines
+of hansom cabs, its dashing broughams and coup&eacute;s with
+jingling harness, livened footmen, everything sprucely up-to-date.
+How the horses had added to the town. But they were gone,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id=
+"Page_25"></a>[25]</span>and in their place were these great cats,
+these purring motors, sliding softly by the 'bus. Roger had swift
+glimpses down into lighted limousines. In one a big rich looking
+chap with a beard had a dressy young woman in his arms. Lord, how
+he was hugging her! Laura would have a motor like that, kisses like
+that, a life like that! She was the kind to go it hard! Ahead as
+far as he could see was a dark rolling torrent of cars, lights
+gleaming by the thousand. A hubbub of gay voices, cries and little
+shrieks of laughter mingled with the blare of horns. He looked at
+huge shop windows softly lighted with displays of bedrooms richly
+furnished, of gorgeous women's apparel, silks and lacy filmy
+stuffs. And to Roger, in his mood of anxious premonition, these
+bedroom scenes said plainly,</p>
+<p>"O come, all ye faithful wives! Come let us adore him, and deck
+ourselves to please his eye, to catch his eye, to hold his eye! For
+marriage is a game these days!"</p>
+<p>Yes, Laura would be a spender, a spender and a speeder too! How
+much money had he, that chap? And damn him, what had he in his
+past? How Roger hated the very thought of poking into another man's
+life! Poking where nobody wanted him! He felt desperately alone.
+To-night they were dancing, he recalled, not at a party in
+somebody's home, but in some flashy public place where girls of her
+kind and fancy women gaily mixed together! How mixed the whole city
+was getting, he thought, how mad and strange, gone out of its mind,
+this city of his children's lives crowding in upon him!</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>CHAPTER
+IV</h2>
+<p>He breakfasted with Deborah late on Sunday morning. He had come
+down at the usual hour despite his long tramp of the previous
+night, for he wanted to tell her the news and talk it all out
+before Laura came down&mdash;because Deborah, he hadn't a doubt,
+with her woman's curiosity had probed deep into Laura's affairs in
+the many long talks they had had in her room. He had often heard
+them there. And so, as he waited and waited and still his daughter
+did not come, Roger grew distinctly annoyed; and when at last she
+did appear, his greeting was perfunctory:</p>
+<p>"What kept you out so late last night?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I was having a very good time," said Deborah contentedly.
+She poured herself some coffee. "I've always wanted," she went on,
+"to see Laura really puzzled&mdash;downright flabbergasted. And I
+saw her just like that last night."</p>
+<p>Roger looked up with a jerk of his head:</p>
+<p>"You and Laura&mdash;together last night?"</p>
+<p>"Exactly&mdash;on the Astor Roof." At her father's glare of
+astonishment a look of quiet relish came over her mobile features.
+Her wide lips twitched a little. "Well, why not?" she asked him.
+"I'm quite a dancer down at school. And last night with Allan
+Baird&mdash;we were dining together, you know&mdash;he proposed we
+go somewhere and dance. He's a perfectly awful dancer, and so I
+held out as long as I could. But he insisted and I gave in, though
+I much prefer the theater."</p>
+<p>"Well!" breathed Roger softly. "So you hoof it with the rest!"
+His expression was startled and intent. Would <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>he ever get
+to know these girls? "Well," he added with a sigh, "I suppose you
+know what you're about."</p>
+<p>"Oh no, I don't," she answered. "I never know what I'm about. If
+you always do, you miss so much&mdash;you get into a solemn habit
+of trying nothing till you're sure. But to return to Laura. As we
+came gaily down the room we ran right into her, you see. That's how
+Allan dances. And when we collided, I smiled at her sweetly and
+said, 'Why, hello, dearie&mdash;you here too?" And Deborah sipped
+her coffee. "I have never believed that the lower jaw of a
+well-bred girl could actually drop open. But Laura's did. With a
+good strong light, Allan told me, he could have examined her
+tonsils for her. Rather a disgusting thought. You see until she saw
+me there, poor Laura had me so thoroughly placed&mdash;my
+school-marm job, my tastes and habits, everything, all cut and
+dried. She has never once come to my school, and in every talk
+we've ever had there has always been some perfectly good and
+absorbing reason why we should talk about Laura alone."</p>
+<p>"There is now," said her father. He was in no mood for
+tomfoolery. His daughter saw it and smiled a little.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" she inquired. And then he let her have it!</p>
+<p>"Laura wants to get married," he snapped.</p>
+<p>Deborah caught her breath at that, and an eager excited
+expression swept over her attractive face. She had leaned forward
+suddenly.</p>
+<p>"Father! No! Which one?" she asked. "Tell me! Is it Harold
+Sloane?"</p>
+<p>"It is."</p>
+<p>"Oh, dad." She sank back in her chair. "Oh, dad," she
+repeated.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter with Sloane?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing, nothing&mdash;it's all right&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"It is, eh? How do you know it is?" His anxious eyes were still
+upon hers, and he saw she was thinking fast and <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>hard and
+shutting him completely out. And it irritated him. "What do you
+know of this fellow Sloane?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing&mdash;nothing&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Nothing! Humph! Then why do you sit here and say it's all
+right? Don't talk like a fool!" he exclaimed. He waited, but she
+said no more, and Roger's exasperation increased. "He has money
+enough apparently&mdash;and they'll spend it like March hares!"</p>
+<p>Deborah looked up at him:</p>
+<p>"What did Laura tell you, dear?"</p>
+<p>"Not very much. I'm only her father. She had a dinner and dance
+on her mind."</p>
+<p>But Deborah pressed her questions and he gave her brief
+replies.</p>
+<p>"Well, what shall we do about it?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;until we know something more." Roger regarded her
+fiercely.</p>
+<p>"Why don't you go up and talk to her, then?"</p>
+<p>"She's asleep yet&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Never mind if she is! If she's going to marry a chap like that
+and ruin her life it's high time she was up for her breakfast!"</p>
+<p>While he scanned his Sunday paper he heard Deborah in the
+pantry. She emerged with a breakfast tray and he saw her start up
+to Laura's room. She was there for over an hour. And when she
+returned to his study, he saw her eyes were shining. How women's
+eyes will shine at such times, he told himself in annoyance.</p>
+<p>"Well?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Better leave her alone to-day," she advised. "Harold is coming
+some night soon."</p>
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+<p>"To have a talk with you."</p>
+<p>Her father smote his paper. "What did she tell you about him?"
+he asked.</p>
+<p>"Not much more than she told you. His parents are <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id=
+"Page_29"></a>[29]</span>dead&mdash;but he has a rich widowed aunt
+in Bridgeport who adores him. They mean to be married the end of
+May. She wants a church wedding, bridesmaids, ushers&mdash;the
+wedding reception here, of course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Oh, Lord," breathed Roger dismally.</p>
+<p>"We won't bother you much, father dear&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"You <i>will</i> bother me much," he retorted. "I propose to be
+bothered&mdash;bothered a lot! I'm going to look up this fellow
+Sloane&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But let's leave him alone for to-day." She bent over her father
+compassionately. "What a night you must have had, poor dear." Roger
+looked up in grim reproach.</p>
+<p>"You like all this," he grunted. "You, a grown woman, a teacher
+too."</p>
+<p>"I wonder if I do," she said. "I guess I'm a queer person, dad,
+a curious family mixture&mdash;of Laura and Edith and mother and
+you, with a good deal of myself thrown in. But it feels rather good
+to be mixed, don't you think? Let's stay mixed as long as we
+can&mdash;and keep together the family."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>That afternoon, to distract him, Deborah took her father to a
+concert in Carnegie Hall. She had often urged him to go of late,
+but despite his liking for music Roger had refused before, simply
+because it was a change. But why balk at going anywhere now, when
+Laura was up to such antics at home?</p>
+<p>"Do you mind climbing up to the gallery?" Deborah asked as they
+entered the hall.</p>
+<p>"Not at all," he curtly answered. He did mind it very much!</p>
+<p>"Then we'll go to the very top," she said. "It's a long climb
+but I want you to see it. It's so different up there."</p>
+<p>"I don't doubt it," he replied. And as they made the slow
+ascent, pettishly he wondered why Deborah must <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>always be
+so eager for queer places. Galleries, zoo schools, tenement
+slums&mdash;why not take a two dollar seat in life?</p>
+<p>Deborah seated him far down in the front of the great gallery,
+over at the extreme right, and from here they could look back and
+up at a huge dim arena of faces.</p>
+<p>"Now watch them close," she whispered. "See what the music does
+to them."</p>
+<p>As the symphony began below the faces all grew motionless. And
+as the music cast its spell, the anxious ruffled feelings which had
+been with Roger all that day little by little were dispelled, and
+soon his imagination began to work upon this scene. He saw many
+familiar American types. He felt he knew what they had been doing
+on Sundays only a few years before. After church they had eaten
+large Sunday dinners. Then some had napped and some had walked and
+some had gone to Sunday school. At night they had had cold suppers,
+and afterwards some had gone back to church; while others, as in
+Roger's house in the days when Judith was alive, had gathered
+around the piano for hymns. Young men callers, friends of their
+daughters, had joined in the family singing. Yes, some of these
+people had been like that. To them, a few short years ago, a
+concert on the Sabbath would have seemed a sacrilege. He could
+almost hear from somewhere the echo of "Abide With Me."</p>
+<p>But over this memory of a song rose now the surging music of
+Tschaikovsky's "Pathetique." And the yearnings and fierce hungers
+in this tumultuous music swept all the hymns from Roger's mind.
+Once more he watched the gallery, and this time he became aware
+that more than half were foreigners. Out of the mass from every
+side individual faces emerged, swarthy, weird, and staring hungrily
+into space. And to Roger the whole shadowy place, the very air,
+grew pregnant, charged with all these inner lives bound together in
+this mood, this mystery that had swept over them all, immense and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id=
+"Page_31"></a>[31]</span>formless, baffling, this furious demanding
+and this blind wistful groping which he himself had known so well,
+ever since his wife had died and he had lost his faith in God. What
+was the meaning of it all if life were nothing but a start, and
+there were nothing but the grave?</p>
+<p>"You will live on in our children's lives."</p>
+<p>He glanced around at Deborah. Was <i>she</i> so certain, so
+serene? "What do I know of her?" he asked. "Little or nothing," he
+sadly replied. And he tried to piece together from things she had
+told him her life as it had passed him by. Had there been no
+questionings, no sharp disillusionments? There must have been. He
+recalled irritabilities, small acts and exclamations of impatience,
+boredom, "blues." And as he watched her he grew sure that his
+daughter's existence had been like his own. Despite its different
+setting, its other aims and visions, it had been a mere beginning,
+a feeling for a foothold, a search for light and happiness. And
+Deborah seemed to him still a child. "How far will <i>you</i> go?"
+he wondered.</p>
+<p>Although he was still watching her even after the music had
+ceased, she did not notice him for a time. Then she turned to him
+slowly with a smile.</p>
+<p>"Well? What did you see?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"I wasn't looking," he replied.</p>
+<p>"Why, dearie," she retorted. "Where's that imagination of
+yours?"</p>
+<p>"It was with you," he answered. "Tell me what you were
+thinking."</p>
+<p>And still under the spell of the music, Deborah said to her
+father,</p>
+<p>"I was thinking of hungry people&mdash;millions of them, now,
+this minute&mdash;not only here but in so many
+places&mdash;concerts, movies, libraries. Hungry, oh, for
+everything&mdash;life, its beauty, all it means. And I was thinking
+this is youth&mdash;no matter how old they happen to be&mdash;and
+that to feed it we have schools. I was thinking how <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>little
+we've done as yet, and of all that we're so sure to do in the many,
+many years ahead. Do you see what I mean?" she squeezed his
+hand.</p>
+<p>"Welcome back to school," she said, "back into the hungry army
+of youth!... Sh-h-h!"</p>
+<p>Again the music had begun. And sitting by her side he wondered
+whether it was because she knew that Laura's affair had made him
+feel old that Deborah had brought him here.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>They went to Edith's for supper.</p>
+<p>The Cunninghams' apartment was on the west side, well uptown. It
+was not the neighborhood which Edith would have chosen, for nearly
+all the nice people she knew lived east of the park. But rents were
+somewhat lower here and there was at least an abundance of fresh
+air for her family. Edith had found that her days were full of
+these perplexing decisions. It was all very simple to resolve that
+her children be old-fashioned, normal, wholesome, nice. But then
+she looked into the city&mdash;into schools and kindergartens,
+clothes and friends and children's parties, books and plays. And
+through them all to her dismay she felt conflicting currents,
+clashes between old and new. She felt New York. And anxiously she
+asked herself, "What is old-fashioned? What is normal? What is
+wholesome? What is nice?" Cautiously she made her way, testing and
+comparing, trying small experiments. Often sharply she would draw
+in her horns. She had struck something "common!" And she knew all
+this was nothing compared to the puzzles that lay ahead. For from
+her friend, Madge Deering, whose girls were well along in their
+'teens, she heard of deeper problems. The girls were so
+inquisitive. Dauntlessly Madge was facing each month the most
+disturbing questions. Thank Heaven, Edith had only one daughter.
+Sons were not quite so baffling.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id=
+"Page_33"></a>[33]</span>So she had groped her way along.</p>
+<p>When her father and Deborah arrived, placidly she asked them
+what they had been doing. And when she heard that they had been at
+a concert on the Sabbath, though this was far from old-fashioned
+and something she would not have done herself, it did not bother
+her half so much as the fact that Hannah, the Irish nurse, had
+slapped little Tad that afternoon. She had never known Hannah to do
+it before. Could it be that the girl was tired or sick? Perhaps she
+needed a few days off. "I must have a talk with her," Edith
+thought, "as soon as father and Deborah go."</p>
+<p>Roger always liked to come here. Say what you would about
+Edith's habit of keeping too closely to her home, the children to
+whom she had devoted herself were a fine, clean, happy lot. Here
+were new lives in his family, glorious fresh beginnings. He sat on
+the floor with her three boys, watching the patient efforts of
+George to harness his perturbed white rat to Tad's small fire
+engine. George was a lank sprawling lad of fourteen, all legs and
+arms and elbows, with rumpled hair and freckled face, a quick
+bright smile and nice brown eyes&mdash;frank, simple,
+understandable eyes. All but one of Edith's children were boys, and
+boys were a blessed relief to a man who had three grown-up
+daughters.</p>
+<p>And while Roger watched them, with a gentle glow of anticipation
+he waited for what should follow, when as had been already arranged
+Deborah should break to her sister the news of Laura's engagement.
+And he was not disappointed. The change in Edith was something
+tremendous. Until now so quietly self-absorbed, at the news that
+Laura was to be married instantly she was all alert. Sitting there
+in the midst of her children and facing a time of agony only a few
+weeks ahead which would add one more to her family, Edith's pretty
+florid face grew flushed and radiant as she exclaimed,</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id=
+"Page_34"></a>[34]</span>What a perfectly wonderful thing for
+Laura! Now if only she can have a child!"</p>
+<p>Her questions followed thick and fast, and with them her
+thoughts of what should be done. Bruce must look up this suitor at
+once. Bruce demurred stoutly but without avail. She eagerly
+questioned her sister as to Laura's plans for the wedding, but
+plainly she considered that Deborah was no woman to give her the
+full information she wanted. She must see Laura herself at once.
+For though she had thoroughly disapproved of the gay helter-skelter
+existence of her youngest sister, still Laura was now to be
+married, and this made all the difference.</p>
+<p>Just before Roger and Deborah left, Edith drew her father aside,
+and with a curious concern and pity in her voice, she said,</p>
+<p>"I'm so sorry I shan't be able to help you with the wedding,
+dear, and make it the sweet old-fashioned kind that mother would
+have wanted. Of course there's Deborah, she'll be there. But her
+head is so full of new ideas. I'm afraid she may find the house
+rather a burden after Laura has gone away." Edith gave a worried
+little sigh. "I'll be so glad," she added, "when we get that place
+in Morristown. We'll want you out there often, and for good long
+visits too. You may even find you'll care to try staying there with
+us for a while."</p>
+<p>Roger scowled and thanked her. She had given him a shock of
+alarm.</p>
+<p>"So she thinks that Deborah will find the housekeeping too
+hard," he reflected anxiously. And as he walked home with his
+daughter, he kept glancing at her face, which for all its look of
+quiet had so much tensity beneath. She had packed her life so full
+of school. What if she wanted to give up their home? "She'll try,
+of course, she'll try her best&mdash;but she'll find it too much of
+an added strain." And again he felt that sickening dread.
+Deb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id=
+"Page_35"></a>[35]</span>orah said nothing. He felt as though they
+had drifted apart.</p>
+<p>And at night in his bed, as Roger stared up at the beetling
+cliff of apartment windows just outside, drearily he asked himself
+how it would feel to live like that.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>CHAPTER
+V</h2>
+<p>One afternoon a few days later Roger was riding in the park. He
+rode "William," a large lazy cob who as he advanced in age had so
+subtly and insidiously slackened his pace from a trot to a jog that
+Roger barely noticed how slowly he was riding. As he rode along he
+liked to watch the broad winding bridle path with its bobbing
+procession of riders that kept appearing before him under the tall
+spreading trees. Though he knew scarcely anyone by name, he was a
+familiar figure here and he recognized scores of faces. To many men
+he nodded at passing, and to not a few alluring young dames, ardent
+creatures with bright eyes who gave him smiles of greeting, Roger
+gravely raised his hat. One was "The Silver Lady" in a Broadway
+musical show, but he thought she was "one of the Newport crowd." He
+liked to make shrewd guesses like that. There were so many kinds of
+people here. There were stout anxious ladies riding for figures and
+lean morose gentlemen riding for health. There were joyous
+care-free girls, chatting and laughing merrily. There were some
+gallant foreigners, and there were riding masters, and Roger could
+not tell them apart. There were mad boys from the Squadron who rode
+at a furious canter, and there were groups of children, eager and
+flushed, excited and gay, with stolid grooms behind them. The path
+in several places ran close beside the main road of the park, and
+with the coming of the dusk this road took on deep purple hues and
+glistened with reflections from countless yellow motor eyes. And
+from the polished limousines, sumptuous young women smiled out upon
+the riders.</p>
+<p>At least so Roger saw this life. And after those bleak
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id=
+"Page_37"></a>[37]</span>lonely years confronted by eternity, it
+was good to come here and forget, to feel himself for the moment a
+part of the thoughtless gaiety, the ease and luxury of the town.
+Here he was just on the edge of it all. Often as a couple passed he
+would wonder what they were doing that night. In the riding school
+where he kept his horse, it was a lazy pleasure to have the English
+"valet" there pull off his boots and breeches&mdash;though if
+anyone had told him so, Roger would have denied it with indignation
+and surprise. For was he not an American?</p>
+<p>It had been a wonderful tonic, a great idea of Laura's, this
+forcing him up here to ride. In one of her affectionate moods, just
+after a sick spell he had been through, his gay capricious daughter
+had insisted that he have his horse brought down from the
+mountains. She had promised to ride with him herself, and she had
+done so&mdash;for a week. Since then he had often met her here with
+one of her many smart young men. What a smile of greeting would
+flash on her face&mdash;when Laura happened to notice him.</p>
+<p>He was thinking of Laura now, and there was an anxious gleam in
+his eyes. For young Sloane was coming to dinner to-night. What was
+he going to say to the fellow? Bruce had learned that Sloane played
+polo, owned and drove a racing car and was well liked in his
+several clubs. But what about women and his past? Edith had urged
+her father to go through the lad's life with a fine tooth comb, and
+if he should find anything there to kick up no end of a row for the
+honor of the family. All of which was nothing but words, reflected
+Roger pettishly. It all came to this, that he had a most ticklish
+evening ahead! On the path as a rider greeted him, his reply was a
+dismal frown.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Laura's suitor arrived at six o'clock. In his study Roger heard
+the bell, listened a moment with beating heart, then raised himself
+heavily from his chair and went into the hallway.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id=
+"Page_38"></a>[38]</span>Ah, yes! It's you!" he exclaimed, with a
+nervous cordiality. "Come in, my boy, come right in! Here, let me
+help you with your coat. I don't know just where Laura is. Ahem!"
+He violently cleared his throat. "Suppose while we're waiting we
+have a smoke." He kept it up back into his den. There the suitor
+refused a cigar and carefully lit a cigarette. Roger noticed again
+how young the chap was, and marriage seemed so ridiculous! All this
+feverish trouble was for something so unreal!</p>
+<p>"Well, sir," the candidate blurted forth, "I guess I'd better
+come right to the point. Mr. Gale, I want to marry your
+daughter."</p>
+<p>"Laura?"</p>
+<p>"Yes." Roger cursed himself. Why had he asked, "Laura?" Of
+course it was Laura! Would this cub be wanting Deborah?</p>
+<p>"Well, my boy," he said thickly. "I&mdash;I wish I knew you
+better."</p>
+<p>"So do I, sir. Suppose we begin." The youth took a quick pull at
+his cigarette. He waited, stirred nervously in his seat. "You'll
+have some questions to ask, I suppose&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, there are questions." Roger had risen mechanically and was
+slowly walking the room. He threw out short gruff phrases. "I'm not
+interested in your past&mdash;I don't care about digging into a
+man&mdash;I never have and I never will&mdash;except as it might
+affect my daughter. That's the main question, I suppose. Can you
+make her happy?"</p>
+<p>"I think so," said Sloane, decidedly. Roger gave him a glance of
+displeasure.</p>
+<p>"That's a large order, young man," he rejoined.</p>
+<p>"Then let's take it in sections," the youngster replied.
+Confound his boyish assurance! "To begin with," he was saying, "I
+rather think I have money enough. We'd better go into that, hadn't
+we?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger indifferently. "We might as well <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>go into
+it." Of course the chap had money enough. He was a money maker. You
+could hear it in his voice; you could see it in his jaw, in his
+small aggressive blonde moustache. Now he was telling briefly of
+his rich aunt in Bridgeport, of the generous start she had given
+him, his work downtown, his income.</p>
+<p>"Twenty-two thousand this year," he said. "We can live on that
+all right, I guess."</p>
+<p>"You won't starve," was the dry response. Roger walked for a
+moment in silence, then turned abruptly on young Sloane.</p>
+<p>"Look here, young man, I don't want to dig," he continued very
+huskily. "But I know little or nothing of what may be behind you. I
+don't care to ask you about it now&mdash;unless it can make
+trouble."</p>
+<p>"It can't make trouble." At this answer, low but sharp, Roger
+wheeled and shot a glance into those clear and twinkling eyes. And
+his own eyes gleamed with pain. Laura had been such a little thing
+in the days when she had been his pet, the days when he had known
+her well. What could he do about it? This was only the usual thing.
+But he felt suddenly sick of life.</p>
+<p>"How soon do you want to get married?" he demanded harshly.</p>
+<p>"Next month, if we can."</p>
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+<p>"Abroad," said Sloane. Roger caught at this topic as at a straw.
+Soon they were talking of the trip, and the tension slackened
+rapidly. He had never been abroad himself but had always dreamed of
+going there. With maps and books of travel Judith and he had
+planned it out. In imagination they had lived in London and Paris,
+Munich and Rome, always in queer old lodgings looking on quaint
+crooked streets. He had dreamed of long delicious rambles, glimpses
+into queer old shops, vast, silent, dark cathedrals. For Laura how
+different it would be. This <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40"
+id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>boy of hers knew Europe as a group of
+gorgeous new hotels.</p>
+<p>The moment Laura joined them, her father's eye was caught and
+held by the ring upon her finger. Roger knew rings, they were his
+hobby, and this huge yellow solitaire in its new and brilliant
+setting at once awakened his dislike. It just fitted the life they
+were to lead! What life? As he listened to his daughter he kept
+wondering if she were so sure. Had she felt no uneasiness? She must
+have, he decided, for all her gay excitement. One Laura in that
+smiling face; another Laura deep inside, doubting and uncertain,
+reaching for her happiness, now elated, now dismayed, exclaiming,
+"Now at last I'm starting!" Oh, what an ignorant child she was. He
+wanted to cry out to her, "You'll <i>always</i> be just starting!
+You'll never be sure, you'll never be happy, you'll always be just
+beginning to be! And the happier you are, the more you will feel it
+is only a start!... And then-"</p>
+<p>More and more his spirit withdrew from these two heedless
+children. Later on, when Deborah came, he barely noticed her
+meeting with Sloane. And through dinner, while they talked of plans
+for the wedding, the trip abroad, still Roger took no part at all.
+He felt dull and heavy. Deborah too, he noticed, after her first
+efforts to be welcoming and friendly, had gradually grown silent.
+He saw her watching Laura with a mingled look of affection and of
+whimsical dismay. Soon after dinner she left them, and Roger smoked
+with the boy for a while and learned that he was twenty-nine. Both
+had grown uneasy and rather dull with each other. It was a relief
+when again Laura joined them, dressed to go out. She and her lover
+left the house.</p>
+<p>Roger sat motionless for some time. His cigar grew cold
+unheeded. One of the sorrows of his life had been that his only son
+had died. Bruce had been almost like a son. But this young man of
+Laura's? No.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id=
+"Page_41"></a>[41]</span>Later he went for his evening walk. And as
+though drawn by invisible chains he strayed far down into the
+ghetto. Soon he was elbowing his way through a maze of uproarious
+tenement streets as one who had been there many times. But he
+noticed little around him. He went on, as he had always gone,
+seeing and hearing this seething life only as a background to his
+own adventure. He reached his destination. Pushing his way through
+a swarm of urchins playing in front of a pawnshop, he entered and
+was a long time inside, and when he came out again at last the
+whole expression of his face had undergone a striking change. As
+one who had found the solace he needed for the moment, his pace
+unconsciously quickened and he looked about him with brighter
+eyes.</p>
+<p>Around the corner from his home, he went into a small jewelry
+shop, a remnant of the town of the past. There were no customers in
+the place, and the old Galician jeweler sat at the back playing
+solitaire. At sight of Roger he arose; and presently in a small
+back room, beneath the glare of a powerful lamp, the two were
+studying the ring which Roger had found in the ghetto that night.
+It was plain, just a thin worn band of gold with an emerald by no
+means large; but the setting was old and curious, and personal,
+distinctive. Somebody over in Europe had worked on it long and
+lovingly. Now as the Galician gently rubbed and polished and turned
+the ring this way and that, the light revealed crude tiny figures,
+a man and a woman under a tree. And was that a vine or a serpent?
+They studied it long and absorbedly.</p>
+<p>At home, up in his bedroom, Roger opened a safe which stood in
+one corner, took out a large shallow tray and sat down with it by
+his lamp. A strange array of rings was there, small and delicate,
+huge, bizarre; great signet rings and poison rings, love tokens,
+charms and amulets, rings which had been worn by wives, by
+mistresses, by favorite slaves and by young girls in convents;
+rings with the Ma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id=
+"Page_42"></a>[42]</span>donna and rings with many other saints
+graven on large heavy stones; rings French and Russian, Polish,
+Italian, Spanish, Syrian. Some were many centuries old. In nine
+shallow metal trays they filled the safe in Roger's room. Although
+its money value was small, the Gale collection was well known to a
+scattered public of connoisseurs, and Roger took pride in showing
+it. But what had always appealed to him most was the romance, the
+mystery, stored up in these old talismans that had lived so many
+ages, travelled through so many lands, decked so many fingers.
+Roger had found every one of them in the pawnshops of New York.
+What new recruits to America had brought them here and pawned them?
+From what old cities had they come? What passions of love and
+jealousy, of hatred, faith, devotion were in this glittering array?
+Roger's own love affair had been deep, but quiet and even and
+happy. All the wild adventures, the might-have-beens in his sex
+life, were gathered in these dusky trays with their richly colored
+glints of light.</p>
+<p>Of his daughters, Laura had been the one most interested in his
+rings, and so he thought of Laura now as he placed in the tray the
+new ring he had bought, the one he would have liked for her. But a
+vague uneasiness filled his mind, for he knew she had the same
+craving as he for what gleamed out of these somber trays. The old
+Galician jeweler had long been quite a friend of hers, she had
+often dropped in at his shop to ask him curious questions about his
+women patrons. And it was just this side of him that Roger did not
+care for. So many of those women were from a dubious glittering
+world, and the old Galician took a weird vicarious joy in many of
+the gay careers into which he sent his beloved rings, his brooches,
+earrings, necklaces, his clasps and diamond garters. And Laura
+loved to make him talk.... Yes, she was her father's child, a part
+of himself. He, too, had had his yearnings, his burning
+curiosities, his youthful ventures into the town.<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span> "You will
+live on in our children's lives." With her inheritance what would
+she do? Would she stop halfway as he had done, or would she throw
+all caution aside and let the flames within her rise?</p>
+<p>He heard a step in the doorway, and Deborah stood there
+smiling.</p>
+<p>"A new one?" she inquired. He nodded, and she bent over the
+tray. "Poor father," Deborah murmured. "I saw you eyeing Laura's
+engagement ring at dinner to-night. It wasn't like this one, was
+it?" He scowled:</p>
+<p>"I don't like what I see ahead of her. Nor do you," he said. "Be
+honest." She looked at him perplexedly.</p>
+<p>"We can't stop it, can we? And even if we could," she said, "I'm
+not quite sure I'd want to. It's her love affair, not yours or
+mine&mdash;grown out of a life she made for herself&mdash;curious,
+eager, thrilled by it all&mdash;and in the center of her soul the
+deep glad growing certainty, 'I'm going to be a beautiful
+woman&mdash;I myself, I, Laura Gale!' Oh, you don't know&mdash;nor
+do I. And so she felt her way along&mdash;eagerly, hungrily, making
+mistakes&mdash;and you and I left her to do it alone. I'm afraid we
+both rather neglected her, dad," Deborah ended sadly. "And all we
+can do now, I think, is to give her the kind of wedding she
+wants."</p>
+<p>Roger started to speak but hesitated.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" she inquired.</p>
+<p>"Queer," he answered gruffly, "how a man can neglect his
+children&mdash;as I have done, as I do still&mdash;when the one
+thing he wants most in life is to see each one of 'em happy."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>CHAPTER
+VI</h2>
+<p>Roger soon grew accustomed to seeing young Sloane about the
+house. They could talk together more easily, and he began to call
+him Harold. Harold asked him with Laura to lunch at the Ritz to
+meet the aunt from Bridgeport, a lady excessively stout and
+profound. But that ended the formalities. It had all been so much
+easier than Roger had expected. So, in its calm sober fashion, the
+old house took into its life this new member, these new plans, and
+the old seemed stronger for the new&mdash;for Laura and Edith and
+Deborah drew together closer than they had been in many years. But
+only because they felt themselves on the eve of a still deeper and
+more lasting separation, as the family of Roger Gale divided and
+went different ways. At times he noticed it sadly. Laura, who had
+scarcely ever been home for dinner, now spent many evenings here.
+She needed her home for her wedding, he thought. Each daughter
+needed it now and then. But as the years wore slowly on, the
+seasons when they needed it grew steadily wider and wider
+apart....</p>
+<p>Early in May, when Roger came home from his office one night he
+found Edith's children in the house. From the hallway he could hear
+their gay excited voices, and going into the dining room he found
+them at their supper. Deborah was with them, and at once her father
+noticed how much younger she appeared&mdash;as she always did with
+these children who all idolized her so. She rose and followed him
+into the hall, and her quiet voice had a note of compassion.</p>
+<p>"Edith's baby is coming," she said.</p>
+<p>"Good Lord. Is anything wrong?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id=
+"Page_45"></a>[45]</span>No, no, it's all right&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But I thought the child wasn't due for three weeks."</p>
+<p>"I know, and poor Edith is fearfully worried. It has upset all
+her plans. I'd go up and see her if I were you. Your supper is
+ready; and if you like you can have it with the children."</p>
+<p>There followed a happy boisterous meal, with much expectant
+chatter about the long summer so soon to begin at the farm up in
+the mountains. George, whose hair was down over his eyes, rumpled
+it back absorbedly as he told of a letter he had received from his
+friend Dave Royce, Roger's farmer, with whom George corresponded.
+One of the cows was to have a calf, and George was anxious to get
+there in time.</p>
+<p>"I've never seen a real new calf, new absolutely," he explained.
+"And I want a look at this one the very minute that he's born. Gee,
+I hope we can get there in time&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Gee! So do I!" cried Bobby aged nine. And then Tad, the chubby
+three-year-old who had been intently watching his brothers, slowly
+took the spoon from his mouth and in his grave sweet baby voice
+said very softly, "Gee." At her end of the table, Elizabeth, blonde
+and short and rather plump, frowned and colored slightly. For she
+was eleven and she knew there was something dark and shameful about
+the way calves appear in barns. And so, with a quick conscious
+cough, she sweetly interrupted:</p>
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Deborah! Won't you please tell us
+about&mdash;about&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"About&mdash;about," jeered the ironical George. "About what,
+you little ninny?" Poor Elizabeth blushed desperately. She was
+neither quick nor resourceful.</p>
+<p>"Now, George," said his aunt warningly.</p>
+<p>"Wasn't I talking?" the boy rejoined. "And didn't Betsy butt
+right in&mdash;without even a thing to butt in about?
+About&mdash;about," he jeered again.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id=
+"Page_46"></a>[46]</span>About Paris!" cried his sister, successful
+at last in her frantic search for a proper topic of conversation.
+"Aunt Deborah's trip to Paris!"</p>
+<p>"How many times has she told it already?" her brother replied
+with withering scorn. "And anyhow, I was talking of cows!"</p>
+<p>"Very well," said his aunt, "we'll talk about cows, some cows I
+saw on a lovely old farm in a little village over in France."</p>
+<p>"There!" cried his young sister. "Did she ever tell of
+<i>that</i> part of her trip?" And she made a little face at her
+brother.</p>
+<p>"I don't care," he answered doggedly. "She has told about Paris
+lots of times&mdash;and that was what <i>you</i> wanted. Yes, you
+did. You said, 'About Paris.' Didn't she, Bob?"</p>
+<p>"You bet she did," young Bob agreed.</p>
+<p>"Now, children, children, what does it matter?"</p>
+<p>"All right, go ahead with your barn in France," said George with
+patient tolerance. "Did they have any Holsteins?"</p>
+<p>Soon the questions were popping from every side, while little
+Tad beamed from one to the other. To Tad it was all so wonderful,
+to be having supper away from home, to be here, to go to bed
+upstairs, to take part perhaps in a pillow fight.... And glancing
+at the glowing face and the parted lips of his small grandson Roger
+felt a current of warm new life pour into his soul.</p>
+<p>Early in the evening he went up to Edith's apartment. He found
+his daughter in her room, looking flushed and very tense. He took
+her arm and they walked for a time. A trained nurse was soaping the
+windows. Roger asked the reason for this and was told that in case
+the baby did not come till morning the doctor wanted to pull up the
+shades in order to work by daylight. "And neighbors in New York are
+such cats! You've no idea!" said Edith. She looked out at the
+numberless windows crowding close <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>about her home, and she
+fairly bristled with scorn. "Oh, how I loathe apartments!"</p>
+<p>"They seem to have come to stay, my dear. In a few years more
+New York will be a city without a house," he said. "Only a palace
+here and there." The thought flashed in his mind, "But I shall be
+gone."</p>
+<p>"Then we'll move out to the country!" she cried. Still walking
+the floor with her father, she talked of the perplexities which in
+her feverish state of mind had loomed suddenly enormous. She had
+planned everything so nicely for the baby to come the first of
+June, but now her plans were all upset. She did not want the
+children here, it would make too much confusion. They had much
+better go up to the mountains, even though George and Elizabeth
+lost their last few weeks at school. But who could she find to take
+them? Bruce was simply rushed to death with his new receivership.
+Laura was getting her trousseau. Deborah, said Edith, had time for
+nothing on earth but school.</p>
+<p>"Suppose I take them," Roger ventured. But she only smiled at
+this. "My dear," he urged, "your nurse will be with me, and when we
+arrive there's the farmer's wife." But Edith impatiently shook her
+head. Her warm bright eyes seemed to picture it all, hour by hour,
+day and night, her children there without her.</p>
+<p>"You poor dear," she told him, "you haven't the slightest idea
+what it means. The summer train is not on yet, and you have to
+change three times on the way&mdash;with all the
+children&mdash;luggage, too. And there are their naps, and all
+their meals. You don't arrive till late at night. No," she decided
+firmly, "Bruce will simply have to go." She drew a breath of
+discomfort. "You go and talk to him," she said.</p>
+<p>"I will, my dear." Roger looked at his daughter in deep concern.
+Awkwardly his heavy hand touched her small plump shoulder, and he
+felt the constant quivering <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48"
+id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>there. "Now, now," he muttered,
+uneasily, "it's going to be all right, you know&mdash;" And at that
+she gave him a rapid glance out of those warm hunted eyes, as
+though to ask, "What do you know of this?" And Roger flinched and
+turned to the door.</p>
+<p>Bruce was working at his desk, with an old briar pipe in his
+teeth. He looked up with a quick nervous smile which showed his
+dread of the coming ordeal, but his voice had a carefully casual
+tone.</p>
+<p>"Does she want me now?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"No," said Roger. And he told of her plan for the children. "I
+volunteered myself," he added, "but she wouldn't hear to it."</p>
+<p>"Oh, my God, man, you wouldn't do," said Bruce, in droll
+disparagement. "You with forty-nine bottles of pasteurized milk?
+Suppose you smashed one? Where'd you be? Moving our family isn't a
+job; it's a science, and I've got my degree." He rose and his face
+softened. "Poor girl, she mustn't worry like that. I'll run in and
+tell her I'll do it myself&mdash;just to get it off her mind."</p>
+<p>He went to his wife. And when he came back his dark features
+appeared a little more drawn.</p>
+<p>"Poor devil," thought Roger, "he's scared to death&mdash;just as
+I used to be myself."</p>
+<p>"Pretty tough on a woman, isn't it?" Bruce muttered, smiling
+constrainedly.</p>
+<p>"Did Baird say everything's going well?" Baird was Edith's
+physician.</p>
+<p>"Yes. He was here this afternoon, and he said he'd be back this
+evening." Bruce stopped with a queer little scowl of suspense. "I
+told her I'd see to the trip with the kiddies, and it seemed to
+relieve her a lot." His eye went to a pile of documents that lay on
+the desk before him. "It'll play the very devil with business,
+taking three days off just now. But I guess I can manage it
+somehow&mdash;"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id=
+"Page_49"></a>[49]</span>A muscle began to twitch on his face. He
+re-lit his pipe with elaborate care and looked over at Roger
+confidingly:</p>
+<p>"Do you know what's the matter with kids these days? It's the
+twentieth century," he said. "It's a disease. It starts in their
+teeth. No modern girl can get married unless she has had her teeth
+straightened for years. Our dentist's bill, this year alone, was
+over eight hundred dollars. But that isn't all. It gets into their
+young intestines, God bless 'em, and makes you pasteurize all they
+eat. It gets into their nerves and tears 'em up, and your only
+chance to save 'em is school&mdash;not a common school but a
+'simple' school, tuition four hundred dollars a year. And you hire
+a dancing teacher besides&mdash;I mean a rhythm teacher&mdash;and
+let 'em shake it out of their feet. And after that you buy 'em
+clothes&mdash;not fluffy clothes, but 'simple' clothes, the kind
+which always cost the most. And then you build a simple home, in a
+simple place like Morristown. The whole idea is simplicity. If you
+can't make enough to buy it, you're lost. If you can make enough,
+just barely enough, you get so excited you lose your head&mdash;and
+do what I did Monday."</p>
+<p>The two men smiled at each other. Roger was very fond of
+Bruce.</p>
+<p>"What did you do Monday?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I bought that car I told you about."</p>
+<p>"Splendid! Best thing in the world for you! Tell me all about
+it!"</p>
+<p>And while Bruce rapidly grew engrossed in telling of the car's
+fine points, Roger pictured his son-in-law upon hot summer evenings
+(for Bruce spent his summers in town) forgetting his business for a
+time and speeding out into the country. Then he thought of Edith
+and the tyranny of her motherhood, always draining her husband's
+purse and keeping Edith so wrapt up in her children and their daily
+needs that she had lost all interest in anything outside her home.
+What was there wrong about it? He <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>knew that Edith prided
+herself on being like her mother. But Judith had always found time
+for her friends. He himself had been more as Edith was now. How
+quickly after Judith died he had dropped all friends, all
+interests. "That's it," he ruefully told himself, "Edith takes
+after her father." And the same curious feeling which he had had
+with Laura, came back to him with her sister. This daughter, too,
+was a part of himself. His deep instinctive craving to keep to
+himself and his family was living on in Edith, was already
+dominating her home. What a queer mysterious business it was, this
+tie between a man and his child.</p>
+<p>He was thinking of this when Baird arrived. Allan Baird was not
+only the doctor who had brought Edith's children into the world, he
+was besides an intimate friend, he had been Bruce's room-mate at
+college. As he came strolling into the room with his easy greeting
+of "Well, folks&mdash;" his low gruff voice, his muscular frame,
+over six feet two, and the kindly calm assurance in his lean strong
+visage, gave to Bruce and Roger the feeling of safety they needed.
+For this kind of work was his life. He had specialized on women,
+and after over fifteen years of toilsome uphill labor he had become
+at thirty-seven one of the big gynecologists. He was taking his
+success with the quiet relish of a man who had had to work for it
+hard. And yet he had not been spoiled by success. He worked even
+harder than before&mdash;so hard, in fact, that Deborah, with whom
+through Bruce and Edith he had long ago struck up an easy bantering
+friendship, had sturdily set herself the task of prying open his
+eyes a bit. She had taken him to her school at night and to queer
+little foreign caf&eacute;s. And Baird, with a humor of his own,
+had retaliated by dragging her to the Astor Roof and to musical
+plays.</p>
+<p>"If my eyes are to be opened," he had doggedly declared, "I
+propose to have some diamonds in the scenery, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>and a
+little cheery ragtime, too. You've got a good heart, Deborah Gale,
+but your head is full of tenements."</p>
+<p>To-night to divert Bruce's thoughts from his wife, Baird started
+him talking of his work. In six weeks Bruce had crammed his mind
+with the details of skyscraper building, and his talk was
+bewildering now, bristling with technical terms, permeated through
+and through with the feeling of strain and fierce competition. As
+Roger listened he had again that sharp and oppressive sensation of
+a savage modern town unrelentingly pressing, pressing in.
+Restlessly he glanced at Baird who sat listening quietly. And Roger
+thought of the likeness between their two professions. For Bruce,
+too, was a surgeon. His patients were the husbands in their
+distracting offices. Baird's were the wives and mothers in their
+equally distracting homes. Which were more tense, the husbands or
+wives? And, good Lord, what was it all about, this feverish strain
+of getting and spending? What were they spending? Their very life's
+blood. And what were they getting? Happiness? What did most of them
+know of real happiness? How little they knew, how blind they were,
+and yet how they laughed and chattered along, how engrossed in
+their little games. What children, oh, what children!</p>
+<p>"And am I any better than the rest? Do I know what I'm
+after&mdash;what I'm about?"</p>
+<p>He left them soon, for he felt very tired. He went to his
+daughter to say good-night. And in her room the talk he had heard
+became to him suddenly remote, that restless world of small
+account. For in Edith, in the one brief hour since her father had
+seen her last, there had come a great transformation, into her face
+an eager light. She was slipping down into a weird small world
+which for a brief but fearful season was to be utterly her own,
+with agony and bloody sweat, and joy and a deep mystery. Clumsily
+he took her hand. It was moist and he felt it clutch his own. He
+heard her breathing rapidly.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id=
+"Page_52"></a>[52]</span>Good-night," he said in a husky tone.
+"I'll be so glad, my dear, so glad."</p>
+<p>For answer she gave him a hurried smile, a glance from her
+bright restless eyes. Then he went heavily from the room.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>At home he found Deborah sitting alone, with a pile of school
+papers in her lap. As he entered she slowly turned her head.</p>
+<p>"How is Edith?" she asked him. Roger told of his visit uptown,
+and spoke of Edith's anxiety over getting the children up to the
+farm.</p>
+<p>"I'll take them myself," said Deborah.</p>
+<p>"But how can you get away from school?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I think I can manage it. We'll leave on Friday morning and
+I can be back by Sunday night. I'll love it," Deborah answered.</p>
+<p>"It'll be a great relief to her," said Roger, lighting a cigar.
+Deborah resumed her work, and there was silence for a time.</p>
+<p>"I let George sit up with me till an hour after his bedtime,"
+she told her father presently. "We started talking about white
+rats&mdash;you see it's still white rats with George&mdash;and that
+started us wondering about God. George wonders if God really knows
+about rats. 'Has he ever stuck his face right down and had a good
+close look at one? Has God ever watched a rat stand up and brush
+his whiskers with both paws? Has he ever really laughed at rats?
+And that's another thing, Aunt Deborah&mdash;does God ever laugh at
+all? Does he know how to take a joke? If he don't, we might as well
+quit right now!'"</p>
+<p>Roger laughed with relish, and his daughter smiled at him:</p>
+<p>"Then the talk turned from rats and God to a big dam out in the
+Rockies. George has been reading about it, he's thinking of being
+an engineer. And there was so much <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>he wanted to know that he was
+soon upon the verge of discovering my ignorance&mdash;when all of a
+sudden a dreamy look, oh, a very dreamy look, came into his
+eyes&mdash;and he asked me this." And over her bright expressive
+face came a scowl of boyish intensity: "Suppose I <i>was</i> an
+engineer&mdash;and I was working on a dam, or may be a bridge, in
+the Rockies. And say it was pretty far down south&mdash;say around
+the Grand Canyon. I should think they'd need a dam down there, or
+anyhow a bridge,' said George. And he eyed me in a cautious way
+which said as plain as the nose on your face, 'Good Lord, she's
+only a woman, and she won't understand.' But I showed him I was
+serious, and he asked me huskily, 'Suppose it was winter, Aunt
+Deborah, and the Giants were in Texas. Do you think I could get a
+few days off?' And then before he could tell me the Giants were a
+baseball nine, I said I was sure he could manage it. You should
+have seen his face light up. And he added very fervently, 'Gee, it
+must be wonderful to be an engineer out there!'"</p>
+<p>Roger chuckled delightedly and Deborah went on with her work.
+"How good she is with young uns," he thought. "What a knack she has
+of drawing 'em out. What a pity she hasn't some of her own."</p>
+<p>He slept until late the next morning, and awoke to find Deborah
+by his bed.</p>
+<p>"It's another boy," she told him. Roger sat up excitedly. "Bruce
+has just telephoned the news. The children and I have breakfasted,
+and they're going out with their nurse. Suppose you and I go up and
+see Bruce and settle this trip to the mountains."</p>
+<p>About an hour later, arriving at Edith's apartment, they found
+Bruce downstairs with Allan Baird who was just taking his
+departure. Bruce's dark eyes shone with relief, but his hand was
+hot and nervous. Allan, on the contrary, held out to Edith's father
+a hand as steady and relaxed as was the bantering tone of his
+voice.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id=
+"Page_54"></a>[54]</span>Bruce," he said, "has for once in his life
+decided to do something sensible. He's going to drop his wretched
+job and take a week off with his children."</p>
+<p>"And worry every minute he's gone," Deborah retorted, "and come
+back and work day and night to catch up. But he isn't going to do
+it. I've decided to take the children myself."</p>
+<p>"You have?" cried Bruce delightedly.</p>
+<p>"You'll do no such thing," said Allan, indignant.</p>
+<p>"Oh, you go to thunder," Bruce put in. "Haven't you any
+delicacy? Can't you see this is no business of yours?"</p>
+<p>"It isn't, eh," Allan sternly rejoined. And of Deborah he
+demanded, "Didn't you say you'd go with me to 'Pinafore' this
+Saturday night?"</p>
+<p>"Ah," sneered Bruce. "So that's your game. And for one little
+night of your pleasure you'd do me out of a week of my life!"</p>
+<p>"Like that," said Baird, with a snap of his fingers.</p>
+<p>"I'm going, though," said Deborah.</p>
+<p>"Quite right, little woman," Bruce admonished her earnestly.
+"Don't let him rob you of your happiness."</p>
+<p>"Come here," growled Baird to Deborah. She followed him into the
+living room, and Roger went upstairs with Bruce.</p>
+<p>"If he ever hopes to marry that girl," said Bruce, with an
+anxious backward glance, "he's got to learn to treat her with a
+little consideration."</p>
+<p>"Quit your quarreling," Roger said. "What's a week in the
+mountains to you? Hasn't your wife just risked her life?"</p>
+<p>"Sure she has," said Bruce feelingly. "And I propose to stick by
+her, too."</p>
+<p>"Can I see her?"</p>
+<p>"No, you can't&mdash;another of Baird's fool notions."</p>
+<p>"Then where's the baby?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id=
+"Page_55"></a>[55]</span>Right in here."</p>
+<p>Silently in front of the cradle Bruce and Roger stood looking
+down with the content which comes to men on such occasions when
+there is no woman by their side expecting them to say things.</p>
+<p>"I made it a rule in my family," Roger spoke up presently, "to
+have my first look at each child alone."</p>
+<p>"Same here," said Bruce. And they continued their silent
+communion. A few moments later, as they were leaving, Deborah came
+into the room and went softly to the cradle. Downstairs they found
+that Allan had gone, and when Deborah rejoined them she said she
+was going to stick to her plan. It was soon arranged that she and
+the youngsters should start on their journey the following day.</p>
+<p>Back at home she threw herself into the packing and was busy
+till late that night. At daybreak she was up again, for they were
+to make an early start. Bruce came with his new automobile, the
+children were all bundled in, together with Deborah and their
+nurse, and a half hour later at the train Bruce and Roger left
+them&mdash;Deborah flushed and happy, surrounded by luggage, wraps,
+small boys, an ice box, toys and picture books. The small red hat
+upon her head had already been jerked in a scrimmage, far down over
+one of her ears.</p>
+<p>"Don't worry about us, Bruce," she said. "We're going to have
+the time of our lives!" Bruce fairly beamed his gratitude.</p>
+<p>"If she don't marry," he declared, as he watched the train move
+slowly out, "there'll be a great mother wasted."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span>CHAPTER
+VII</h2>
+<p>In the weeks which followed, Roger found the peace of his home
+so interrupted and disturbed by wedding preparations that often
+retreating into his den he earnestly told himself he was through,
+that a man with three grown daughters was a fool to show any
+sympathy with the utter folly of their lives. Yield an inch and
+they took a mile! It began one night when Deborah said,</p>
+<p>"Now, dearie, I think you had better make up your mind to give
+Laura just the kind of wedding she likes."</p>
+<p>And Roger weakly agreed to this, but as time wore on he
+discovered that the kind of wedding Laura liked was a thing that
+made his blood run cold. There seemed to be no end whatever to the
+young bride's blithe demands. The trousseau part of it he didn't
+mind. To the gowns and hats and gloves and shoes and trunks and
+jaunty travelling bags which came pouring into the house, he made
+no objection. All that, he considered, was fair play. But what got
+on Roger's nerves was this frantic fuss and change! The faded hall
+carpet had to come up, his favorite lounge was whisked away, the
+piano was re-tuned while he was trying to take a nap, rugs were
+beaten, crates and barrels filled the halls, and one whole bedroom
+stripped and bare was transformed into a shop where the wedding
+presents were displayed. In the shuffle his box of cigars
+disappeared. In short, there was the devil to pay!</p>
+<p>And Deborah, was as bad as the bride. At times it appeared to
+Roger as though her fingers fairly itched to jab and tug at his
+poor old house, which wore an air of <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>mute reproach. She revealed a
+part of her nature that he viewed with dark amazement. Every hour
+she could spare from school, she was changing something or other at
+home&mdash;with an eager glitter in her eyes. Doing it all for
+Laura, she said. Fiddlesticks and rubbish! She did it because she
+liked it!</p>
+<p>In gloomy wrath one afternoon he went up to see Edith and quiet
+down. She was well on the way to recovery, but instead of receiving
+solace here he only found fresh troubles. For sitting up in her
+old-fashioned bed, with an old-fashioned cap of lace upon her
+shapely little head, Edith made her father feel she had washed her
+hands of the whole affair.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry," she said in an injured tone, "that Laura doesn't
+care enough about her oldest sister to put off the wedding two or
+three weeks so I could be there. It seems rather undignified, I
+think, for a girl to hurry her wedding so. I should have loved to
+make it the dear simple kind of wedding which mother would have
+wanted. But so long as she doesn't care for that&mdash;and in fact
+has only found ten minutes&mdash;once&mdash;to run in and see the
+baby&mdash;"</p>
+<p>In dismay her father found himself defending the very daughter
+of whom he had come to complain. It was not such a short
+engagement, he said, he had learned they had been engaged some time
+before they told him.</p>
+<p>"Do you approve of that?" she rejoined. "When I was engaged, I
+made Bruce go to you before I even let him&mdash;" here Edith broke
+off primly. "Of course that was some time ago. An engagement, Laura
+tells me, is 'a mere experiment' nowadays. They 'experiment' till
+they feel quite sure&mdash;then notify their parents and get
+married in a week."</p>
+<p>"She is rushing it, I admit," Roger soothingly replied. "But she
+has her mind set on Paris in June."</p>
+<p>"Paris in June," said Edith, "sums up in three words<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> Laura's
+whole conception of marriage. You really ought to talk to her,
+father. It's your duty, it seems to me."</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+<p>"I'd rather not tell you." Edith's glance went sternly to the
+cradle by her bed. "Laura pities me," she said, "for having had
+five children."</p>
+<p>"Oh, now, my dear girl!"</p>
+<p>"She does, though&mdash;she said as much. When she dropped in
+the other day and I tried to be sympathetic and give her a little
+sound advice, she said I had had the wedding I liked and the kind
+of married life I liked, and she was going to have hers. And she
+made it quite plain that her kind is to include no children. It's
+to be simply an effort to find by 'experiment' whether or not she
+loves Hal Sloane. If she doesn't&mdash;" Edith gave a slight but
+emphatic wave of dismissal.</p>
+<p>"Do you mean to say Laura told you that?" her father asked with
+an angry frown.</p>
+<p>"I mean she made me feel it&mdash;as plainly as I'm telling it!
+What I can't understand," his daughter went on, "is Deborah's
+attitude in the affair."</p>
+<p>"What's the matter with Deborah?" inquired Roger dismally.</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing's the matter with Deborah. She's quite
+self-sufficient. She at least can play with modern ideas and keep
+her head while she's doing it. But when poor Laura&mdash;a mere
+child with the mind of a chicken&mdash;catches vaguely at such
+ideas, applies them to her own little self and risks her whole
+future happiness, it seems to me perfectly criminal for Deborah not
+to interfere! Not even a word of warning!"</p>
+<p>"Deborah believes," said her father, "in everyone's leading his
+own life."</p>
+<p>"That's rot," was Edith's curt reply. "Do I lead my own life?
+Does Bruce? Do you?"</p>
+<p>"No," growled Roger feelingly.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id=
+"Page_59"></a>[59]</span>Do my children?" Edith demanded. "I know
+Deborah would like them to. That's her latest and most modern fad,
+to run a school where every child shall sit with a rat in its lap
+or a goat, and do just what he pleases&mdash;follow his natural
+bent, she says. I hope she won't come up to the mountains and
+practice on my children. I should hate to break with Deborah,"
+Edith ended thoughtfully.</p>
+<p>Roger rose and walked the room. The comforting idea entered his
+mind that when the wedding was over he would take out his
+collection of rings and carefully polish every one. But even this
+hope did not stay with him long.</p>
+<p>"With Laura at home," he heard Edith continue, "you at least had
+a daughter to run your house. If Deborah tries to move you
+out&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"She won't!" cried Roger in alarm.</p>
+<p>"If she does," persisted Edith, "or if she begins any talk of
+the kind&mdash;you come to me and <i>I'll</i> talk to her!"</p>
+<p>Her father walked in silence, his head down, frowning at the
+floor.</p>
+<p>"It seems funny," Edith continued, "that women like me who give
+children their lives, and men like Bruce who are building New
+York&mdash;actually doing it all the time&mdash;have so little to
+say in these modern ideas. I suppose it's because we're a little
+too real."</p>
+<p>"To come back to the wedding," Roger suggested.</p>
+<p>"To come back to the wedding, father dear," his daughter said
+compassionately. "I'm afraid it's going to be a 'mere form' which
+will make you rather wretched. When you get so you can't endure it,
+come in and see me and the baby."</p>
+<p>As he started for home, her words of warning recurred to his
+mind. Yes, here was the thing that disturbed him most, the ghost
+lurking under all this confusion, the part which had to do with
+himself. It was bad enough to know that his daughter, his own flesh
+and blood, was about to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id=
+"Page_60"></a>[60]</span>settle her fate at one throw. But to be
+moved out of his house bag and baggage! Roger strode wrathfully up
+the street.</p>
+<p>"It's your duty to talk to her," Edith had said. And he
+meditated darkly on this: "Maybe I will and maybe I won't. I know
+my duties without being told. How does Edith know what her mother
+liked? We had our own likings, her mother and I, and our own ideas,
+long after she was tucked into bed. And yet she's always harping on
+'what mother would have wanted.' What I should like to
+know&mdash;right now&mdash;is what Judith would want if she were
+here!"</p>
+<p>With a pang of utter loneliness amid these vexing problems,
+Roger felt it crowding in, this city of his children's lives. As he
+strode on down Broadway, an old hag selling papers thrust one in
+his face and he caught a glimpse of a headline. Some bigwig woman
+re-divorced. How about Laura's "experiment"? A mob of street
+urchins nearly upset him. How about Deborah? How about children?
+How about schools, education, the country? How about God? Was
+anyone thinking? Had anyone time? What a racket it made,
+slam-banging along. The taxis and motor trucks thundered and
+brayed, dark masses of people swept endlessly by, as though their
+very souls depended on their dinners or their jobs, their movies,
+roaring farces, thrills, their harum scarum dances, clothes. A
+plump little fool of a woman, her skirt so tight she could barely
+walk, tripped by on high-heeled slippers. That was it, he told
+himself, the whole city was high-heeled! No solid footing anywhere!
+And, good Lord, how they chattered!</p>
+<p>He turned into a less noisy street. What would Judith want if
+she were here? It became disturbingly clear to him that she would
+undoubtedly wish him to have a talk with Laura now, find out if
+she'd really made up her mind not to have any children, and if so
+to tell her plainly that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61"
+id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>she was not only going against her God
+but risking her own happiness. For though Judith had been liberal
+about any number of smaller things, she had been decidedly clear on
+this. Yes, he must talk to Laura.</p>
+<p>"And she'll tell me," he reflected, "that Edith put me up to
+it!"</p>
+<p>If only his oldest daughter would leave the other girls alone!
+Here she was planning a row with Deborah over whether poor young
+George should be allowed to play with rats! It was all so silly!...
+Yes, his three children were drifting apart, each one of them going
+her separate way. And he rather took comfort in the thought, for at
+least it would stop their wrangling. But again he pulled himself up
+with a jerk. No, certainly Judith would not have liked this. If
+she'd ever stood for anything, it was for keeping the family
+together. It had been the heart and center of their last talks
+before she died.</p>
+<p>His face relaxed as he walked on, but in his eyes was a deeper
+pain. If only Judith could be here. Before he reached home he had
+made up his mind to talk with Laura that very night. He drew out
+his latchkey, opened his door, shut it firmly and strode into his
+house. In the hall they were putting down the new carpet.
+Cautiously picking his way upstairs, he inquired for Laura and was
+told she was dressing for dinner. He knocked at her door.</p>
+<p>"Yes?" came her voice.</p>
+<p>"It's I," he said, "your father."</p>
+<p>"Oh, hello, dad," came the answer gaily, in that high sweet
+voice of hers. "I'm frightfully rushed. It's a dinner dance
+to-night for the bridesmaids and the ushers." Roger felt a glow of
+relief. "Come in a moment, won't you?"</p>
+<p>What a resplendent young creature she was, seated at her
+dresser. Behind her the maid with needle and thread was swiftly
+mending a little tear in the fluffy <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>blue tulle she was wearing.
+The shaded light just over her head brought a shimmer of red in her
+sleek brown hair. What lips she had, what a bosom. She drew a deep
+breath and smiled at him.</p>
+<p>"What are you doing to-morrow night?" her father asked her.</p>
+<p>"Oh, dad, my love, we have every evening filled and crammed
+right up to the wedding," she replied. "No&mdash;the last evening
+I'll be here. Hal's giving his ushers a dinner that night."</p>
+<p>"Good. I want to talk to you, my dear." He felt his voice
+solemn, a great mistake. He saw the quick glance from her luminous
+eyes.</p>
+<p>"All right, father&mdash;whenever you like."</p>
+<p>Much embarrassed Roger left the room.</p>
+<p>The few days which remained were a crowding confusion of
+dressmakers, gowns and chattering friends and gifts arriving at all
+hours. As a part of his resolve to do what he could for his
+daughter, Roger stayed home from his office that week. But all he
+could do was to unpack boxes, take out presents and keep the cards,
+and say, "Yes, my dear, it's very nice. Where shall I put this
+one?" As the array of presents grew, from time to time
+unconsciously he glanced at the engagement ring upon Laura's
+finger. And all the presents seemed like that. They would suit her
+apartment beautifully. He'd be glad when they were out of the
+house.</p>
+<p>The only gift that appealed to his fancy was a brooch, neither
+rich nor new, a genuine bit of old jewelry. But rather to his
+annoyance he learned that it had been sent to Laura by the old
+Galician Jew in the shop around the corner. It recalled to his mind
+the curious friendship which had existed for so long between the
+old man and his daughter. And as she turned the brooch to the light
+Roger thought he saw in her eyes anticipations which made him
+uneasy. Yes, she was a child of his. "June in
+Paris&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id=
+"Page_63"></a>[63]</span> other Junes&mdash;"experiments"&mdash;no
+children. Again he felt he must have that talk. But, good Lord, how
+he dreaded it.</p>
+<p>The house was almost ready now, dismantled and made new and
+strange. It was the night before the wedding. Laura was taking her
+supper in bed. What was he going to say to her? He ate his dinner
+silently. At last he rose with grim resolution.</p>
+<p>"I think I'll go up and see her," he said. Deborah quickly
+glanced at him.</p>
+<p>"What for?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I just want to talk to her&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Don't stay long," she admonished him. "I've a masseuse coming
+at nine o'clock to get the child in condition to rest. Her nerves
+are rather tense, you know."</p>
+<p>"How about mine?" he said to himself as he started upstairs.
+"Never mind, I've got to tackle it."</p>
+<p>Laura saw what he meant to say the moment that he entered the
+room, and the tightening of her features made it all the harder for
+Roger to think clearly, to remember the grave, kind, fatherly
+things which he had intended to tell her.</p>
+<p>"I don't want to talk of the wedding, child, but of what's
+coming after that&mdash;between you and this man&mdash;all your life." He
+stopped short, with his heart in his mouth, for although he did not
+look at her he had a quick sensation as though he had struck her in
+the face.</p>
+<p>"Isn't this rather late to speak about that? Just now? When I'm
+nervous enough as it is?"</p>
+<p>"I know, I know." He spoke hurriedly, humbly. "I should have
+talked to you long ago, I should have known you better, child. I've
+been slack and selfish. But it's better late than never."</p>
+<p>"But you needn't!" the girl exclaimed. "You needn't tell me
+anything! I know more than you think&mdash;I know enough!" Roger
+looked at her, then at the wall. She <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span>went on in a voice rather
+breathless: "I know what I'm doing&mdash;exactly&mdash;just what
+I'm getting into. It's not as it was when you were young&mdash;it's
+different&mdash;we talk of these things. Harold and I have talked
+it all out." In the brief and dangerous pause which followed Roger
+kept looking at the wall.</p>
+<p>"Have you talked&mdash;about having children?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," came the answer sharply, and then he felt the hot clutch
+of her hand. "Hadn't you better go now, dad?" He hesitated.</p>
+<p>"No," he said. His voice was low. "Do you mean to have children,
+Laura?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+<p>"I think you do know. Do you mean to have children?" Her big
+black eyes, dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.</p>
+<p>"Well then, no, I don't!" she replied. He made a desperate
+effort to think what he could say to her. Good God, how he was
+bungling! Where were all his arguments?</p>
+<p>"How about your religion?" he blurted out.</p>
+<p>"I haven't any&mdash;which makes me do that&mdash;I've a right
+to be happy!"</p>
+<p>"You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed. In accent and in
+quality it was like a voice from the heart of New England where he
+had been born and bred. "I mean you won't be happy&mdash;not unless
+you have a child! It's what you need&mdash;it'll fill your life!
+It'll settle you&mdash;deepen you&mdash;tone you down!"</p>
+<p>"Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost
+hysterical. "I'm no Puritan&mdash;I want to live! I tell you we are
+different now! We're not all like Edith&mdash;and we're not like
+our mothers! We want to live! And we have a right to! Why don't you
+go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? It's my last night, my very
+last! I don't want to talk to you&mdash;I don't even know what I'm
+saying! And you come and try to frighten me!" Her <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>voice
+caught and broke into sobs. "You know nothing about me! You never
+did! Leave me alone, can't you&mdash;leave me alone!"</p>
+<p>"Father?" He heard Deborah's voice, abrupt and stern, outside
+the door.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He went in blind fashion out of
+the room and down to his study. He lit a cigar and smoked
+wretchedly there. When presently Deborah appeared he saw that her
+face was set and hard; but as she caught the baffled look, the
+angry tortured light in his eyes, her own expression softened.</p>
+<p>"Poor father," she said, in a pitying way. "If Edith had only
+let you alone."</p>
+<p>"I certainly didn't do much good."</p>
+<p>"Of course you didn't&mdash;you did harm&mdash;oh, so much more
+harm than you know." Into the quiet voice of his daughter crept a
+note of keen regret. "I wanted to make her last days in this house
+a time she could look back on, so that she'd want to come home for
+help if ever she's in trouble. She has so little&mdash;don't you
+see?&mdash;of what a woman needs these days. She has grown up so
+badly. Oh, if you'd only let her alone. It was such a bad, bad time
+to choose." She went to her father and kissed him. "Well, it's over
+now," she said, "and we'll make the best we can of it. I'll tell
+her you're sorry and quiet her down. And to-morrow we'll try to
+forget it has happened."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>For Roger the morrow went by in a whirl. The wedding, a large
+church affair, was to take place at twelve o'clock. He arose early,
+put on his Prince Albert, went down and ate his breakfast alone.
+The waitress was flustered, the coffee was burnt. He finished and
+anxiously wandered about. The maids were bustling in and out, with
+Deborah giving orders pellmell. The caterers came trooping in. The
+bridesmaids were arriving and hurrying up to Roger's room. That
+place was soon a chaos of voices, giggles, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span>peals of
+laughter. Laura's trunks were brought downstairs, and Roger tagged
+them for the ship, one for the cabin and three for the hold, and
+saw them into the wagon. Then he strode distractedly everywhere,
+till at last he was hustled by Deborah into a taxi waiting
+outside.</p>
+<p>"It's all going so smoothly," Deborah said, and a faint sardonic
+glimmer came into her father's hunted eyes. Deborah was funny!</p>
+<p>Soon he found himself in the church. He heard whispers, eager
+voices, heard one usher say to another, "God, what a terrible head
+I've got!" And Roger glared at him for that. Plainly these
+youngsters, all mere boys, had been up with the groom a good part
+of the night.... But here was Laura, pale and tense. She smiled at
+him and squeezed his hand. There was silence, then the organ, and
+now he was taking her up the aisle. Strange faces stared. His jaw
+set hard. At last they reached the altar. An usher quickly touched
+his arm and he stepped back where he belonged. He listened but
+understood nothing. Just words, words and motions.</p>
+<p>"If any man can show just cause why they may not be lawfully
+joined together, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold
+his peace."</p>
+<p>"No," thought Roger, "I won't speak."</p>
+<p>Just then he caught sight of Deborah's face, and at the look in
+her steady gray eyes all at once he could feel the hot tears in his
+own.</p>
+<p>At the wedding breakfast he was gay to a boisterous degree. He
+talked to strange women and brought them food, took punch with men
+he had never laid eyes on, went off on a feverish hunt for cigars,
+came back distractedly, joked with young girls and even started
+some of them dancing. The whole affair was over in no time. The
+bride and the groom came rushing downstairs; and as they escaped
+from the shower of rice, Roger ran after them down the steps. He
+gripped Sloane's hand.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id=
+"Page_67"></a>[67]</span>Remember, boy, it's her whole life!"
+entreated Roger hoarsely.</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir! I'll look out! No fear!"</p>
+<p>"Good-bye, daddy!"</p>
+<p>"God bless you, dear!"</p>
+<p>They were speeding away. And with the best man, who looked weary
+and spent, Roger went slowly back up the steps. It was an effort
+now to talk. Thank Heaven these people soon were gone. Last of all
+went the ponderous aunt of the groom. How the taxi groaned as he
+helped her inside and started her off to Bridgeport. Back in his
+study he found his cigars and smoked one dismally with Bruce. Bruce
+was a decent sort of chap. He knew when to be silent.</p>
+<p>"Well," he spoke finally, rising, "I guess I'll have to get back
+to the office." He smiled a little and put his hand on Roger's
+weary shoulder. "We're glad it's over&mdash;eh?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Bruce," said Roger heavily, "you've got a girl of your own
+growing up. Don't let her grow to feel you're old. Live on with
+her. She'll need you." His massive blunt face darkened. "The
+world's so damnably new," he muttered, "so choked up with fool
+ideas." Bruce still smiled affectionately.</p>
+<p>"Go up and see Edith," he said, "and forget 'em. She never lets
+one into the flat. She said you were to be sure to come and tell
+her about the wedding."</p>
+<p>"All right, I'll go," said Roger. He hunted about for his hat
+and coat. What a devilish mess they had made of the house. A half
+hour later he was with Edith; but there, despite his efforts to
+answer all her questions, he grew heavier and heavier, till at last
+he barely spoke. He sat watching Edith's baby.</p>
+<p>"Did you talk to Laura?" he heard her ask.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he replied. "It did no good." He knew that Edith was
+waiting for more, but he kept doggedly silent.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id=
+"Page_68"></a>[68]</span>Well, dear," she said presently, "at least
+you did what you could for her."</p>
+<p>"I've never done what I could," he rejoined. "Not with any one
+of you." He glanced at her with a twinge of pain. "I don't know as
+it would have helped much if I had. This town is running away with
+itself. I want a rest now, Edith, I want things quiet for a while."
+He felt her anxious, pitying look.</p>
+<p>"Where's Deborah?" she asked him. "Gone back to school
+already?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know where she is," he replied. And then he rose
+forlornly. "I guess I'll be going back home," he said.</p>
+<p>On his way, as his thoughts slowly cleared, the old uneasiness
+rose in his mind. Would Deborah want to keep the house? Suppose she
+suggested moving to some titty-tatty little flat. No, he would not
+stand in her way. But, Lord, what an end to make of his life.</p>
+<p>His home was almost dark inside, but he noticed rather to his
+surprise that the rooms had already been put in order. He sank down
+on the living room sofa and lay motionless for a while. How tired
+he was. From time to time he drearily sighed. Yes, Deborah would
+find him old and life here dull and lonely. Where was she to-night,
+he wondered. Couldn't she quit her zoo school for one single
+afternoon? At last, when the room had grown pitch dark, he heard
+the maid lighting the gas in the hall. Roger loudly cleared his
+throat, and at the sound the startled girl ejaculated, "Oh, my
+Gawd!"</p>
+<p>"It's I," said Roger sternly. "Did Miss Deborah say when she'd
+be back?"</p>
+<p>"She didn't go out, sir. She's up in her room."</p>
+<p>Roger went up and found her there. All afternoon with both the
+maids she had been setting the house to rights, and now she ached
+in every limb. She was lying on her bed, and she looked as though
+she had been crying.</p>
+<p>"Where have you been?" she inquired.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id=
+"Page_69"></a>[69]</span>At Edith's," her father answered. She
+reached up and took his hand, and held it slowly tighter.</p>
+<p>"You aren't going to find it too lonely here, with Laura gone?"
+she asked him. And the wistfulness in her deep sweet voice made
+something thrill in Roger.</p>
+<p>"Why should I?" he retorted. Deborah gave a queer little
+laugh.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'm just silly, that's all," she said. "I've been having a
+fit of blues. I've been feeling so old this afternoon&mdash;a
+regular old woman. I wanted you, dearie, and I was afraid that
+you&mdash;" she broke off.</p>
+<p>"Look here," said Roger sharply. "Do you really want to keep
+this house?"</p>
+<p>"Keep this house? Why, father!"</p>
+<p>"You think you can stand it here alone, just the two of us?" he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>"I can," cried Deborah happily. Her father walked to the window.
+There as he looked blindly out, his eyes were assaulted by the
+lights of all those titty-tatty flats. And a look of vicious
+triumph appeared for a moment on his face.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he said quietly, turning back. "Then we're both
+suited." He went to the door. "I'll go and wash up for supper," he
+said.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>CHAPTER
+VIII</h2>
+<p>It was a relief to him to find how smoothly he and Deborah
+dropped back into their old relations. It was good to get home
+those evenings; for in this new stage of its existence, with its
+family of two, the house appeared to have filled itself with a deep
+reposeful feeling. Laura had gone out of its life. He glanced into
+her room one night, and it looked like a guest room now. The sight
+of it brought him a pang of regret. But the big ship which was
+bearing her swiftly away to "Paris in June" seemed bearing off
+Roger's uneasiness too. He could smile at his former fears, for
+Laura was safely married and wildly in love with her husband. Time,
+he thought, would take care of the rest. Occasionally he missed her
+here&mdash;her voice, high-pitched but musical, chatting and
+laughing at the 'phone, her bustle of dressing to go out, glimpses
+of her extravagances, of her smart suits and evening gowns, of all
+the joyous color and dash that she had given to his home. But these
+regrets soon died away. The old house shed them easily, as though
+glad to enter this long rest.</p>
+<p>For the story of his family, from Roger's point of view at
+least, was a long uneven narrative, with prolonged periods of peace
+and again with events piling one on the other. And now there came
+one of those peaceful times, and Roger liked the quiet. The old
+routine was re-established&mdash;his dinner, his paper, his cigar
+and then his book for the evening, some good old-fashioned novel or
+some pleasant book of travel which he and Judith had read aloud
+when they were planning out their lives. They had meant to go
+abroad so often when the children had grown up. And <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>he liked to
+read about it still. Life was so quiet over the sea, things were so
+old and mellow there. He resumed, too, his horseback rides, and on
+the way home he would stop in for a visit with Edith and her baby.
+The wee boy grew funnier every day, with his sudden kicks and
+sneezes, his waving fists and mighty yawns. And Roger felt drawn to
+his daughter here, for in these grateful seasons of rest that
+followed the birth of each of her children, Edith loved to lie very
+still and make new plans for her small brood.</p>
+<p>Only once she spoke of Laura, and then it was to suggest to him
+that he gather together all the bills his daughter had doubtless
+left behind.</p>
+<p>"If you don't settle them," Edith said, "they'll go to her
+husband. And you wouldn't like that, would you?"</p>
+<p>Roger said he would see to it, and one evening after dinner he
+started in on Laura's bills. It was rather an appalling time. He
+looked into his bank account and found that Laura's wedding would
+take about all his surplus. But this did not dismay him much, for
+money matters never did. It simply meant more work in the
+office.</p>
+<p>The next day he rose early and was in his office by nine
+o'clock. He had not been so prompt in months, and many of his
+employees came in late that morning. But nobody seemed very much
+perturbed, for Roger was an easy employer. Still, he sternly told
+himself, he had been letting things get altogether too slack. He
+had been neglecting his business again. The work had become so cut
+and dried, there was nothing creative left to do. It had not been
+so in years gone by. Those years had fairly bristled with ideas and
+hopes and schemes. But even those old memories were no longer here
+to hearten him. They had all been swept away when Bruce had made
+him move out of his office in a dark creaky edifice down close
+under Brooklyn Bridge, and come up to this new building, this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id=
+"Page_72"></a>[72]</span>steel-ribbed caravansary for all kinds of
+business ventures, this place of varnished woodwork, floods of
+daylight, concrete floors, this building fireproof throughout. That
+expressed it exactly, Roger thought. Nothing could take fire here,
+not even a man's imagination, even though he did not feel old. Now
+and then in the elevator, as some youngster with eager eyes pushed
+nervously against him, Roger would frown and wonder, "What are you
+so excited about?"</p>
+<p>But again the business was running down, and this time he must
+jerk it back before it got beyond him. He set himself doggedly to
+the task, calling in his assistants one by one, going through the
+work in those outer rooms, where at tables long rows of busy young
+girls, with colored pencils, scissors and paste, were demolishing
+enormous piles of newspapers and magazines. And vaguely, little by
+little, he came to a realization of how while he had slumbered the
+life of the country had swept on. For as he studied the lists and
+the letters of his patrons, Roger felt confusedly that a new
+America was here.</p>
+<p>Clippings, clippings, clippings. Business men and business
+firms, gigantic corporations, kept sending here for clippings, news
+of themselves or their rivals, keeping keen watch on each other's
+affairs for signs of strength or weakness. How savage was the fight
+these days. Here was news of mines and mills and factories all over
+the land, clippings sent each morning by special messengers
+downtown to reach the brokers' offices before the market opened.
+One broker wrote, "Please quote your terms for the following. From
+nine to two o'clock each day our messenger will call at your office
+every hour for clippings giving information of the companies named
+below."</p>
+<p>The long list appended carried Roger's fancy out all over the
+continent. And then came this injunction: "Remember that our
+messenger must leave your office every hour. In information of this
+kind every minute counts."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id=
+"Page_73"></a>[73]</span>Clippings, clippings, clippings. As Roger
+turned over his morning mail, in spite of himself he grew absorbed.
+What a change in the world of literature. What a host of names of
+scribblers, not authors but just writers, not only men but women
+too, novelists and dramatists, poets and muckrakers all jumbled in
+together, each one of them straining for a place. And the actors
+and the actresses, the musicians and the lecturers, each with his
+press agent and avid for publicity, "fame!" And here were society
+women, from New York and other cities, all eager for press notices
+of social affairs they had given or managed, charity work they had
+conducted, suffrage speeches they had made. Half the women in the
+land were fairly talking their heads off, it seemed. Some had been
+on his lists for years. They married and wanted to hear what was
+said in the papers about their weddings, they quarreled and got
+divorces and still sent here for clippings, they died and still
+their relatives wrote in for the funeral notices. And even death
+was commercialized. A maker of monuments wanted news "of all people
+of large means, dead or dangerously ill, in the State of
+Pennsylvania." Here were demands from charity bodies, hospitals and
+colleges, from clergymen with an anxious eye on the Monday morning
+papers. And here was an anarchist millionaire! And here was an
+insane asylum wanting to see itself in print!</p>
+<p>With a grim smile on his heavy visage, Roger stared out of his
+window. Slowly the smile faded, a wistful look came on his
+face.</p>
+<p>"Who'll take my business when I'm gone?"</p>
+<p>If his small son had only lived, with what new zest and vigor it
+might have been made to grow and expand. If only his son had been
+here by his side....</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>CHAPTER
+IX</h2>
+<p>DEBORAH needed rest, he thought, for the bright attractive face
+of his daughter was looking rather pale of late, and the birthmark
+on her forehead showed a faint thin line of red. One night at
+dinner, watching her, he wondered what was on her mind. She had
+come in late, and though several times she had made an effort to
+keep up the conversation, her cheeks were almost colorless and more
+than once in her deepset eyes came a flash of pain that startled
+him.</p>
+<p>"Look here. What's the matter with you?" he asked. Deborah
+looked up quickly.</p>
+<p>"I'd rather not talk about it, dad&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Very well," he answered. And with a slight hesitation, "But I
+think I know the trouble," he said. "And perhaps some other
+time&mdash;when you do feel like talking&mdash;" He stopped, for on
+her wide sensitive lips he saw a twitch of amusement.</p>
+<p>"What do you think is the trouble?" she asked. And Roger looked
+at her squarely.</p>
+<p>"Loneliness," he answered.</p>
+<p>"Why?" she asked him.</p>
+<p>"Well, there's Edith's baby&mdash;and Laura getting
+married&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I see&mdash;and so I'm lonely for a family of my own. But
+you're forgetting my school," she said.</p>
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know," he retorted. "But that's not at all the
+same. Interesting work, no doubt, but&mdash;well, it isn't
+personal."</p>
+<p>"Oh, isn't it?" she answered, and she drew a quivering breath.
+Rising from the table she went into the living <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span>room, and
+there a few moments later he found her walking up and down. "I
+think I will tell you now," she said. "I'm afraid of being alone
+to-night, of keeping this matter to myself." He looked at her
+apprehensively.</p>
+<p>"Very well, my dear," he said.</p>
+<p>"This is the trouble," she began. "Down in my school we've a
+family of about three thousand children. A few I get to know so
+well I try to follow them when they leave. And one of these, an
+Italian boy&mdash;his name is Joe Bolini&mdash;was one of the best
+I ever had, and one of the most appealing. But Joe took to drinking
+and got in with a gang of boys who blackmailed small shopkeepers.
+He used to come to me at times in occasional moods of repentance.
+He was a splendid physical type and he'd been a leader in our
+athletics, so I took him back into the school to manage our teams
+in basket-ball. He left the gang and stopped drinking, and we had
+long talks together about his great ambition. He wanted to enter
+the Fire Department as soon as he was twenty-one. And I promised to
+use my influence." She stopped, still frowning slightly.</p>
+<p>"What happened?" Roger asked her.</p>
+<p>"His girl took up with another man, and Joe has hot Italian
+blood. He got drunk one night and&mdash;shot them both." There was
+another silence. "I did what I could," she said harshly, "but he
+had a bad record behind him, and the young assistant district
+attorney had his own record to think of, too. So Joe got a death
+sentence. We appealed the case but it did no good. He was sent up
+the river and is in the death house now&mdash;and he sent for me to
+come to-day. His letter hinted he was scared, he wrote that his
+priest was no good to him. So I went up this afternoon. Joe goes to
+the chair to-morrow at six."</p>
+<p>Deborah went to the sofa and sat down inertly. Roger remained
+motionless, and a dull chill crept over him.</p>
+<p>"So you see my work is personal," he heard her mutter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id=
+"Page_76"></a>[76]</span>presently. All at once she seemed so far
+away, such a stranger to him in this life of hers.</p>
+<p>"By George, it's horrible!" he said. "I'm sorry you went to see
+the boy!"</p>
+<p>"I'm glad," was his daughter's quick retort. "I've been getting
+much too sure of myself&mdash;of my school, I mean, and what it can
+do. I needed this to bring me back to the kind of world we live
+in!"</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" he roughly asked.</p>
+<p>"I mean there are schools and prisons! And gallows and electric
+chairs! And I'm for schools! They've tried their jails and gallows
+for whole black hideous centuries! What good have they done? If
+they'd given Joe back to the school and me, I'd have had him a
+fireman in a year! I know, because I studied him hard! He'd have
+<i>grown</i> fighting fires, he would have <i>saved</i> lives!"</p>
+<p>Again she stopped, with a catch of her breath. In suspense he
+watched her angry struggle to regain control of herself. She sat
+bolt upright, rigid; her birthmark showed a fiery red. In a few
+moments he saw her relax.</p>
+<p>"But of course," she added wearily, "it's much more complex than
+that. A school is nothing nowadays&mdash;just by itself alone, I
+mean&mdash;it's only a part of a city's life&mdash;which for most
+tenement children is either very dull and hard, or cheap and false
+and overexciting. And behind all that lie the reasons for that. And
+there are so many reasons." She stared straight past her father as
+though at something far away. Then she seemed to recall herself:
+"But I'm talking too much of my family."</p>
+<p>Roger carefully lit a cigar:</p>
+<p>"I don't think you are, my dear. I'd like to hear more about
+it." She smiled:</p>
+<p>"To keep my mind off Joe, you mean."</p>
+<p>"And mine, too," he answered.</p>
+<p>They had a long talk that evening about her hope of making her
+school what Roger visaged confusedly as a <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>kind of
+mammoth home, the center of a neighborhood, of one prodigious
+family. At times when the clock on the mantle struck the hour loud
+and clear, there would fall a sudden silence, as both thought of
+what was to happen at dawn. But quickly Roger would question again
+and Deborah would talk steadily on. It was after midnight when she
+stopped.</p>
+<p>"You've been good to me to-night, dearie," she said. "Let's go
+to bed now, shall we?"</p>
+<p>"Very well," he answered. He looked at his daughter anxiously.
+She no longer seemed to him mature. He could feel what heavy
+discouragements, what problems she was facing in the dark
+mysterious tenement world which she had chosen to make her own. And
+compared to these she seemed a mere girl, a child groping its way,
+just making a start. And so he added wistfully, "I wish I could be
+of more help to you." She looked up at him for a moment.</p>
+<p>"Do you know why you are such a help?" she said. "It's because
+you have never grown old&mdash;because you've never allowed
+yourself to grow absolutely certain about anything in life." A
+smile half sad and half perplexed came on her father's heavy
+face.</p>
+<p>"You consider that a strong point?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I do," she replied, "compared to being a bundle of creeds and
+prejudices."</p>
+<p>"Oh, I've got prejudices enough."</p>
+<p>"Yes," she said. "And so have I. But we're not even sure of
+<i>them</i>, these days."</p>
+<p>"The world has a habit of crowding in," her father muttered
+vaguely.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Roger did not sleep that night. He could not keep his thoughts
+away from what was going to happen at dawn. Yes, the city was
+crowding in upon this quiet house of his. Dimly he could recollect,
+in the genial years of long ago, <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>just glancing casually now
+and then at some small and unobtrusive notice in his evening paper:
+"Execution at Sing Sing." It had been so remote to him. But here it
+was smashing into his house, through the life his own daughter was
+leading day and night among the poor! Each time he thought of that
+lad in a cell, again a chill crept over him! But savagely he shook
+it off, and by a strong effort of his will he turned his thoughts
+to the things she had told him about her school. Yes, in her main
+idea she was right. He had no use for wild reforms, but here was
+something solid, a good education for every child. More than once,
+while she had talked, something very deep in Roger had leaped up in
+swift response.</p>
+<p>For Deborah, too, was a part of himself. He, too, had had his
+feeling for humanity in the large. For years he had run a boys'
+club at a little mission school in which his wife had been
+interested, and on Christmas Eve he had formed the habit of
+gathering up a dozen small urchins right off the street and taking
+them 'round and fitting them out with good warm winter clothing,
+after which he had gone home to help Judith trim the Christmas tree
+and fill their children's stockings. And later, when she had gone
+to bed, invariably he had taken "The Christmas Carol" from its
+shelf and had settled down with a glow of almost luxurious
+brotherhood. There was sentiment in Roger Gale, and as he read of
+"Tiny Tim" his deepset eyes would glisten with tears.</p>
+<p>And now here was Deborah fulfilling a part of him in herself.
+"You will live on in our children's lives." But this was going much
+too far! She was letting herself be swallowed up completely by this
+work of hers! It was all very well for the past ten years, but she
+was getting on in age! High time to marry and settle down!</p>
+<p>Again angrily he shook off the thought of that boy Joe alone in
+a cell, eyes fixed in animal terror upon the steel door which would
+open so soon.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id=
+"Page_79"></a>[79]</span>The day was slowly breaking. It was the
+early part of June. How fresh and lovely it must be up there in the
+big mountains with Edith's happy little lads. Here it was raw and
+garish, weird. Some sparrows began quarreling just outside his
+window. Roger rose and walked the room. Restlessly he went into the
+hall. The old house appeared so strange in this light&mdash;as
+though stripped bare&mdash;there was something gone. Softly he came
+to Deborah's door. It was open wide, for the night had been warm,
+and she lay awake upon her bed with her gaze fixed on the ceiling.
+She turned her head and saw him there. He came in and sat down by
+her window. For a long time neither made a sound. Then the great
+clock on the distant tower, which had been silent through the
+night, resumed its deep and measured boom. It struck six times.
+There was silence again. More and more taut grew his muscles, and
+suddenly it felt to him as though Deborah's fierce agony were
+pounding into his very soul. The slow, slow minutes throbbed away.
+At last he rose and left her. There was a cold sweat on his
+brow.</p>
+<p>"I'll go down and make her some coffee," he thought.</p>
+<p>Down in the kitchen it was a relief to bang about hunting for
+the utensils. On picnics up in the mountains his coffee had been
+famous. He made some now and boiled some eggs, and they breakfasted
+in Deborah's room. She seemed almost herself again. Later, while he
+was dressing, he saw her in the doorway. She was looking at her
+father with bright and grateful, affectionate eyes.</p>
+<p>"Will you come to school with me to-day? I'd like you to see
+it," Deborah said.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he answered gruffly.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>CHAPTER
+X</h2>
+<p>Out of the subway they emerged into a noisy tenement street.
+Roger had known such streets as this, but only in the night-time,
+as picturesque and adventurous ways in an underground world he had
+explored in search of strange old glittering rings. It was
+different now. Gone were the Rembrandt shadows, the leaping flare
+of torches, the dark surging masses of weird uncouth humanity. Here
+in garish daylight were poverty and ugliness, here were heaps of
+refuse and heavy smells and clamor. It disgusted and repelled him,
+and he was tempted to turn back. But glancing at Deborah by his
+side he thought of the night she had been through. No, he decided,
+he would go on and see what she was up to here.</p>
+<p>They turned into a narrower street between tall dirty tenements,
+and in a twinkling all was changed. For the street, as far as he
+could see, was gay with flaunting colors, torrents of bobbing hats
+and ribbons, frocks and blouses, shirts and breeches, vivid reds
+and yellows and blues. It was deafening with joyous cries, a shrill
+incessant chatter, chatter, piercing yells and shrieks of laughter.
+Children, swarms of children, children of all sizes passed him,
+clean and dirty, smiling, scowling, hurrying, running, pummeling,
+grabbing, whirling each other 'round and 'round&mdash;till the very
+air seemed quivering with wild spirits and new life!</p>
+<p>He heard Deborah laughing. Five hilarious small boys had hold of
+her hands and were marching in triumph waving their caps. "Heigh
+there&mdash;heigh there! Heigh&mdash;heigh&mdash;heigh!"</p>
+<p>The school was close in front of them. An enormous <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span>building of
+brick and tile wedged into a disordered mass of tenements, shops
+and factories, it had been built around a court shut out from the
+street by a high steel fence. They squeezed into the gateway,
+through which a shouting punching mob of urchins were now pushing
+in; and soon from a balcony above Roger looked down into the court,
+where out of a wild chaos order was appearing. Boys to the right
+and girls to the left were forming in long sinuous lines, and three
+thousand faces were turned toward the building. In front appeared
+the Stars and Stripes. Then suddenly he heard a crash from
+underneath the balcony, and looking down he saw a band made up of
+some thirty or forty boys. Their leader, a dark Italian lad, made a
+flourish, a pass with his baton, and the band broke into a blaring
+storm, an uproarious, booming march. The mob below fell into step,
+and line after line in single file the children marched into their
+school.</p>
+<p>"Look up! Look all around you!" He heard Deborah's eager voice
+in his ear. And as he looked up from the court below he gave a low
+cry of amazement. In hundreds of windows all around, of sweatshops,
+tenements, factories, on tier upon tier of fire escapes and even
+upon the roofs above, silent watchers had appeared. For this one
+moment in the day the whole congested neighborhood had stopped its
+feverish labor and become an amphitheater with all eyes upon the
+school. And the thought flashed into Roger's mind: "Deborah's big
+family!"</p>
+<p>He had a strange confusing time. In her office, in a daze, he
+sat and heard his daughter with her two assistant principals, her
+clerk and her stenographer, plunge into the routine work of the
+day. What kind of school teacher was this? She seemed more like the
+manager of some buzzing factory. Messages kept coming constantly
+from class-rooms, children came for punishment, and on each small
+human problem she was passing judgment quickly. Meanwhile a score
+of mothers, most of them Italians with <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>colored
+shawls upon their heads, had straggled in and taken seats, and one
+by one they came to her desk. For these women who had been children
+in peasant huts in Italy now had children of their own in the great
+city of New York, and they found it very baffling. How to keep them
+in at night? How to make them go to the priest? How to feed and
+clothe them? How to live in these tenement homes, in this wild din
+and chaos? They wanted help and they wanted advice. Deborah spoke
+in Italian, but turning to her father she would translate from time
+to time.</p>
+<p>A tired scowling woman said, "My boy won't obey me. His father
+is dead. When I slap him he only jumps away. I lock him in and he
+steals the key, he keeps it in his pocket. He steals the money that
+I earn. He says I'm from the country." And a flabby anxious woman
+said, "My girl runs out to dance halls. Sometimes she comes back at
+two in the morning. She is fifteen and she ought to get married.
+But what can I do? A nice steady man who never dances comes
+sometimes to see her&mdash;but she makes faces and calls him a
+fatty, she dances before him and pushes him out and slams the door.
+What can I do?"</p>
+<p>"Please come and see our janitor and make him fix our kitchen
+sink!" an angry little woman cried. "When I try to wash the dishes
+the water spouts all over me!" And then a plump rosy mother said in
+a soft coaxing voice, "I have eight little children, all nice and
+clean. When you tell them to do anything they always do it quickly.
+They smile at you, they are like saints. So could the kind
+beautiful teacher fix it up with a newspaper to send them to the
+country&mdash;this summer when it is so hot? The newspaper could
+send a man and he could take our pictures."</p>
+<p>"Most of us girls used to be in this school," said a bright
+looking Jewess of eighteen. "And you taught us how we should live
+nice. But how can we live nice when our shop <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>is so
+rotten? Our boss is trying to kiss the girls, he is trying to hug
+them on the stairs. And what he pays us is a joke, and we must work
+till nine o'clock. So will you help us, teacher, and give us a room
+for our meetings here? We want to have a union."</p>
+<p>A truant officer brought in two ragged, frightened little chaps.
+Found on the street during school hours, they had to give an
+account of themselves. Sullenly one of them gave an address far up
+in the Bronx, ten miles away. They had not been home for a week, he
+said. Was he lying? What was to be done? Somewhere in the city
+their homes must be discovered. And the talk of the truant officer
+made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out through the
+police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He thought
+of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy
+complexity of it all.</p>
+<p>And this was part and parcel of his daughter's daily work in
+school! Still dazed, disturbed but curious, he sat and watched and
+listened, while the bewildering demands of Deborah's big family
+kept crowding in upon her. He went to a few of the class-rooms and
+found that reading and writing, arithmetic and spelling were being
+taught in ways which he had never dreamed of. He found a
+kindergarten class, a carpenter shop and a printing shop, a sewing
+class and a cooking class in a large model kitchen. He watched the
+nurse in her hospital room, he went into the dental clinic where a
+squad of fifty urchins were having their teeth examined, and out
+upon a small side roof he found a score of small invalids in
+steamer chairs, all fast asleep. It was a strange astounding
+school! He heard Deborah speak of a mothers' club and a
+neighborhood association; and he learned of other ventures here,
+the school doctor, the nurse and the visitor endlessly making
+experiments, delving into the neighborhood for ways to meet its
+problems. And by the way Deborah talked <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>to them he
+felt she had gone before, that years ago by day and night she had
+been over the ground alone. And she'd done all this while she lived
+in his house!</p>
+<p>Scattered memories out of the past, mere fragments she had told
+him, here flashed back into his mind: humorous little incidents of
+daily battles she had waged in rotten old tenement buildings with
+rags and filth and garbage, with vermin, darkness and disease.
+Mingled with these had been accounts of dances, weddings and
+christenings and of curious funeral rites. And struggling with such
+dim memories of Deborah in her twenties, called forth in his mind
+by the picture of the woman of thirty here, Roger grew still more
+confused. What was to be the end of it? She was still but a pioneer
+in a jungle, endlessly groping and trying new things.</p>
+<p>"How many children are there in the public schools?" he
+asked.</p>
+<p>"About eight hundred thousand," Deborah said.</p>
+<p>"Good Lord!" he groaned, and he felt within him a glow of
+indignation rise against these immigrant women for breeding so
+inconsiderately. With the mad city growing so fast, and the people
+of the tenements breeding, breeding, breeding, and packing the
+schools to bursting, what could any teacher be but a mere cog in a
+machine, ponderous, impersonal, blind, grinding out future New
+Yorkers?</p>
+<p>He reached home limp and battered from the storm of new
+impressions coming on top of his sleepless night. He had thought of
+a school as a simple place, filled with little children,
+mischievous at times perhaps and some with dirty faces, but still
+with minds and spirits clean, unsoiled as yet by contact with the
+grim spirit of the town. He had thought of childhood as something
+intimate and pure, inside his home, his family. Instead of that, in
+Deborah's school he had been disturbed and thrilled by the presence
+all around him of something <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85"
+id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>wild, barbaric, dark, compounded of the
+city streets, of surging crowds, of rushing feet, of turmoil,
+filth, disease and death, of poverty and vice and crime. But Roger
+could still hear that band. And behind its blaring crash and din he
+had felt the vital throbbing of a tremendous joyousness, of gaiety,
+fresh hopes and dreams, of leaping young emotions like deep buried
+bubbling springs bursting up resistlessly to renew the fevered life
+of the town! Deborah's big family! Everybody's children!</p>
+<p>"You will live on in our children's lives." The vision hidden in
+those words now opened wide before his eyes.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>CHAPTER
+XI</h2>
+<p>She told him the next morning her night school closed for the
+summer that week.</p>
+<p>"I think I should like to see it," her father said determinedly.
+She gave him an affectionate smile:</p>
+<p>"Oh, dearie. Haven't you had enough?"</p>
+<p>"I guess I can stand it if you can," was his gruff rejoinder,
+"though if I ran a school like yours I think by night I'd have
+schooled enough. Do most principals run night schools too?"</p>
+<p>"A good many of them do."</p>
+<p>"Isn't it taxing your strength?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Don't you have to tax your strength," his daughter replied good
+humoredly, "to really accomplish anything? Don't you have to risk
+yourself in order to really live these days? Suppose you come down
+to-morrow night. We won't go to the school, for I doubt if the
+clubs and classes would interest you very much. I'll take you
+through the neighborhood."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>They went down the following evening. The night was warm and
+humid, and through the narrow tenement streets there poured a
+teeming mass of life. People by the thousands passed, bareheaded,
+men in shirt sleeves, their faces glistening with sweat. Animal
+odors filled the air. The torches on the pushcarts threw flaring
+lights and shadows, the peddlers shouted hoarsely, the tradesmen in
+the booths and stalls joined in with cries, shrill peals of mirth.
+The mass swept onward, talking, talking, and its voice was a
+guttural roar. Small boys and girls with piercing yells kept
+darting under elbows, old women dozed on door<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>steps,
+babies screamed on every side. Mothers leaned out of windows, and
+by their faces you could see that they were screaming angrily for
+children to come up to bed. But you could not hear their cries.
+Here around a hurdy gurdy gravely danced some little girls. A tense
+young Jew, dark faced and thin, was shouting from a wagon that all
+men and women must be free and own the factories and mills. A mob
+of small boys, clustered 'round a "camp fire" they had made on the
+street, were leaping wildly through the flames. It was a mammoth
+cauldron here, seething, bubbling over with a million foreign
+lives. Deborah's big family.</p>
+<p>She turned into a doorway, went down a long dark passage and
+came into a court-yard enclosed by greasy tenement walls that
+reared to a spot of dark blue sky where a few quiet stars were
+twinkling down. With a feeling of repugnance Roger followed his
+daughter into a tall rear building and up a rickety flight of
+stairs. On the fourth landing she knocked at a door, and presently
+it was opened by a stout young Irish woman with flushed haggard
+features and disheveled hair.</p>
+<p>"Oh. Good evening, Mrs. Berry."</p>
+<p>"Good evening. Come in," was the curt reply. They entered a
+small stifling room where were a stove, two kitchen chairs and
+three frowzled beds in corners. On one of the beds lay a baby
+asleep, on another two small restless boys sat up and watched the
+visitors. A sick man lay upon the third. And a cripple boy, a
+boarder here, stood on his crutches watching them. Roger was struck
+at once by his face. Over the broad cheek bones the sallow skin was
+tightly drawn, but there was a determined set to the jaws that
+matched the boy's shrewd grayish eyes, and his face lit up in a
+wonderful smile.</p>
+<p>"Hello, Miss Deborah," he said. His voice had a cheery
+quality.</p>
+<p>"Hello, Johnny. How are you?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id=
+"Page_88"></a>[88]</span>Fine, thank you."</p>
+<p>"That's good. I've brought my father with me."</p>
+<p>"Howdado, sir, glad to meet you."</p>
+<p>"It's some time since you've been to see me, John," Deborah
+continued.</p>
+<p>"I know it is," he answered. And then with a quick jerk of his
+head, "He's been pretty bad," he said. Roger looked at the man on
+the bed. With his thin waxen features drawn, the man was gasping
+for each breath.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?" Roger whispered.</p>
+<p>"Lungs," said the young woman harshly. "You needn't bother to
+speak so low. He can't hear you anyhow. He's dying. He's been dying
+weeks."</p>
+<p>"Why didn't you let me know of this?" Deborah asked gently.</p>
+<p>"Because I knew what you'd want to do&mdash;take him off to a
+hospital! And I ain't going to have it! I promised him he could die
+at home!"</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. There was a moment's silence, and
+the baby whimpered in its sleep. One child had gone to his father's
+bed and was frowning at his agony as though it were a tiresome
+sight.</p>
+<p>"Are any of them coughing?" Deborah inquired.</p>
+<p>"No," said the woman sharply.</p>
+<p>"Yes, they are, two of 'em," John cheerfully corrected her.</p>
+<p>"You shut up!" she said to him, and she turned back to Deborah.
+"It's my home, I guess, and my family, too. So what do you think
+that <i>you</i> can do?" Deborah looked at her steadily.</p>
+<p>"Yes, it's your family," she agreed. "And it's none of my
+business, I know&mdash;except that John is one of my boys&mdash;and
+if things are to go on like this I can't let him board here any
+more. If he had let me know before I'd have taken him from you
+sooner. You'll miss the four dollars a week he pays."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id=
+"Page_89"></a>[89]</span>The woman swallowed fiercely. The flush on
+her face had deepened. She scowled to keep back the tears.</p>
+<p>"We can all die for all I care! I've about got to the end of my
+rope!"</p>
+<p>"I see you have." Deborah's voice was low. "You've made a hard
+plucky fight, Mrs. Berry. Are there any empty rooms left in this
+building?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, two upstairs. What do you want to know for?"</p>
+<p>"I'm going to rent them for you. I'll arrange it to-night with
+the janitor, on condition that you promise to move your children
+to-morrow upstairs and keep them there until this is over. Will
+you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"That's sensible. And I'll have one of the visiting nurses here
+within an hour."</p>
+<p>"Thanks."</p>
+<p>"And later on we'll have a talk."</p>
+<p>"All right&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Good-night, Mrs. Berry."</p>
+<p>"Good-night, Miss Gale, I'm much obliged.... Say, wait a minute!
+Will you?" The wife had followed them out on the landing and she
+was clutching Deborah's arm. "Why can't the nurse give him
+something," she whispered, "to put him to sleep for good and all?
+It ain't right to let a man suffer like that! I can't stand it!
+I'm&mdash;I'm&mdash;" she broke off with a sob. Deborah put one arm
+around her and held her steadily for a moment.</p>
+<p>"The nurse will see that he sleeps," she said. "Now, John," she
+added, presently, when the woman had gone into the room, "I want
+you to get your things together. I'll have the janitor move them
+upstairs. You sleep there to-night, and to-morrow morning come to
+see me at the school."</p>
+<p>"All right, Miss Deborah, much obliged. I'll be all right.
+Good-night, sir&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Good-night, my boy," said Roger, and suddenly he <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>cleared his
+throat. He followed his daughter down the stairs. A few minutes she
+talked with the janitor, then joined her father in the court.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry I took you up there," she said. "I didn't know the
+man was sick."</p>
+<p>"Who are they?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Poor people," she said. And Roger flinched.</p>
+<p>"Who is this boy?"</p>
+<p>"A neighbor of theirs. His mother, who was a widow, died about
+two years ago. He was left alone and scared to death lest he should
+be 'put away' in some big institution. He got Mrs. Berry to take
+him in, and to earn his board he began selling papers instead of
+coming to our school. So our school visitor looked him up. Since
+then I have been paying his board from a fund I have from friends
+uptown, and so he has finished his schooling. He's to graduate next
+week. He means to be a stenographer."</p>
+<p>"How old is he?"</p>
+<p>"Seventeen," she replied.</p>
+<p>"How was he crippled? Born that way?"</p>
+<p>"No. When he was a baby his mother dropped him one Saturday
+night when she was drunk. He has never been able to sit down. He
+can lie down or he can stand. He's always in pain, it never stops.
+I learned that from the doctor I took him to see. But whenever you
+ask him how he feels you get the same answer always: 'Fine, thank
+you.' He's a fighter, is John."</p>
+<p>"He looks it. I'd like to help that boy&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"All right&mdash;you can help him," Deborah said. "You'll find
+him quite a tonic."</p>
+<p>"A what?"</p>
+<p>"A tonic," she repeated. And with a sudden tightening of her
+wide and sensitive mouth, Deborah added slowly, "Because, though
+I've known many hungry boys, Johnny Geer is the hungriest of them
+all&mdash;hungry to get on in life, to grow and learn and get good
+things, get friends, love, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91"
+id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>happiness, everything!" As she spoke of
+this child in her family, over her strong quiet face there swept a
+fierce, intent expression which struck Roger rather cold. What a
+fight she was making, this daughter of his, against what
+overwhelming odds. But all he said to her was this:</p>
+<p>"Now let's look at something more cheerful, my dear."</p>
+<p>"Very well," she answered with a smile. "We'll go and see
+Isadore Freedom."</p>
+<p>"Who's he?"</p>
+<p>"Isadore Freedom," said Deborah, "is the beginning of something
+tremendous. He came from Russian Poland&mdash;and the first
+American word he learned over there was 'freedom.' So in New York
+he changed his name to that&mdash;very solemnly, by due process of
+law. It cost him seven dollars. He had nine dollars at the time.
+Isadore is a flame, a kind of a torch in the wilderness."</p>
+<p>"How does the flame earn his living?"</p>
+<p>"At first in a sweatshop," she replied. "But he came to my
+school five nights a week, and at ten o'clock when school was out
+he went to a little basement caf&eacute;, where he sat at a corner
+table, drank one glass of Russian tea and studied till they closed
+at one. Then he went to his room, he told me, and used to read
+himself to sleep. He slept as a rule four hours. He said he felt he
+needed it. Now he's a librarian earning fifteen dollars a week, and
+having all the money he needs he has put the thought of it out of
+his life and is living for education&mdash;education in freedom.
+For Isadore has studied his name until he thinks he knows what it
+means."</p>
+<p>They found him in a small public library on an ill-smelling
+ghetto street. The place had been packed with people, but the clock
+had just struck ten and the readers were leaving reluctantly, many
+with books under their arms. At sight of Deborah and her father,
+Isadore leaped up from his desk and came quickly to meet them with
+outstretched hands.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id=
+"Page_92"></a>[92]</span>Oh, this is splendid! Good evening!" he
+cried. Hardly more than a boy, perhaps twenty-one, he was short of
+frame but large of limb. He had wide stooping shoulders and reddish
+hollows in his dark cheeks. Yet there was a springiness in his
+step, vigor and warmth in the grip of his hand, in the very curl of
+his thick black hair, in his voice, in his enormous smile.</p>
+<p>"Come," he said to Roger, when the greetings were over. "You
+shall see my library, sir. But I want that you shall not see it
+alone. While you look you must close for me your eyes and see other
+libraries, many, many, all over the world. You must see them in big
+cities and in very little towns to-night. You must see people,
+millions there, hungry, hungry people. Now I shall show you their
+food and their drink." As he spoke he was leading them proudly
+around. In the stacks along the walls he pointed out fiction,
+poetry, history, books of all the sciences.</p>
+<p>"They read all, all!" cried Isadore. "Look at this Darwin on my
+desk. In a year so many have read this book it is a case for the
+board of health. And look at this shelf of economics. I place it
+next to astronomy. And I say to these people, 'Yes, read about jobs
+and your hours and wages. Yes, you must strike, you must have
+better lives. But you must read also about the stars&mdash;and
+about the big spaces&mdash;silent&mdash;not one single little sound
+for many, many million years. To be free you must grow as big as
+that&mdash;inside of your head, inside of your soul. It is not
+enough to be free of a czar, a kaiser or a sweatshop boss. What
+will you do when they are gone? My fine people, how will you run
+the world? You are deaf and blind, you must be free to open your
+own ears and eyes, to look into the books and see what is
+there&mdash;great thoughts and feelings, great ideas! And when you
+have seen, then you must think&mdash;you must think it all out
+every time! That is freedom!'" He stopped abruptly. Again on his
+dark features came a huge and winning <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>smile, and
+with an apologetic shrug, "But I talk too much of my books," he
+said. "Come. Shall we go to my caf&eacute;?"</p>
+<p>On a neighboring street, a few minutes later, down a flight of
+steep wooden stairs they descended into a little caf&eacute;,
+shaped like a tunnel, the ceiling low, the bare walls soiled by
+rubbing elbows, dirty hands, the air blue and hot with smoke. Young
+men and girls packed in at small tables bent over tall glasses of
+Russian tea, and gesturing with their cigarettes declaimed and
+argued excitedly. Quick joyous cries of greeting met Isadore from
+every side.</p>
+<p>"You see?" he said gaily. "This is my club. Here we are like a
+family." He ordered tea of a waiter who seemed more like a bosom
+friend. And leaning eagerly forward, he began to speak in glowing
+terms of the men and girls from sweatshops who spent their nights
+in these feasts of the soul, talking, listening, grappling, "for
+the power to think with minds as clear as the sun when it rises,"
+he ardently cried. "There is not a night in this city, not one,
+when hundreds do not talk like this until the breaking of the day!
+And then they sleep! A little joke! For at six o'clock they must
+rise to their work! And that is a force," he added, "not only for
+those people but a force for you and me. Do you see? When you feel
+tired, when all your hopes are sinking low, you think of those
+people and you say, 'I will go to their places.' And you go. You
+listen and you watch their faces, and such fire makes you burn! You
+go home, you are happy, you have a new life!</p>
+<p>"And perhaps at last you will have a religion," he continued, in
+fervent tones. "You see, with us Jews&mdash;and with Christians,
+too&mdash;the old religion, it is gone. And in its place there is
+nothing strong. And so the young people go all to pieces. They
+dance and they drink. If you go to those dance halls you say, 'They
+are crazy!' For dancing alone is not enough. And you say, 'These
+people must have a religion.' You ask, 'Where can I find a
+new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id=
+"Page_94"></a>[94]</span> God?' And you reply, 'There is no God.'
+And then you must be very sad. You know how it is? You feel too
+free. And you feel scared and lonely. You look up at the stars.
+There are millions. You are only a speck of dust&mdash;on one.</p>
+<p>"But then you come to my library. And you see those hungry
+people&mdash;more hungry than men have ever been. And you see those
+books upon the shelves. And you know when they come together at
+last, when that power to think as clear as the sun comes into the
+souls of those people so hungry, then we shall have a new god for
+the world. For there is no end to what they shall do," Isadore
+ended huskily.</p>
+<p>Roger felt a lump in his throat. He glanced into his daughter's
+eyes and saw a suspicious brightness there. Isadore looked at her
+happily.</p>
+<p>"You see?" he said to Roger. "When she came here to-night she
+was tired, half sick. But now she is all filled with life!"</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Later, on the street outside when Isadore had left them, Deborah
+turned to her father:</p>
+<p>"Before we go home, there's one place more."</p>
+<p>And they went to a building not far away, a new structure twelve
+floors high which rose out of the neighboring tenements. It had
+been built, she told him, by a socialist daily paper. A dull night
+watchman half asleep took them in the elevator up to the top floor
+of the building, where in a bustling, clanking loft the paper was
+just going to press. Deborah seemed to know one of the foremen. He
+smiled and nodded and led the way through the noise and bustle to a
+large glass door at one end. This she opened and stepped out upon a
+fire escape so broad it was more like a balcony. And with the noise
+of the presses subdued, from their high perch they looked silently
+down.</p>
+<p>All around them for miles, it seemed, stretched dark
+un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id=
+"Page_95"></a>[95]</span>even fields of roofs, with the narrow East
+River winding its way through the midst of them to the harbor
+below, silvery, dim and cool and serene, opening to the distant
+sea. From the bridges rearing high over the river, lights by
+thousands sparkled down. But directly below the spot where they
+stood was only a dull hazy glow, rising out of dark tenement
+streets where dimly they could just make out numberless moving
+shadowy forms, restless crowds too hot to sleep. The roofs were
+covered everywhere with men and women and children&mdash;families,
+families, families, all merged together in the dark. And from them
+rose into the night a ceaseless murmur of voices, laughing and
+joking, quarreling, loving and hating, demanding, complaining, and
+fighting and slaving and scheming for bread and the means of stark
+existence. But among these struggling multitudes confusedly did
+Roger feel the brighter presence here and there of more aspiring
+figures, small groups in glaring, stilling rooms down there beneath
+the murky dark, young people fiercely arguing, groping blindly for
+new gods. And all these voices, to his ears, merged into one deep
+thrilling hum, these lights into one quivering glow, that went up
+toward the silent stars.</p>
+<p>And there came to him a feeling which he had often had before in
+many different places&mdash;that he himself was a part of all this,
+the great, blind, wistful soul of mankind, which had been here
+before he was born and would be here when he was dead&mdash;still
+groping, yearning, struggling upward, on and on&mdash;to something
+distant as the sun. And still would he be a part of it all, through
+the eager lives of his children. He turned and looked at Deborah
+and caught the light that was in her eyes.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>CHAPTER
+XII</h2>
+<p>Roger awoke the next morning feeling sore and weary, and later
+in his office it was hard to keep his mind on his work. He thought
+of young Isadore Freedom. He was glad he had met that boy, and so
+he felt toward Deborah's whole terrific family. Confused and
+deafening as it was, there was something inspiring in it all. But
+God save him from many such evenings! For half his life Roger had
+been a collector, not only of rings but of people, too, of curious
+personalities. These human bits, these memories, he had picked up
+as he lived along and had taken them with him and made them his
+own, had trimmed and polished every one until its rough unpleasant
+edges were all nicely smoothed away and it glittered and shone like
+the gem that it was. For Roger was an idealist. And so he would
+have liked to do here. What a gem could be made of Isadore with a
+little careful polishing.</p>
+<p>But Deborah's way was different. She stayed in life, lived in it
+close, with its sharp edges bristling. In this there was something
+splendid, but there was something tragic, too. It was all very well
+for that young Jew to burn himself up with his talk about freedom,
+his feverish searching for new gods. "In five years," Roger told
+himself, "Mr. Isadore Freedom will either tone down or go stark
+mad."</p>
+<p>But quite probably he would tone down, for he was only a
+youngster, these were Isadore's wild oats. But this was no longer
+Deborah's youth, she had been at this job ten years. And she hadn't
+gone mad, she had kept herself sane, she had many sides her father
+knew. He knew her in the mountains, or bustling about at home
+getting <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id=
+"Page_97"></a>[97]</span>ready for Laura's wedding, or packing
+Edith's children off for their summer up at the farm. But did that
+make it any easier? No. To let yourself go was easy, but to keep
+hold of yourself was hard. It meant wear and tear on a woman, this
+constant straining effort to keep her balance and see life
+whole.</p>
+<p>"Well, it will break her down, that's all, and I don't propose
+to allow it," he thought. "She's got to rest this summer and go
+easier next fall."</p>
+<p>But how could he accomplish it? As he thought about her school,
+with its long and generous arms reaching upon every side out into
+the tenements, the prospect was bewildering. He searched for
+something definite. What could he do to prove to his daughter his
+real interest in her work? Presently he remembered Johnny Geer, the
+cripple boy whom he had liked, and at once he began to feel himself
+back again upon known ground. Instead of millions here was one, one
+plucky lad who needed help. All right, by George, he should have
+it! And Roger told his daughter he would be glad to pay the expense
+of sending John away for the summer, and that in the autumn perhaps
+he would take the lad into his office.</p>
+<p>"That's good of you, dearie," Deborah said. It was her only
+comment, but from the look she gave him Roger felt he was getting
+on.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>One evening not long afterwards, as they sat together at dinner,
+she rose unsteadily to her feet and said in a breathless voice,</p>
+<p>"It's rather close in here, isn't it? I think I'll go outside
+for a while." Roger jumped up.</p>
+<p>"Look here, my child, you're faint!" he cried.</p>
+<p>"No, no, it's nothing! Just the heat!" She swayed and reeled,
+pitched suddenly forward. "Father! Quick!" And Roger caught her in
+his arms. He called to the maid, and with her help he carried
+Deborah up to her bed. There <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>she shuddered violently and
+beads of sweat broke out on her brow. Her breath came hard through
+chattering teeth.</p>
+<p>"It's so silly!" she said fiercely.</p>
+<p>But as moments passed the chill grew worse. Her whole body
+seemed to be shaking, and as Roger was rubbing one of her arms she
+said something to him sharply, in a voice so thick he could not
+understand.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I can't feel anything."</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+<p>"In my arm where you're rubbing&mdash;I can't feel your
+hand."</p>
+<p>"You'd better have a doctor!"</p>
+<p>"Telephone Allan&mdash;Allan Baird. He knows about this," she
+muttered. And Roger ran down to the telephone. He was thoroughly
+frightened.</p>
+<p>"All right, Mr. Gale," came Baird's gruff bass, steady and slow,
+"I think I know what the trouble is&mdash;and I wouldn't worry if I
+were you. I'll be there in about ten minutes." And it was hardly
+more than that when he came into Deborah's room. A moment he looked
+down at her.</p>
+<p>"Again?" he said. She glanced up at him and nodded, and smiled
+quickly through set teeth. Baird carefully examined her and then
+turned to Roger: "Now I guess you'd better go out. You stay," he
+added to Sarah, the maid. "I may need you here awhile."</p>
+<p>About an hour later he came down to Roger's study.</p>
+<p>"She's safe enough now, I guess," he said. "I've telephoned for
+a nurse for her, and she'll have to stay in bed a few days."</p>
+<p>"What's the trouble?"</p>
+<p>"Acute indigestion."</p>
+<p>"You don't say!" exclaimed Roger brightly, with a <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>rush of
+deep relief. Baird gave him a dry quizzical smile.</p>
+<p>"People have died of that," he remarked, "in less than an hour.
+We caught your daughter just in time. May I stay a few
+moments?"</p>
+<p>"Glad to have you! Smoke a cigar!"</p>
+<p>"Thanks&mdash;I will." As Baird reached out for the proffered
+cigar, Roger suddenly noticed his hand. Long and muscular, finely
+shaped, it seemed to speak of strength and skill and an immense
+vitality. Baird settled himself in his chair. "I want to talk about
+her," he said. "This little attack is only a symptom&mdash;it comes
+from nerves. She's just about ready for a smash. She's had slighter
+attacks of this kind before."</p>
+<p>"I never knew it," Roger said.</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;I don't suppose you did. Your daughter has a habit of
+keeping things like this to herself. She came to me and I warned
+her, but she wanted to finish out her year. Do you know anything
+about her school work?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I was with her there this week."</p>
+<p>"What did she show you?" Baird inquired. Roger tried to tell
+him. "No, that's not what I'm after," he said. "That's just one of
+her usual evenings." For a moment he smoked in silence. "I'm
+hunting now for something else, for some unusual nervous shock
+which she appears to me to have had."</p>
+<p>"She has!" And Roger told him of her visit up to Sing Sing.
+Baird's lean muscular right hand slowly tightened on his chair.</p>
+<p>"That's a tough family of hers," he remarked.</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger determinedly, "and she's got to give it
+up."</p>
+<p>"You mean she ought to. But she won't."</p>
+<p>"She's got to be made to," Roger growled. "This summer at
+least." Baird shook his head.</p>
+<p>"You forget her fresh air work," he replied. "She has
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id=
+"Page_100"></a>[100]</span>three thousand children on her mind. The
+city will be like a furnace, of course, and the children must be
+sent to camps. If you don't see the necessity, go and talk to her,
+and then you will."</p>
+<p>"But you can forbid it, can't you?"</p>
+<p>"No. Can you?"</p>
+<p>"I can try," snapped Roger.</p>
+<p>"Let's try what's possible," said Baird. "Let's try to keep her
+in bed three days."</p>
+<p>"Sounds modest," Roger grunted. And a glimmer of amusement came
+into Baird's impassive eyes.</p>
+<p>"Try it," he drawled. "By to-morrow night she'll ask for her
+stenographer. She'll make you think she is out of the woods. But
+she won't be, please remember that. A few years more," he added,
+"and she'll have used up her vitality. She'll be an old woman at
+thirty-five."</p>
+<p>"It's got to be stopped!" cried Roger.</p>
+<p>"But how?" came the low sharp retort. "You've got to know her
+trouble first. And her trouble is deep, it's motherhood&mdash;on a
+scale which has never been tried before&mdash;for thousands of
+children, all of whom are living in a kind of hell. I know your
+daughter pretty well. Don't make the mistake of mixing her up with
+the old-fashioned teacher. It isn't what those children learn, it's
+how they live that interests her, and how they are all growing up.
+I say she's a mother&mdash;in spirit&mdash;but her body has never
+borne a child. And that makes it worse&mdash;because it makes her
+more intense. It isn't natural, you see."</p>
+<p>A little later he rose to go.</p>
+<p>"By the way," he said, at the door, "there's something I meant
+to tell her upstairs&mdash;about a poor devil she has on her mind.
+A chap named Berry&mdash;dying&mdash;lungs. She asked me to go and
+see him."</p>
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+<p>"I found it was only a matter of days." The tragic pity in
+Baird's quiet voice was so deep as barely to be heard.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id=
+"Page_101"></a>[101]</span>So I shot him full of morphine. He won't
+wake up. Please tell her that."</p>
+<p>Tall, ungainly, motionless, he loomed there in the doorway. With
+a little shrug and a smile he turned and went slowly out of the
+house.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span>CHAPTER
+XIII</h2>
+<p>Deborah's recovery was rapid and determined. The next night she
+was sitting up and making light of her illness. On the third day
+she dismissed her nurse, and when her father came home from his
+office he found gathered about her bed not only her stenographer
+but both her assistant principals. He frowned severely and went to
+his room, and a few minutes later he heard them leave. Presently
+she called to him, and he came to her bedside. She was lying back
+on the pillow with rather a guilty expression.</p>
+<p>"Up to your old antics, eh?" he remarked.</p>
+<p>"Exactly. It couldn't be helped, you see. It's the last week of
+our school year, and there are so many little things that have to
+be attended to. It's simply now or never."</p>
+<p>"Humph!" was Roger's comment. "It's now or never with you," he
+thought. He went down to his dinner, and when he came back he found
+her exhausted. In the dim soft light of her room her face looked
+flushed and feverish, and vaguely he felt she was in a mood where
+she might listen to reason. He felt her hot dry hand on his. Her
+eyes were closed, she was smiling.</p>
+<p>"Tell me the news from the mountains," she said. And he gave her
+the gossip of the farm in a letter he had had from George. It told
+of a picnic supper, the first one of the season. They had had it in
+the usual place, down by the dam on the river, "with a
+bonfire&mdash;a perfect peach&mdash;down by the big yellow
+rock&mdash;the one you call the Elephant." As Roger read the letter
+he could feel his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id=
+"Page_103"></a>[103]</span>daughter listening, vividly picturing to
+herself the great dark boulders by the creek, the shadowy firs, the
+stars above and the cool fresh tang of the mountain night.</p>
+<p>"After this little sickness of yours&mdash;and that harum scarum
+wedding," he said, "I feel we're both entitled to a good long rest
+in mountain air."</p>
+<p>"We'll have it, too," she murmured.</p>
+<p>"With Edith's little youngsters. They're all the medicine you
+need." He paused for a moment, hesitating. But it was now or never.
+"The only trouble with you," he said, "is that you've let yourself
+be caught by the same disease which has its grip upon this whole
+infernal town. You're like everyone else, you're tackling about
+forty times what you can do. You're actually trying not only to
+teach but to bring 'em all up as your own, three thousand tenement
+children. And this is where it gets you."</p>
+<p>Again he halted, frowning. What next?</p>
+<p>"Go on, dear, please," said Deborah, in demure and even tones.
+"This is very interesting."</p>
+<p>"Now then," he continued, "in this matter of your school. I
+wouldn't ask you to give it up, I've already seen too much of it.
+But so long as you've got it nicely started, why not give somebody
+else a chance? One of those assistants of yours, for
+example&mdash;capable young women, both. You could stand right
+behind 'em with help and advice&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Not yet," was Deborah's soft reply. She had turned her head on
+her pillow and was looking at him affectionately. "Why not?" he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>"Because it's not nicely started at all. There's nothing
+brilliant about me, dear&mdash;I'm a plodder, feeling my way along.
+And what I have done in the last ten years is just coming to a
+stage at last where I can really see a chance to make it count for
+something. When I feel I've done that, say in five years
+more&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id=
+"Page_104"></a>[104]</span>Those five years," said her father, "may
+cost you a very heavy price." As Deborah faced his troubled regard,
+her own grew quickly serious.</p>
+<p>"I'd be willing to pay the price," she replied.</p>
+<p>"But why?" he asked with impatience. "Why pay when you don't
+have to? Why not by taking one year off get strength for twenty
+years' work later on? You'd be a different woman!"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I think I should be. I'd never be the same again. You
+don't quite understand, you see. This work of mine with
+children&mdash;well, it's like Edith's having a baby. You have to
+do it while you're young."</p>
+<p>"That works both ways," her father growled.</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" He hesitated:</p>
+<p>"Don't you want any children of your own?"</p>
+<p>Again she turned her eyes toward his, then closed them and lay
+perfectly still. "Now I've done it," he thought anxiously. She
+reached over and took his hand.</p>
+<p>"Let's talk of our summer's vacation," she said.</p>
+<p>A little while later she fell asleep.</p>
+<p>Downstairs he soon grew restless and after a time he went out
+for a walk. But he felt tired and oppressed, and as he had often
+done of late he entered a little "movie" nearby, where gradually
+the pictures, continually flashing out of the dark, drove the
+worries from his mind. For a half an hour they held his gaze. Then
+he fell into a doze. He was roused by a roar of laughter, and
+straightening up in his seat with a jerk he looked angrily around.
+Something broadly comic had been flashed upon the screen; and men
+and women and children, Italians, Jews and Irish, jammed in close
+about him, a dirty and perspiring mass, had burst into a terrific
+guffaw. Now they were suddenly tense again and watching the screen
+in absorbed suspense, while the crude passions within themselves
+were played upon in the glamorous dark. And Roger scanned their
+faces&mdash;one moment smiling, all together, as though
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id=
+"Page_105"></a>[105]</span>some god had pulled a string; then
+mawkish, sentimental, soft; then suddenly scowling, twitching, with
+long rows of animal eyes. But eager&mdash;eager all the time!
+Hungry people&mdash;yes, indeed! Hungry for all the good things in
+the town, and for as many bad things, too! On one who tried to feed
+this mob there was no end to their demands! What was one woman's
+life to them? Deborah's big family!</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Edith came to the house one afternoon, and she was in Deborah's
+room when her father returned from his office. Her convalescence
+over at last, she was leaving for the mountains.</p>
+<p>"Do learn your lesson, Deborah dear," she urged upon her sister.
+"Let Sarah pack your trunk at once and come up with me on Saturday
+night."</p>
+<p>"I can't get off for two weeks yet."</p>
+<p>"Why can't you?" Edith demanded. And when Deborah spoke of fresh
+air camps and baby farms and other work, Edith's impatience only
+grew. "You'll have to leave it to somebody else! You're simply in
+no condition!" she cried.</p>
+<p>"Impossible," said Deborah. Edith gave a quick sigh of
+exasperation.</p>
+<p>"Isn't it enough," she asked, "to have worked your nerves to a
+frazzle already? Why can't you be sensible? You've got to think of
+yourself a little!"</p>
+<p>"You'd like me to marry, wouldn't you, dear?" her sister put in
+wearily.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I should, while there is still time! Just now you look far
+from it! It's exactly as Allan was saying! If you keep on as you're
+going you'll be an old woman at thirty-five!"</p>
+<p>"Thank you!" said Deborah sharply. Two spots of color leaped in
+her checks. "You'd better leave me, Edith! I'll come up to the
+mountains as soon as I can!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106"
+id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> And I'll try not to look any more
+like a hag than I have to! Good-night!"</p>
+<p>Roger followed Edith out of the room.</p>
+<p>"That last shot of mine struck home," she declared to him in
+triumph.</p>
+<p>"I wouldn't have done it," her father said. "I gave you that
+remark of Baird's in strict confidence, Edith&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Now father," was her good-humored retort, "suppose you leave
+this matter to me. I know just what I'm doing."</p>
+<p>"Well," he reflected uneasily, after she had left him, "here's
+more trouble in the family. If Edith isn't careful she'll make a
+fine mess of this whole affair."</p>
+<p>After dinner he went up to Deborah's room, but through the open
+doorway he caught a glimpse of his daughter which made him
+instinctively draw back. Sitting bolt upright in her bed, sternly
+she was eyeing herself in a small mirror in her hand. Her father
+chuckled noiselessly. A moment later, when he went in, the glass
+had disappeared from view. Soon afterwards Baird himself arrived,
+and as they heard him coming upstairs Roger saw his daughter frown,
+but she continued talking.</p>
+<p>"Hello, Allan," she said with indifference. "I'm feeling much
+better this evening."</p>
+<p>"Are you? Good," he answered, and he started to pull up an easy
+chair. "I was hoping I could stay awhile&mdash;I've been having one
+of those long mean days&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I'd a little rather you wouldn't," Deborah put in softly. Allan
+turned to her in surprise. "I didn't sleep last night," she
+murmured, "and I feel so drowsy." There was a little silence. "And
+I really don't think there's any need of your dropping in
+to-morrow," she added. "I'm so much better&mdash;honestly."</p>
+<p>Baird looked at her a moment.</p>
+<p>"Right&mdash;O," he answered slowly. "I'll call up to-morrow
+night."</p>
+<p>Roger followed him downstairs.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id=
+"Page_107"></a>[107]</span>Come into my den and smoke a cigar!" he
+proposed in hearty ringing tones. Allan thanked him and came in,
+but the puzzled expression was still on his face, and through the
+first moments of their talk he was very absent-minded. Roger's
+feeling of guilt increased, and he cursed himself for a meddlesome
+fool.</p>
+<p>"Look here, Baird," he blurted out, "there's something I think
+you ought to know." Allan slightly turned his head, and Roger
+reddened a little. "The worst thing about living in a house chock
+full of meddling women is that you get to be one yourself," he
+growled. "And the fact is&mdash;" he cleared his throat&mdash;"I've
+put my foot in it, Baird," he said. "I was fool enough the other
+day to quote you to Edith."</p>
+<p>"To what effect?"</p>
+<p>"That if Deborah keeps on like this she'll be an old woman at
+thirty-five."</p>
+<p>Allan sat up in his chair:</p>
+<p>"Was Edith here this afternoon?"</p>
+<p>"She was," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"Say no more."</p>
+<p>Baird had a wide, likable, generous mouth which wrinkled easily
+into a smile. He leaned back now and enjoyed himself. He puffed a
+little cloud of smoke, looked over at Roger and chuckled aloud. And
+Roger chuckled with relief. "What a decent chap he is," he
+thought.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry, of course," he said to Baird. "I thought of trying
+to explain&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Don't," said Allan. "Leave it alone. It won't do Deborah any
+harm&mdash;may even do her a little good. After all, I'm her
+physician&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Are you?" Roger asked with a twinkle. "I thought upstairs you
+were dismissed."</p>
+<p>"Oh no, I'm not," was the calm reply. And the two men went on
+smoking. Roger's liking for Baird was growing fast. They had had
+several little talks during Deb<span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>orah's illness, and Roger
+was learning more of the man. Raised on a big cattle ranch that his
+father had owned in New Mexico, riding broncos on the plains had
+given him his abounding health of body, nerve and spirit, his
+steadiness and sanity in all this feverish city life.</p>
+<p>"Are you riding these days?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"No," said Roger, "the park is too hot&mdash;and they don't
+sprinkle the path as they should. I've had my cob sent up to the
+mountains. By the way," he added cordially, "you must come up there
+and ride with me."</p>
+<p>"Thanks, I'd like to," Allan said, and with a little inner smile
+he added dryly to himself, "He's getting ready to meddle again."
+But whatever amusement Baird had in this thought was concealed
+behind his sober gray eyes. Soon after that he took his leave.</p>
+<p>"Now then," Roger reflected, with a little glow of expectancy,
+"if Edith will only leave me alone, she may find I'm smarter then
+she thinks!"</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>One evening in the following week, after Edith had left town,
+Roger had Bruce to dine at his club, a pleasant old building on
+Madison Square, where comfortably all by themselves they could
+discuss Baird's chances.</p>
+<p>"A. Baird and I have been chums," said Bruce, "ever since we
+were in college. Take it from me I know his brand. And he isn't the
+kind to be pushed."</p>
+<p>"Who wants to push him?" Roger demanded, with a sudden guilty
+twinge.</p>
+<p>"Edith does," Bruce answered. "And I tell you that won't do with
+A. Baird. He has his mind set on Deborah sure. He's been setting it
+harder and harder for months&mdash;and he knows it&mdash;and so
+does she. But they're both the kind of people who don't like
+interference, they've got to get to it by themselves. Edith must
+keep out of the way. She mustn't take it on herself to ask him up
+to the moun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id=
+"Page_109"></a>[109]</span>tains." Roger gave a little start. "If
+she does, there'll be trouble with Deborah."</p>
+<p>Roger smoked for a moment in silence and then sagely nodded his
+head.</p>
+<p>"That's so," he murmured thoughtfully. "Yes, my boy, I guess
+you're right."</p>
+<p>Bruce lifted his mint julep:</p>
+<p>"God, but it's hot in here to-night. How about taking a spin up
+the river?"</p>
+<p>"Delighted," replied his father-in-law.</p>
+<p>And a half hour later in Bruce's new car, which was the pride
+and joy of his life, they were far up the river. On a long level
+stretch of road Bruce "let her out to show what she could do." And
+Roger with his heart in his mouth and his eye upon the speedometer,
+saw it creep to sixty-three.</p>
+<p>"Almost as good as a horse," remarked Bruce, when the car had
+slowed a little.</p>
+<p>"Almost," said Roger, "but not quite. It's&mdash;well, it's
+dissipation."</p>
+<p>"And a horse?"</p>
+<p>"Is life," was the grave reply. "You'll have a crash some day,
+my boy, if you go on at your present speed. It gets me worried
+sometimes. You see you're a family man."</p>
+<p>"I am and I'm glad of it. Edith and the kiddies suit me right
+down to the ground. I'm crazy about 'em&mdash;you know that. But a
+chap with a job like mine," Bruce continued pleadingly, as he drove
+his car rushing around a curve, "needs a little dissipation, too. I
+can't tell you what it means to me, when I'm kept late at the
+office, to have this car for the run up home. Lower Broadway's
+empty then, and I know the cops. I swing around through Washington
+Square, and the Avenue looks clear for miles, nothing but two long
+rows of lights to the big hump at Murray Hill. It's the time
+between crowds&mdash;say about ten. And I know the cops."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id=
+"Page_110"></a>[110]</span>That's all right," said Roger. "No one
+was more delighted than I when you got this car. You deserve it.
+It's the <i>work</i> that I was speaking of. You've got it going at
+such a speed&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Only way on earth to get on&mdash;to get what I want for my
+family&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know," muttered Roger vaguely. Bruce began talking
+of his work for the steel construction concern downtown.</p>
+<p>"Take it from me," he declared at the end, "this town has only
+just begun!"</p>
+<p>"Has, eh," Roger grunted. "Aren't the buildings high
+enough?"</p>
+<p>"My God, I wish they were twenty times higher," Bruce rejoined
+good-humoredly. "But they won't be&mdash;we've stopped going up.
+We've done pretty well in the air, and now we're going underground.
+And when we get through, this old rock of Manhattan will be such a
+network of tunnels there'll be a hole waiting at every corner to
+take you wherever you want to go. Speed? We don't even know what it
+means!"</p>
+<p>And again Bruce "let her out" a bit. It was <i>quite</i> a bit.
+Roger grabbed his hat with one hand and the side of the car with
+the other.</p>
+<p>"They'll look back on a mile a minute," said Bruce, "as we look
+back on stage coach days! And in the rush hour there'll be a rush
+that'll make you think of pneumatic tubes! Not a sound nor a
+quiver&mdash;<i>just pure speed!</i> Shooting people home at night
+at a couple of hundred miles an hour! The city will be as big as
+that! And there won't be any accidents and there won't be any
+smoke. Instead of coal they'll use the sun! And, my God, man, the
+boulevards&mdash;and parks and places for the kids! The way they'll
+use the River&mdash;and the ocean and the Sound! The Catskills will
+be Central Park! Sounds funny, don't it&mdash;but it's true. I've
+studied it out from A to Z. This town is <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>choking
+itself to death simply because we're so damn slow! We don't know
+how to spread ourselves! All this city needs is speed!"</p>
+<p>"Bruce," said Roger anxiously, "just go a bit easy on that gas.
+The fact is, it was a great mistake for me to eat those crabs
+to-night."</p>
+<p>Bruce slowed down compassionately, and soon they turned and
+started home. And as they drew near the glow of the town, other
+streets and boulevards poured more motors into the line, until at
+last they were rushing along amid a perfect bedlam made up of honks
+and shrieks of horns. The air grew hot and acrid, and looking back
+through the bluish haze of smoke and dust behind him Roger could
+see hundreds of huge angry motor eyes. Crowding and jamming closer,
+pell mell, at a pace which barely slackened, they sped on, a wild
+uproarious crew, and swept into the city.</p>
+<p>Roger barely slept that night. He felt the city clamoring down
+into his very soul. "Speed!" he muttered viciously.
+"Speed&mdash;speed! We need more speed!" The words beat in like a
+savage refrain. At last with a sigh of impatience he got up in his
+nightshirt and walked about. It was good to feel his way in the
+dark in this cool silent house which he knew so well. Soon his
+nerves felt quieter. He went back to his bed and lay there inert.
+How good it would be to get up to the farm.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>The next Saturday evening, with Deborah, he started for the
+mountains. And Bruce came down to see them off.</p>
+<p>"Remember, son," said Roger, as the two walked on the platform.
+"Come up this year for a month, my boy. You need it." The train was
+about to start.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'll be all right," was the answer. "My friend the Judge,
+who has hay fever, tells me he has found a cure."</p>
+<p>"Damn his cure! You come to us!"</p>
+<p>"Hold on a minute, live and learn. The Judge is quite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id=
+"Page_112"></a>[112]</span>excited about it. You drink little bugs,
+he says, a billion after every meal. They come in tall blue
+bottles. We're going to dine together next week and drink 'em till
+we're all lit up. Oh, we're going to have a hell of a time.
+<i>His</i> wife left town on Tuesday."</p>
+<p>"Bruce," said Roger sternly, as the train began to move, "leave
+bugs alone and come up and breathe! And quit smoking so many
+cigarettes!" He stepped on the car.</p>
+<p>"Remember, son, a solid month!" Bruce nodded as the train moved
+out.</p>
+<p>"Good luck&mdash;good-bye&mdash;fine summer&mdash;my love to the
+wife and the kiddies&mdash;" and Bruce's dark, tense, smiling face
+was left behind. Roger went back into the smoker.</p>
+<p>"Now for the mountains," he thought. "Thank God!"</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>CHAPTER
+XIV</h2>
+<p>A few hours later Roger awakened. His lower berth was still
+pitch dark. The train had stopped, and he had been roused by a
+voice outside his window. Rough and slow and nasal, the leisurely
+drawl of a mountaineer, it came like balm to Roger's ears. He
+raised the curtain and looked out. A train hand with a lantern was
+listening to a dairy man, a tall young giant in top boots. High
+overhead loomed a shadowy mountain and over its rim came the glow
+of the dawn. With a violent lurch the train moved on. And Roger,
+lying back on his pillow, looked up at the misty mountain sides all
+mottled in the strange blue light with patches of firs and birches
+and pines. In the narrow valley up which the train was thundering,
+were small herds of grazing cattle, a lonely farmhouse here and
+there. From one a light was twinkling. And the city with its heat
+and noise, its nervous throb, its bedlam nights, all dropped like a
+fever from his soul.</p>
+<p>Now, close by the railroad track, through a shallow rocky gorge
+a small river roared and foamed. Its cool breath came up to his
+nostrils and gratefully he breathed it in. For this was the Gale
+River, named after one of his forefathers, and in his mind's eye he
+followed the stream back up its course to the little station where
+he and Deborah were to get off. There the narrowing river bed
+turned and wound up through a cleft in the hills to the homestead
+several miles away. On the dark forest road beside it he pictured
+George, his grandson, at this moment driving down to meet them in a
+mountain wagon with one of the two hired men, a lantern swinging
+under the wheels. What an adventure for young George.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id=
+"Page_114"></a>[114]</span>Presently he heard Deborah stirring in
+the berth next to his own.</p>
+<p>At the station George was there, and from a thermos bottle which
+Edith had filled the night before he poured coffee piping hot,
+which steamed in the keen, frosty air.</p>
+<p>"Oh, how good!" cried Deborah. "How thoughtful of your mother,
+George. How is she, dear?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, she's all right, Aunt Deborah." His blunt freckled features
+flushed from his drive, George stood beaming on them both. He
+appeared, if anything, tougher and scrawnier than before.
+"Everything's all right," he said. "There ain't a sick animal on
+the whole farm."</p>
+<p>As Roger sipped his coffee he was having a look at the horses.
+One of them was William, his cob.</p>
+<p>"Do you see it?" inquired his grandson.</p>
+<p>"What?"</p>
+<p>"The boil," George answered proudly, "on William's rump. There
+it is&mdash;on the nigh side. Gee, but you ought to have seen it
+last week. It was a whale of a boil," said George, "but we
+poulticed him, me and Dave did&mdash;and now the swelling's nearly
+gone. You can ride him to-morrow if you like."</p>
+<p>Luxuriously Roger lit a cigar and climbed to the front seat with
+George. Up the steep and crooked road the stout horses tugged their
+way, and the wagon creaked, and the Gale River, here only a brook,
+came gurgling, dashing to meet them&mdash;down from the mountains,
+from the farm, from Roger's youth to welcome him home. And the sun
+was flashing through the pines. As they drew near the farmhouse
+through a grove of sugar maples, he heard shrill cries of, "There
+they come!" And he glimpsed the flying figures of George's
+brothers, Bob and Tad. George whipped up the horses, the wagon
+gained upon the boys and reached the house but a few rods behind
+the little runners. Edith was waiting by the door, fresh and
+smiling, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id=
+"Page_115"></a>[115]</span>blooming with health. How well this
+suited her, Roger thought. Amid a gay chorus of greetings he
+climbed down heavily out of the wagon, looked about him and drew a
+deep breath. The long lazy days on the farm had begun.</p>
+<p>From the mountain side the farm looked down on a wide sweeping
+valley of woods and fields. The old house straggled along the road,
+with addition after addition built on through generations by many
+men and women. Here lay the history, unread, of the family of Roger
+Gale. Inside there were steps up and down from one part to another,
+queer crooks in narrow passageways. The lower end was attached to
+the woodshed, and the woodshed to the barn. Above the house a
+pasture dotted with gray boulders extended up to a wood of firs,
+and out of this wood the small river which bore the name of the
+family came rushing down the field in a gully, went under the road,
+swept around to the right and along the edge of a birch copse just
+below the house. The little stream grew quieter there and widened
+into a mill pond. At the lower end was a broken dam and beside it a
+dismantled mill. Here was peace for Roger's soul. The next day at
+dawn he awakened, and through the window close by his bed he saw no
+tall confining walls; his eye was carried as on wings out over a
+billowy blanket of mist, soft and white and cool and still,
+reaching over the valley. From underneath to his sensitive ears
+came the numberless voices of the awakening sleepers there, cheeps
+and tremulous warbles from the birch copse just below, cocks
+crowing in the valley, and ducks and geese, dogs, sheep and cattle
+faintly heard from distant farms. Just so it had been when he was a
+boy. How unchanged and yet how new were these fresh hungry cries of
+life. From the other end of the house he heard Edith's tiny son
+lustily demanding his breakfast, as other wee boys before him had
+done for over a hundred years, as other babies still unborn would
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id=
+"Page_116"></a>[116]</span>do in the many years to come. Soon the
+cry of the child was hushed. Quiet fell upon the house. And Roger
+sank again into deep happy slumber.</p>
+<p>Here was nothing new and disturbing. Edith's children? Yes, they
+were new, but they were not disturbing. Their growth each summer
+was a joy, a renewal of life in the battered old house. Here was no
+huge tenement family crowding in with dirty faces, clamorous
+demands for aid, but only five delightful youngsters, clean and
+fresh, of his own blood. He loved the small excitements, the plans
+and plots and discoveries, the many adventures that filled their
+days. He spent hours with their mother, listening while she talked
+of them. Edith did so love this place and she ran the house so
+beautifully. It was so cool and fragrant, so clean and so
+old-fashioned.</p>
+<p>Deborah, too, came under the spell. She grew as lazy as a cat
+and day by day renewed her strength from the hills and from Edith's
+little brood. Roger had feared trouble there, for he knew how Edith
+disapproved of her sister's new ideas. But although much with the
+children, Deborah apparently had no new ideas at all. She seemed to
+be only listening. One balmy day at sunset, Roger saw her lying on
+the grass with George sprawled by her side. Her head upon one arm,
+she appeared to be watching the cattle in the sloping pasture
+above. Slowly, as though each one of them was drawn by mysterious
+unseen chains, they were drifting down toward the barn where it was
+almost milking time. George was talking earnestly. She threw a
+glance at him from time to time, and Roger could see how intent
+were her eyes. Yes, Deborah knew how to study a boy.</p>
+<p>Only once during the summer did she talk about her work. On a
+walk with her father one day she took him into a small forlorn
+building, a mere cabin of one room. The white paint had long been
+worn away, the windows were all broken, half the old shingles had
+dropped from <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id=
+"Page_117"></a>[117]</span>the roof and on the flagpole was no
+flag. It was the district schoolhouse where for nearly half his
+life Deborah's grandfather had taught a score of pupils. Inside
+were a blackboard, a rusty stove, a teacher's desk and a dozen
+forms, grown mouldy and worm-eaten now. A torn and faded picture of
+Lincoln was upon one wall, half hidden by a spider's web and by a
+few old dangling rags which once had been red, white and blue.
+Below, still clinging to the wall, was an old scrap of paper, on
+which in a large rugged hand there had been written long ago a
+speech, but it had been worn away until but three words were
+legible&mdash;"conceived and dedicated&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Tell me about your school," she said. "All you can remember."
+Seated at her grandfather's desk she asked Roger many questions.
+And his recollections, at first dim and hazy, began to clear a
+little.</p>
+<p>"By George!" he exclaimed. "Here are my initials!"</p>
+<p>He stooped over one of the benches.</p>
+<p>"Oh, dearie! Where?" He pointed them out, and then while he sat
+on the rude old bench for some time more she questioned him.</p>
+<p>"But your school was not all here," she said musingly at last,
+"it was up on the farm, besides, where you learned to plough and
+sow and reap and take care of the animals in the barn, and mend
+things that were broken, and&mdash;oh, turn your hand to anything.
+But millions of children nowadays are growing up in cities, you
+see."</p>
+<p>Half frowning and half smiling she began to talk of her work in
+town. "What is there about her," Roger asked, "that reminds me so
+of my mother?" His mind strayed back into the past while the low
+quiet voice of his daughter went on, and a wistful expression crept
+over his face. What would she do with the family name? What life
+would she lead in those many years?... "What a mother she would
+make." The words rose from within him, but in a voice which was not
+his own. It was Deb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id=
+"Page_118"></a>[118]</span>orah's grandmother speaking, so clearly
+and distinctly that he gave a start almost of alarm.</p>
+<p>"And if you don't believe they'll do it," Deborah was saying,
+"you don't know what's in children. Only we've got to help bring it
+out." What had she been talking about? He remembered the words "a
+new nation"&mdash;no more. "We've got to grope around in the dark
+and hunt for new ways and learn as we go. And when you've once got
+into the work and really felt the thrill of it all&mdash;well, then
+it seems rather foolish and small to bother about your own little
+life."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Roger spent much of his time alone. He took long rides on
+William along crooked, hilly roads. As the afternoon drew to its
+end, the shadows would creep up the mountain sides to their summits
+where glowed the last rays of the sun, painting the slate and
+granite crags in lovely pink and purple hues. And sometimes mighty
+banks of clouds would rear themselves high overhead, gigantic
+mountains of the air with billowy, misty caverns, cliffs and jagged
+peaks, all shifting there before his eyes. And he would think of
+Judith his wife. And the old haunting certainty, that her soul had
+died with her body, was gone. There came to him the feeling that he
+and his wife would meet again. Why did this hope come back to him?
+Was it all from the glory of the sun? Or was it from the presence,
+silent and invisible, of those many other mortals, folk of his own
+flesh and blood, who at their deaths had gone to their graves to
+put on immortality? Or was this deepening faith in Roger simply a
+sign of his growing old age?</p>
+<p>He frowned at the thought and shook it off, and again stared up
+at the light on the hills. "You will live on in our children's
+lives." Was there no other immortality?</p>
+<p>He often thought of his boyhood here. On a ride one day he
+stopped for a drink at a spring in a grove of maples surrounding a
+desolate farmhouse not more than a mile <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>away
+from his own. And through the trees as he turned to go he saw the
+stark figure of a woman, poorly clad and gaunt and gray. She stood
+motionless watching him with a look of sullen bitterness. She was
+the last of "the Elkinses," a mountain family run to seed. As he
+rode away he saw in the field a boy with a pitchfork in his hands,
+a meager ragged little chap. He was staring into the valley at a
+wriggling, blue smoke serpent made by the night express to New
+York. And something leaped in Roger, for he had once felt just like
+that! But the woman's harsh voice cut in on his dream, as she
+shouted to her son below, "Hey! Why the hell you standin' thar?"
+And the boy with a jump of alarm turned back quickly to his work.
+At home a few days later, George with a mysterious air took his
+grandfather into the barn, and after a pledge of secrecy he said in
+swift and thrilling tones, "You know young Bill Elkins? Yes, you
+do&mdash;the boy up on the Elkins place who lives alone with his
+mother. Well, look here!" George swallowed hard. "Bill has cleared
+out&mdash;he's run away! I was up at five this morning and he came
+hiking down the road! He had a bundle on his back and he told me he
+was off for good! And was he scared? You bet he was scared! And I
+told him so and it made him mad! 'Aw, you're scared!' I said. 'I
+ain't neither!' he said. He could barely talk, but the kid had his
+nerve! 'Where you going?' I asked. 'To New York,' he said. 'Aw,
+what do you know of New York?' I said. And then, by golly, he
+busted right down. 'Gee!' he said, 'Gee! Can't you lemme alone?'
+And then he beat it down the road! You could hear the kid breathe,
+he was hustling so! He's way off now, he's caught the train! He
+wants to be a cabin boy on a big ocean liner!" For a moment there
+was silence. "Well?" the boy demanded, "What do you think of his
+chances?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know," said Roger huskily. He felt a tightening at his
+throat. Abruptly he turned to his grandson.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id=
+"Page_120"></a>[120]</span>George," he asked, "what do <i>you</i>
+want to be?" The boy flushed under his freckles.</p>
+<p>"I don't know as I know. I'm thinking," he answered very
+slowly.</p>
+<p>"Talk it over with your mother, son."</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," came the prompt reply. "But he won't," reflected
+Roger.</p>
+<p>"Or if you ever feel you want to, have a good long talk with
+me."</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," was the answer. Roger stood there waiting, then
+turned and walked slowly out of the barn. How these children grew
+up inside of themselves. Had boys always grown like that? Well,
+perhaps, but how strange it was. Always new lives, lives of their
+own, the old families scattering over the land. So the great life
+of the nation swept on. He kept noticing here deserted farms, and
+one afternoon in the deepening dusk he rode by a graveyard high up
+on a bare hillside. A horse and buggy were outside, and within he
+spied a lean young woman neatly dressed in a plain dark suit. With
+a lawn mower brought from home she was cutting the grass on her
+family lot. And she seemed to fit into the landscape. New England
+had grown very old.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Late one night toward the end of July, there came a loud honk
+from down the hill, then another and another. And as George in his
+pajamas came rushing from his bedroom shouting radiantly, "Gee!
+It's dad!"&mdash;they heard the car thundering outside. Bruce had
+left New York at dawn and had made the run in a single day, three
+hundred and eleven miles. He was gray with dust all over and he was
+worn and hollow eyed, but his dark visage wore a look of solid
+satisfaction.</p>
+<p>"I needed the trip to shake me down," he pleaded, when Edith
+scolded him well for this terrific manner of starting his vacation.
+"I had to have it to cut me off <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span>from the job I left behind
+me. Now watch me settle down on this farm."</p>
+<p>But it appeared he could not settle down. For the first few
+days, in his motor, he was busy exploring the mountains. "We'll
+make 'em look foolish. Eh, son?" he said. And with George, who
+mutely adored him, he ran all about them in a day. Genially he gave
+everyone rides. When he'd finished with the family, he took Dave
+Royce the farmer and his wife and children, and even both the hired
+men, for Bruce was an hospitable soul. But more than anyone else he
+took George. They spent hours working on the car, and at times when
+they came into the house begreased and blackened from their work,
+Edith reproved them like bad boys&mdash;but Deborah smiled
+contentedly.</p>
+<p>But at the end of another week Bruce grew plainly restless, and
+despite his wife's remonstrances made ready to return to town. When
+she spoke of his hay fever he bragged to her complacently of his
+newly discovered cure.</p>
+<p>"Oh, bother your little blue bugs!" she cried.</p>
+<p>"The bugs aren't blue," he explained to her, in a mild and
+patient voice that drove Edith nearly wild. "They're so little they
+have no color at all. Poor friendly little devils&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Bruce!" his wife exploded.</p>
+<p>"They've been almighty good to me. You ought to have heard my
+friend the Judge, the last night I was with him. He patted his
+bottle and said to me, 'Bruce, my boy, with all these simple
+animals right here as our companions why be a damn fool and run off
+to the cows?' And there's a good deal in what he says. You ought to
+be mighty thankful, too, that my summer pleasures are so mild. If
+you could see what some chaps do&mdash;"</p>
+<p>And Bruce started back for the city. George rode with him the
+first few miles, then left him and came trudging home. His spirits
+were exceedingly low.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id=
+"Page_122"></a>[122]</span>As August drew toward a close, Deborah,
+too, showed signs of unrest. With ever growing frequency Roger felt
+her eagerness to return to her work in New York.</p>
+<p>"You're as bad as Bruce," he growled at her. "You don't have to
+be back," he argued. "School doesn't begin for nearly three
+weeks."</p>
+<p>"There's the suffrage campaign," she answered. He gave her a
+look of exasperation.</p>
+<p>"Now what the devil has suffrage to do with your schools?" he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>"When the women get the vote, we'll spend more money on the
+children."</p>
+<p>"Suppose the money isn't there," was Roger's grim rejoinder.</p>
+<p>"Then we'll act like old-fashioned wives, I suppose," his
+daughter answered cheerfully, "and keep nagging till it is there.
+We'll keep up such a nagging," she added, in sweet even tones,
+"that you'll get the money by hook or crook, to save yourselves
+from going insane."</p>
+<p>After this he caught her reading in the New York papers the list
+of campaign meetings each night, meetings in hot stifling halls or
+out upon deafening corners. And as she read there came over her
+face a look like that of a man who has given up tobacco and
+suddenly sniffs it among his friends. She went down the last night
+of August.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Roger stayed on for another two weeks, on into the best time of
+the year. For now came the nights of the first snapping frosts when
+the dome of the heavens was steely blue, and clear sparkling
+mornings, the woods aflame with scarlet and gold. And across the
+small field below the house, at sunset Roger would go down to the
+copse of birches there and find it filled with glints of light that
+took his glance far in among the slender, creamy stems of the
+trees, all slowly swaying to and fro, the leafage rich with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id=
+"Page_123"></a>[123]</span>autumn hues, warm orange, yellow and
+pale green. Lovely and silent and serene. So it had been when he
+was a boy and so it would be when he was dead. Countless trees had
+been cut down but others had risen in their stead. Now and then he
+could hear a bird warbling.</p>
+<p>Long ago this spot had been his mother's favorite refuge from
+her busy day in the house. She had almost always come alone, but
+sometimes Roger stealing down would watch her sitting motionless
+and staring in among the trees. Years later in his reading he had
+come upon the phrase, "sacred grove," and at once he had thought of
+the birches. And sitting here where she had been, he felt again
+that boundless faith in life resplendent, conquering death, and
+serenely sweeping him on&mdash;into what he did not fear. For this
+had been his mother's faith. Sometimes in the deepening dusk he
+could almost see her sitting here.</p>
+<p>"This faith in you has come from me. This is my memory living on
+in you, my son, though you do not know. How many times have I held
+you back, how many times have I urged you on, roused you up or
+soothed you, made you hope or fear or dream, through memories of
+long ago. For you were once a part of me. I moulded you, my little
+son. And as I have been to you, so you will be to your children. In
+their lives, too, we shall be there&mdash;silent and invisible, the
+dim strong figures of the past. For this is the power of families,
+this is the mystery of birth."</p>
+<p>Suddenly he started. What was it that had thrilled him so? Only
+a tall dark fir in the birches. But looming in there like a shadowy
+phantom it had recalled a memory of a dusk far back in his boyhood,
+when seeing a shadow just like this he had thought it a ghost in
+very truth and had run for the house like a rabbit! How terribly
+real that fright had been! The recollection suddenly became so
+vivid in his mind, that as though a veil had been lifted he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id=
+"Page_124"></a>[124]</span>felt the living presence here, close by
+his side, of a small barefoot mountain lad, clothed in sober
+homespun gray, but filled with warm desires, dreams and
+curiosities, exploring upon every hand, now marching boldly
+forward, now stealing up so cautiously, now galloping away like
+mad! "I was once a child." To most of us these are mere words. To
+few is it ever given to attain so much as even a glimpse into the
+warm and quivering soul of that little stranger of long ago. We do
+not know how we were made.</p>
+<p>"I moulded you, my little son. And as I have been to you, so you
+will be to your children. In their lives, too, we shall be
+there."</p>
+<p>Darker, darker grew the copse and the chill of the night
+descended. But to Roger's eyes there was no gloom. For he had seen
+a vision.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>CHAPTER
+XV</h2>
+<p>On his return to the city, Roger found that Deborah's school had
+apparently swept all other interests out of her mind. Baird hardly
+ever came to the house, and she herself was seldom there except for
+a hasty dinner at night. The house had to run itself more or less;
+and though Annie the cook was doing her best, things did not run so
+smoothly. Roger missed little comforts, attentions, and he missed
+Deborah most of all. When he came down to his breakfast she had
+already left the house, and often she did not return until long
+after he was in bed. She felt the difference herself, and though
+she did not put it in words her manner at times seemed to beg his
+forbearance. But there were many evenings when her father found it
+difficult to hold to the resolve he had made, to go slowly with his
+daughter until he could be more sure of his ground. She was growing
+so intense again. From the school authorities she had secured a
+still wider range and freedom for her new experiment, and she was
+working day and night to put her ideas into effect.</p>
+<p>"It's only too easy," she remarked, "to launch an idea in this
+town. The town will put it in headlines at once, and with it a
+picture of yourself in your best bib and tucker, looking as though
+you loved the whole world. And you can make a wonderful splurge,
+until they go on to the next new thing. The real trouble comes in
+working it out."</p>
+<p>And this she had set out to do. Many nights in the autumn Roger
+went down to the school, to try to get some clear idea of this
+vision of hers for children, which in a <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>vague
+way he could feel was so much larger than his own, for he had seen
+its driving force in the grip it had upon her life. At first he
+could make nothing of it at all; everywhere chaos met his eyes. But
+he found something formless, huge, that made to him a strong
+appeal.</p>
+<p>The big building fairly hummed at night with numberless
+activities. Fathers, mothers and children came pouring in together
+and went skurrying off to their places. They learned to speak
+English, to read and write; grown men and women scowled and toiled
+over their arithmetic. They worked at trades in the various shops;
+they hammered and sawed and set up type; they cooked and sewed and
+gossiped. "The Young Galician Socialist Girls" debated on the
+question: "Resolved that woman suffrage has worked in Colorado."
+"The Caruso Pleasure Club" gave a dance to "The Garibaldi
+Whirlwinds." An orchestra rehearsed like mad. They searched their
+memories for the songs and all the folk tales they had heard in
+peasant huts in Italy, in hamlets along rocky coasts, in the dark
+old ghettos of crowded towns in Poland and in Russia. And some of
+these songs were sung in school, and some of these tales were
+dramatized here. Children and parents all took part. And speakers
+emerged from the neighborhood. It was at times appalling, the
+number of young Italians and Jews who had ideas to give forth to
+their friends on socialism, poverty, marriage and religion, and all
+the other questions that rose among these immigrants jammed into
+this tenement hive. But when there were too many of these
+self-appointed guides, the neighborhood shut down on them.</p>
+<p>"We don't want," declared one indignant old woman, "that every
+young loafer should shout in our face!"</p>
+<p>Roger was slowly attracted into this enormous family life, and
+yielding to an impulse he took charge of a boys' club which met on
+Thursday evenings there. He knew well this job of fathering a small
+jovial group of lads; he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127"
+id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>had done it before, many years ago,
+in the mission school, to please his wife; he felt himself back on
+familiar ground. And from this point of vantage, with something
+definite he could do, he watched with an interest more clear the
+school form steadily closer ties with the tenements that hedged it
+'round, gathering its big family. And this family by slow degrees
+began to make itself a part of the daily life of Roger's house.
+Committees held their meetings here, teachers dropped in
+frequently, and Roger invited the boys in his club to come up and
+see him whenever they liked.</p>
+<p>His most frequent visitor was Johnny Geer, the cripple. He was
+working in Roger's office now and the two had soon become close
+friends. John kept himself so neat and clean, he displayed such a
+keen interest in all the details of office work, and he showed such
+a beaming appreciation of anything that was done for him.</p>
+<p>"That boy is getting a hold on me lately almost like a boy of my
+own," Roger said one evening when Allan Baird was at the house.
+"He's the pluckiest young un I ever met. I've put him to work in my
+private office, where he can use the sofa to rest, and I've made
+him my own stenographer&mdash;partly because he's so quick at
+dictation and partly to try to make him slow down. He has the mind
+of a race horse. He runs at night to libraries until I should think
+he'd go insane. And his body can't stand it, he's breaking
+down&mdash;though whenever I ask him how he feels, he always says,
+'Fine, thank you.'" Here Roger turned to Allan. "I wish you'd take
+the boy," he said, "to the finest specialist in town, and see what
+can be done for his spine. I'll pay any price."</p>
+<p>"There won't be any price," said Allan, "but I'll see to it at
+once."</p>
+<p>He had John examined the same week.</p>
+<p>"Well?" asked Roger when next they met.</p>
+<p>"Well," said Baird, "it isn't good news."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id=
+"Page_128"></a>[128]</span>You mean he's hopeless?" Allan
+nodded:</p>
+<p>"It's Pott's disease, and it's gone too far. John is eighteen.
+He may live to be thirty."</p>
+<p>"But I tell you, Baird, I'll do anything!"</p>
+<p>"There's almost nothing you can do. If he had been taken when he
+was a baby, he might have been cured and given a chance. But the
+same mother who dropped him then, when she was full of liquor, just
+went to the druggist on her block, and after listening to his
+advice she bought some patent medicine, a steel jacket and some
+crutches, and thought she'd done her duty."</p>
+<p>"But there must be something we can do!" retorted Roger
+angrily.</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Baird, "we can make him a little more comfortable.
+And meanwhile we can help Deborah here to get hold of other boys
+like John and give 'em a chance before it's too late&mdash;keep
+them from being crippled for life because their mothers were too
+blind and ignorant to act in time." Baird's voice had a ring of
+bitterness.</p>
+<p>"Most of 'em love their children," Roger said uneasily. Baird
+turned on him a steady look.</p>
+<p>"Love isn't enough," he retorted. "The time is coming very soon
+when we'll have the right to guard the child not only when it's a
+baby but even before it has been born."</p>
+<p>Roger drew closer to John after this. Often behind the beaming
+smile he would feel the pain and loneliness, and the angry grit
+which was fighting it down. And so he would ask John home to supper
+on nights when nobody else was there. One day late in the afternoon
+they were walking home together along the west side of Madison
+Square. The big open space was studded with lights sparkling up at
+the frosty stars, in a city, a world, a universe that seemed filled
+with the zest and the vigor of life. Out of these lights a mighty
+tower loomed high up into the sky. And stopping on his crutches, a
+grim small crooked figure in all this rushing turmoil, John set his
+jaws, and with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id=
+"Page_129"></a>[129]</span>his shrewd and twinkling eyes fixed on
+the top of the tower, he said,</p>
+<p>"I meant to tell you, Mr. Gale. You was asking me once what I
+wanted to be. And I want to be an architect."</p>
+<p>"Do, eh," grunted Roger. He, too, looked up at that thing in the
+stars, and there was a tightening at his throat. "All right," he
+added, presently, "why not start in and be one?"</p>
+<p>"How?" asked John alertly.</p>
+<p>"Well, my boy," said Roger, "I'd hate to lose you in the
+office&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir, and I'd hate to go." Just then the big clock in the
+tower began to boom the hour, and a chill struck into Roger.</p>
+<p>"You'd have to," he said gruffly. "You haven't any time to lose!
+I mean," he hastily added, "that for a job as big as that you'd
+need a lot of training. But if it's what you want to be, go right
+ahead. I'll back you. My son-in-law is a builder at present. I'll
+talk to him and get his advice. We may be able to arrange to have
+you go right into his office, begin at the bottom and work straight
+up." In silence for a moment John hobbled on by Roger's side.</p>
+<p>"I'd hate to leave your place," he said.</p>
+<p>"I know," was Roger's brusque reply, "and I'd hate to lose you.
+We'll have to think it over."</p>
+<p>A few days later he talked with Bruce, who said he'd be glad to
+take the boy. And at dinner that night with Deborah, Roger asked
+abruptly,</p>
+<p>"Why not let Johnny come here for a while and use one of our
+empty bedrooms?"</p>
+<p>With a quick flush of pleased surprise, Deborah gave her father
+a look that embarrassed him tremendously.</p>
+<p>"Well, why not?" he snapped at her. "Sensible, isn't it?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id=
+"Page_130"></a>[130]</span>Perfectly."</p>
+<p>And sensible it turned out to be. When John first heard about
+it, he was apparently quite overcome, and there followed a brief
+awkward pause while he rapidly blinked the joy from his eyes. But
+then he said, "Fine, thank you. That's mighty good of you, Mr.
+Gale," in as matter of fact a tone as you please. And he entered
+the household in much the same way, for John had a sense of the
+fitness of things. He had always kept himself neat and clean, but
+he became immaculate now. He dined with Roger the first night, but
+early the next morning he went down to the kitchen and breakfasted
+there; and from this time on, unless he were especially urged to
+come up to the dining room, John took all his meals downstairs. The
+maids were Irish&mdash;so was John. They were good
+Catholics&mdash;so was John. They loved the movies&mdash;so did
+John. In short, it worked out wonderfully. In less than a month
+John had made himself an unobtrusive and natural part of the life
+of Roger's sober old house. It had had to stretch just a little, no
+more.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span>CHAPTER
+XVI</h2>
+<p>But that winter there was more in the house than Deborah's big
+family. Though at times Roger felt it surging in with its crude,
+immense vitality, there were other times when it was not so, and
+the lives of his other two daughters attracted his attention, for
+both were back again in town.</p>
+<p>Laura and her husband had returned from abroad in October, and
+in a small but expensive apartment in a huge new building facing on
+Park Avenue they had gaily started the career of their own little
+family, or "m&eacute;nage," as Laura called it. This word had stuck
+in Roger's mind, for he had a suspicion that a "m&eacute;nage" was
+no place for babies. Grimly, when he went there first to be shown
+the new home by its mistress, he looked about him for a room which
+might be made a nursery. But no such room was in evidence. "We
+decided to have no guest room," he heard Laura say to Deborah. And
+glancing at his daughter then, sleek and smiling and demure, in her
+tea-gown fresh from Paris, Roger darkly told himself that a child
+would be an unwelcome guest. The whole place was as compact and
+sparkling as a jewel box. The bed chamber was luxurious, with a
+gorgeous bath adjoining and a dressing-room for Harold.</p>
+<p>"And look at this love of a closet!" said Laura to Deborah
+eagerly. "Isn't it simply enormous?" As Deborah looked, her father
+did, too, and his eye was met by an array of shimmering apparel
+which made him draw back almost with a start.</p>
+<p>They found Harold in the pantry. Their Jap, it appeared, was a
+marvellous cook and did the catering as <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span>well, so
+that Laura rarely troubled herself to order so much as a single
+meal. But her husband had for many years been famous for his
+cocktails, and although the Jap did everything else Hal had kept
+this in his own hands.</p>
+<p>"I thought this much of the house-keeping ought to remain in the
+family," he said.</p>
+<p>Roger did not like this joke. But later, when he had imbibed the
+delicious concoction Harold had made, and had eaten the dinner
+created by that Japanese artist of theirs, his irritation
+subsided.</p>
+<p>"They barely know we're here," he thought. "They're both in love
+up to their ears."</p>
+<p>Despite their genial attempts to be hospitable and friendly,
+time and again he saw their glances meet in an intimate gleaming
+manner which made him rather uncomfortable. But where was the harm,
+he asked himself. They were married all right, weren't they? Still
+somehow&mdash;somehow&mdash;no, by George, he didn't like it, he
+didn't approve! The whole affair was decidedly mixing. Roger went
+away vaguely uneasy, and he felt that Deborah was even more
+disturbed than himself.</p>
+<p>"Those two," she remarked to her father, "are so fearfully wrapt
+up in each other it makes me afraid. Oh, it's all right, I suppose,
+and I wouldn't for worlds try to interfere. But I can't help
+feeling somehow that no two people with such an abundance of youth
+and money and happiness have the right to be so
+amazingly&mdash;selfish!"</p>
+<p>"They ought to have children," Roger said.</p>
+<p>"But look at Edith," his daughter rejoined. "She hasn't a single
+interest that I can find outside her home. It seems to have
+swallowed her, body and soul." A frowning look of perplexity swept
+over Deborah's mobile face, and with a whimsical sigh she
+exclaimed, "Oh, this queer business of families!"</p>
+<p>In December there came a little crash. Late one evening Laura
+came bursting in upon them in a perfect tantrum, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span>every
+nerve in her lithe body tense, her full lips visibly quivering, her
+voice unsteady, and her big black eyes aflame with rage. She was
+jealous of her husband and "that nasty little cat!" Roger learned
+no more about it, for Deborah motioned him out of the room. He
+heard their two voices talk on and on, until Laura's slowly quieted
+down. Soon afterwards she left the house, and Deborah came in to
+him.</p>
+<p>"She's gone home, eh?" asked Roger.</p>
+<p>"Yes, she has, poor silly child&mdash;she said at first she had
+come here to stay."</p>
+<p>"By George," he said. "As bad as that?"</p>
+<p>"Of course it isn't as bad as that!" Deborah cried impatiently.
+"She just built and built on silly suspicions and let herself get
+all worked up! I don't see what they're coming to!" For a few
+moments nothing was said. "It's so unnatural!" she exclaimed. "Men
+and women weren't <i>made</i> to live like that!" Roger scowled
+into his paper.</p>
+<p>"Better leave 'em alone," he admonished her. "You can't
+help&mdash;they're not your kind. Don't you mix into this
+affair."</p>
+<p>But Deborah did. She remembered that her sister had once shown
+quite a talent for amateur theatricals; and to give Laura something
+to do, Deborah persuaded her to take a dramatic club in her school.
+And Laura, rather to Roger's surprise, became an enthusiast down
+there. She worked like a slave at rehearsals, and upon the costumes
+she spent money with a lavish hand. Moreover, instead of being
+annoyed, as Edith was, at Deborah's prominence in the press, Laura
+gloried in it, as though this "radical" sister of hers were a
+distinct social asset among her giddy friends uptown. For even
+Laura's friends, her father learned with astonishment, had acquired
+quite an appetite for men and women with ideas&mdash;the more
+"radical," the better. But the way Laura used this word at times
+made Roger's blood run cold. She was vivid in her approval of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id=
+"Page_134"></a>[134]</span>her sister's whole idea, as a scheme of
+wholesale motherhood which would give "a perfectly glorious jolt"
+to the old-fashioned home with its overworked mothers who let their
+children absorb their days.</p>
+<p>"As though having children and bringing them up," she
+disdainfully declared, "were something every woman must do, whether
+she happens to like it or not, at the cost of any real growth of
+her own!"</p>
+<p>And smilingly she hinted at impending radical changes in the
+whole relation of marriage, of which she was hearing in detail at a
+series of lectures to young wives, delivered on Thursday mornings
+in a hotel ball-room.</p>
+<p>What the devil was getting into the town? Roger frowned his deep
+dislike. Here was Laura with her chicken's mind blithely taking her
+sister's thoughts and turning them topsy-turvy, to make for herself
+a view of life which fitted like a white kid glove her small and
+elegant "m&eacute;nage." And although her father had only inklings
+of it all, he had quite enough to make him irate at this uncanny
+interplay of influences in his family. Why couldn't the girls leave
+each other alone?</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Early in the winter, Edith, too, had entered in. It had taken
+Edith just one glance into the bride's apartment to grasp Laura's
+whole scheme of existence.</p>
+<p>"Selfish, indulgent and abnormal," was the way she described it.
+She and Bruce were dining with Roger that night. "I wash my hands
+of the whole affair," continued Edith curtly. "So long as she
+doesn't want my help, as she has plainly made me feel, I certainly
+shan't stand in her way."</p>
+<p>"You're absolutely right," said her father.</p>
+<p>"Stick to it," said Bruce approvingly.</p>
+<p>But Edith did not stick to it. In her case too, as the weeks
+wore on, those subtle family ties took hold and made her feel the
+least she could do was "to keep up <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span>appearances." So she and
+Bruce dined with the bride and groom, and in turn had them to
+dinner. And these dinners, as Bruce confided to Roger, were
+occasions no man could forget.</p>
+<p>"They come only about once a month," he said in a tone of
+pathos, "but it seems as though barely a week had gone by when
+Edith says to me again, 'We're dining with Laura and Hal to-night.'
+Well, and we dine. Young Sloane is not a bad sort of a
+chap&mdash;works hard downtown and worships his wife. The way he
+lives&mdash;well, it isn't mine&mdash;and mine isn't his&mdash;and
+we both let it go at that. But the women can't, they haven't it in
+'em. Each sits with her way of life in her lap. You can't see it
+over the tablecloth, but, my God, how you feel it! The worst of it
+is," he ended, "that after one of these terrible meals each woman
+is more set than before in her own way of living. Not that I don't
+like Edith's way," her husband added hastily.</p>
+<p>Edith also disapproved of the fast increasing publicity which
+Deborah was getting.</p>
+<p>"I may be very old-fashioned," she remarked to her father, "but
+I can't get used to this idea that a woman's place is in headlines.
+And I think it's rather hard on you&mdash;the use she's making of
+your house."</p>
+<p>One Friday night when she came to play chess, she found her
+father in the midst of a boisterous special meeting of his club of
+Italian boys. It had been postponed from the evening before. And
+though Roger, overcome with dismay at having forgotten Edith's
+night, apologized profusely, the time-honored weekly game took
+place no more from that day on.</p>
+<p>"Edith's pretty sore," said Bruce, who dropped in soon
+afterwards. "She says Deborah has made your house into an annex to
+her school."</p>
+<p>Roger smoked in silence. His whole family was about his
+ears.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id=
+"Page_136"></a>[136]</span>My boy," he muttered earnestly, "you and
+I must stick together."</p>
+<p>"We sure must," agreed his son-in-law. "And what's more, if
+we're to keep the peace, we've got to try to put some punch into
+Deborah's so-called love affair. She ought to get married and
+settle down."</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger, dubiously. "Only let's keep it to
+ourselves."</p>
+<p>"No chance of that," was the cheerful reply. "You can't keep
+Edith out of it. It would only make trouble in <i>my</i> family."
+Roger gave him a pitying look and said,</p>
+<p>"Then, for the Lord's sake, let her in!"</p>
+<p>So they took Edith into their councils, and she gave them an
+indulgent smile.</p>
+<p>"Suppose you leave this to me," she commanded. "Don't you think
+I've been using my eyes? There's no earthly use in stepping in now,
+for Deborah has lost her head. She sees herself a great new woman
+with a career. But wait till the present flare-up subsides, till
+the newspapers all drop her and she is thoroughly tired out. Until
+then, remember, we keep our hands off."</p>
+<p>"Do you think you can?" asked Roger, with a little glimmer of
+hope.</p>
+<p>"I?" she retorted. "Most certainly! I mean to leave her alone
+absolutely&mdash;until she comes to me herself. When she does,
+we'll know it's time to begin."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"I'm afraid Edith is hurt about something," said Deborah to her
+father, about a month after this little talk. "She hasn't been near
+us for over three weeks."</p>
+<p>"Let her be!" said Roger, in alarm. "I mean," he hastily added,
+"why can't you let Edith come when she likes? There's nothing the
+matter. It's simply her children&mdash;they take up her time."</p>
+<p>"No," said Deborah calmly, "it's I. She as good as told me so
+last month. She thinks I've become a perfect <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id=
+"Page_137"></a>[137]</span>fanatic&mdash;without a spare moment or
+thought for my family."</p>
+<p>"Oh, my family!" Roger groaned. "I tell you, Deborah, you're
+wrong! Edith's children are probably sick in bed!"</p>
+<p>"Then I'll go and see," she answered.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"Something has happened to Deborah," Edith informed him
+blithely, over the telephone the next night.</p>
+<p>"Has, eh," grunted Roger.</p>
+<p>"Yes, she was here to see me to-day. And something has
+happened&mdash;she's changing fast. I felt it in all kinds of ways.
+She was just as dear as she could be&mdash;and lonely, as though
+she were feeling her age. I really think we can do something
+now."</p>
+<p>"All right, let's do something," Roger growled.</p>
+<p>And Edith began to do something. Her hostility to her sister had
+completely disappeared. In its place was a friendly affection, an
+evident desire to please. She even drew Laura into the secret, and
+there was a gathering of the clan. There were consultations in
+Roger's den. "Deborah is to get married." The feeling of it crept
+through the house. Nothing was said to her, of course, but Deborah
+was made to feel that her two sisters had drawn close. And their
+influence upon her choice was more deep and subtle than she knew.
+For although Roger's family had split so wide apart, between his
+three daughters there were still mysterious bonds reaching far back
+into nursery days. And Deborah in deciding whether to marry Allan
+Baird was affected more than she was aware by the married lives of
+her sisters. All she had seen in Laura's m&eacute;nage, all that
+she had ever observed in Edith's growing family, kept rising from
+time to time in her thoughts, as she vaguely tried to picture
+herself a wife and the mother of children.</p>
+<p>So the family, with those subtle bonds from the past, began to
+press steadily closer and closer around this one unmarried
+daughter, and help her to make up her mind.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span>CHAPTER
+XVII</h2>
+<p>But she did not appear to care to be helped. Nor did
+Allan&mdash;he rarely came to the house, and he went to Edith's not
+at all. He was even absent from her Christmas tree for the
+children, a jolly little festivity which neither he nor Deborah had
+missed in years.</p>
+<p>"What has got into him?" Roger asked. And shortly after
+Christmas he called the fellow up on the 'phone. "Drop in for
+dinner to-night," he urged. And he added distinctly, "I'm
+alone."</p>
+<p>"Are you? I'll be glad to."</p>
+<p>"Thank you, Baird, I want your advice." And as he hung up the
+receiver he said, "Now then!" to himself, in a tone of firm
+decision. But later, as the day wore on, he cursed himself for what
+he had done. "Don't it beat the devil," he thought, "how I'm always
+putting my foot in it?" And when Baird came into the room that
+night he loomed, to Roger's anxious eye, if anything taller than
+before. But his manner was so easy, his gruff voice so natural, and
+he seemed to take this little party of two so quietly as a matter
+of course, that Roger was soon reassured, and at table he and Allan
+got on even better than before. Baird talked of his life as a
+student, in Vienna, Bonn and Edinburgh, and of his first struggles
+in New York. His talk was full of human bits, some tragic, more
+amusing. And Roger's liking for the man increased with every story
+told.</p>
+<p>"I asked you here," he bluntly began, when they had gone to the
+study to smoke, "to talk to you about Deborah." Baird gave him a
+friendly look.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id=
+"Page_139"></a>[139]</span>All right. Let's talk about her."</p>
+<p>"It strikes me you were right last year," said Roger, speaking
+slowly. "She's already showing the strain of her work. She don't
+look to me as strong as she was."</p>
+<p>"She looks to me stronger," Allan replied. "You know, people
+fool doctors now and then&mdash;and she seems to have taken a fresh
+start. I feel she may go on for years." Roger was silent a moment,
+chagrined and disappointed.</p>
+<p>"Have you had a good chance to watch her?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Yes, and I'm watching her still," said Baird. "I see her down
+there at the school. She tells me you've been there yourself."</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger, determinedly, "and I mean to keep on going.
+I'm trying not to lose hold of her," he added with harsh emphasis.
+Baird turned and frankly smiled at him.</p>
+<p>"Then you have probably seen," he replied, "that to keep any
+hold at all on her, you must make up your mind as I have done that,
+strength or no strength, this job of hers is going to be a life
+career. When a woman who has held a job without a break for eleven
+years can feel such a flame of enthusiasm, you can be pretty sure,
+I think, it is the deepest part of her. At least I feel that way,"
+he said. "And I believe the only way to keep near her&mdash;for the
+present, anyhow&mdash;is to help her in her work."</p>
+<p>When Baird had gone, Roger found himself angry.</p>
+<p>"I'm not in the habit, young man," he thought, "of throwing my
+daughter at gentlemen's heads. If you feel as calm and contented as
+that you can go to the devil! Far be it from me to lift a hand! In
+fact, as I come to think of it, you would probably make her a
+mighty poor husband!" He worked himself into quite a rage. But an
+hour later, when he had subsided, "Hold on," he thought. "Am I
+right about this? Is the man as contented as he talks? No, sir, not
+for a minute he isn't! But what can he do? If he tried making love
+to Deborah he'd simply be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140"
+id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>killing his chances. Not the
+slightest doubt in the world. She can't think of anything but her
+career. Yes, sir, when all's said and done, to marry a modern woman
+is no child's play, it means thought and care. And A. Baird has
+made up his mind to it. He has made up his mind to marry her by
+playing a long waiting game. He's just slowly and quietly nosing
+his way into her school, because it's her life. And a mighty shrewd
+way of going about it. You don't need any help from me, my friend;
+all you need is to be let alone."</p>
+<p>In talks at home with Deborah, and in what he himself observed
+at school, Roger began to get inklings of "A. Baird's long waiting
+game." He found that several months before Allan had offered to
+start a free clinic for mothers and children in connection with the
+school, and that he alone had put it through, with only the most
+reluctant aid and gratitude from Deborah&mdash;as though she
+dreaded something. Baird took countless hours from his busy uptown
+practice; he hurt himself more than once, in fact, by neglecting
+rich patients to do this work. Where a sick or pregnant mother was
+too poor to carry out his advice, he followed her into her tenement
+home, sent one of his nurses to visit her, and even gave money when
+it was needed to ease the strain of her poverty until she should be
+well and strong. Soon scores of the mothers of Deborah's children
+were singing the praises of Doctor Baird.</p>
+<p>Then he began coming to the house.</p>
+<p>"I was right," thought Roger complacently.</p>
+<p>He laid in a stock of fine cigars and some good port and claret,
+too; and on evenings when Baird came to dine, Roger by a genial
+glow and occasional jocular ironies would endeavor to drag the talk
+away from clinics, adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the
+new education. But no joke was so good that Deborah could not
+promptly match it with some amusing little thing which one of her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id=
+"Page_141"></a>[141]</span>children had said or done. For she had a
+mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood. It was deep, it
+was uncanny, this queer community motherhood.</p>
+<p>"This poor devil," Roger thought, with a pitying glance at
+Baird, "might just as well be marrying a widow with three thousand
+brats."</p>
+<p>But Baird did not seem in the least dismayed. On the contrary,
+his assurance appeared to be deepening every week, and with it
+Deborah's air of alarm. For his clinic, as it swiftly grew, he
+secured financial backing from his rich women patients uptown, many
+of them childless and only too ready to respond to the appeals he
+made to them. And one Saturday evening at the house, while dining
+with Roger and Deborah, he told of an offer he had had from a
+wealthy banker's widow to build a maternity hospital. He talked
+hungrily of all it could do in co-operation with the school. He
+said nothing of the obvious fact that it would require his whole
+time, but Roger thought of that at once, and by the expression on
+Deborah's face he saw she was thinking, too.</p>
+<p>He felt they wanted to be alone, so presently he left them. From
+his study he could hear their voices growing steadily more intense.
+Was it all about work? He could not tell. "They've got working and
+living so mixed up, a man can't possibly tell 'em apart."</p>
+<p>Then his daughter was called to the telephone, and Allan came in
+to bid Roger good-night. And his eyes showed an impatience he did
+not seem to care to hide.</p>
+<p>"Well?" inquired Roger. "Did you get Deborah's consent?"</p>
+<p>"To what?" asked Allan sharply.</p>
+<p>"To your acceptance," Roger answered, "of the widow's mite."
+Baird grinned.</p>
+<p>"She couldn't help herself," he said.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id=
+"Page_142"></a>[142]</span>But she didn't seem to like it,
+eh&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"No," said Baird, "she didn't." Roger had a dark suspicion.</p>
+<p>"By the way," he asked in a casual tone, "what's this
+philanthropic widow like?"</p>
+<p>"She's sixty-nine," Baird answered.</p>
+<p>"Oh," said Roger. He smoked for a time, and sagely added, "My
+daughter's a queer woman, Baird&mdash;she's modern, very modern.
+But she's still a woman, you understand&mdash;and so she's
+jealous&mdash;of her job." But A. Baird was in no joking mood.</p>
+<p>"She's narrow," he said sternly. "That's what's the matter with
+Deborah. She's so centered on her job she can't see anyone else's.
+She thinks I'm doing all this work solely in order to help her
+school&mdash;when if she'd use some imagination and try to put
+herself in my shoes, she'd see the chance it's giving
+<i>me</i>!"</p>
+<p>"How do you mean?" asked Roger, looking a bit bewildered.</p>
+<p>"Why," said Baird with an impatient fling of his hand, "there
+are men in my line all over the country who'd leave home, wives and
+children for the chance I've blundered onto here! A hospital fully
+equipped for research, a free hand, an opportunity which comes to
+one man in a million! But can she see it? Not at all! It's only an
+annex to her school!"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger gravely, "she's in a pretty unnatural state. I
+think she ought to get married, Baird&mdash;" To his friendly and
+disarming twinkle Baird replied with a rueful smile.</p>
+<p>"You do, eh," he growled. "Then tell her to plan her wedding to
+come before her funeral." As he rose to go, Roger took his
+hand.</p>
+<p>"I'll tell her," he said. "It's sound advice. Good-night, my
+boy, I wish you luck."</p>
+<p>A few moments later he heard in the hall their brief
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id=
+"Page_143"></a>[143]</span>good-nights to each other, and presently
+Deborah came in. She was not looking quite herself.</p>
+<p>"Why are you eyeing me like that?" his daughter asked
+abruptly.</p>
+<p>"Aren't you letting him do a good deal for you?"</p>
+<p>Deborah flushed a little:</p>
+<p>"Yes, I am. I can't make him stop."</p>
+<p>Her father hesitated.</p>
+<p>"You could," he said, "if you wanted to. If you were sure," he
+added slowly, "that you didn't love him&mdash;and told him so." He
+felt a little panic, for he thought he had gone too far. But his
+daughter only turned away and restlessly moved about the room. At
+last she came to her father's chair:</p>
+<p>"Hadn't you better leave this to me?"</p>
+<p>"I had, my dear, I most certainly had. I was all wrong to
+mention it," he answered very humbly.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>From this night on, Baird changed his tack. Although soon busy
+with the plans for the hospital, to be built at once, he said
+little about it to Deborah. Instead, he insisted on taking her off
+on little evening sprees uptown.</p>
+<p>"Do you know what's the matter with both of us?" he said to her
+one evening. "We've been getting too durned devoted to our jobs and
+our ideals. You're becoming a regular school marm and I'm getting
+to be a regular slave to every wretched little babe who takes it
+into his head to be born. We haven't one redeeming vice."</p>
+<p>And again he took up dancing. The first effort which he made,
+down at Deborah's school one evening, was a failure quite as dismal
+as his attempts of the previous year. But he did not appear in the
+least discouraged. He came to the house one Friday night.</p>
+<p>"I knew I could learn to dance," he said, "in spite of all your
+taunts and jibes. That little fiasco last Saturday
+night&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id=
+"Page_144"></a>[144]</span>Was perfectly awful," Deborah said.</p>
+<p>"Did not discourage me in the least," he continued severely. "I
+decided the only trouble with me was that I'm tall and I've got to
+bend&mdash;to learn to bend."</p>
+<p>"Tremendously!"</p>
+<p>"So I went to a lady professor, and she saw the point at once.
+Since then I've had five lessons, and I can fox-trot in my sleep.
+To-morrow is Saturday. Where shall we go?"</p>
+<p>"To the theater."</p>
+<p>"Good. We'll start with that. But the minute the play is over
+we'll gallop off to the Plaza Grill&mdash;just as the music is in
+full swing&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"And we'll dance," she groaned, "for hours. And when I get home,
+I'll creep into bed so tired and sore in every limb&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"That you'll sleep late Sunday morning. And a mighty good thing
+for you, too&mdash;if you ask my advice&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I don't ask your advice!"</p>
+<p>"You're getting it, though," he said doggedly. "If you're still
+to be a friend of mine we'll dance at the Plaza to-morrow
+night&mdash;and well into the Sabbath."</p>
+<p>"The principal of a public school&mdash;dancing on the Sabbath.
+Suppose one of my friends should see us there."</p>
+<p>"Your friends," he replied with a fine contempt, "do not dance
+in the Plaza Grill. I'm the only roisterer you know."</p>
+<p>"All right," she conceded grudgingly, "I'll roister. Come and
+get me. But I'd much prefer when the play is done to come home and
+have milk and crackers here."</p>
+<p>"Deborah," he said cheerfully, "for a radical school reformer
+you're the most conservative woman I know."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>CHAPTER
+XVIII</h2>
+<p>In Deborah's school, in the meantime, affairs had drawn to a
+climax. The moment had come for the city to say whether her new
+experiment should be dropped the following year or allowed to go on
+and develop. There came a day of sharp suspense when Deborah's
+friends and enemies on the Board of Education sat down to discuss
+and settle her fate. They were at it for several hours, but late in
+the afternoon they decided not only to let her go on the next year
+but to try her idea in four other schools and place her in charge
+with ample funds. The long strain came to an end at last in a
+triumph beyond her wildest hopes; when the news arrived she
+relaxed, grew limp, and laughed and cried a little. And her father
+felt her tremble as he held her a moment in his arms.</p>
+<p>"Now, Baird," he thought, "your chance has come. For God's sake,
+take it while it's here!"</p>
+<p>But in place of Baird that afternoon came men and women from the
+press, and friends and fellow workers. The door-bell and the
+telephone kept ringing almost incessantly. Why couldn't they leave
+her a moment's peace? Roger buried himself in his study. Later,
+when he was called to dinner, he found that Allan was there, too,
+but at first the conversation was all upon Deborah's victory.
+Flushed with success, for the moment engrossed in the wider field
+she saw ahead, she had not a thought for anything else. But after
+dinner the atmosphere changed.</p>
+<p>"To hear me talk," she told them, "you'd think the whole world
+depended on me, and on my school and my <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>ideas.
+Me, me, me! And it has been me all winter long! What a time I've
+given both of you!"</p>
+<p>She grew repentant and grateful, first to her father and then to
+Allan, and then more and more to Allan, with her happy eyes on his.
+And with a keen worried look at them both, Roger rose and left the
+room.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Baird was leaning forward. He had both her hands in his own.</p>
+<p>"Well?" he asked. "Will you marry me now?"</p>
+<p>Her eyes were looking straight into his. They kept moving
+slightly, searching his. Her wide, sensitive lips were tightly
+compressed, but did not quite hide their quivering. When she spoke
+her voice was low and a little queer and breathless:</p>
+<p>"Do you want any children, Allan?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"So do I. And with children, what of my work?"</p>
+<p>"I don't want to stop your work. If you marry me we'll go right
+on. You see I know you, Deborah, I know you've always grown like
+that&mdash;by risking what you've got to-day for something more
+to-morrow."</p>
+<p>"I've never taken a risk like this!"</p>
+<p>"I tell you this time it's no risk! Because you're a grown
+woman&mdash;formed! I'm not making a saint of you. You're no angel
+down among the poor because you feel it's your duty in
+life&mdash;it's your happiness, your passion! You couldn't neglect
+them if you tried!"</p>
+<p>"But the time," she asked him quickly. "Where shall I find the
+time for it all?"</p>
+<p>"A man finds time enough," he answered, "even when he's
+married."</p>
+<p>"But I'm not a man, I'm a woman," she said. And in a low voice
+which thrilled him, "A woman who wants a child of her own!" His
+lean muscular right hand contracted sharply upon hers. She winced,
+drew back a little.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id=
+"Page_147"></a>[147]</span>Oh&mdash;I'm sorry!" he whispered. Then
+he asked her again,</p>
+<p>"Will you marry me now?" She looked suddenly up:</p>
+<p>"Let's wait awhile, please! It won't be long&mdash;I'm in love
+with you, Allan, I'm sure of that now! And I'm not drawing back,
+I'm not afraid! Oh, I want you to feel I'm not running away! What I
+want to do is to face this square! It may be silly and foolish
+but&mdash;you see, I'm made like that. I want a little
+longer&mdash;I want to think it out by myself."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>When Allan had gone she came in to her father. And her radiant
+expression made him bounce up from his chair.</p>
+<p>"By George," he cried, "he asked you!"</p>
+<p>"Yes!"</p>
+<p>"And you've taken him!"</p>
+<p>"No!"</p>
+<p>Roger gasped.</p>
+<p>"Look here!" he demanded, angrily. "What's the matter? Are you
+mad?" She threw back her head and laughed at him.</p>
+<p>"No, I'm not&mdash;I'm happy!"</p>
+<p>"What the devil about?" he snapped.</p>
+<p>"We're going to wait a bit, that's all, till we're sure of
+everything!" she cried.</p>
+<p>"Then," said Roger disgustedly, "you're smarter than your father
+is. I'm sure of nothing&mdash;nothing! I have never been sure in
+all my days! If I'd waited, you'd never have been born!"</p>
+<p>"Oh, dearie," she begged him smilingly. "Please don't be so
+unhappy just now&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I've a right to be!" said Roger. "I see my house agog with
+this&mdash;in a turmoil&mdash;in a turmoil!"</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>But again he was mistaken. It was in fact astonishing how the
+old house quieted down. There came again one <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span>of those
+peaceful times, when his home to Roger's senses seemed to settle
+deep, grow still, and gather itself together. Day by day he felt
+more sure that Deborah was succeeding in making her work fit into
+her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy woman's life. And
+why shouldn't they live here, Allan and she? The thought of this
+dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead. How
+smoothly things were working out. The monstrous new buildings
+around his house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of
+their prey.</p>
+<p>On the mantle in Roger's study, for many years a bronze figure
+there, "The Thinker," huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching
+pose, the heavy chin on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon
+him. And in the years that had been so dark, it had been a figure
+of despair. Often he had looked up from his chair and grimly met
+its frowning gaze. But Roger seldom looked at it now, and even when
+it caught his eye it had little effect upon him. It appeared to
+brood less darkly. For though he did not think it out, there was
+this feeling in his mind:</p>
+<p>"There is to be nothing startling in this quiet home of mine, no
+crashing deep calamity here."</p>
+<p>Only the steadily deepening love between a grown man and a woman
+mature, both sensible, strong people with a firm control of their
+destinies. He felt so sure of this affair. For now, her tension
+once relaxed with the success which had come to her after so many
+long hard years, a new Deborah was revealed, more human in her
+yieldings. She let Allan take her off on the wildest little sprees
+uptown and out into the country. To Roger she seemed younger, more
+warm and joyous and more free. He loved to hear her laugh these
+nights, to catch the glad new tones in her voice.</p>
+<p>"There is to be no tragedy here."</p>
+<p>So, certain of this union and wistful for all he felt it would
+bring, Roger watched its swift approach. And <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>when the
+news came, he was sure he'd been right. Because it came so
+quietly.</p>
+<p>"It's settled, dear, at last it's sure. Allan and I are to be
+married." She was standing by his chair. Roger reached up and took
+her hand:</p>
+<p>"I'm glad. You'll be very happy, my child."</p>
+<p>She bent over and kissed him, and putting his arm around her he
+drew her down on the side of his chair.</p>
+<p>"Now tell me all your plans," he said. And her answer brought
+him a deep peace.</p>
+<p>"We're going abroad for the summer&mdash;and then if you'll have
+us we want to come here." Roger abruptly shut his eyes.</p>
+<p>"By George, Deborah," he said, "you do have a way of getting
+right into the heart of things!" His arm closed about her with new
+strength and he felt all his troubles flying away.</p>
+<p>"What a time we'll have, what a rich new life." Her deep sweet
+voice was a little unsteady. "Listen, dearie, how quiet it is." And
+for some moments nothing was heard but the sober tick-tick of the
+clock on the mantle. "I wonder what we're going to hear."</p>
+<p>And they thought of new voices in the house.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span>CHAPTER
+XIX</h2>
+<p>Edith was radiant at the news.</p>
+<p>"I do hope they're not going to grudge themselves a good long
+wedding trip!" she exclaimed.</p>
+<p>"They're going abroad," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"Oh, splendid! And the wedding! Church or home?"</p>
+<p>"Home," said Roger blissfully, "and short and simple, not a
+frill. Just the family."</p>
+<p>"Oh, that's so nice," sighed Edith. "I was afraid she'd want to
+drag in her school."</p>
+<p>"School will be out by then," he said.</p>
+<p>"Well, I hope it stays out&mdash;for the remainder of her days.
+She can't do both, and she'll soon see. Wait till she has a child
+of her own."</p>
+<p>"Well, she wants one bad enough."</p>
+<p>"Yes, but can she?" Edith asked, with the engrossed expression
+which came on her pretty florid face whenever she neared such a
+topic. She spoke with evident awkwardness. "That's the trouble. Is
+it too late? Deborah's thirty-one, you know, and she has lived her
+life so hard. The sooner she gives up her school the better for her
+chances."</p>
+<p>The face of her father clouded.</p>
+<p>"Look here," he said uneasily, "I wouldn't go talking to
+her&mdash;quite along those lines, my dear."</p>
+<p>"I'm not such an idiot," she replied. "She thinks me homely
+enough as it is. And she's not altogether wrong. Bruce and I were
+talking it over last night. We want to be closer, after this, to
+Deborah and Allan. Bruce says it will do us <i>all</i> good, and
+for once I think he's right. I <i>have</i> given too much time to
+my children, and Bruce to his <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>office&mdash;I see it now.
+Not that I regret it, but&mdash;well, we're going to blossom
+out."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>She struck the same note with Deborah. And so did Bruce.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Deborah dear," he said smiling, when he found a chance to
+see her alone, "if you knew how long I've waited for this big fine
+thing to happen. A. Baird is my best chum in the world. Don't yank
+him gently away from us now. We'll keep close&mdash;eh?&mdash;all
+four of us."</p>
+<p>"Very," said Deborah softly.</p>
+<p>"And you mustn't get too solemn, you know. You won't pull too
+much of the highbrow stuff."</p>
+<p>"Heaven forbid!"</p>
+<p>"That's the right idea. We'll have some fine little parties
+together. You and A. Baird will give us a hand and get us out in
+the evenings. We need it, God knows, we've been getting old."
+Deborah threw him a glance of affection.</p>
+<p>"Why, Brucie," she said, in admiring tones, "I knew you had it
+in you."</p>
+<p>"So has Edith," he sturdily declared. "She only needs a little
+shove. We'll show you two that we're regular fellows. Don't you be
+all school and we won't be all home. We'll jump out of our skins
+and be young again."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In pursuance of this gay resolve, Bruce planned frequent parties
+to theaters and musical shows, and to Edith's consternation he even
+began to look about for a teacher from whom he could learn to
+dance. "A. Baird," he told her firmly, "isn't going to be the only
+soubrette in this family."</p>
+<p>One of the most hilarious of these small celebrations came early
+in June, when they dined all four together and went to the summer's
+opening of "The Follies of 1914." The show rather dragged a bit at
+first, but when Bert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id=
+"Page_152"></a>[152]</span> Williams took the stage Bruce's laugh
+became so contagious that people in seats on every hand turned to
+look at him and join in his glee. Only one thing happened to mar
+the evening's pleasure. When they came outside the theater Bruce
+found in his car something wrong with the engine. He tinkered but
+it would not go. Allan hailed a taxi.</p>
+<p>"Why not come with us?" asked Deborah.</p>
+<p>"No, thanks," said Bruce. "I've got this car to look after."</p>
+<p>"Oh, let it wait," urged Allan.</p>
+<p>"It does look a little like rain," put in Edith. Bruce glanced
+up at the cloudy sky and hesitated a moment.</p>
+<p>"Rain, piffle," he said good-humoredly. "Come on, wifey, stick
+by me. I won't be long." And he and Edith went back to his car.</p>
+<p>"What a dear he is," said Deborah. Allan put his arm around her,
+and they looked at each other and smiled. It was only nine days to
+the wedding.</p>
+<p>Out of the street's commotion came a sharp cry of warning. It
+was followed by a shriek and a crash. Allan looked out of the
+window, and then with a low exclamation he jumped from the taxi and
+slammed the door.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>CHAPTER
+XX</h2>
+<p>Roger had been spending a long quiet evening at home. He had
+asked John to dine with him and they had chatted for a time. Then
+John had started up to his room. And listening to the slow
+shuffling step of the cripple going upstairs, Roger had thought of
+the quick eager feet and the sudden scampers that would be heard as
+the silent old house renewed its life. Later he had gone to
+bed.</p>
+<p>He awakened with a start. The telephone bell was ringing.</p>
+<p>"Nice time to be calling folks out of bed," he grumbled, as he
+went into the hall. The next moment he heard Deborah's voice. It
+was clear and sharp with a note of alarm.</p>
+<p>"Father&mdash;it's I! You must come to Edith's apartment at
+once! Bruce is hurt badly! Come at once!"</p>
+<p>When Roger reached the apartment, it was Deborah who opened the
+door. Her face had changed, it was drawn and gray. She took him
+into the living room.</p>
+<p>"Tell me," he said harshly.</p>
+<p>"It was just outside the theater. Bruce and Edith were out in
+the street and got caught by some idiot of a chauffeur. Bruce threw
+Edith out of the way, but just as he did it he himself got struck
+in the back and went under a wheel. Allan brought him here at once,
+while I telephoned for a friend of his&mdash;a surgeon. They're
+with Bruce now."</p>
+<p>"Where's Edith?"</p>
+<p>"She's trying to quiet the children. They all woke up&mdash;"
+Deborah frowned&mdash;"when he was brought in," she added.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id=
+"Page_154"></a>[154]</span>Well!" breathed Roger. "I declare!"
+Dazed and stunned, he sank into a chair. Soon the door opened and
+Allan came in.</p>
+<p>"He's gone," he said. And Deborah jumped. "No, no, I meant the
+doctor."</p>
+<p>"What does he say?"</p>
+<p>"Bruce can't live," said Allan gently. In the tense silence
+there came a chill. "And he knows it," Allan added. "He made me
+tell him&mdash;he said he must know&mdash;for business reasons. He
+wants to see you both at once, before Edith gets that child
+asleep."</p>
+<p>As they entered the room they saw Bruce on his bed. He was
+breathing quickly through his narrow tight-set jaws and staring up
+at the ceiling with a straining fixed intensity. As they entered he
+turned his head. His eyes met theirs and lighted up in a hard and
+terrible manner.</p>
+<p>"I'm not leaving them a dollar!" he cried.</p>
+<p>"We'll see to them, boy," said Roger, hoarsely, but Bruce had
+already turned to Baird.</p>
+<p>"I make you my executor, Allan&mdash;don't need it in
+writing&mdash;there isn't time." He drew a sudden quivering breath.
+"I have no will," he muttered on. "Never made one&mdash;never
+thought of this. Business life just
+starting&mdash;booming!&mdash;and I put in every cent!" There broke
+from him a low, bitter groan. "Made my money settling other men's
+muddles! Never thought of making this mess of my own! But even in
+mine&mdash;I could save something still&mdash;if I could be
+there&mdash;if I could be there&mdash;"</p>
+<p>The sweat broke out on his temples, and Deborah laid her hand on
+his head. "Sh-h-h," she breathed. He shut his eyes.</p>
+<p>"Hard to think of anything any more. I can't keep clear." He
+shuddered with pain. "Fix me for <i>them</i>," he muttered to
+Baird. "George and his mother. Fix me up&mdash;give me a couple of
+minutes clear. And Deborah&mdash;when<span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span> you bring 'em
+in&mdash;don't let 'em know. You understand? No infernal last
+good-byes!" Deborah sharply set her teeth.</p>
+<p>"No, dear, no," she whispered. She followed her father out of
+the room, leaving Allan bending over the bed with a hypodermic in
+his hand. And when, a few moments later, George came in with his
+mother, they found Bruce soothed and quieted. He even smiled as he
+reached up his hand.</p>
+<p>"They say I've got to sleep, old girl&mdash;just sleep and
+sleep&mdash;it'll do me good. So you mustn't stay in the room
+to-night. Stay with the kiddies and get 'em to sleep." He was still
+smiling up at her. "They say it'll be a long time, little
+wife&mdash;and I'm so sorry&mdash;I was to blame. If I'd done as
+you wanted and gone in their taxi. Remember? You said it might
+rain." He turned to George: "Look here, my boy, I'm counting on
+you. I'll be sick, you know&mdash;no good at all. You must stand by
+your mother."</p>
+<p>George gulped awkwardly:</p>
+<p>"Sure I will, dad." His father sharply pressed his hand:</p>
+<p>"That's right, old fellow, I know what you are. Now good-night,
+son. Good-night, Edith dear." He looked at her steadily just for a
+moment, then closed his eyes. "Oh, but I'm sleepy," he murmured.
+"Good-night."</p>
+<p>And they left him. Alone with Allan, Bruce looked up with a
+savage glare.</p>
+<p>"Look here!" he snarled, between his teeth. "If you think I'm
+going to lie here and die you're mistaken! I won't! I won't let go!
+I'll show you chaps you can be wrong! Been wrong before, haven't
+you, thousands of times! Why be so damnably sure about <i>me</i>?"
+He fell back suddenly, limp and weak. "So damnably sure," he
+panted.</p>
+<p>"We're never sure, my dear old boy," said Allan very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id=
+"Page_156"></a>[156]</span>tenderly. Again he was bending close
+over the bed. "We're not sure yet&mdash;by any means. You're so
+strong, old chap, so amazingly strong. You've given me
+hope&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"What are you sticking into my arm?" But Allan kept talking
+steadily on:</p>
+<p>"You've given me hope you'll pull through still. But not like
+this. You've got to rest. Let go, and try to go to sleep."</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid to," came the whisper. But soon, as again the drug
+took hold, he mumbled in a drowsy tone, "Afraid to go to sleep in
+the dark.... Say, Allan&mdash;get Deborah in here, will
+you&mdash;just for a minute. One thing more."</p>
+<p>When she came, he did not open his eyes.</p>
+<p>"That you, Deborah? Where's your hand?... Oh&mdash;there it is.
+Just one more point. You&mdash;you&mdash;" Again his mind wandered,
+but with an effort he brought it back. "You and Edith," he said in
+a whisper. "So&mdash;so&mdash;so different. Not&mdash;not like each
+other at all. But you'll stick together&mdash;eh?
+Always&mdash;always. Don't let go&mdash;I mean of my hand."</p>
+<p>"No, dear, no."</p>
+<p>And with her hand holding his, she sat for a long time perfectly
+still. Then the baby was heard crying, and Deborah went to the
+nursery.</p>
+<p>"Now, Edith, I'll see to the children," she said. "Allan says
+you can go to Bruce if you like."</p>
+<p>Edith looked up at Deborah quickly, and as quickly turned away.
+She went in to her husband. And there, hour by hour through the
+night, while he lay inert with his hand in hers, little by little
+she understood. But she asked no question of anyone.</p>
+<p>At last Bruce stirred a little and began breathing deep and
+fast.</p>
+<p>And so death came into the family.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>CHAPTER
+XXI</h2>
+<p>Roger went through the next two days in a kind of a stupor. He
+remembered holding Edith and feeling her shudder as though from a
+chill. He remembered being stopped in the hall by George who had
+dressed himself with care in his first suit with long trousers. "I
+just wanted you to remember," the boy whispered solemnly, "that I'm
+nearly sixteen and I'll be here. He said to stand by her and I
+will." The rest of that ghastly time was a blank, punctuated by
+small quiet orders which Roger obeyed. Thank God, Deborah was
+there, and she was attending to everything.</p>
+<p>But when at last it was over, and Roger had spent the next day
+in his office, had found it impossible to work and so had gone home
+early, Deborah came to him in his room.</p>
+<p>"Now we must have a talk," she said. "Allan has gone through
+Bruce's affairs, and there are still debts to be settled, it
+seems."</p>
+<p>"How much do they come to, Deborah?"</p>
+<p>"About five thousand dollars," she said. And for a moment
+neither spoke. "I wish I could help you out," she went on, "but I
+have nothing saved and neither has Allan. We've both kept using our
+money downtown&mdash;except just enough for the trip
+abroad&mdash;and we'll need almost all of that to settle for the
+funeral."</p>
+<p>"I can manage," Roger said, and again there was a silence.</p>
+<p>"Edith will have to come here to live," Deborah said presently.
+Her father's heavy face grew stern.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id=
+"Page_158"></a>[158]</span>I'd thought of that," he answered. "But
+it will be hard on her, Deborah&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I know it will&mdash;but I don't see anything else to be done."
+The deep quiet voice of his daughter grew sweet with pity as she
+spoke. "At least we can try to make it a little easier for her. You
+can take her up to the mountains and I can close her apartment. But
+of course she won't agree to it unless she knows how matters
+stand." Deborah waited a little. "Don't you think you're the best
+one to tell her?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger, after a pause.</p>
+<p>"Then suppose we go to her. I'm sleeping up there for the next
+few nights."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>They found Edith in her living room. She had sent the nurse out,
+put the children to bed, and left alone with nothing to do she had
+sat facing her first night. Her light soft hair was disheveled, her
+pretty features pale and set. But the moment Roger entered he saw
+that she had herself in hand.</p>
+<p>"Well, father," she said steadily. "You'd better tell me about
+our affairs. <i>My</i> affairs," she corrected herself. When he had
+explained, she was silent a moment, and then in a voice harsh,
+bitter, abrupt, "That will be hard on the children," she said. On
+an impulse he started to take her hand, but she drew a little away
+from him.</p>
+<p>"The children, my dear," he said huskily, "will be taken care of
+always."</p>
+<p>"Yes." And again she was silent. "I've been thinking I'd like to
+go up to the mountains&mdash;right away," she continued.</p>
+<p>"Just our idea," he told her. "Deborah will arrange it at
+once."</p>
+<p>"That's good of Deborah," she replied. And after another pause:
+"But take her home with you&mdash;will you? I'd rather not have her
+here to-night."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id=
+"Page_159"></a>[159]</span>I think she'd better stay, my dear."</p>
+<p>"All right." In a tone of weariness. "Madge Deering called me up
+to-night. She's coming in town to-morrow, and she means to stay
+till I go."</p>
+<p>"I'm glad," he said approvingly. Madge had been a widow for
+years. Living out in Morristown with four daughters to bring up,
+she had determinedly fought her way and had not only regained her
+hold but had even grown in strength and breadth since the death of
+her husband long ago. "I'm glad," he said. "You and Madge&mdash;"
+he paused.</p>
+<p>"Yes, we'll have a good deal in common," Edith finished out his
+thought. "You look tired, dad. Hadn't you better go home now?" she
+suggested after a moment.</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger, rising. "Good-night, my child. Remember."</p>
+<p>In the outer hallway he found Deborah with Laura. Laura had been
+here several times. She was getting Edith's mourning.</p>
+<p>"There's a love of a hat at Thurn's," she was saying softly, "if
+only we can get her to wear it. It's just her type." And Laura drew
+an anxious breath. "Anything," she added, "to escape that hideous
+heavy crepe."</p>
+<p>Roger slightly raised his brows. He noticed a faint delicious
+perfume that irritated him suddenly. But glancing again at his
+daughter, trim, fresh and so immaculate, the joy of life barely
+concealed in her eyes, he stopped and talked and smiled at her, as
+Deborah was doing, enjoying her beauty and her youth, her love and
+all her happiness. And though they spoke of her sister, she knew
+they were thinking of herself, and that it was quite right they
+should, for it gave them a little relief from their gloom. She was
+honestly sorry for Edith, but she was sorrier still for Bruce, who
+she knew had always liked her more than he would have cared to say.
+She was sorrier for Bruce because, while Edith had lost only her
+husband, Bruce had lost <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160"
+id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>his very life. And life meant so much
+to Laura, these days, the glowing, coursing, vibrant life of her
+warm beautiful body. She was thinking of that as she stood in the
+hall.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In the evening, at home in his study, Roger heard a slight knock
+at the door. He looked up and saw John.</p>
+<p>"May I come in, Mr. Gale, for a minute?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, my boy." John hobbled in.</p>
+<p>"Only a minute." His voice was embarrassed. "Just two or three
+things I thought of," he said. "The first was about your
+son-in-law. You see, I was his stenographer&mdash;and while I was
+in his office&mdash;this morning helping Doctor Baird&mdash;I found
+a good deal I can do there still&mdash;about things no one
+remembers but me. So I'll stay there awhile, if it's all right.
+Only&mdash;" he paused&mdash;"without any pay. See what I
+mean?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I see," said Roger. "And you'd better stay&mdash;in that
+way if you like."</p>
+<p>"Thanks," said John. "Then about his wife and family. You're to
+take them up to the mountains, I hear&mdash;and&mdash;well, before
+this happened you asked <i>me</i> up this summer. But I guess I'd
+better not."</p>
+<p>"I don't think you'd be in the way, my boy."</p>
+<p>"I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind. When I'm through in
+your son-in-law's office I thought I might go back to yours. I
+could send you your mail every two or three days."</p>
+<p>"I'd like that, John&mdash;it will be a great help."</p>
+<p>"All right, Mr. Gale." John stopped at the door. "And Miss
+Deborah," he ventured. "Is she to get married just the same?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, I think so&mdash;later on."</p>
+<p>"Good-night, sir."</p>
+<p>And John went out of the room.</p>
+<p>When <i>would</i> Deborah be married? It came over Roger, when
+he was alone, how his family had shifted its center.<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span> Deborah
+would have come here to live, to love and be happy, a mother
+perhaps, but now she must find a home of her own. In her place
+would come Edith with her children. All would center on her in her
+grief.</p>
+<p>And for no cause! Just a trick of chance, a street accident! And
+Roger grew bitter and rebelled. Bruce was not the one of the family
+to die. Bruce, so shrewd and vigorous, so vital, the practical man
+of affairs. Bruce had been going the pace that kills&mdash;yes,
+Roger had often thought of it. But that had nothing to do with
+this! If Bruce had died at fifty, say, as a result of the life he
+had chosen, the fierce exhausting city which he had loved as a man
+will love drink, then at least there would have been some sense of
+fairness in it all! If the town had let him alone till his time!
+But to be knocked down by an automobile! The devilish irony of it!
+No reason&mdash;nothing! Just hideous luck!</p>
+<p>Well, life was like that. As for Edith and her children, he
+would be glad to have them here. Only, it would be different, the
+house would have to change again. He was sorry, too, for Deborah.
+No wedding trip as she had planned, no home awaiting her
+return.</p>
+<p>So his mind went over his family.</p>
+<p>But suddenly such thoughts fell away as trivial and of small
+account. For these people would still be alive. And Bruce was dead,
+and Roger was old. So he thought about Bruce and about himself, and
+all his children grew remote. "You will live on in our children's
+lives." Was there no other immortality? The clock ticked on the
+mantle and beside it "The Thinker" brooded down. And Roger looked
+up unafraid, but grim and gravely wondering.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span>CHAPTER
+XXII</h2>
+<p>But there was a rugged practical side to the character of Roger
+Gale, and the next morning he was ashamed of the brooding thoughts
+which had come in the night. He shook them off as morbid, and
+resolutely set himself to what lay close before him. There was work
+to be done on Bruce's affairs, and the work was a decided relief.
+Madge Deering, in the meantime, had offered to go with Edith and
+the children to the mountains and see them all well settled there.
+And a little talk he had with Madge relieved his mind still
+further. What a recovery <i>she</i> had made from the tragedy of
+years ago. How alert and wide-awake she seemed. If Edith could only
+grow like that.</p>
+<p>Soon after their departure, one night when he was dining alone,
+he had a curious consciousness of the mingled presence of Edith and
+of Judith his wife. And this feeling grew so strong that several
+times he looked about in a startled, questioning manner. All at
+once his eye was caught by an old mahogany sideboard. It was
+Edith's. It had been her mother's. Edith, when she married, had
+wanted something from her old home. Well, now it was back in the
+family.</p>
+<p>The rest of Edith's furniture, he learned from Deborah that
+night, had been stored in the top of the house.</p>
+<p>"Most of it," she told him, "Edith will probably want to use in
+fitting up the children's rooms." With a twinge of foreboding,
+Roger felt the approaching change in his home.</p>
+<p>"When do you plan to be married?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"About the end of August. We couldn't very well <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>till
+then, without hurting poor Edith a little, you see. You know how
+she feels about such things&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I guess you're right," he agreed.</p>
+<p>How everything centered 'round Edith, he thought. To pay the
+debts which Bruce had left would take all Roger had on hand; and
+from this time on his expenses, with five growing children here,
+would be a fast increasing drain. He would have to be careful and
+husband his strength, a thing he had always hated to do.</p>
+<p>In the next few weeks, he worked hard in his office. He cut down
+his smoking, stayed home every evening and went to bed at ten
+o'clock. He tried to shut Deborah out of his mind. As for Laura, he
+barely gave her a thought. She dropped in one evening to bid him
+good-bye, for this summer again she was going abroad. She and her
+husband, she told him, were to motor through the Balkans and down
+into Italy. Her father gruffly answered that he hoped she would
+enjoy herself. It seemed infernally unfair that it should not be
+Deborah who was sailing the next morning. But when he felt himself
+growing annoyed, abruptly he put a check on himself. It was Edith
+he must think of now.</p>
+<p>But curiously it happened, in this narrowing of his attention,
+that while he shut out two of his daughters, a mere outsider edged
+closer in.</p>
+<p>Johnny Geer was a great help. He was back in Roger's office, and
+with the sharp wits he had gained in his eighteen years of fighting
+for a chance to stay alive, now at Roger's elbow John was watching
+like a hawk for all the little ways and means of pushing up the
+business. What a will the lad had to down bodily ills, what vim in
+the way he tackled each job. His shrewd and cheery companionship
+was a distraction and relief. John was so funny sometimes.</p>
+<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Gale," he said, as Roger came into the office
+one day.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id=
+"Page_164"></a>[164]</span>Hello, Johnny. How are you?" Roger
+replied.</p>
+<p>"Fine, thank you." And John went on with his work of opening the
+morning's mail. But a few minutes later he gave a cackling little
+laugh.</p>
+<p>"What's so funny?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"Fellers," was the answer. "Fellers. Human nature. Here's a
+letter from Shifty Sam."</p>
+<p>"Who the devil is he? A friend of yours?"</p>
+<p>"No," said John, "he's a 'con man.' He works about as mean a
+graft as any you ever heard of. He reads the 'ads' in the
+papers&mdash;see?&mdash;of servant girls who're looking for work.
+He makes a specialty of cooks. Then he goes to where they live and
+talks of some nice family that wants a servant right away. He
+claims to be the butler, and he's dressed to look the part. 'There
+ain't a minute to lose,' he says. 'If you want a chawnce, my girl,
+come quick.' He says 'chawnce' like a butler&mdash;see? 'Pack your
+things,' he tells her, 'and come right along with me.' So she packs
+and hustles off with him&mdash;Sam carrying her suit case. He puts
+her on a trolley and says, 'I guess I'll stay on the platform. I've
+got a bit of a headache and the air will do me good.' So he stays
+out there with her suit case&mdash;and as soon as the car gets into
+a crowd, Sam jumps and beats it with her clothes."</p>
+<p>"I see," said Roger dryly. "But what's he writing <i>you</i>
+about?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, it ain't me he's writing to&mdash;it's you," was John's
+serene reply. Roger started.</p>
+<p>"What?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Well," said the boy in a cautious tone, vigilantly eyeing his
+chief, "you see, a lot of these fellers like Sam have been in the
+papers lately. They're being called a crime wave."</p>
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+<p>"Sam is up for trial this week&mdash;and half the Irish cooks in
+town are waiting 'round to testify. And Shifty seems <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span>to enjoy
+himself. His picture's in the papers&mdash;see? And he wants all
+the clippings. So he encloses a five dollar bill."</p>
+<p>"He does, eh&mdash;well, you write to Sam and send his money
+back to him!" There was a little silence.</p>
+<p>"But look here," said John with keen regret. "We've had quite a
+lot of these letters this week."</p>
+<p>Roger wheeled and looked at him.</p>
+<p>"John," he demanded severely, "what game have you been up to
+here?"</p>
+<p>"No game at all," was the prompt retort. "Just getting a little
+business."</p>
+<p>"How?"</p>
+<p>"Well, there's a club downtown," said John, "where a lot of
+these petty crooks hang out. I used to deliver papers there. And I
+went around one night this month&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<i>To drum up business?</i>"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir." Roger looked at him aghast.</p>
+<p>"John," he asked, in deep reproach, "do you expect this office
+to feed the vanity of thieves?"</p>
+<p>"Where's the vanity," John rejoined, "in being called a crime
+wave?" And seeing the sudden tremor of mirth which had appeared on
+Roger's face, "Look here, Mr. Gale," he went eagerly on. "When
+every paper in the town is telling these fellers where they
+belong&mdash;calling 'em crooks, degenerates, and preaching regular
+sermons right into their faces&mdash;why shouldn't we help 'em to
+read the stuff? How do we know it won't do 'em good? It's church to
+'em, that's what it is&mdash;and business for this office. Nine of
+these guys have sent in their money just in the last week or
+so&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Look out, my boy," said Roger, with slow and solemn emphasis.
+"If you aren't extremely careful you'll find yourself a
+millionaire."</p>
+<p>"But wait a minute, Mr. Gale&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id=
+"Page_166"></a>[166]</span>Not in this office," Roger said. "Send
+'em back, every one of 'em! Understand?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," was the meek reply. And with a little sigh of regret
+John turned his wits to other kinds and conditions of New Yorkers
+who might care to see themselves in print.</p>
+<p>As they worked together day by day, Roger had occasional qualms
+over leaving John here in the hot town while he himself went up to
+the mountains. He even thought of writing to Edith that he was
+planning to bring John, too. But no, she wouldn't like it. So he
+did something else instead.</p>
+<p>"John," he said, one morning, "I'm going to raise your salary to
+a hundred dollars a month." Instantly from the lad's bright eyes
+there shot a look of triumph.</p>
+<p>"Thanks, Mr. Gale," was his hearty response.</p>
+<p>"And in the meantime, Johnny, I want you to take a good solid
+month off."</p>
+<p>"All right, sir, thank you," John replied. "But I guess it won't
+be quite a month. I don't feel as if I needed it."</p>
+<p>The next day at the office he appeared resplendent in a
+brand-new suit of clothes, a summer homespun of light gray set off
+by a tie of flaming red. There was nothing soft about that boy. No,
+Johnny knew how to look out for himself.</p>
+<p>And Roger went up to the farm.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span>CHAPTER
+XXIII</h2>
+<p>George met him at the station, as he had done a year before. But
+at once Roger noticed a difference. In the short time since his
+father's death certain lines had come in the boy's freckled face,
+and they gave him a thoughtful, resolute look. George's voice was
+changing. One moment it was high and boyish, again a deep and manly
+bass. As he kept his eyes on the horses and talked about his
+mother, his grandfather from time to time threw curious side
+glances.</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes," George was saying, "mother's all right, she's doing
+fine. It was pretty bad at first, though. She wouldn't let me sit
+up with her any&mdash;she treated me like a regular kid. But any
+fellow with any sense could see how she was feeling. She'd get
+thinking of the accident." George stopped short and clamped his
+jaws. "You know, my dad did a wonderful thing," he continued
+presently. "Even when he was dying, and mother and I were there by
+his bed, he remembered how she'd get thinking alone&mdash;all about
+the accident. You see he knew mother pretty darned well. So he told
+her to remember that he was the one to blame for it. If it hadn't
+been for him, he said, they would have gone home in the taxi.
+That's a pretty good point to keep in her mind. Don't you think
+so?" he inquired. And Roger glanced affectionately into the anxious
+face by his side.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he said, "it's a mighty good point. Did you think of
+it?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," George replied. "I've told it to her a good many
+times&mdash;that and two other points I thought of."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id=
+"Page_168"></a>[168]</span>What are they, son?" asked Roger.</p>
+<p>"First," the boy said awkwardly, "about how good she was to him.
+And second, that she let him buy the new car before he died. He had
+such a lot of fun out of that car&mdash;"</p>
+<p>On the last words the lad's changing voice went from an
+impressive bass to a most undignified treble. He savagely
+scowled.</p>
+<p>"Those three points," he continued, in more careful measured
+tones, "were about all I could think of. I had to use 'em over and
+over&mdash;on mother when things got bad, I mean." A flush of
+embarrassment came on his face. "And hold her and kiss her," he
+muttered. Then he whipped his horses. "We've had some pretty bad
+times this month," he continued, loud and manfully. "You see,
+mother isn't so young as she was. She's well on in her thirties." A
+glimmer of amusement appeared in Roger's heavy eyes. "But she don't
+cry often any more, and with you here we'll pull her through." He
+shot a quick look at his grandfather. "Gee, but I'm glad you're
+here!" he said.</p>
+<p>"So am I," said Roger. And with a little pressure of his hand on
+George's shoulder, "I guess you've had about your share. Now tell
+me the news. How are things on the farm?"</p>
+<p>With a breath of evident relief, the lad launched into the
+animal world. And soon he was talking eagerly.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In the next few days with his daughter Roger found that George
+was right. She had been through the worst of it. But she still had
+her reactions, her spells of emptiness, bleak despair, her moods of
+fierce rebellion or of sudden self-reproach for not having given
+Bruce more while he lived. And in such hours her father tried to
+comfort her with poor success.</p>
+<p>"Remember, child, I'm with you, and I know how it <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>feels,"
+he said. "I went through it all myself: When your mother
+died&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But mother was so much older!" He looked at his daughter
+compassionately.</p>
+<p>"How old are you?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"Thirty-six."</p>
+<p>"Your mother was thirty-nine," he replied. And at that Edith
+turned and stared at him, bewildered, shocked, brought face to face
+with a new and momentous fact in her life.</p>
+<p>"Mother only my age when she died?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger gently, "only three years older." With a
+twinge of pain he noticed two quite visible streaks of gray in his
+daughter's soft blonde hair. "And she felt as you do now&mdash;as
+though she were just starting out. And I felt the same way, my
+dear. If I'm not mistaken, everyone does. You still feel
+young&mdash;but the new generation is already growing up&mdash;and
+you can feel yourself being pushed on. And it is hard&mdash;it is
+very hard." Clumsily he took her hand. "Don't let yourself drop
+out," he said. "Be as your mother would have been if she had been
+left instead of me. Go straight on with your children."</p>
+<p>To this note he could feel her respond. And at first, as he felt
+what a fight she was making, Roger glorified her pluck. As he
+watched her with her children at table, smiling at their talk with
+an evident effort to enter in, and again with her baby snug in her
+lap while she read bedtime stories to Bob and little Tad at her
+side, he kept noticing the resemblance between his daughter and his
+wife. How close were these two members of his family drawing
+together now, one of them living, the other dead.</p>
+<p>But later, as the weeks wore on, she began to plan for her
+children. She planned precisely how to fit them all into the house
+in town, she planned the hours for their meals, for their going
+alone or with the nurse or a maid <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>to their different private
+schools, to music lessons, to dancing school and uptown to the park
+to play. She planned their fall clothes and she planned their
+friends. And there came to her father occasional moods of anxiety.
+He remembered Bruce's grim remarks about those "simple" schools and
+clothes, the kind that always cost the most. And he began to
+realize what Bruce's existence must have been. For scarcely ever in
+their talks did Edith speak of anything outside of her family.
+Night after night, with a tensity born of her struggle with her
+grief, she talked about her children. And Roger was in Bruce's
+place, he was the one she planned with. At moments with a vague
+dismay he glimpsed the life ahead in his home.</p>
+<p>George was hard at work each day down by the broken dam at the
+mill. He had an idea he could patch it up, put the old water-wheel
+back into place and make it run a dynamo, by which he could light
+the house and barn and run the machines in the dairy. In his new
+r&ocirc;le as the man of his family, George was planning out his
+career. He was wrestling with a book entitled "Our New Mother
+Earth" and a journal called "The Modern Farm." And to Roger he
+confided that he meant to be a farmer. He wanted to go in the
+autumn to the State Agricultural College. But when one day, very
+cautiously, Roger spoke to Edith of this, with a hard and jealous
+smile which quite transformed her features, she said,</p>
+<p>"Oh, I know all about that, father dear. It's just a stage he's
+going through. And it's the same way with Elizabeth, too, and her
+crazy idea of becoming a doctor. She took that from Allan Baird,
+and George took his from Deborah! They'll get over it soon
+enough&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"They won't get over it!" Roger cried. "Their dreams are parts
+of something new! Something I'm quite vague about&mdash;but some of
+it has come to stay! You're <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>losing all your
+chances&mdash;just as I did years ago! You'll never know your
+children!"</p>
+<p>But he uttered this cry to himself alone. Outwardly he only
+frowned. And Edith had gone on to say,</p>
+<p>"I do hope that Deborah won't come up this summer. She's been
+very good and kind, of course, and if she comes she'll be doing it
+entirely on my account. But I don't want her here&mdash;I want her
+to marry, the sooner the better, and come to her senses&mdash;be
+happy, I mean. And I wish you would tell her so."</p>
+<p>Within a few days after this Deborah wrote to her father that
+she was coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at
+first, he had William saddled and went for a ride to try to
+determine what he should do. But it was a ticklish business. For
+women were queer and touchy, and once more he felt the working of
+those uncanny family ties.</p>
+<p>"Deborah," he reflected, "is coming up here because she feels
+it's selfish of her to stay away. If she marries at once, as she
+told me herself, she thinks Edith will be hurt. Edith won't be
+hurt&mdash;and if Deborah comes, there'll be trouble every minute
+she stays. But can I tell her so? Not at all. I can't say, 'You're
+not wanted here.' If I do, <i>she'll</i> be hurt. Oh Lord, these
+girls! And Deborah knows very well that if she does get married
+this month, with Laura abroad and Edith up here and only me at the
+wedding, Edith will smile to herself and say, 'Now isn't that just
+like Deborah?'"</p>
+<p>As Roger slowly rode along a steep and winding mountain road,
+gloomily he reflected to what petty little troubles a family of
+women could descend, so soon after death itself. And he lifted his
+eyes up to the hills and decided to leave this matter alone. If
+women would be women, let them settle their own affairs. Deborah
+was due to arrive on the following Friday evening. All right, let
+her come, he thought. She would soon see she was in the way, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id=
+"Page_172"></a>[172]</span>then in a little affectionate talk he
+would suggest that she marry right off and have a decent honeymoon
+before the school year opened.</p>
+<p>So he dismissed it from his mind. And as he listened in the dusk
+to the numberless murmuring voices of living creatures large and
+small which rose out of the valley, and as from high above him the
+serenity of the mountains there towering over thousands of years
+stole into his spirit, Roger had a large quieting sense of
+something high and powerful looking down upon the earth, a sense of
+all humanity honeycombed with millions upon millions of small
+sorrows, absorbing joys and hopes and fears, and in spite of them
+all the Great Life sweeping on, with no Great Death to check its
+course, no immense catastrophe, all these little troubles like mere
+tiny specks of foam upon the surface of the tide.</p>
+<p>Deborah's visit, the following week, was as he had expected.
+Within an hour after her coming he could feel the tension grow.
+Deborah herself was tense, both from the work she had left in New
+York where she was soon to have five schools, and from the thought
+of her marriage, only a few weeks ahead. She said nothing about it,
+however, until as a sisterly duty Edith tried to draw her out by
+showing an interest in her plans. But the cloud of Bruce's death
+was there, and Deborah shunned the topic. She tried to talk of the
+children instead. But Edith at once was on the defensive, vigilant
+for trouble, and as she unfolded her winter plans she grew
+distinctly brief and curt.</p>
+<p>"If Deborah doesn't see it now, she's a fool," her father told
+himself. "I'll just wait a few days more, and then we'll have that
+little talk."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>CHAPTER
+XXIV</h2>
+<p>It had rained so hard for the past two days that no one had gone
+to the village, which was nearly three miles from the farm. But
+when the storm was over at last, George and Elizabeth tramped down
+and came back at dusk with a bag full of mail. Their clothes were
+mud-bespattered and they hurried upstairs to change before supper,
+while Roger settled back in his chair and spread open his New York
+paper. It was July 30, 1914.</p>
+<p>From a habit grown out of thirty odd years of business life,
+Roger read his paper in a fashion of his own. By instinct his eye
+swept the page for news dealing with individual men, for it was
+upon people's names in print that he had made his living. And so
+when he looked at this strange front page it gave him a swift
+twinge of alarm. For the news was not of men but of nations.
+Austria was massing her troops along the Serbian frontier, and
+Germany, Italy, Russia, France and even England, all were in a
+turmoil, with panics in their capitals, money markets going
+wild.</p>
+<p>Edith came down, in her neat black dress with its narrow white
+collar, ready for supper. She glanced at her father.</p>
+<p>"Why, what's the matter?"</p>
+<p>"Look at this." And he tossed her a paper.</p>
+<p>"Oh-h-h," she murmured softly. "Oh, how frightful that would
+be." And she read on with lips compressed. But soon there came from
+a room upstairs the sudden cry of one of her children, followed by
+a shrill wail of distress. And dropping the paper, she hurried
+away.</p>
+<p>Roger continued his reading.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id=
+"Page_174"></a>[174]</span>Deborah came. She saw the paper Edith
+had dropped, picked it up and sat down to read, and there were a
+few moments of absolute silence. Then Roger heard a quivering
+breath, and glancing up he saw Deborah's eyes, intent and startled,
+moving down the columns of print in a swift, uncomprehending
+way.</p>
+<p>"Pretty serious business," he growled.</p>
+<p>"It can't happen!" she exclaimed.</p>
+<p>And they resumed their reading.</p>
+<p>In the next three days, as they read the news, they felt war
+like a whirlpool sucking in all their powers to think or feel, felt
+their own small personal plans whirled about like leaves in a
+storm. And while their minds&mdash;at first dazed and stunned by
+the thought of such appalling armies, battles, death and
+desolation&mdash;slowly cleared and they strove to think, and Roger
+thought of business shivered to atoms in every land, and Deborah
+thought of schools by thousands all over Europe closing down, in
+cities and in villages, in valleys and on mountain sides, of homes
+in panic everywhere, of all ideals of brotherhood shaken, bending,
+tottering&mdash;war broke out in Europe.</p>
+<p>"What is this going to mean to me?"</p>
+<p>Millions of people were asking that. And so did Roger and
+Deborah. The same night they left for New York, while Edith with a
+sigh of relief settled back into her family.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>The next morning at his office Roger found John waiting with
+misery stamped on his face. John had paid small heed to war. Barely
+stopping for sleep in the last two days he had gone through scores
+and hundreds of papers, angrily skipping all those names of kings
+and emperors and czars, and searching instead for American names,
+names of patrons&mdash;business! Gone! Each hour he had been
+opening mail and piling up letters cancelling contracts, ordering
+service discontinued.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id=
+"Page_175"></a>[175]</span>Roger sat down at his desk. As he worked
+and figured and dictated letters, glancing into the outer rooms he
+saw the long rows of girls at tables obviously trying to pretend
+that there was work for them to do. He felt them anxiously watching
+him&mdash;as in other offices everywhere millions of other
+employees kept furtively glancing at their chiefs.</p>
+<p>"War," he thought. "Shall I close <i>down?</i>" He shrank from
+what it would mean to those girls. "Business will pick up again
+soon. A few days&mdash;weeks&mdash;that's all I need."</p>
+<p>And he went to his bank. No credit there. He tried other
+sources, all he could think of, racking his brains as he went about
+town, but still he could not raise a loan. Finally he went to the
+firm which had once held a mortgage on his house. The chief partner
+had been close to Bruce, an old college friend. And when even this
+friend refused him aid, "It's a question of Bruce's children,"
+Roger muttered, reddening. He felt like a beggar, but he was
+getting desperate. The younger man had looked away and was
+nervously tapping his desk with his pen.</p>
+<p>"Bad as that, eh," he answered. "Then I guess it's got to be
+done." He looked anxiously up at Roger, who just at that moment
+appeared very old. "Don't worry, Mr. Gale," he said. "Somehow or
+other we'll carry you through."</p>
+<p>"Thank you, sir." Roger rose heavily, feeling weak, and took his
+departure. "This is war," he told himself, "and I've got to look
+after my own."</p>
+<p>But he had a sensation almost of guilt, as upon his return to
+his office he saw those suddenly watchful faces. He walked past
+them and went into his room, and again he searched for ways and
+means. He tried to see his business as it would be that autumn, to
+see the city, the nation, the world as it would be in the months
+ahead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id=
+"Page_176"></a>[176]</span> Repeatedly he fought off his fears. But
+slowly and inexorably the sense of his helplessness grew clear.</p>
+<p>"No, I must shut down," he thought.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>On his way home that evening, in a crush at a turbulent corner
+he saw a big truck jam into a taxi, and with a throb of rebellion
+he thought of his son-in-law who was dead. Just the turn of a hair
+and Bruce might have lived and been here to look after the
+children! At the prospect of the crisis, the strain he saw before
+him, Roger again felt weak and old. He shook off his dread and
+strode angrily on.</p>
+<p>In his house, the rooms downstairs were still dismantled for the
+summer. There was emptiness and silence but no serenity in them
+now, only the quiet before the storm which he could feel from far
+and near was gathering about his home. He heard Deborah on the
+floor above, and went up and found her making his bed, for the
+chambermaid had not yet come. Her voice was a little unnatural.</p>
+<p>"It has been a hard day, hasn't it. I've got your bath-room
+ready," she said. "Don't you want a nice cool bath? Supper will be
+ready soon."</p>
+<p>When, a half hour later, somewhat refreshed, Roger came down to
+the table, he noticed it was set for two.</p>
+<p>"Isn't Allan coming?" he asked. Her mobile features
+tightened.</p>
+<p>"Not till later," she replied.</p>
+<p>They talked little and the meal was short. But afterwards, on
+the wooden porch, Deborah turned to her father,</p>
+<p>"Now tell me about your office," she said.</p>
+<p>"There's not enough business to pay the rent."</p>
+<p>"That won't last&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I'm not so sure."</p>
+<p>"I am," she said determinedly. Her father slowly turned his
+head.</p>
+<p>"Are you, with this war?" he asked. Her eyes met his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id=
+"Page_177"></a>[177]</span>and moved away in a baffled, searching
+manner. "She has troubles of her own," he thought.</p>
+<p>"How much can we run the house on, Deborah?" he asked her. At
+first she did not answer. "What was it&mdash;about six thousand
+last year?"</p>
+<p>"I think so," she said restlessly. "We can cut down on that, of
+course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"With Edith and the children here?"</p>
+<p>"Edith will have to manage it! There are others to be thought
+of!"</p>
+<p>"The children in your schools, you mean."</p>
+<p>"Yes," she answered with a frown. "It will be a bad year for the
+tenements. But please go on and tell me. What have you thought of
+doing?"</p>
+<p>"Mortgage the house again," he replied. "It hasn't been easy,
+for money is tight, but I think I'll be able to get enough to just
+about carry us through the year. At home, I mean," he added.</p>
+<p>"And the office?"</p>
+<p>"Shut down," he said. She turned on him fiercely.</p>
+<p>"You won't do that!"</p>
+<p>"What else can I do?"</p>
+<p>"Turn all those girls away?" she cried. At her tone his look
+grew troubled.</p>
+<p>"How can I help myself, Deborah? If I kept open it would cost me
+over five hundred a week to run. Have I five hundred dollars a week
+to lose?"</p>
+<p>"But I tell you it won't last!" she cried, and again the
+baffled, driven expression swept over her expressive face. "Can't
+you see this is only a panic&mdash;and keep going somehow? Can't
+you see what it means to the tenements? Hundreds of thousands are
+out of work! They're being turned off every day, every
+hour&mdash;employers all over are losing their heads! And City Hall
+is as mad as the rest! They've decided already down there to
+retrench!"</p>
+<p>He turned with a quick jerk of his head:</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id=
+"Page_178"></a>[178]</span>Are they cutting you down?" She set her
+teeth:</p>
+<p>"Yes, they are. But the work in my schools is going
+on&mdash;every bit of it is&mdash;for every child! I'm going to
+find a way," she said. And he felt a thrill of compassion.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry to hear it," he muttered.</p>
+<p>"You needn't be." She paused a moment, smiled and went on in a
+quieter voice: "Don't think I'm blind&mdash;I'm sensible&mdash;I
+see you can't lose five hundred a week. But why not try what other
+employers, quite a few, have decided to do? Call your people
+together, explain how it is, and ask them to choose a committee to
+help you find which ones need jobs the most. Keep all you
+can&mdash;on part time, of course&mdash;but at least pay them
+something, carry them through. You'll lose money by it, I haven't a
+doubt. But you've already found you can mortgage the house, and
+remember besides that I shall be here. I'm not going to marry
+now"&mdash;her father looked at her quickly&mdash;"and of course
+I'll expect to do my share toward meeting the expenses. Moreover, I
+know we can cut down."</p>
+<p>"Retrench," said Roger grimly. "Turn off the servants instead of
+the clerks."</p>
+<p>"No, only one of them, Martha upstairs&mdash;and she is to be
+married. We'll keep the cook and the waitress. Edith will have to
+give up her nurse&mdash;and it will be hard on her, of
+course&mdash;but she'll have to realize this is war," Deborah said
+sharply. "Besides," she urged, "it's not going to last. Business
+everywhere will pick up&mdash;in a few weeks or months at most. The
+war <i>can't</i> go on&mdash;it's too horribly big!" She broke off
+and anxiously looked at him. Her father was still frowning.</p>
+<p>"I'm asking you to risk a good deal," she continued, her voice
+intense and low. "But somehow, dearie, I always feel that this old
+house of ours is strong. It can <i>stand</i> a good deal. We can
+all of us stand so much, as soon as we know we have to." The lines
+of her wide sensitive mouth tightened firmly once again. "It's all
+so vague and un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id=
+"Page_179"></a>[179]</span>certain, I know. But one thing at least
+is sure. This is no time for people with money&mdash;no matter how
+little&mdash;to shut themselves up in their own little houses and
+let the rest starve or beg or steal. This is the time to do our
+share."</p>
+<p>And she waited. But he made no reply.</p>
+<p>"Every nation at war is doing it, dad&mdash;become like one big
+family&mdash;with everyone helping, doing his share. Must a nation
+be at war to do that? Can't we be brothers without the guns? Can't
+you see that we're all of us stunned, and trying to see what war
+will mean to all the children in the world? And while we're
+groping, groping, can't we give each other a hand?"</p>
+<p>Still he sat motionless there in the dark. At last he stirred
+heavily in his chair.</p>
+<p>"I guess you're right," he told her. "At least I'll think it
+over&mdash;and try to work out something along the lines you spoke
+of."</p>
+<p>Again there was a silence. Then his daughter turned to him with
+a little deprecating smile.</p>
+<p>"You'll forgive my&mdash;preaching to you, dad?"</p>
+<p>"No preaching," he said gruffly. "Just ordinary common
+sense."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>A little later Allan came in, and Roger soon left them and went
+to bed. Alone with Baird she was silent a moment.</p>
+<p>"Well? Have you thought it over?" she asked. "Wasn't I right in
+what I said?" At the anxious ring in her low clear voice, leaning
+over he took her hand; and he felt it hot and trembling as it
+quickly closed on his. He stroked it slowly, soothingly. In the
+semi-darkness he seemed doubly tall and powerful.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I'm sure you were right," he said.</p>
+<p>"Spring at the latest&mdash;I'll marry you then&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Her eyes were intently fixed on his.</p>
+<p>"Come here!" she whispered sharply, and Baird bent <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>over and
+held her tight. "Tighter!" she whispered. "Tighter!... There!... I
+said, spring at the latest! I can't lose you,
+Allan&mdash;now&mdash;"</p>
+<p>She suddenly quivered as though from fatigue.</p>
+<p>"I'm going to watch you close down there," he said in a moment,
+huskily.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span>CHAPTER
+XXV</h2>
+<p>Roger saw little of Deborah in the weeks that followed. She was
+gathering her forces for the long struggle she saw ahead. And his
+own worries filled his mind. On his house he succeeded in borrowing
+five thousand dollars at ten per cent, and in his office he worked
+out a scheme along the lines of Deborah's plan. At first it was
+only a struggle to save the remnants of what was left. Later the
+tide began to turn, new business came into the office again. But
+only a little, and then it stopped. Hard times were here for the
+winter.</p>
+<p>Soon Edith would come with the children. He wondered how
+sensible she would be. It was going to mean a daily fight to make
+ends meet, he told himself, and guiltily he decided not to let his
+daughter know how matters stood in his office. Take care of your
+own flesh and blood, and then be generous as you please&mdash;that
+had always been his way. And now Deborah had upset it by her
+emotional appeal. "How dramatic she is at times!" he reflected in
+annoyance. "Just lets herself out and enjoys herself!" He grew
+angry at her interference, and more than once he resolved to shut
+down. But back in the office, before those watchful faces, still
+again he would put it off.</p>
+<p>"Wait a little. We'll see," he thought.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In the meantime, in this interplay, these shifting lights and
+shadows which played upon the history of the life of Roger's home,
+there came to him a diversion from an unexpected source. Laura and
+Harold returned from abroad. Soon after landing they came to the
+house, and talking fast and eagerly they told how they had eluded
+the war.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id=
+"Page_182"></a>[182]</span>For them it had been a glorious game. In
+Venice in early August, Harold had seen a chance for a big stroke
+of business. He had a friend who lived in Rome, an Italian close to
+his government. At once they had joined forces, worked day and
+night, pulled wires, used money judiciously here and there, and so
+had secured large orders for munitions from the U.S.A. Then to get
+back to God's country! There came the hitch, they were too late.
+Naples, Genoa, and Milan, all were filled with tourist mobs. They
+took a train for Paris, and reaching the city just a week before
+the end of the German drive they found it worse than Italy. But
+there Hal had a special pull&mdash;and by the use of those wits of
+his, not to be downed by refusals, he got passage at last for
+Laura, himself and his new Italian partner. At midnight, making
+their way across the panic-stricken city, and at the station
+struggling through a wild and half crazed multitude of men and
+women and children, they boarded a train and went rushing westward
+right along the edge of the storm. To the north the Germans were so
+close that Laura was sure she could hear the big guns. The train
+kept stopping to take on troops. At dawn some twenty wounded men
+came crowding into their very car, bloody and dirty, pale and worn,
+but gaily smiling at the pain, and saying, "&Ccedil;a n'fait rien,
+madame." Later Harold opened his flask for some splendid Breton
+soldier boys just going into action. And they stood up with
+flashing eyes and shouted out the Marseillaise, while Laura
+shivered and thrilled with delight.</p>
+<p>"I nearly kissed them all!" she cried.</p>
+<p>Roger greatly enjoyed the evening. He had heard so much of the
+horrors of war. Here was something different, something bright and
+vibrant with youth and adventure! Here at last was the thrill of
+war, the part he had always read about!</p>
+<p>He glanced now and then at Deborah and was annoyed by what he
+saw. For although she said nothing and forced <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>a smile,
+he could easily tell by the set of her lips that Deborah thoroughly
+disapproved. All right, that was her way, he thought. But this was
+Laura's way, shedding the gloom and the tragic side as a duck will
+shed water off its back, a duck with bright new plumage fresh from
+the shops of the Rue de la Paix and taking some pleasure out of
+life! What an ardent gleaming beauty she was, he thought as he
+watched this daughter of his. And underneath his enjoyment, too,
+though Roger would not have admitted it, was a sense of relief in
+the news that at least one man in the family was growing rich
+instead of poor. Already Hal and his partner&mdash;a fascinating
+creature according to Laura's description&mdash;were fast equipping
+shrapnel mills. Plainly they expected a tremendous rush of
+business. And no matter how you felt about war, the word "profits"
+at least had a pleasant sound.</p>
+<p>"How has the war hit you, sir?" Harold asked his
+father-in-law.</p>
+<p>"Oh, so-so, I'll get on, my boy," was Roger's quiet answer. For
+Harold was not quite the kind he would ever like to ask for aid.
+Still, if the worst came to the worst, he would have someone to
+turn to.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Long after they had left the house, he kept thinking over all
+they had said. What an amazing time they had had, the two young
+scalawags.</p>
+<p>Deborah was still in the room. As she sat working at her desk,
+her back was turned and she did not speak. But little by little her
+father's mood changed. Of course she was right, he admitted. For
+now they were gone, the spell they had cast was losing a part of
+its glamor. Yes, their talk had been pretty raw. Sheer unthinking
+selfishness, a bold rush for plunder and a dash to get away,
+trampling over people half crazed, women and children in panicky
+crowds, and leaving behind them, so to speak, Laura's joyous
+rippling laugh over their own success <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>in the
+game. Yes, there was no denying the fact that Hal was rushing
+headlong into a savage dangerous game, a scramble and a gamble,
+with adventurers from all over Europe gathering here and making a
+little world of their own. He would work and live at a feverish
+pitch, and Laura would go it as hard as he. Roger thought he could
+see their winter ahead. How they would pile up money and spend!</p>
+<p>All at once, as though some figure silent and invisible were
+standing close beside him, from far back in his childhood a memory
+flashed into his mind of a keen and clear October night, when
+Roger, a little shaver of nine, had stood with his mother in front
+of the farmhouse and listened to the faint sharp roll of a single
+drum far down in the valley. And his mother's grip had hurt his
+hand, and a lump had risen in his throat&mdash;as Dan, his oldest
+brother, had marched away with his company of New Hampshire
+mountain boys. "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred
+thousand more." Dan had been killed at Shiloh.</p>
+<p>And it must be like that now in France. No, he did not like the
+look which he had seen on Laura's face as she had talked about the
+war and the fat profits to be made. Was this all we Yankees had to
+say to the people over in Europe?</p>
+<p>Frowning and glancing at Deborah's back, he saw that she was
+tired. It was nearly midnight, but still she kept working doggedly
+on, moving her shoulder muscles at times as though to shake off
+aches and pains, then bending again to her labor, her fight against
+such heavy odds in the winter just beginning for those children in
+the tenements. He recalled a fragment of the appeal she had made to
+him only the month before:</p>
+<p>"Can't you see that we're all of us stunned, and trying to see
+what war will mean to all the children in the world? And while
+we're groping, groping, can't we give each other a hand?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id=
+"Page_185"></a>[185]</span>And as he looked at his daughter, she
+made him think of her grandmother, as she had so often done before.
+For Deborah, too, was a pioneer. She, too, had lived in the
+wilderness. Clearing roads through jungles? Yes. And freeing slaves
+of ignorance and building a nation of new men. And now she was
+doggedly fighting to save what she had builded&mdash;not from the
+raids of the Indians but from the ravages of this war which was
+sweeping civilization aside. With her school behind her, so to
+speak, she stood facing this great enemy with stern and angry,
+steady eyes. Her pioneer grandmother come to life.</p>
+<p>So, with the deep craving which was a part of his inmost self,
+Roger tried to bind together what was old and what was new. But his
+thoughts grew vague and drifting. He realized how weary he was, and
+said good-night and went to bed. There, just before he fell asleep,
+again he had a feeling of relief at the knowledge that one at least
+in the family was to be rich this year. With a guilty sensation he
+shook off the thought, and within a few moments after that his
+harsh regular breathing was heard in the room.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span>CHAPTER
+XXVI</h2>
+<p>It was only a few days later that Edith arrived with her
+children.</p>
+<p>Roger met her at the train at eight o'clock in the evening. The
+fast mountain express of the summer had been taken off some time
+before, so Edith had had to be up at dawn and to change cars
+several times on the trip. "She'll be worn out," he thought as he
+waited. The train was late. As he walked about the new station,
+that monstrous sparkling hive of travel with its huge halls and
+passageways, its little village of shops underground and its
+bewildering levels for trains, he remembered the interest Bruce had
+shown in watching this immense puzzle worked out, the day and night
+labor year after year without the stopping of a train, this mighty
+symbol of the times, of all the glorious power and speed in an age
+that had been as the breath to his nostrils. How Bruce had loved
+the city! As Roger paced slowly back and forth with his hands
+clasped behind his back, there came over his heavy visage a look of
+affection and regret which made even New Yorkers glance at him as
+they went nervously bustling by. From time to time he smiled to
+himself. "The Catskills will be Central Park! All this city needs
+is speed!"</p>
+<p>But suddenly he remembered that Bruce had always been here
+before to meet his wife and children, and that Edith on her
+approaching train must be dreading her arrival. And when at last
+the train rolled in, and he spied her shapely little head in the
+on-coming throng of travellers, Roger saw by her set steady smile
+and the strained expression on her face that he had guessed right.
+With a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id=
+"Page_187"></a>[187]</span>quick surge of compassion he pressed
+forward, kissed her awkwardly, squeezed her arm, then hastily
+greeted the children and hurried away to see to the trunks. That
+much of it was over. And to his relief, when they reached the
+house, Edith busied herself at once in helping the nurse put the
+children to bed. Later he came up and told her that he had had a
+light supper prepared.</p>
+<p>"Thank you, dear," she answered, "it was so thoughtful in you.
+But I'm too tired to eat anything." And then with a little assuring
+smile, "I'll be all right&mdash;I'm going to bed."</p>
+<p>"Good-night, child, get a fine long sleep."</p>
+<p>And Roger went down to his study, feeling they had made a good
+start.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"What has become of Martha?" Edith asked her father at breakfast
+the next morning.</p>
+<p>"She left last month to be married," he said.</p>
+<p>"And Deborah hasn't replaced her yet?" In her voice was such a
+readiness for hostility toward her sister, that Roger shot an
+uneasy glance from under his thick grayish brows.</p>
+<p>"Has Deborah left the house?" he asked, to gain time for his
+answer. Edith's small lip slightly curled.</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, long ago," she replied. "She had just a moment to see
+the children and then she had to be off to school&mdash;to her
+office, I mean. With so many schools on her hands these days, I
+don't wonder she hasn't had time for the servants."</p>
+<p>"No, no, you're mistaken," he said. "That isn't the trouble,
+it's not her fault. In fact it was all my idea."</p>
+<p>"<i>Your</i> idea," she retorted, in an amused affectionate
+tone. And Roger grimly gathered himself. It would he extremely
+difficult breaking his unpleasant news.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he answered. "You see this damnable war abroad has hit me
+in my business."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id=
+"Page_188"></a>[188]</span>Oh, father! How?" she asked him. In an
+instant she was all alert. "You don't mean seriously?" she
+said.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I do," he answered, and he began to tell her why. But she
+soon grew impatient. Business details meant nothing to Edith. "I
+see," she kept saying, "yes, yes, I see." She wanted him to come to
+the point.</p>
+<p>"So I've had to mortgage the house," he concluded. "And for very
+little money, my dear. And a good deal of that&mdash;" he cleared
+his throat&mdash;"had to go back into the business."</p>
+<p>"I see," said Edith mechanically. Her mind was already far away,
+roving over her plans for the children. For in Roger's look of
+suspense she plainly read that other plans had been made for them
+in her absence. "Deborah's in this!" flashed through her mind.
+"Tell me what it will mean," she said.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid you'll have to try to do without your nurse for a
+while."</p>
+<p>"Let Hannah go? Oh, father!" And Edith flushed with quick
+dismay. "How can I, dad? Five children&mdash;five! And two of them
+so little they can't even dress themselves alone! And there are all
+their meals&mdash;their baths&mdash;and the older ones going uptown
+to school! I can't let them go way uptown on the 'bus or the
+trolley without a maid&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But, Edith!" he interrupted, his face contracting with
+distress. "Don't you see that they can't go to school?" She turned
+on him. "Uptown, I mean, to those expensive private schools."</p>
+<p>"Father!" she demanded. "Do you mean you want my children to go
+to common public schools?" There was rage and amazement upon her
+pretty countenance, and with it an instant certainty too. Yes, this
+was Deborah's planning! But Roger thought that Edith's look was all
+directed at himself. And for the first time in his life he felt the
+shame and humility of the male provider <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span>no
+longer able to provide. He reddened and looked down at his
+plate.</p>
+<p>"You don't understand," he said. "I'm strapped, my child&mdash;I
+can't help it&mdash;I'm poor."</p>
+<p>"Oh. Oh, dad. I'm sorry." He glanced up at his daughter and saw
+tears welling in her eyes. How utterly miserable both of them
+were.</p>
+<p>"It's the war," he said harshly and proudly. This made a
+difference to his pride, but not to his daughter's anxiety. She was
+not interested in the war, or in any other cause of the abyss she
+was facing. She strove to think clearly what to do. But no, she
+must do her thinking alone. With a sudden quiet she rose from the
+table, went around to her father's chair and kissed him very
+gently.</p>
+<p>"All right, dear&mdash;I see it all now&mdash;and I promise I'll
+try my best," she said.</p>
+<p>"You're a brave little woman," he replied.</p>
+<p>But after she had gone, he reflected. Why had he called her a
+brave little woman? Why had it all been so intense, the talk upon
+so heroic a plane? It would be hard on Edith, of course; but others
+were doing it, weren't they? Think of the women in Europe these
+days! After all, she'd be very comfortable here, and perhaps by
+Christmas times would change.</p>
+<p>He shook off these petty troubles and went to his office for the
+day.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>As she busied herself unpacking the trunks, Edith strove to
+readjust her plans. By noon her head was throbbing, but she took
+little notice of that. She had a talk with Hannah, the devoted
+Irish girl who had been with her ever since George was born. It was
+difficult, it was brutal. It was almost as though in Edith's family
+there had been two mothers, and one was sending the other away.</p>
+<p>"There, there, poor child," Edith comforted her, "I'll find you
+another nice family soon where you can stay till<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> I take
+you back. Don't you see it will not be for long?" And Hannah
+brightened a little.</p>
+<p>"But how in the wide wurrld," she asked, "will you ever do for
+the children, me gone?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'll manage," said Edith cheerfully. And that afternoon she
+began at once to rearrange her whole intricate schedule, with
+Hannah and school both omitted, to fit her children into the house.
+But instead of this, as the days wore on, nerve-racking days of
+worry and toil, sternly and quite unconsciously she fitted the
+house to her children. And nobody made her aware of the fact. All
+summer long in the mountains, everyone by tacit consent had made
+way for her, had deferred to her grief in the little things that
+make up the everyday life in a home. And to this precedent once
+established Edith now clung unawares.</p>
+<p>Her new day gave her small time to think. It began at five in
+the morning, when Roger was awakened by the gleeful cries of the
+two wee boys who slept with their mother in the next room, the room
+which had been Deborah's. And Edith was busy from that time on.
+First came the washing and dressing and breakfast, which was a
+merry, boisterous meal. Then the baby was taken out to his carriage
+on the porch at the back of the house. And after that, in her
+father's study from which he had fled with his morning cigar, for
+two hours Edith held school for her children, trying her best to be
+patient and clear, with text-books she had purchased from their
+former schools uptown. For two severe hours, shutting the world all
+out of her head, she tried to teach them about it. At eleven, their
+nerves on edge like her own, she sent them outdoors "to play,"
+intrusting the small ones to Betsy and George, who took them to
+Washington Square nearby with strict injunctions to keep them away
+from all other children. No doubt there were "nice" children there,
+but she herself could not be along to distinguish <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>the
+"nice" from the "common"&mdash;for until one o'clock she was busy
+at home, bathing the baby and making the beds, and then hurrying to
+the kitchen to pasteurize the baby's milk and keep a vigilant
+oversight on the cooking of the midday meal. And the old cook's
+growing resentment made it far from easy.</p>
+<p>After luncheon, thank heaven, came their naps. And all
+afternoon, while again they went out, Edith would look over their
+wardrobes, mend and alter and patch and contrive how to make last
+winter's clothes look new. At times she would drop her work in her
+lap and stare wretchedly before her. This was what she had never
+known; this was what made life around her grim and hard,
+relentless, frightening; this was what it was to be poor. How it
+changed the whole city of New York. Behind it, the sinister cause
+of it all, she thought confusedly now and then of the Great Death
+across the sea, of the armies, smoking battle-fields, the shrieks
+of the dying, the villages blazing, the women and children flying
+away. But never for more than a moment. The war was so remote and
+dim. And soon she would turn back again to her own beloved
+children, whose lives, so full of happiness, so rich in promise
+hitherto, were now so cramped and thwarted. Each day was harder
+than the last. It was becoming unbearable!</p>
+<p>No, they must go back to school. But how to manage it? How? How?
+It would cost eight hundred dollars, and this would take nearly all
+the money she would be able to secure by the sale of her few
+possessions. And then what? What of sickness, and the other
+contingencies which still lay ahead of her? How old her father
+seemed, these days! In his heavy shock of hair the flecks of white
+had doubled in size, were merging one into the other, and his tall,
+stooping, massive frame had lost its look of ruggedness. Suppose,
+suppose.... Her breath came fast. Was his life insured, she
+wondered.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id=
+"Page_192"></a>[192]</span>On such afternoons, in the upstairs room
+as the dusk crept in and deepened, she would bend close to her
+sewing&mdash;planning, planning, planning. At last she would hear
+the children trooping merrily into the house. And making a very
+real effort, which at times was in truth heroic, to smile, she
+would rise and light the gas, would welcome them gaily and join in
+their chatter and bustle about on the countless tasks of washing
+them, getting their suppers, undressing the small ones and hearing
+their prayers. With smiling good-night kisses she would tuck her
+two babies into their cribs. Afterward, just for a moment or two,
+she would linger under the gas jet, her face still smiling, for a
+last look. A last good-night. Then darkness.</p>
+<p>Darkness settling over her spirit, together with loneliness and
+fatigue. She would go into Betsy's room and throw herself dressed
+on her daughter's bed, and a dull complete indifference to
+everything under the moon and the stars would creep from her body
+up into her mind. At times she would try to fight it off. To-night
+at dinner she must not be what she knew she had been the night
+before, a wet blanket upon all the talk. But if they only knew how
+hard it was&mdash;what a perfect&mdash;hell it was! Her breath
+coming faster, she would dig her nails into the palms of her hands.
+One night she noticed and looked at her hand, and saw the skin was
+actually cut and a little blood was appearing. She had read of
+women doing this, but she had never done it before&mdash;not even
+when her babies were born. She had gripped Bruce's hand
+instead.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>CHAPTER
+XXVII</h2>
+<p>Roger found her like that one evening. He heard what he thought
+was a sob from the room, for she had forgotten to close the door.
+He came into the doorway but drew back, and closed the door with
+barely a sound. Frowning and irresolute, he stood for a moment in
+the hall, then turned and went into his room. Soon he heard Deborah
+enter the house and come slowly up the stairs. She too had had a
+hard day, he recalled, a day all filled with turbulence, with
+problems and with vexing toil, in her enormous family. And he felt
+he could not blame her for not being of more help at home. Still,
+he had been disappointed of late in her manner toward her sister.
+He had hoped she would draw closer to Edith, now that again they
+were living together in their old home where they had been born.
+But no, it had worked just the opposite way. They were getting upon
+each other's nerves. Why couldn't she make overtures, small kindly
+proffers of help and advice and sympathy, the womanly things?</p>
+<p>From his room he heard her knock softly at the same door he had
+closed. And he heard her low clear voice:</p>
+<p>"Are you there, Edith dear?" He listened a moment intently, but
+he could not hear the reply. Then Deborah said, "Oh, you poor
+thing. I'm awfully sorry. Edith&mdash;don't bother to come
+downstairs&mdash;let me bring you up your supper." A pause. "I wish
+you would. I'd love to."</p>
+<p>He heard Deborah come by his door and go up the second flight of
+stairs to the room she had taken on the third floor.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id=
+"Page_194"></a>[194]</span>I was wrong," he reflected, "she has
+been trying&mdash;but it doesn't do any good. Women simply haven't
+it in 'em to see each other's point of view. Deborah doesn't admire
+Edith&mdash;she can't, she only pities her and puts her down as out
+of date. And Edith feels that, and it gets her riled, and she sets
+herself like an angry old hen against all Deborah's new ideas. Why
+the devil can't they live and let live?"</p>
+<p>And he hesitated savagely between a pearl gray <i>and</i> a
+black cravat. Then he heard another step on the stairs. It was much
+slower than Deborah's, and cautious and dogged, one foot lifted
+carefully after the other. It was John, who had finished his
+kitchen supper and was silently making his way up through the house
+to his room at the top, there to keep out of sight for the evening.
+And it came into Roger's mind that John had been acting in just
+this fashion ever since Edith had been in the house.</p>
+<p>"We'll have trouble there, too!" he told himself, as he jerked
+the black satin cravat into place, a tie he thoroughly disliked.
+Yes, black, by George, he felt like it to-night! These women! These
+evenings! This worry! This war! This world gone raving, driveling
+mad!</p>
+<p>And frowning with annoyance, Roger went down to his dinner.</p>
+<p>As he waited he grew impatient. He had eaten no lunch, he was
+hungry; and he was very tired, too, for he had had his own hard
+day. Pshaw! He got up angrily. <i>Somebody</i> must be genial here.
+He went into the dining room and poured himself a good stiff drink.
+Roger had never been much of a drinker. Ever since his marriage,
+cigars had been his only vice. But of late he had been having
+curious little sinking spells. They worried him, and he told
+himself he could not afford to get either too tired or too
+faint.</p>
+<p>Nevertheless, he reflected, it was setting a bad example for
+George. But glancing into his study he saw that the lad was
+completely absorbed. With knees drawn up, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>his long
+lank form all hunched and huddled on the lounge, hair rumpled,
+George was reading a book which had a cover of tough gray cloth. At
+the sight of it his grandfather smiled, for he had seen it once
+before. Where George had obtained it, the Lord only knew. Its title
+was "Bulls and Breeding." A thoroughly practical little book, but
+nothing for George's mother to see. As his grandfather entered
+behind him, the boy looked up with a guilty start, and resumed with
+a short breath of relief.</p>
+<p>Young Elizabeth, too, had a furtive air, for instead of
+preparing her history lesson she was deep in the evening paper
+reading about the war abroad. Stout and florid, rather plain, but
+with a frank, attractive face and honest, clear, appealing eyes,
+this curious creature of thirteen was sitting firmly in her chair
+with her feet planted wide apart, eagerly scanning an account of
+the work of American surgeons in France. And again Roger smiled to
+himself. (He was feeling so much better now.) So Betsy was still
+thinking of becoming a surgeon. He wondered what she would take up
+next. In the past two years in swift succession she had made up her
+mind to be a novelist, an actress and a women's college president.
+And Roger liked this tremendously.</p>
+<p>He loved to watch these two in the house. Here again his family
+was widening out before him, with new figures arising to draw his
+attention this way and that. But these were bright distractions. He
+took a deep, amused delight in watching these two youngsters caught
+between two fires, on the one side their mother and upon the other
+their aunt; both obviously drawn toward Deborah, a figure who stood
+in their regard for all that thrilling outside world, that heaving
+sparkling ocean on which they too would soon embark; both sternly
+repressing their eagerness as an insult to their mother, whom they
+loved and pitied so, regarding her as a brave and dear but rapidly
+ageing creature "well on in her thirties," whom they must
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id=
+"Page_196"></a>[196]</span>cherish and preserve. They both had such
+solemn thoughts as they looked at Edith in her chair. But as Roger
+watched them, with their love and their solemnity, their guilt and
+their perplexity, with quiet enjoyment he would wait to see the
+change he knew would come. And it always did. The sudden picking up
+of a book, the vanishing of an anxious frown, and in an instant
+their young minds had turned happily back into themselves, into
+their own engrossing lives, their plans, their intimate dreams and
+ambitions, all so curiously bound up with memories of small
+happenings which had struck them as funny that day and at which
+they would suddenly chuckle aloud.</p>
+<p>And this was only one stage in their growth. What would be the
+next, he asked, and all the others after that? What kind of world
+would they live in? Please heaven, there would be no wars. Many old
+things, no doubt, would be changed, by the work of Deborah and her
+kind&mdash;but not too many, Roger hoped. And these young people,
+meanwhile, would be bringing up children in their turn. So the
+family would go on, and multiply and scatter wide, never to unite
+again. And he thought he could catch glimpses, very small and far
+away but bright as patches of sunlight upon distant mountain tops,
+into the widening vista of those many lives ahead. A wistful look
+crept over his face.</p>
+<p>"In their lives too we shall be there, the dim strong figures of
+the past."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Deborah came into the room, and at once the whole atmosphere
+changed. Her niece sprang up delightedly.</p>
+<p>"Why, Auntie, how lovely you look!" she exclaimed. And Roger
+eyed Deborah in surprise. Though she did not believe in mourning,
+she had been wearing dark gowns of late to avoid hurting Edith's
+feelings. But to-night she had donned bright colors instead; her
+dress was as near d&eacute;collet&eacute; as anything that Deborah
+wore, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id=
+"Page_197"></a>[197]</span>and there was a band of dull blue velvet
+bound about her hair.</p>
+<p>"Thanks, dearie," she said, smiling. "Shall we go in to dinner
+now?" she added to her father. "Edith said not to wait for
+her&mdash;and I'll have to be off rather early this evening."</p>
+<p>"What is it to-night?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"A big meeting at Cooper Union."</p>
+<p>And at dinner she went on to say that in her five schools the
+neighborhood clubs had combined to hold this meeting, and she
+herself was to preside. At once her young niece was all
+animation.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I wish I could go and hear you!" she sighed.</p>
+<p>"Afraid you can't, Betsy," her aunt replied. And at this, with
+an instinctive glance toward the door where her mother would soon
+come in to stop by her mere presence all such conversation,
+Elizabeth eagerly threw out one inquiry after the other, pell
+mell.</p>
+<p>"How on earth do you do it?" she wanted to know. "How do you get
+a speech ready, Aunt Deborah&mdash;how much of it do you write out
+ahead? Aren't you just the least bit nervous&mdash;now, I
+mean&mdash;this minute? And how will you feel on the platform?
+<i>What on earth do you do with your feet?</i>"</p>
+<p>As the girl bent forward there with her gaze fixed ardently on
+her aunt, her grandfather thought in half comic dismay, "Lord, now
+she'll want to be a great speaker&mdash;like her aunt. And she will
+tell her mother so!"</p>
+<p>"What's the meeting all about?" he inquired. And Deborah began
+to explain.</p>
+<p>In her five schools the poverty was rapidly becoming worse. Each
+week more children stayed away or came to school ragged and
+unkempt, some without any overcoats, small pitiful mites wearing
+shoes so old as barely to stick on their feet. And when the
+teachers and visitors followed these children into their homes they
+found bare, dirty, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id=
+"Page_198"></a>[198]</span>chilly rooms where the little folk
+shivered and wailed for food and the mothers looked distracted,
+gaunt and sullen and half crazed. Over three hundred thousand
+workers were idle in the city. Meanwhile, to make matters worse,
+half the money from uptown which had gone in former years into work
+for the tenements was going over to Belgium instead. And the same
+relentless drain of war was felt by the tenement people themselves;
+for all of them were foreigners, and from their relatives abroad,
+in those wide zones of Europe already blackened and laid waste, in
+endless torrents through the mails came wild appeals for money.</p>
+<p>In such homes her children lived. And Deborah had set her mind
+on vigorous measures of relief. Landlords must be made to wait and
+the city be persuaded to give work to the most needy, food and fuel
+must be secured. As she spoke of the task before her, with a flush
+of animation upon her bright expressive face at the thought that in
+less than an hour she would be facing thousands of people, the
+gloom of the picture she painted was dispelled in the spirit she
+showed.</p>
+<p>"These things always work out," she declared, with an impatient
+shrug of her shoulders. And watching her admiringly, young Betsy
+thought, "How strong she is! What a wonderful grown-up woman!" And
+Roger watching thought, "How young."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"What things?" It was Edith's voice at the door, and among those
+at the table there was a little stir of alarm. She had entered
+unnoticed and now took her seat. She was looking pale and tired.
+"What things work out so finely?" she asked, and with a glance at
+Deborah's gown,</p>
+<p>"Where are you going?" she added.</p>
+<p>"To a meeting," Deborah answered.</p>
+<p>"Oh." And Edith began her soup. In the awkward pause that
+followed, twice Deborah started to speak to her <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span>sister,
+but checked herself, for at other dinners just like this she had
+made such dismal failures.</p>
+<p>"By the way, Edith," she said, at last, "I've been thinking of
+all that furniture of yours which is lying in storage." Her sister
+looked up at her, startled.</p>
+<p>"What about it?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"There's so much of it you don't care for," Deborah answered
+quietly. "Why don't you let a part of it go? I mean the few pieces
+you've always disliked."</p>
+<p>"For what purpose?"</p>
+<p>"Why, it seems such a pity not to have Hannah back in the house.
+She would make things so much easier." Roger felt a glow of
+relief.</p>
+<p>"A capital plan!" he declared at once.</p>
+<p>"It would be," Edith corrected him, "if I hadn't already made
+<i>other</i> plans." And then in a brisk, breathless tone, "You see
+I've made up my mind," she said, "to sell not only part but
+<i>all</i> my furniture&mdash;very soon&mdash;and a few other
+belongings as well&mdash;and use the money to put George and
+Elizabeth and little Bob back in the schools where they
+belong."</p>
+<p>"Mother!" gasped Elizabeth, and with a prolonged "Oh-h" of
+delight she ran around to her mother's chair.</p>
+<p>"But look here," George blurted worriedly, "I don't like it,
+mother, darned if I do! You're selling everything&mdash;just for
+school!"</p>
+<p>"School is rather important, George," was Edith's tart
+rejoinder. "If you don't think so, ask your aunt." "What do you
+think of it, Auntie?" he asked. The cloud which had come on
+Deborah's face was lifted in an instant.</p>
+<p>"I think, George," she answered gently, "that you'd better let
+your mother do what she thinks best for you. It <i>will</i> make
+things easier here in the house," she added, to her sister, "but I
+wish you could have Hannah, too."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id=
+"Page_200"></a>[200]</span>Oh, I'll manage nicely now," said Edith.
+And with a slight smile of triumph she resumed her dinner.</p>
+<p>"The war won't last forever," muttered Roger uneasily. And to
+himself: "But suppose it <i>should</i> last&mdash;a year or more."
+He did not approve of Edith's scheme. "It's burning her bridges all
+at once, for something that isn't essential," he thought. But he
+would not tell her so.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Deborah glanced at the clock.</p>
+<p>"Oh! It's nearly eight o'clock! I must hurry or I'll be late,"
+she said. "Good-night, all&mdash;"</p>
+<p>And she left them.</p>
+<p>Roger followed her into the hall.</p>
+<p>"What do you think of this?" he demanded. Her reply was a
+tolerant shrug.</p>
+<p>"It's her own money, father&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"All her money!" he rejoined. "Every dollar she has in the
+world!"</p>
+<p>"But I don't just see how it can be helped."</p>
+<p>"Can't you talk to her, show her what folly it is?"</p>
+<p>"Hardly," said Deborah, smiling. Already she had on her coat and
+hat and was turning to go. And her father scowled with annoyance.
+She was always going, he told himself, leaving him to handle her
+sister alone. He would like to go out himself in the
+evenings&mdash;yes, by George, this very night&mdash;it would act
+like a tonic on his mind. Just for a moment, standing there, he saw
+Cooper Union packed to the doors, he heard the ringing speeches,
+the cheers. But no, it was not to be thought of. With this silent
+war going on in his house he knew he must stay neutral. Watchful
+waiting was his course. If he went out with Deborah, Edith would be
+distinctly hurt, and sitting all evening here alone she would draw
+still deeper into herself. And so it would be night after night, as
+it had been for many weeks. He would be cooped up at home while
+Deborah did the running about.... In half the time <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span>it takes
+to tell it, Roger had worked himself into a state where he felt
+like a mighty badly used man.</p>
+<p>"I wish you <i>would</i> speak to her," he said. "I wish you
+could manage to find time to be here more in the evenings. Edith
+worries so much and she's trying so hard. A little sympathy now and
+then&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But she doesn't seem to want any from me," said his daughter, a
+bit impatiently. "I know it's hard&mdash;of course it is. But what
+can I do? She won't let me help. And besides&mdash;there are other
+families, you know&mdash;thousands&mdash;really suffering&mdash;for
+the lack of all that we have here." She smiled and kissed him
+quickly. "Good-night, dad dear, I've got to run."</p>
+<p>And the door closed behind her.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span>CHAPTER
+XXVIII</h2>
+<p>After dinner that night, in the living room the two older
+children studied their lessons and Edith sat mending a pair of
+rompers for little Tad. Presently Roger came out from his den with
+the evening paper in his hand and sat down close beside her. He did
+this conscientiously almost every evening. With a sigh he opened
+his paper to read, again there was silence in the room, and in this
+silence Roger's mind roamed far away across the sea.</p>
+<p>For the front page of his paper was filled with the usual
+headlines, tidings which a year before would have made a man's
+heart jump into his throat, but which were getting commonplace now.
+Dead and wounded by the thousands, famine, bombs and shrapnel,
+hideous atrocities, submarines and floating mines, words once
+remote but now familiar, always there on the front page and
+penetrating into his soul, becoming a part of Roger Gale, so that
+never again when the war was done would he be the same man he was
+before. For he had forever lost his faith in the sanity and
+steadiness of the great mind of humanity. Roger had thought of
+mankind as mature, but there had come to him of late the same
+feeling he had had before in the bosom of his family. Mankind had
+suddenly unmasked and shown itself for what it was&mdash;still only
+a precocious child, with a terrible precocity. For its growth had
+been one sided. Its strength was growing at a speed breathless and
+astounding. But its vision and its poise, its sense of human
+justice, of kindliness and tolerance and of generous brotherly
+love, these had been neglected and were being left behind. Vaguely
+he thought of its ships of steel, its railroads and its flaming
+mills, its miracles, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id=
+"Page_203"></a>[203]</span>its prodigies. And the picture rose in
+his mind of a child, standing there of giant's size with dangerous
+playthings in its hands, and boastfully declaring,</p>
+<p>"I can thunder over the earth, dive in the ocean, soar on the
+clouds! I can shiver to atoms a mountain, I can drench whole lands
+with blood! I can look up and laugh at God!"</p>
+<p>And Roger frowned as he read the news. What strange new century
+lay ahead? What convulsing throes of change? What was in store for
+his children? Tighter set his heavy jaw.</p>
+<p>"It shall be good," he told himself with a grim determination.
+"For them there shall be better things. Something great and
+splendid shall come out of it at last. They will look back upon
+this time as I look on the French Revolution."</p>
+<p>He tried to peer into that world ahead, dazzling, distant as the
+sun. But then with a sigh he returned to the news, and little by
+little his mind again was gripped and held by the most compelling
+of all appeals so far revealed in humanity's growth, the appeal of
+war to the mind of a man. He frowned as he read, but he read on.
+Why didn't England send over more men?</p>
+<p>The clock struck nine.</p>
+<p>"Now, George. Now, Elizabeth," Edith said. With the usual delay
+and reluctance the children brought their work to an end, kissed
+their mother and went up to bed. And Edith continued sewing.
+Presently she smiled to herself. Little Tad had been so droll that
+day.</p>
+<p>On the third page of his paper, Roger's glance was arrested by a
+full column story concerning Deborah's meeting that night. And as
+in a long interview he read here in the public print the same
+things she had told him at supper, he felt a little glow of pride.
+Yes, this daughter of his was a wonderful woman, living a big
+useful life, taking a leading part in work which would certainly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id=
+"Page_204"></a>[204]</span>brighten the lives of millions of
+children still unborn. Again he felt the tonic of it. Here was a
+glimmer of hope in the world, here was an antidote to war. He
+finished the column and glanced up.</p>
+<p>Edith was still sewing. He thought of her plan to sell all she
+possessed in order to put her children back in their expensive
+schools uptown.</p>
+<p>"Why can't she save her money?" he thought. "God knows there's
+little enough of it left. But I can't tell her that. If I do she'll
+sell everything, hand me the cash and tell me she's sorry to be
+such a burden. She'll sit like a thundercloud in my house."</p>
+<p>No, he could say nothing to stop her. And over the top of his
+paper her father shot a look at her of keen exasperation. Why risk
+everything she had to get these needless frills and fads? Why must
+she cram her life so full of petty plans and worries and
+titty-tatty little jobs? For the Lord's sake, leave their clothes
+alone! And why these careful little rules for every minute of their
+day, for their washing, their dressing, their eating, their
+napping, their play and the very air they breathed! He crumpled his
+paper impatiently. She was always talking of being old-fashioned.
+Well then, why not be that way? Let her live as her grandmother
+had, up there in the mountain farmhouse. <i>She</i> had not been so
+particular. With one hired girl she had thought herself lucky. And
+not only had she cooked and sewed, but she had spun and woven too,
+had churned and made cheese and pickles and jam and quilts and even
+mattresses. Once in two months she had cut Roger's hair, and the
+rest of the time she had let him alone, except for something really
+worth while&mdash;a broken arm, for example, or church. She had
+stuck to the essentials!... But Edith was not old-fashioned, nor
+was she alive to this modern age. In short, she was neither here
+nor there!</p>
+<p>Then from the nursery above, her smallest boy was <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span>heard to
+cry. With a little sigh of weariness, quickly she rose and went
+upstairs, and a few moments later to Roger's ears came a low,
+sweet, soothing lullaby. Years ago Edith had asked him to teach her
+some of his mother's cradle songs. And the one which she was
+singing to-night was a song he had heard when he was small, when
+the mountain storms had shrieked and beat upon the rattling old
+house and he had been frightened and had cried out and his mother
+had come to his bed in the dark. He felt as though she were near
+him now. And as he listened to the song, from the deep well of
+sentiment which was a part of Roger Gale rose memories that changed
+his mood, and with it his sense of proportions.</p>
+<p>Here was motherhood of the genuine kind, not orating in Cooper
+Union in the name of every child in New York, but crooning low and
+tenderly, soothing one little child to sleep, one of the five she
+herself had borne, in agony, without complaint. How Edith had
+slaved and sacrificed, how bravely she had rallied after the death
+of her husband. He remembered her a few hours ago on the bed
+upstairs, spent and in anguish, sobbing, alone. And remorse came
+over him. Deborah's talk at dinner had twisted his thinking, he
+told himself. Well, that was Deborah's way of life. She had her
+enormous family and Edith had her small one, and in this hell of
+misery which war was spreading over the earth each mother was up in
+arms for her brood. And, by George, of the two he didn't know but
+that he preferred his own flesh and blood. All very noble, Miss
+Deborah, and very dramatic, to open your arms to all the children
+under the moon and get your name in the papers. But there was
+something pretty fine in just sitting at home and singing to
+one.</p>
+<p>"All right, little mother, you go straight ahead. This is war
+and panic and hard times. You're perfectly right to look after your
+own."</p>
+<p>He would show Edith he did not begrudge her this <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span>use of
+her small property. And more than that, he would do what he could
+to take her out of her loneliness. How about reading aloud to her?
+He had been a capital reader, during Judith's lifetime, for he had
+always enjoyed it so. Roger rose and went to his shelves and began
+to look over the volumes there. Perhaps a book of travel....
+Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Edith came into the room, sat down and took up her
+sewing. As she did so he turned and glanced at her, and she smiled
+brightly back at him. Yes, he thought with a genial glow, from this
+night on he would do his part. He came back to his chair with a
+book in his hand, prepared to start on his new course.</p>
+<p>"Father," she said quietly. Her eyes were on the work in her
+lap.</p>
+<p>"Yes, my child, what is it?"</p>
+<p>"It's about John," she answered. And with a movement of alarm he
+looked at his daughter intently.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter with John?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"He has tuberculosis," she said.</p>
+<p>"He has no such thing!" her father retorted. "John has Pott's
+Disease of the spine!"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I know he has," she replied. "And I'm sorry for him, poor
+lad. But in the last year," she added, "certain complications have
+come. And now he's tubercular as well."</p>
+<p>"How do you know? He doesn't cough&mdash;his lungs are sound as
+yours or mine!"</p>
+<p>"No, it's&mdash;" Edith pursed her lips. "It's different," she
+said softly.</p>
+<p>"Who told you?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Not Deborah," was the quick response. "She knew it, I'm
+certain, for I find that she's been having Mrs. Neale, the woman
+who comes in to wash, do John's things in a separate tub. I found
+her doing it yesterday, and she told me what Deborah had said."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id=
+"Page_207"></a>[207]</span>It's the first I'd heard of it," Roger
+put in.</p>
+<p>"I know it is," she answered. "For if you'd heard of it before,
+I don't believe you'd have been as ready as Deborah was,
+apparently, to risk infecting the children here." Edith's voice was
+gentle, slow and relentless. There was still a reflection in her
+eyes of the tenderness which had been there as she had soothed her
+child to sleep. "As time goes on, John is bound to get worse. The
+risk will be greater every week."</p>
+<p>"Oh, pshaw!" cried her father. "No such thing! You're just
+scaring yourself over nothing at all!"</p>
+<p>"Doctor Lake didn't think I was." Lake was the big child
+specialist in whose care Edith's children had been for years. "I
+talked to him to-day on the telephone, and he said we should get
+John out of the house."</p>
+<p>Roger heartily damned Doctor Lake!</p>
+<p>"It's easy to find a good home for the boy," Edith went on
+quietly, "close by, if you like&mdash;in some respectable family
+that will be only too thankful to take in a boarder."</p>
+<p>"How about the danger to that family's children?" Roger asked
+malignantly.</p>
+<p>"Very well, father, do as you please. Take any risk you want
+to."</p>
+<p>"I'm taking no risk," he retorted. "If there were any risk they
+would have told me&mdash;Allan and Deborah would, I mean."</p>
+<p>"They wouldn't!" burst from Edith with a vehemence which
+startled him. "They'd take the same risk for my children they would
+for any street urchin in town! All children are the same in their
+eyes&mdash;and if you feel as they do&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I don't feel as they do!"</p>
+<p>"Don't you? Then I'm telling you that Doctor Lake said there was
+very serious risk&mdash;every day this boy remains in the house!"
+Roger rose angrily from his chair:</p>
+<p>"So you want me to turn him out! To-night!"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id=
+"Page_208"></a>[208]</span>No, I want you to wait a few
+days&mdash;until we can find him a decent home."</p>
+<p>"All right, I won't do it!"</p>
+<p>"Very well, father&mdash;it's your house, not mine."</p>
+<p>For a few moments longer she sat at her sewing, while her father
+walked the floor. Then abruptly she rose, her eyes brimming with
+tears, and left the room. And he heard a sob as she went
+upstairs.</p>
+<p>"Now she'll shut herself up with her children," he reflected
+savagely, "and hold the fort till I come to terms!" Rather than
+risk a hair on their heads, Edith would turn the whole world out of
+doors! He thought of Deborah and he groaned. She would have to be
+told of this; and when she was, what a row there would be! For
+Johnny was one of <i>her</i> family. He glanced at the clock. She'd
+be coming home soon. Should he tell her? Not to-night! Just for one
+evening he'd had enough!</p>
+<p>He picked up the book he had meant to read&mdash;Stoddard's
+"Lectures on Japan." And Roger snorted wrathfully. By George, how
+<i>he'd</i> like to go to Japan&mdash;or to darkest Africa!
+Anywhere!</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>CHAPTER
+XXIX</h2>
+<p>But later in the evening, when Allan and Deborah came in, Roger,
+who in the meantime had had a good hour in Japan and was somewhat
+relaxed and soothed, decided at once this was the time to tell her
+and have done with it. For Deborah was flushed with triumph, the
+meeting had been a huge success. Cooper Union had been packed to
+the walls, with an overflow meeting out on the street; thousands of
+dollars had been pledged and some big politicians had promised
+support; and men and women, rich and poor, had volunteered their
+services. She started to tell him about it, but noticed his
+troubled expression and asked him what was on his mind.</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing tremendous," Roger said. "I hate to be any damper
+to-night. I hadn't meant to tell you to-night&mdash;but I think I
+will now, for you look as though you could find a solution for
+anything."</p>
+<p>"Then I must look like an idiot," his daughter said
+good-humoredly. "What is it?" she demanded.</p>
+<p>"It's about John." Her countenance changed.</p>
+<p>"Oh. Is he worse?"</p>
+<p>"Edith thinks he is&mdash;and she says it's not safe."</p>
+<p>"I see&mdash;she wants him out of the house. Tell me what she
+said to you." As he did so she listened intently, and turning to
+Allan at the end, "What do you say to this, Allan?" she asked. "Is
+there any real risk to the children?"</p>
+<p>"A little," he responded. "As much as they take every day in the
+trolley going to school."</p>
+<p>"They never go in the trolley," Deborah answered dryly. "They
+always go on the top of the 'bus." She was <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span>silent
+for a moment. "Well, there's no use discussing it. If Edith feels
+that way, John must go. The house won't be livable till he
+does."</p>
+<p>Roger looked at her in surprise. He felt both relieved and
+disappointed. "John's only one of thousands to her," he told
+himself aggrievedly. "He isn't close to her, she hasn't room, she
+has a whole mass meeting in her head. But I haven't, by George, I
+like the boy&mdash;and I'm the one who will have to tell him to
+pack up and leave the house! Isn't it the very devil, how things
+all come back on me?"</p>
+<p>"Look here, father," Deborah said, "suppose you let me manage
+this." And Roger's heavy visage cleared.</p>
+<p>"You mean you'll tell him?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," she replied, "and he'll understand it perfectly. I think
+he has been expecting it. I have, for a good many weeks," she
+added, with some bitterness. "And I know some people who will be
+glad enough to take him in. I'll see that he's made comfortable.
+Only&mdash;" her face clouded.</p>
+<p>"It has meant a lot to him, being here," her father put in
+gruffly.</p>
+<p>"Oh, John's used to getting knocks in this world." Her quiet
+voice grew hard and stern. "I wasn't thinking of John just now.
+What frightens me at times like this is Edith," she said slowly.
+"No, not just Edith&mdash;motherhood. I see it in so many mothers
+these days&mdash;in the women downtown, in their fight for their
+children against all other children on earth. It's the hardest
+thing we have to do&mdash;to try to make them see and feel outside
+of their own small tenement homes&mdash;and help each
+other&mdash;pull together. They can't see it's their only chance!
+And all because of this mother love! It's so blind sometimes, like
+an animal!" She broke off, and for a moment she seemed to be
+looking deep into herself. "And I suppose we're all like that, we
+women are," she muttered, "when we marry and have children. If the
+pinch is ever hard enough&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id=
+"Page_211"></a>[211]</span><i>You</i> wouldn't be," said Allan. And
+a sudden sharp uneasiness came into Roger's mind.</p>
+<p>"When are you two to be married?" he asked, without stopping to
+think. And at once he regretted his question. With a quick
+impatient look at him, Allan bent over a book on the table.</p>
+<p>"I don't know," Deborah answered. "Next spring, I hope." The
+frown was still on her face.</p>
+<p>"Don't make it too long," said her father brusquely. He left
+them and went up to bed.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Deborah sat motionless. She wished Allan would go, for she
+guessed what was coming and did not feel equal to it to-night. All
+at once she felt tired and unnerved from her long exciting evening.
+If only she could let go of herself and have a good cry. She locked
+her hands together and looked up at him with impatience. He was
+still at the table, his back was turned.</p>
+<p>"Don't you <i>know</i> I love you?" she was thinking fiercely.
+"Can't you see it&mdash;haven't you seen it&mdash;growing,
+growing&mdash;day after day? But I don't want you here to-night!
+Why can't you see you must leave me alone? Now! This minute!"</p>
+<p>He turned and came over in front of her, and stood looking
+steadily down.</p>
+<p>"I wonder," he said slowly, "how well you understand
+yourself."</p>
+<p>"I think I do," she muttered. With a sudden twitching of her lip
+she looked quickly up at him. "Go on, Allan&mdash;let's talk it all
+over now if you must!"</p>
+<p>"Not if you feel like that," he said. At his tone of displeasure
+she caught his hand.</p>
+<p>"Yes, yes, I want to! Please!" she cried. "It's
+better&mdash;really! Believe me, it is&mdash;"</p>
+<p>He hesitated a moment, his wide generous mouth set hard, and
+then in a tone as sharp as hers he demanded,<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span> "Are
+you sure you'll marry me next spring? Are you sure you <i>hope</i>
+you will next spring? Are you sure this sister of yours in the
+house, on your nerves day and night, with this blind narrow
+motherhood, this motherhood which frightens you&mdash;isn't
+frightening you too much?"</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;a little&mdash;but not too much." Her deep sweet voice
+was trembling. "You're the one who frightens me. If you only knew!
+When you come like this&mdash;with all you've done for me back of
+you&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Deborah! Don't be a fool!"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I know you say you've done nothing, except what you've been
+glad to do! You love me like that! But it's just that love! Giving
+up all your practice little by little, and your reputation
+uptown&mdash;all for the sake of me, Allan, me!"</p>
+<p>"You're wrong," he replied. "Compared to what I'm getting, I've
+given up nothing! Can't you see? You're just as narrow in your
+school as Edith is right here in her home! You look upon my
+hospital as a mere annex to your schools, when the truth of it is
+that the work down there is a chance I've wanted all my life! Can't
+you understand," he cried, "that instead of your being in debt to
+me it's I who am in debt to you? You're a suffragist, eh, a
+feminist&mdash;whatever you want to call it! All right! So you want
+to be equal with man! Then, for God's sake, why not begin?
+<i>Feel</i> equal! I'm no annex to you, nor you to me! It has
+happened, thank God, that our work fits in&mdash;each with the
+other!"</p>
+<p>He stopped and stared, seemed to shake himself; he walked the
+floor. And when he turned back his expression had changed.</p>
+<p>"Look here, Deborah," he asked, with an appealing humorous
+smile, "will you tell me what I'm driving at?"</p>
+<p>Deborah threw back her head and laughed, and her laughter
+thrilled with relief. "How sure I feel now that I love him," she
+thought.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id=
+"Page_213"></a>[213]</span>You've proved I owe you nothing!" she
+cried. "And that men and women of our kind can work on splendidly
+side by side, and never bother our poor little heads about anything
+else&mdash;even marriage!"</p>
+<p>"We will, though!" he retorted. The next moment she was in his
+arms. "Now, Deborah, listen to reason, child. Why can't you marry
+me right away?"</p>
+<p>"Because," she said, "when I marry you I'm going to have you all
+to myself&mdash;for weeks and weeks as we planned before! And
+afterwards, with a wonderful start&mdash;and with the war over,
+work less hard and the world less dark and gloomy&mdash;we're going
+to find that at last we can live! But this winter it couldn't be
+like that. This winter we've got to go on with our work&mdash;and
+without any more silly worries or talk about whether or not we're
+in love. <i>For we are</i>!" Her upturned face was close to his,
+and for some moments nothing was said, "Well?" she asked. "Are you
+satisfied?"</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;I want to get married. But it is now a quarter past
+one. And I'm your physician. Go straight to bed."</p>
+<p>She stopped him a minute at the front door:</p>
+<p>"Are you sure, absolutely, you understand?"</p>
+<p>He told her he did. But as he walked home he reflected. How
+tense she had been in the way she had talked. Yes, the long strain
+was telling. "Why was she so anxious to get me out of the house,"
+he asked, "when we were alone for the first time in days? And why,
+if she's really sure of her love, does she hate the idea that she's
+in my debt?"</p>
+<p>He walked faster, for the night was cold. And there was a chill,
+too, in this long waiting game.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Roger heard Deborah come up to bed, and he wondered what they
+had been talking about. Of the topic he himself had
+broached&mdash;each other, love and marriage?</p>
+<p>"Possibly&mdash;for a minute or two&mdash;but no more," he
+grumbled. "For don't forget there's work to discuss, there's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id=
+"Page_214"></a>[214]</span>that mass meeting still on her mind. And
+God knows a woman's mind is never any child's play. But when you
+load a mass meeting on top&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Here he yawned long and noisily. His head ached, he felt sore
+and weak&mdash;"from the evening's entertainment my other daughter
+gave me." No, he was through, he had had enough. They could settle
+things to suit themselves. Let Edith squander her money on frills,
+the more expensive the better. Let her turn poor Johnny out of the
+house, let her give full play to her motherhood. And if that scared
+Deborah out of marrying, let her stay single and die an old maid.
+He had worried enough for his family. He wanted a little peace in
+his house.</p>
+<p>Drowsily he closed his eyes, and a picture came into his mind of
+the city as he had seen it only a few nights before. It had been so
+cool, so calm and still. At dusk he had been in the building of the
+great tower on Madison Square; and when he had finished his
+business there, on an impulse he had gone up to the top, and
+through a wide low window had stood a few moments looking down. A
+soft light snow was falling; and from high up in the storm, through
+the silent whirling flakes, he had looked far down upon lights
+below, in groups and clusters, dancing lines, between tall phantom
+buildings, blurred and ghostly, faint, unreal. From all that bustle
+and fever of life there had risen to him barely a sound. And the
+town had seemed small and lonely, a little glow in the infinite
+dark, fulfilling its allotted place for its moment in eternity.
+Suddenly from close over his head like a brazen voice out of the
+sky, hard and deafening and clear, the great bell had boomed the
+hour. Then again had come the silence, and the cool, soft, whirling
+snow.</p>
+<p>Like a dream it faded all away, and with a curious smile on his
+face presently Roger fell asleep.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span>CHAPTER
+XXX</h2>
+<p>And now he felt the approach at last of another season of quiet,
+one of those uneventful times which come in family histories. As he
+washed and dressed for dinner, one night a little later, he thought
+with satisfaction, "How nicely things are smoothing out." His
+dressing for dinner, as a rule, consisted in changing his low wing
+collar and his large round detachable cuffs; but to-night he
+changed his cravat as well, from a black to a pearl gray one. He
+hoped the whole winter would be pearl gray.</p>
+<p>The little storm which Edith had raised over John's presence in
+the house had been allayed. Deborah had talked to John, and had
+moved him with his belongings to a comfortable sunny room in the
+small but neat apartment of a Scotch family nearby. And John had
+been so sensible. "Oh, I'm fine, thank you," he had answered
+simply, when in the office Roger had asked him about his new home.
+So that incident was closed. Already Edith was disinfecting John's
+old room to her heart's content, for George was to occupy it now.
+She was having the woodwork repainted and a new paper put on the
+walls. She had already purchased a small new rug, and a bed and a
+bureau and one easy chair, and was making a pair of fresh pretty
+curtains. All right, let her do it&mdash;if only there could be
+peace in the house.</p>
+<p>With his cravat adjusted and his thick-curling silver hair trim
+from having just been cut by "Louis" over at the Brevoort, Roger
+went comfortably down to his dinner. Edith greeted him with a
+smile.</p>
+<p>"Deborah's dining out," she said.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he replied, "so much the better. We'll <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span>go right
+in&mdash;I'm hungry. And we'll have the evening to ourselves. No
+big ideas nor problems. Eh, daughter?" He slipped his hand in hers,
+and she gave it a little affectionate squeeze. With John safely out
+of the way, and not only the health of her children but their
+proper schooling assured, Edith was herself again, placid, sweet
+and kindly. And dinner that night was a cheerful meal. Later, in
+the living room, as Roger contentedly lit his cigar, Edith gave an
+appreciative sniff.</p>
+<p>"You do smoke such good cigars, father," she said, smiling over
+her needle. And glancing up at her daughter, "Betsy, dear," she
+added, "go and get your grandfather's evening paper."</p>
+<p>In quiet perusal of the news he spent the first part of his
+evening. The war did not bother him to-night, for there had come a
+lull in the fighting, as though even war could know its place. And
+times were better over here. As, skipping all news from abroad his
+eye roved over the pages for what his business depended upon, Roger
+began to find it now. The old familiar headliness were reappearing
+side by side&mdash;high finance exposures, graft, the antics and
+didos cut up by the sons and daughters of big millionaires; and
+after them in cheery succession the Yale-Harvard game, a new man
+for the Giants, a new college building for Cornell, a new city plan
+for Seattle, a woman senator in Arizona and in Chicago a "sporting
+mayor." In brief, all over the U.S.A., men and women old and new
+had risen up, to power, fame, notoriety, whatever you chose to call
+it. Men and women? Hardly. "Children" was the better word. But the
+thought did not trouble Roger to-night. He had instead a heartening
+sense of the youth, the wild exuberance, the boundless vigor in his
+native land. He could feel it rising once again. Life was soon to
+go on as before; people were growing hungry to see the names of
+their countrymen back in the headlines where they belonged. And
+Roger's business was picking <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span>up. He was not sure of the
+figure of his deficit last week&mdash;he had always been vague on
+the book-keeping side&mdash;but he knew it was down
+considerably.</p>
+<p>When Betsy and George had gone to bed, Roger put down his
+paper.</p>
+<p>"Look here, Edith," he proposed, "how'd you like me to read
+aloud while you sew?" She looked up with a smile of pleased
+surprise.</p>
+<p>"Why, father dear, I'd love it." At once, she bent over her
+needle again, so that if there were any awkwardness attending this
+small change in their lives it did not reveal itself in her pretty
+countenance. "What shall we read?" she affably asked.</p>
+<p>"I've got a capital book," he replied. "It's about travel in
+Japan."</p>
+<p>"I'd like nothing better," Edith replied. And with a slight glow
+of pride in himself Roger took his book in hand. The experiment was
+a decided success. He read again the next night and the next, while
+Edith sat at her sewing. And so this hour's companionship, from
+nine to ten in the evening, became a regular custom&mdash;just one
+hour and no more, which Roger spent with his daughter, intimately
+and pleasantly. Yes, life was certainly smoothing out.</p>
+<p>Edith's three older children had been reinstated in school. And
+although at first, when deprived of their aid, she had found it
+nearly impossible to keep her two small boys amused and give them
+besides the four hours a day of fresh air they required, she had
+soon met this trouble by the same simple process as before. Of her
+few possessions still unsold, she had disposed of nearly all, and
+with a small fund thus secured she had sent for Hannah to return.
+The house was running beautifully.</p>
+<p>Christmas, too, was drawing near. And though Roger knew that in
+Edith's heart was a cold dread of this season, she bravely kept it
+to herself; and she set about so determinedly to make a merry
+holiday, that her father ad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218"
+id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span>miring her pluck drew closer still to
+his daughter. He entered into her Christmas plans and into all the
+conspiracies which were whispered about the house. Great secrets,
+anxious consultations, found in him a ready listener.</p>
+<p>So passed three blessed quiet weeks, and he had high hopes for
+the winter.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXI</h2>
+<p>If there were any cloud upon his horizon, it was the thought of
+Laura. She had barely been to the house since Edith had come back
+to town; and at times, especially in the days when things had
+looked dark for Roger, he had caught himself reproaching this
+giddy-gaddy youngest child, so engrossed in her small
+"m&eacute;nage" that apparently she could not spare a thought for
+her widowed sister. Laura on her return from abroad had brought as
+a gift for Edith a mourning gown from Paris, a most alluring
+creation&mdash;so much so, in fact, that Edith had felt it simply
+indecent, insulting, and had returned it to her sister with a
+stilted note of thanks. But Roger did not know of this. There were
+so many ways, he thought, in which Laura might have been nice to
+Edith. She had a gorgeous limousine in which she might so easily
+have come and taken her sister off on little trips uptown. But no,
+she kept her car to herself. And from her small apartment, where a
+maid whom she had brought from Rome dressed her several times each
+day, that limousine rushed her noiselessly forth, gay and wild as
+ever, immaculate and elegant, radiant and very rich. To what places
+did she go? What new friends was she making? What was Laura up
+to?</p>
+<p>He did not like her manner, one evening when she came to the
+house. As he helped her off with her cloak, a sleek supple leopard
+skin which fitted her figure like a glove, he asked,</p>
+<p>"Where's Hal this evening?" And she answered lightly,</p>
+<p>"Oh, don't ask <i>me</i> what he does with himself."</p>
+<p>"You mean, I suppose," said Edith, with quiet dis<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id=
+"Page_220"></a>[220]</span>approval, "that he is rushed to death
+this year with all this business from the war."</p>
+<p>"Yes, it's business," Laura replied, as she deftly smoothed and
+patted her soft, abundant, reddish hair. "And it's war, too," she
+added.</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" her father asked. He knew what she meant,
+war with her husband. But before Laura could answer him, Edith cut
+in hastily, for two of her children were present. At dinner she
+turned the talk to the war. But even on this topic, Laura's remarks
+were disturbing. She did not consider the war wholly bad&mdash;by
+no means, it had many good points. It was clearing away a lot of
+old rubbish, customs, superstitions and institutions out of date.
+"Musty old relics," she called them. She spoke as though repeating
+what someone else had told her. Laura with her chicken's mind could
+never have thought it all out by herself. When asked what she
+meant, she was smilingly vague, with a glance at Edith's
+youngsters. But she threw out hints about the church and even
+Christianity, as though it were falling to pieces. She spoke of a
+second Renaissance, "a glorious pagan era" coming. And then she
+exploded a little bomb by inquiring of Edith.</p>
+<p>"What do you think the girls over there are going to do for
+husbands, with half the marriageable men either killed or
+hopelessly damaged? They're not going to be nuns all their
+lives!"</p>
+<p>Again her sister cut her off, and the rest of the brief evening
+was decidedly awkward. Yes, she was changing, growing fast. And
+Roger did not like it. Here she was spending money like water,
+absorbed in her pleasures, having no baby, apparently at loose ends
+with her husband, and through it all so cocksure of herself and her
+outrageous views about war, and smiling about them with such an
+air, and in her whole manner, such a tone of amused superiority.
+She talked about a world for the strong, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span>bits of
+gabble from Nietzsche and that sort of rot; she spoke blithely of a
+Rome reborn, the "Wings of the Eagles" heard again. This part of it
+she had taken, no doubt, from her new Italian friend, her husband's
+shrapnel partner.</p>
+<p>Pshaw! What was Laura up to?</p>
+<p>But that was only one evening. It was not repeated, another
+month went quickly by, and Roger had soon shaken it from him, for
+he had troubles enough at home. One daughter at a time, he had
+thought. And as the dark clouds close above him had cleared, the
+other cloud too had drifted away, until it was small, just on the
+horizon, far away from Roger's house. What was Laura up to? He
+barely ever thought of that now.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>But one night when he came home, Edith, who sat in the living
+room reading aloud to her smaller boys, gave him a significant look
+which warned him something had happened. And turning to take off
+his overcoat, in the hall he almost stumbled upon a pile of hand
+luggage, two smart patent leather bags, a hat trunk and a sable
+cloak.</p>
+<p>"Hello," he exclaimed. "What's this? Who's here?"</p>
+<p>"Laura," Edith answered. "She's up in Deborah's room, I
+think&mdash;they've been up there for over an hour." Roger looked
+indignantly in at his daughter.</p>
+<p>"What has happened?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Edith replied. "They didn't seem
+to need me. They made it rather plain, in fact. Another quarrel, I
+presume. She came into the house like a whirlwind, asked at once
+for Deborah and flew up to Deborah's room."</p>
+<p>"Pshaw!" Roger heavily mounted the stairs. He at least did not
+feel like flying. A whirlwind, eh&mdash;a nice evening ahead!</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Meanwhile, in her room upstairs Deborah sat motionless, sternly
+holding her feelings down, while in a tone <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span>now
+kindly but more often full of a sharp dismay, she threw out
+question after question to Laura who was walking the floor in a
+quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her
+voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.</p>
+<p>"No, this time it's divorce!" she declared, at the end of her
+first outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband's
+double life. "I've stood it long enough! I'm through!"</p>
+<p>"You mean you don't care for him," Deborah said. She was
+fighting for time to think it out. "You want a divorce. Very well,
+Laura dear&mdash;but how do you think you are going to get it? The
+laws are rather strict in this state. They allow but one cause.
+Have you any proofs?"</p>
+<p>"No, I haven't&mdash;but I don't need any proofs! He wants it as
+badly as I do! Wait&mdash;I'll give you his very words!" Laura's
+face grew white with fury. "'It's entirely up to you,
+Sweetie'&mdash;the beast!&mdash;'You can have any kind of divorce
+you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to
+fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the
+reporters and tell them all about yourself!'"</p>
+<p>"<i>Your husband is to bring suit against you</i>?" Deborah's
+voice was loud and harsh. "For God's sake, Laura, what do you
+mean?"</p>
+<p>"Mean? I mean that <i>he has proofs</i>! He has used a
+detective, the mean little cur, and he's treating me like the dirt
+under his feet! Just as though it were one thing for a man, and
+another&mdash;quite&mdash;for a woman! He even had the nerve to be
+mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn me!&mdash;turn me
+out on the street!" Deborah winced as though from a blow. "Oh, it
+was funny, funny!" Laura was almost sobbing now.</p>
+<p>"Stop, this minute!" Deborah said. "You say that you've been
+doing&mdash;what he has?" she demanded.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id=
+"Page_223"></a>[223]</span>Why shouldn't I? What do you know about
+it? Are you going to turn against me, too?"</p>
+<p>"I am&mdash;pretty nearly&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Oh, good God!" Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her
+walking.</p>
+<p>"Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain."</p>
+<p>"Explain&mdash;to you? How can I? <i>You</i> don't
+understand&mdash;you know nothing about it&mdash;all you know about
+is schools! You're simply a nun when it comes to this. I see it
+now&mdash;I didn't before&mdash;I thought you a modern
+woman&mdash;with your mind open to new ideas. But it isn't, it
+seems, when it comes to a pinch&mdash;it's shut as tight as Edith's
+is&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, tight!"</p>
+<p>"Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you
+kindly leave me alone! I'll have a talk with father!"</p>
+<p>"You will <i>not</i> have a talk with father&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I most certainly will&mdash;and he'll understand! He's a man,
+at least&mdash;and he led a man's life before he was married!"</p>
+<p>"Laura!"</p>
+<p>"<i>You</i> can't see it in him&mdash;<i>but I can</i>!"</p>
+<p>"You'll say not a word to him, not one word! He has had enough
+this year as it is!"</p>
+<p>"Has he? Then I'm sorry! If <i>you</i> were any help to
+me&mdash;instead of acting like a nun&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Will you please stop talking like a fool?"</p>
+<p>"I'm not! I'm speaking the truth and you know it! You know no
+more about love like mine than a nun of the middle ages! You
+needn't tell me about Allan Baird. You think you're in love with
+him, don't you? Well then, I'll tell you that you're not&mdash;your
+love is the kind that can wait for years&mdash;because it's cold,
+it's cold, it's cold&mdash;it's all in your mind and your reason!
+And so I say you're no help to me now! Here&mdash;look at yourself
+in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id=
+"Page_224"></a>[224]</span>the glass over there! You're just plain
+angry&mdash;frightened!"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I am&mdash;I'm frightened." While she strove to think
+clearly, to form some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly
+on:</p>
+<p>"I know you are! And you can't be fair! You're like nearly all
+American women&mdash;married or single, young or old&mdash;you're
+all of you scared to death about sex&mdash;just as your Puritan
+mothers were! And you leave it alone&mdash;you keep it
+down&mdash;you never give it a chance&mdash;you're afraid! But I'm
+not afraid&mdash;and I'm living my life! And let me tell you I'm
+not alone! There are hundreds and thousands doing the
+same&mdash;right here in New York City to-night! It's been so
+abroad for years and years&mdash;in Rome and Berlin, in Paris and
+London&mdash;and now, thank God, it has come over here! If our
+husbands can do it, why can't we? And we are&mdash;we're
+starting&mdash;it's come with the war! You think war is hell and
+nothing else, don't you&mdash;but you're wrong! It's not only
+killing men&mdash;it's killing a lot of hypocrisies too&mdash;it's
+giving a jolt to marriage! You'll see what the women will do soon
+enough&mdash;when there aren't enough men any longer&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you've
+done," Deborah interrupted. A simple course of action had just
+flashed into her mind.</p>
+<p>"All right, I will. I'm not ashamed. I've given you this
+'tirade' to show you exactly how I feel&mdash;that it's not any
+question of sin or guilt or any musty old rubbish like that! I know
+I'm right! I know just what I'm doing!"</p>
+<p>"Who's the man? That Italian?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Where is he?"</p>
+<p>"Right here in New York."</p>
+<p>"Does he mean to stand by you?"</p>
+<p>"Of course he does."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id=
+"Page_225"></a>[225]</span>Will he marry you, Laura?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, he will&mdash;the minute I'm free from my beast of a
+husband!"</p>
+<p>"And your husband will keep his suit quiet, you said, if you
+agree not to fight him."</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>Deborah rose abruptly.</p>
+<p>"Then will you stay right here to-night, and leave this matter
+to me?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"What do <i>you</i> mean to do?"</p>
+<p>"See your husband."</p>
+<p>"What for? When?"</p>
+<p>"To-night, if I can. I want to be sure."</p>
+<p>Laura looked for the moment nonplussed.</p>
+<p>"And what of my wishes?" she inquired.</p>
+<p>"<i>Your</i> wishes," said Deborah steadily. "You want a
+divorce, don't you&mdash;so do I. And you want it quiet&mdash;and
+so do I. I want it so hard that I want to make sure." Deborah's
+tone was kinder now, and she came over close to her sister. "Look
+here, Laura, if I've been hard, forgive me&mdash;please&mdash;and
+let me help. I'm not so narrow as you think. I've been through a
+good deal of this before&mdash;downtown, I mean, with girls in my
+school. They come to me, we have long talks. Maybe I <i>am</i> a
+nun&mdash;as you say&mdash;but I'm one with a confessional. Not for
+sins," she added, as Laura looked up angrily. "Sins don't interest
+me very much. But troubles do. And heaven knows that marriage is
+one," she said with a curious bitterness. "And when it has failed
+and there's no love left&mdash;as in your case&mdash;I'm for
+divorce. Only&mdash;" her wide sensitive lips quivered just a
+little, "I'm sorry it had to come like this. But I love you, dear,
+and I want to help, I want to see you safely through. And while I'm
+doing it, if we can, I want to keep dad out of it&mdash;at least
+until it's settled." She paused a moment. "So if you agree, I'll go
+to your husband. I want to be sure, absolutely, just what we can
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id=
+"Page_226"></a>[226]</span>count on. And until I come back, stay
+here in my room. You don't want to talk to father and
+Edith&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Most certainly not!" Laura muttered.</p>
+<p>"Good. Then stay here until I return. I'll send you up some
+supper."</p>
+<p>"I don't want any, thank you."</p>
+<p>Laura went and threw herself on the bed, while her sister
+finished dressing.</p>
+<p>"It's decent of you, Deborah." Her voice was muffled and
+relaxed. "I wasn't fair," she added. "I'm sorry for some of the
+things I said."</p>
+<p>"About me and marriage?" Deborah looked at herself in the glass
+in a peculiar searching way. A slight spasm crossed her features.
+"I'm not sure but that you were right. At times I feel far from
+certain," she said. Laura lifted her head from the pillow, watched
+her sister a moment, dropped back.</p>
+<p>"Don't let this affect <i>you</i>, Deborah."</p>
+<p>"Oh, don't worry, dearie." And Deborah moved toward the door.
+"My affair is just mine, you see, and this won't make any
+difference."</p>
+<p>But in her heart she knew it would. What an utter loathing she
+had to-night for all that people meant by sex! Suddenly she was
+quivering, her limbs and her whole body hot.</p>
+<p>"You say I'm cold," she was thinking. "Cold toward Allan, calm
+and cool, nothing but mind and reason! You say it means little to
+me, all that! But if I had had trouble with Allan, would I have
+come running home to talk? Wouldn't I have hugged it tight? And
+isn't that love? What do <i>you</i> know of me and the life I've
+led? Do you know how it feels to want to work, to be something
+yourself, without any man? And can't <i>that</i> be a passion? Have
+you had to live with Edith here and see what motherhood can be,
+what it can do to a woman? And now you come with <i>another</i>
+side, just as narrow as hers, devouring <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id=
+"Page_227"></a>[227]</span>everything else in sight! And because
+I'm a little afraid of that, for myself and all I want to do, you
+say I don't know what love is! But I do! And my love's worth more
+than yours! It's deeper, richer, it will last!... Then why do I
+loathe it <i>all</i> to-night?... But I don't, I only loathe
+<i>your</i> side!... But yours is the very heart of it!... All
+right, then what am I going to do?"</p>
+<p>She was going slowly down the stairs. She stopped for a moment,
+frowning.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXII</h2>
+<p>On the floor below she met her father, who was coming out of his
+room. He looked at her keenly:</p>
+<p>"What's the trouble?"</p>
+<p>"Laura's here," she answered. "Trouble again with her husband.
+Better leave her alone for the present&mdash;she's going to stay in
+my room for a while."</p>
+<p>"Very well," her father grunted, and they went down to dinner.
+There Deborah was silent, and Edith did most of the talking. Edith,
+quite aware of the fact that Laura and all Laura's ways were in
+disgrace for the moment, and that she and her ways with her
+children shone by the comparison, was bright and sweet and tactful.
+Roger glanced at her more than once, with approval and with
+gratitude for the effort she was making to smooth over the
+situation. Deborah rose before they had finished.</p>
+<p>"Where are you off to?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, there's something I have to attend to&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"School again this evening, dear?" inquired Edith cheerfully,
+but her sister was already out of the room. She looked at her
+father with quiet concern. "I'm sorry she has to be out
+to-night&mdash;to-night of all nights," she murmured.</p>
+<p>"Humph!" ejaculated her father. This <i>eternal</i> school
+business of Deborah's was beginning to get on his nerves. Yes, just
+a little on his nerves! Why couldn't she give up one evening, just
+one, and get Laura out of this snarl she was in? He heard her at
+the telephone, and presently she came back to them.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Edith," she said casually, "don't send any supper
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id=
+"Page_229"></a>[229]</span>up to Laura. She says she doesn't want
+any to-night. And ask Hannah to put a cot in my room. Will
+you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, dear, I'll attend to it."</p>
+<p>"Thanks." And again she left them. In silence, when the front
+door closed, Edith looked at her father. This must be rather
+serious, Roger thought excitedly. So Laura was to stay all night,
+while Deborah gallivanted off to those infernal schools of hers! He
+had little joy in his paper that night. The news of the world had
+such a trick of suddenly receding a million miles away from a man
+the minute he was in trouble. And Roger was in trouble. With each
+slow tick of the clock in the hall he grew more certain and more
+disturbed. An hour passed. The clock struck nine. With a snort he
+tossed his paper aside.</p>
+<p>"Well, Edith," he said glumly, "how about some chess this
+evening?" In answer she gave him a quick smile of understanding and
+sympathy.</p>
+<p>"All right, father dear." And she fetched the board. But they
+had played only a short time when Deborah's latchkey was heard in
+the door. Roger gave an angry hitch to his chair. Soon she appeared
+in the doorway.</p>
+<p>"May I talk to you, father?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"I suppose so." Roger scowled.</p>
+<p>"You'll excuse us, Edith?" she added.</p>
+<p>"Oh, assuredly, dear." And Edith rose, looking very much hurt.
+"Of course, if I'm not needed&mdash;"</p>
+<p>At this her father scowled again. Why couldn't Deborah show her
+sister a little consideration?</p>
+<p>"What is it?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Suppose we go into the study," she said.</p>
+<p>He followed her there and shut the door.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"Well?" he asked, from his big leather chair. Deborah had
+remained standing.</p>
+<p>"I've got some bad news," she began.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id=
+"Page_230"></a>[230]</span>What is it?" he snapped. "School burnt
+down?" Savagely he bit off a cigar.</p>
+<p>"I've just had a talk with Harold," she told him. He shot a
+glance of surprise and dismay.</p>
+<p>"Have, eh&mdash;what's it all about?"</p>
+<p>"It's about a divorce," she answered.</p>
+<p>The lighted match dropped from Roger's hand. He snatched it up
+before it was out and lit his cigar, and puffing smoke in a
+vigilant way again he eyed his daughter.</p>
+<p>"I've done what I could," she said painfully, "but they seem to
+have made up their minds."</p>
+<p>"Then they'll unmake 'em," he replied, and he leaned forward
+heavily. "They'll unmake 'em," he repeated, in a thick unnatural
+tone. "I'm not a'goin' to hear to it!" In a curious manner his
+voice had changed. It sounded like that of a man in the mountains,
+where he had been born and raised. This thought flashed into
+Deborah's mind and her wide resolute mouth set hard. It would be
+very difficult.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid this won't do, father dear. Whether you give your
+consent or not&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Wun't, wun't it! You wait and see if it wun't!" Deborah came
+close to him.</p>
+<p>"Suppose you wait till you understand," she admonished
+sternly.</p>
+<p>"All right, I'm waiting," he replied. She felt herself trembling
+deep inside. She did not want him to understand, any more than she
+must to induce him to keep out of this affair.</p>
+<p>"To begin with," she said steadily, "you will soon see yourself,
+I think, that they fairly loathe the sight of each other&mdash;that
+there is no real marriage left."</p>
+<p>"That's fiddlesticks!" snapped Roger. "Just modern talk and new
+ideas&mdash;ideas you're to blame for! Yes, you are&mdash;you put
+'em in her head&mdash;you and your gabble about <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span>woman's
+rights!" He was angry now. He was glad he was angry. He'd just
+begun!</p>
+<p>"If you want me to leave her alone," his daughter cut in
+sharply, "just say so! I'll leave it all to you!" And she saw him
+flinch a little. "What would be <i>your</i> idea?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"My idea? She's to go straight home and make up with him!"</p>
+<p>She hesitated. Then she said:</p>
+<p>"Suppose there's another woman."</p>
+<p>"Then he's a beast," growled Roger.</p>
+<p>"And yet you want her to live with him?"</p>
+<p>He scowled, he felt baffled, his mind in a whirl. And a wave of
+exasperation suddenly swept over him.</p>
+<p>"Well, why shouldn't she?" he cried. "Other wives have done
+it&mdash;millions! Made a devilish good success of it,
+too&mdash;made new men of their husbands! Let her show him she's
+ready to forgive! That's only Christian, ain't it? Hard? Of course
+it's hard on her! But can you tell me one hard thing she has ever
+had to do in her life? Hasn't it been pleasure, pleasure from the
+word go? Can't she stand something hard? Don't we all of us have
+to? I do&mdash;God knows&mdash;with all of you!" And he puffed his
+cigar in a fury. His daughter smiled. She saw her chance.</p>
+<p>"Father," she said, in a low clear voice, "You've had so
+<i>many</i> troubles. Why not leave this one to me? You can't
+help&mdash;no matter how hard you try&mdash;you'll only make it
+worse and worse. And you've been through so much this
+year&mdash;you've earned the right to be quiet. And that's what
+<i>they</i> want, both of them&mdash;they both want it quiet,
+without any scandal." Her father glared, for he knew about scandal,
+he handled it in his office each day. "Let me manage
+this&mdash;please," she said. And her offer tempted him. He
+struggled for a moment.</p>
+<p>"No, I won't!" he burst out in reply. "I want quiet right
+enough, but not at the price of her peace with her<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span> God!"
+This sounded foolish, he felt that it did, and he flushed and grew
+the angrier. "No, I won't," he said stubbornly. "She'll go back to
+him if I take her myself. And what's more," he added, rising,
+"she's to go straight back to-night!"</p>
+<p>"She is not going back to-night, my dear." And Deborah caught
+her father's arm. "Sit down, please&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I've heard enough!"</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid you haven't," she replied.</p>
+<p>"Very well." His smile was caustic. "Give me some more of it,"
+he said.</p>
+<p>"Her husband won't have her," said Deborah bluntly. "He told me
+so himself&mdash;to-night."</p>
+<p>"Did, eh&mdash;then <i>I'll</i> talk to him!"</p>
+<p>"He thinks," she went on in a desperate tone, "that Laura has
+been leading&mdash;'her own little life'&mdash;as he put it to
+me."</p>
+<p>"<i>Eh</i>?"</p>
+<p>"He is bringing suit himself."</p>
+<p>"<i>Oh! He is</i>!" cried Roger hoarsely. "Then I <i>will</i>
+talk to this young man!" But she put out a restraining hand:</p>
+<p>"Father! Don't try to fight this suit!"</p>
+<p>"You watch me!" he snarled. Tears showed in her eyes:</p>
+<p>"Think! Oh, please! Think what you're doing! Have you ever seen
+a divorce-court&mdash;here, in New York? Do you know what it's
+like? What it <i>can</i> be like?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," Roger panted. He did know, and the picture came vividly
+into his mind&mdash;a mass of eager devouring eyes fixed on a girl
+in a witness chair. "To-morrow I see a lawyer!" he said.</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;you won't do that, my dear," Deborah told him sadly.
+"Laura's husband has got proofs."</p>
+<p>Her father looked up slowly and glared into his daughter's
+face.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id=
+"Page_233"></a>[233]</span>I've seen them myself," she added. "And
+Laura has admitted it, too."</p>
+<p>Still for a moment he stared at her. Then slowly he settled back
+in his chair, his eyes dropped in their sockets, and very
+carefully, with a hand which was trembling visibly, he lifted his
+cigar to his lips. It had gone nearly out, but he drew on it hard
+until it began to glow again.</p>
+<p>"Well," he asked simply, "what shall we do?"</p>
+<p>Sharply Deborah turned away. To be quiet, to be matter of fact,
+to act as though nothing had happened at all&mdash;she knew this
+was what he wanted now, what he was silently begging her to be for
+his sake, for the family's sake. For he had been raised in New
+England. And so, when she turned back to him, her voice was flat
+and commonplace.</p>
+<p>"Keep her here," she said. "Let him do what he likes. There'll
+be nothing noisy, he promised me that. But keep her here till it's
+over."</p>
+<p>Roger smoked for a moment, and said,</p>
+<p>"There's Edith and her children."</p>
+<p>"The children needn't know anything&mdash;and Edith only part of
+it."</p>
+<p>"The less, the better," he grunted.</p>
+<p>"Of course." She looked at him anxiously. This tractable mood of
+his might not last. "Why not go up and see her now&mdash;and get it
+all over&mdash;so you can sleep."</p>
+<p>Over Roger's set heavy visage flitted a smile of grim relish at
+that. Sleep! Deborah was funny. Resolutely he rose from his
+chair.</p>
+<p>"You'll be careful, of course," she admonished him, and he
+nodded in reply. At the door he turned back:</p>
+<p>"Where's the other chap?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know," she answered. "Surely you don't want to see
+<i>him</i>&mdash;." Her father snorted his contempt:</p>
+<p>"See him? No. Nor she neither. <i>She's</i> not to see him.
+Understand?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id=
+"Page_234"></a>[234]</span>I wouldn't tell her that to-night."</p>
+<p>"Look here." Roger eyed his daughter a moment.</p>
+<p>"You've done well. I've no complaint. But don't try to manage
+everything."</p>
+<p>He went out and slowly climbed the stairs. Outside the bedroom
+door he paused. When had he stood like this before? In a moment he
+remembered. One evening some two years ago, the night before
+Laura's wedding, when they had had that other talk. And so it had
+come to this, had it. Well, there was no use making a scene. Again,
+with a sigh of weariness, Laura's father knocked at her door.</p>
+<p>"Come in, Deborah," she said.</p>
+<p>"It isn't Deborah, it's I." There was a little silence.</p>
+<p>"Very well, father, come in, please." Her voice sounded tired
+and lifeless. He opened the door and found the room dark. "I'm over
+on the bed," she said. "I've had a headache this evening."</p>
+<p>He came over to the bedside and he could just see her there, a
+long shadow upon the white. She had not taken off her clothes. He
+stood a moment helplessly.</p>
+<p>"Please don't <i>you</i> talk to me!" His daughter fiercely
+whispered. "I can't stand any more to-night!"</p>
+<p>"I won't," he answered. "It's too late." Again there was a
+pause.</p>
+<p>"What time is it?" she asked him. But he did not answer.</p>
+<p>"Well, Laura," he said presently, "your sister has told me
+everything. She has seen your husband&mdash;it's all
+arranged&mdash;and you're to stay here till it's over ... You want
+to stay here, don't you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Then it's settled," he went on. "There's only one
+thing&mdash;the other man. I don't know who he is and I don't want
+to know. And I don't want you to know him <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span>again.
+You're not to see him. Understand?" For a moment Laura was
+silent.</p>
+<p>"I'm going to marry him, father," she said. And standing in the
+darkened room Roger stiffened sharply.</p>
+<p>"Well," he answered, after a pause, "that's your affair. You're
+no longer a child. I wish you were," he added.</p>
+<p>Suddenly in the darkness Laura's hand came out clutching for
+his. But he had already turned to the door.</p>
+<p>"Good-night," he said, and left her.</p>
+<p>In the hallway below he met Deborah, and to her questioning look
+he replied, "All right, I guess. Now I'm going to bed." He went
+into his room and closed the door.</p>
+<p>As soon as Roger was alone, he knew this was the hardest
+part&mdash;to be here by himself in this intimate room, with this
+worn blue rug, these pictures and this old mahogany bed. For he had
+promised Judith his wife to keep close to the children. What would
+she think of him if she knew?</p>
+<p>Judith had been a broad-minded woman, sensible, big-hearted. But
+she never would have stood for this. Once, he recollected, she had
+helped a girl friend to divorce her husband, a drunkard who ran
+after chorus girls. But that had been quite different. There the
+wife had been innocent and had done it for her children. Laura was
+guilty, she hadn't a child, she was already planning to marry
+again. And then what, he asked himself. "From bad to worse, very
+likely. A woman can't stop when she's started downhill." His eye
+was caught by the picture directly before him on the wall&mdash;the
+one his wife had given him&mdash;two herdsmen with their cattle
+high up on a shoulder of a sweeping mountain side, tiny blue
+figures against the dawn. It had been like a symbol of their lives,
+always beginning clean glorious days. What was Laura beginning?</p>
+<p>"Well," he demanded angrily, as he began to jerk off his
+clothes, "what can I do about it? Try to keep her <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span>from
+re-marrying, eh? And suppose I succeeded, how long would it last?
+She wouldn't stay here and I couldn't keep her. She'll be
+independent now&mdash;her looks will be her bank account. There'd
+be some other chap in no time, and he might not even marry her!" He
+tugged ferociously at his boots. "No, let well enough alone!"</p>
+<p>He finished undressing, opened the window, turned out the gas
+and got into bed. Wearily he closed his eyes. But after a time he
+opened them and stared long through the window up at the beetling
+cliff of a building close by, with its tier upon tier of lighted
+apartments, a huge garish hive of homes. Yes, the town was crowding
+down on him to-night, on his house and on his family. He realized
+it had never stopped, and that his three grown children, each one
+of them a part of himself, had been struggling with it all the
+time. Laura&mdash;wasn't she part of himself? Hadn't he, too, had
+his little fling, back in his early twenties? "You will live on in
+our children's lives." She was a part of him gone wild. She gave it
+free rein, took chances. God, what a chance she had taken this
+time! The picture of that court he had seen, with the girl in the
+witness chair and those many rows of eyes avidly fixed upon her,
+came back to his mind so vividly they seemed for a moment right
+here in the room, these eyes of the town boring into his house.
+Angrily he shut out the scene. And alone in the darkness, Roger
+said to his daughter all the ugly furious things he had not said to
+her upstairs&mdash;until at last he was weary of it.</p>
+<p>"Why am I working myself all up? I've got to take this. It's my
+medicine."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXIII</h2>
+<p>But as he watched Laura in the house, Roger's first emotions
+were complicated more and more by a feeling of bewilderment. At
+dinner the next evening he noticed with astonishment that she
+appeared like her natural self. "She's acting," he decided. But
+this explanation he soon dismissed. No, it was something deeper.
+She was actually unashamed, unafraid. That first display of
+feelings, the night of her arrival, had been only the scare of an
+hour. Within a few days she was back on her feet; and her cure for
+her trouble, if trouble she felt, was not less but more pleasure,
+as always. She went out nearly every evening now; and when she had
+spent what money she had, she sold a part of her jewelry to the
+little old Galician Jew in the shop around the corner. Yes, she was
+her natural self. And she was as before to her father. Her attitude
+said plainly,</p>
+<p>"It isn't fair to you, poor dear, to expect you to fully
+understand how right I am in this affair. And considering your
+point of view, you're acting very nicely."</p>
+<p>Often as she talked to him a note of good-humored forgiveness
+crept into his daughter's voice. And looking at her grimly out of
+the corner of his eye, he saw that she looked down on him, far, far
+down from heights above.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he thought, "this is modern." Then he grew angry all at
+once. "No," he added, "this is wrong! You can't fool me, young
+woman, you know it as well as I do myself! You're not going to
+carry this off with an air&mdash;not with your father! No, by
+George!"</p>
+<p>And he would grow abrupt and stern. But days would <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span>pass and
+in spite of himself into their talks would creep a natural friendly
+tone. Again he found himself friends with her&mdash;friends as
+though nothing whatever had happened! Could it be that a woman who
+had so sinned could go right on? Here was Laura, serenely
+unconscious of guilt, and smiling into her future, dreaming still
+of happiness, quite plainly sure of it, in fact! With a curious
+dismayed relief Roger would scowl at this daughter of his&mdash;a
+radiant enigma in his quiet sober house.</p>
+<p>But Edith was not at all perplexed. When she learned from
+Deborah that there was soon to be a divorce, she came at once to
+her father. Her face was like a thundercloud.</p>
+<p>"A nice example for my children!" she indignantly exclaimed.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry, my dear. But what can I do?"</p>
+<p>"You can make her go back to her husband, can't you?"</p>
+<p>"No, I can't," he flatly replied.</p>
+<p>"Then I'd better try it myself!"</p>
+<p>"You'll do no such thing!" he retorted. "I've gone clear to the
+bottom of this&mdash;and I say you're to leave her alone!"</p>
+<p>"Very well," she answered. And she did leave her sister alone,
+so severely that Laura soon avoided being home for lunch or dinner.
+She had taken the room which George had occupied ever since John
+had been turned out, and there she breakfasted late in bed, until
+Edith put a stop to it. They barely spoke to each other now. Laura
+still smiled defiance.</p>
+<p>Days passed. Christmas came at last, and despite Edith's glum
+resolution to make it a happy time for the children, the happiness
+soon petered out. After the tree in the morning, the day hung heavy
+on the house. Roger buried himself in his study. Laura had motored
+off into the country with a gay party of her friends. Or was this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id=
+"Page_239"></a>[239]</span>just a ruse, he wondered, and was she
+spending the day with her lover? Well, what if she was? Could he
+lock her in?</p>
+<p>About twilight he thought he heard her return, and later from
+his bedroom he heard her voice and Edith's. Both voices sounded
+angry, but he would not interfere.</p>
+<p>At the Christmas dinner that evening Laura did not put in an
+appearance, but Edith sat stiff and silent there; and despite the
+obvious efforts which Deborah and Allan made to be genial with the
+children, the very air in the room was charged with the feeling of
+trouble close ahead. Again Roger retreated into his den, and
+presently Laura came to him.</p>
+<p>"Good-night&mdash;I'm going out," she said, and she pressed her
+cheek lightly to his own. "What a dear you've been to me, dad," she
+murmured. And then she was gone.</p>
+<p>A few minutes later Edith came in. She held a small note in her
+hand, which Roger saw was addressed to himself.</p>
+<p>"Well, father, I learned this afternoon what you've been keeping
+from me," she said. Roger gave her a steady look.</p>
+<p>"You did, eh&mdash;Laura told you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, she did!" his daughter exclaimed. "And I can't help
+wondering, father&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Why did she tell you? Have you been at her again to-day?"</p>
+<p>"Again? Not at all," she answered. "I've done as you asked me
+to, let her alone. But to-day&mdash;mother's day&mdash;I got
+thinking of <i>her</i>."</p>
+<p>"Leave your mother out of it, please. What did you say to
+Laura?"</p>
+<p>"I tried to make her go back, of course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"And she told you&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"He wouldn't have her! And then in a perfect tantrum she went on
+to tell me why!" Edith's eyes were <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span>cold with disgust. "And
+I'm wondering why you let her stay here&mdash;in the same house
+with my children!"</p>
+<p>Roger reached out his hand.</p>
+<p>"Give me that note," he commanded. He read it quickly and handed
+it back. The note was from Laura, a hasty good-bye.</p>
+<p>"Edith will explain," she wrote, "and you will see I cannot stay
+any longer. It is simply too impossible. I am going to the man I
+love&mdash;and in a few days we shall sail for Naples. I know you
+will not interfere. It will make the divorce even simpler and
+everything easier all round. Please don't worry about me. We shall
+soon be married over there. You have been so dear and sensible and
+I do so love you for it." Then came her name scrawled hastily. And
+at the bottom of the page: "I have paid every bill I can think
+of."</p>
+<p>Edith read it in silence, her color slowly mounting.</p>
+<p>"All right," said her father, "your children are safe." She gave
+him a quick angry look, burst into tears and ran out of the
+room.</p>
+<p>Roger sat without moving, his heavy face impassive. And so he
+remained for a long time. Well, <i>Laura</i> was gone&mdash;no
+mistake about that&mdash;and this time she was gone for good. She
+was going to live in Rome. Try to stop her? No. What good would it
+do? Wings of the Eagles, Rome reborn. That was it, she had hit it,
+struck the keynote of this new age. Rome reborn, all clean,
+old-fashioned Christian living swept away by millions of men at
+each others' throats like so many wolves. And at last quite openly
+to himself Roger admitted that he felt old. Old and beaten, out of
+date. Moments passed, and hours&mdash;he took little note of time.
+Nor did he see on the mantle the dark visage of "The Thinker"
+there, resting on the huge clinched fist and brooding down upon
+him. Lower, imperceptibly, he sank into his leather chair.</p>
+<p>Quiet had returned to his house.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXIV</h2>
+<p>But the quiet was dark to Roger now. Each night he spent in his
+study alone, for instinctively he felt the need of being by himself
+for a while, of keeping away from his children&mdash;out of whose
+lives he divined that other events would soon come forth to use up
+the last of the strength that was in him.</p>
+<p>And Roger grew angry with the world. Why couldn't it let a man
+alone, an old man in a silent house alive for him with memories?
+Repeatedly in such hours his mind would go groping backward into
+the years behind him. What a long and winding road, half buried in
+the jungle, dim, almost impenetrable, made up of millions of small
+events, small worries, plans and dazzling dreams, with which his
+days had all been filled. But the more he recalled the more certain
+he grew that he was right. Life had never been like this: the world
+had never come smashing into his house, his very family, with its
+dirty teeming tenements, its schools, its prisons, electric chairs,
+its feverish rush for money, its luxuries, its scandals. These
+things had existed in the world, but remote and never real, mere
+things which he had read about. War? Did he not remember wars that
+had come and gone in Europe? But they hadn't come into his home
+like this, first making him poor when he needed money for Edith and
+her children, then plunging Deborah into a struggle which might
+very probably ruin her life, and now taking Laura and filling her
+mind with thoughts of pagan living. Why was every man, woman and
+child, these days, bound up in the whole life of the world? What
+would come of it all? A <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242"
+id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span>new day out of this deafening night?
+Maybe so. But for him it would come too late.</p>
+<p>"What have I left to live for?"</p>
+<p>One night with a sigh he went to his desk, lit a cigar and laid
+his hand upon a pile of letters which had been mounting steadily.
+It was made up of Laura's bills, the ones she had not remembered.
+Send them after her to Rome for that Italian fellow to pay? No, it
+could not be thought of. Roger turned to his dwindling bank
+account. He was not yet making money, he was still losing a little
+each week. But he would not cut expenses. To the few who were left
+in his employ, to be turned away would mean dire need. And angrily
+he determined that they should not starve to pay Laura's bills.
+"The world for the strong, eh? Not in my office!" In Rome or Berlin
+or Vienna, all right! But not over here!</p>
+<p>Grimly, when he had made out the checks, Roger eyed his balance.
+By spring he would be penniless. And he had no one to turn to now,
+no rich young son-in-law who could aid.</p>
+<p>He set himself doggedly to the task of forcing up his business,
+and meanwhile in the evenings he tried with Edith to get back upon
+their former footing. To do this was not easy at first, for his
+bitterness still rankled deep: "When you were in trouble I took you
+in, but when she was in trouble you turned her out, as you turned
+out John before her." In the room again vacated, young George had
+been reinstalled. One night Edith found her father there looking in
+through the open doorway, and the look on his massive face was
+hard.</p>
+<p>"Better have the room disinfected again," he muttered when he
+saw her. He turned and went slowly down the stairs. And she was
+late for dinner that night.</p>
+<p>But Edith had her children. And as he watched her night by night
+hearing their lessons patiently, reading them <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span>fairy
+stories and holding them smilingly in her arms, the old appeal of
+her motherhood regained its hold upon him. One evening when the
+clock struck nine, putting down his paper he suggested gruffly,</p>
+<p>"Well, daughter, how about some chess?"</p>
+<p>Edith flushed a little:</p>
+<p>"Why, yes, dear, I'd be glad to."</p>
+<p>She rose and went to get the board. So the games were resumed,
+and part at least of their old affection came to life. But only a
+part. It could never be quite the same again.</p>
+<p>And though he saw little of Deborah, slowly, almost unawares to
+them both, she assumed the old place she had had in his
+home&mdash;as the one who had been right here in the house through
+all the years since her mother had died, the one who had helped and
+never asked help, keeping her own troubles to herself. He fell back
+into his habit of going before dinner to his daughter's bedroom
+door to ask whether she would be home that night. At one such time,
+getting no response and thinking Deborah was not there, he opened
+the door part way to make sure. And he saw her at her dresser,
+staring at herself in the glass, rigid as though in a trance. Later
+in the dining room he heard her step upon the stairs. She came in
+quietly and sat down; and as soon as dinner was over, she said her
+good-nights and left the house. But when she came home at midnight,
+he was waiting up for her. He had foraged in the kitchen, and on
+his study table he had set out some supper. While she sat there
+eating, her father watched her from his chair.</p>
+<p>"Things going badly in school?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"Yes," she replied. There was silence.</p>
+<p>"What's wrong?"</p>
+<p>"To-night we had a line of mothers reaching out into the street.
+They had come for food and coal&mdash;but we had to send most of
+them home empty-handed. Some of <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span>them cried&mdash;and one
+of them fainted. She's to have a baby soon."</p>
+<p>"Can't you get any money uptown?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I have," she answered grimly. "I've been a beggar&mdash;heaven
+knows&mdash;on every friend I can think of. And I've kept a press
+agent hard at work trying to make the public see that Belgium is
+right here in New York." She stopped and went on with her supper.
+"But it's a bad time for work like mine," she continued presently.
+"If we're to keep it going we must above all keep it cheap. That's
+the keynote these days, keep everything cheap&mdash;at any
+cost&mdash;so that men can expensively kill one another." Her voice
+had a bitter ring to it. "You try to talk peace and they bowl you
+over, with facts on the need of preparedness&mdash;for the defence
+of your country. And that doesn't appeal to me very much. I want a
+bigger preparedness&mdash;for the defence of the whole
+world&mdash;for democracy, and human rights, no matter who the
+people are! I'd like to train every child to that!"</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" her father asked.</p>
+<p>"To teach him what his life can be!" she replied in a hard
+quivering tone. "A fight? Oh yes! So long as he lives&mdash;and
+even with guns if it must be so! But a fight for all the people on
+earth!&mdash;and a world so full of happy lives that men will think
+hard&mdash;before ever again letting themselves be led by the
+nose&mdash;into war and death&mdash;for a place in the sun!" She
+rose from her chair, with a weary smile: "Here I am making a speech
+again. I've made so many lately it's become a habit. I'm tired out,
+dad, I'm going to bed." Her father looked at her anxiously.</p>
+<p>"You're seeing things out of proportion," he said. "You've
+worked so hard you're getting stale. You ought to get out of it for
+a while."</p>
+<p>"I can't!" she answered sharply. "You don't know&mdash;you don't
+even guess&mdash;how it takes every hour&mdash;all the
+demands!"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id=
+"Page_245"></a>[245]</span>Where's Allan these days?"</p>
+<p>"Working," was her harsh reply. "Trying to keep his hospital
+going with half its staff. The woman who was backing him is giving
+her money to Belgium instead."</p>
+<p>"Do you see much of him?"</p>
+<p>"Every day. Let's drop it. Shall we?"</p>
+<p>"All right, my dear&mdash;"</p>
+<p>And they said good-night ...</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In the meantime, in the house, Edith had tried to scrimp and
+save, but it was very difficult. Her children had so many needs,
+they were all growing up so fast. Each month brought fresh demands
+on her purse, and the fund from the sale of her belongings had been
+used up long ago. Her sole resource was the modest allowance her
+father gave her for running the house, and she had not asked him
+for more. She had put off trouble from month to month. But one
+evening early in March, when he gave her the regular monthly check,
+she said hesitatingly:</p>
+<p>"I'm very sorry, father dear, but I'm afraid we'll need more
+money this month." He glanced up from his paper:</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?" She gave him a forced little smile, and her
+father noticed the gray in her hair.</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing in particular. Goodness knows I've tried to keep
+down expenses, but&mdash;well, we're a pretty large household, you
+know&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger kindly, "I know. Are the month's bills
+in?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Let me see them." She brought him the bills and he looked
+relieved. "Not so many," he ventured.</p>
+<p>"No, but they're large."</p>
+<p>"Why, look here, Edith," he said abruptly, "these are bills for
+two months&mdash;some for three, even four!"</p>
+<p>"I know&mdash;that's just the trouble. I couldn't meet them at
+the time."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id=
+"Page_246"></a>[246]</span>Why didn't you tell me?"</p>
+<p>"Laura was here&mdash;and I didn't want to bother you&mdash;you
+had enough on your mind as it was. I've done the best I could,
+father dear&mdash;I've sold everything, you know&mdash;but I've
+about come to the end of my rope." And her manner said clearly,
+"I've done my part. I'm only a woman. I'll have to leave the rest
+to you."</p>
+<p>"I see&mdash;I see." And Roger knitted his heavy brows. "I
+presume I can get it somehow." This would play the very devil with
+things!</p>
+<p>"Father." Edith's voice was low. "Why don't you let Deborah help
+you? She does very little, it seems to me&mdash;compared to the
+size of her salary."</p>
+<p>"She can't do any more than she's doing now," was his decisive
+answer. Edith looked at him, her color high. She hesitated, then
+burst out:</p>
+<p>"I saw her check book the other day, she had left it on the
+table! She's spending thousands&mdash;every month!"</p>
+<p>"That's not her own money," Roger said.</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;it's money she gets for her fads&mdash;her work for
+those tenement children! She can get money enough for <i>them!</i>"
+He flung out his hand:</p>
+<p>"Leave her out of this, please!"</p>
+<p>"Very well, father, just as you say." And she sat there hurt and
+silent while again he looked slowly through the bills. He jotted
+down figures and added them up. They came to a bit over nine
+hundred dollars. Soon Deborah's key was heard in the door, and
+Roger scowled the deeper. She came into the room, but he did not
+look up. He heard her voice:</p>
+<p>"What's the matter, Edith?"</p>
+<p>"Bills for the house."</p>
+<p>"Oh." And Deborah came to her father. "May I see what's the
+trouble, dear?"</p>
+<p>"I'd rather you wouldn't. It's nothing," he growled. He wanted
+her to keep out of this.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id=
+"Page_247"></a>[247]</span>Why shouldn't she see?" Edith tartly
+inquired. "Deborah is living here&mdash;and before I came she ran
+the house. In her place I should certainly want to know."</p>
+<p>Deborah was already glancing rapidly over the bills.</p>
+<p>"Why, Edith," she exclaimed, "most of these bills go back for
+months. Why didn't you pay them when they were due?"</p>
+<p>"Simply because I hadn't the money!"</p>
+<p>"You've had the regular monthly amount."</p>
+<p>"That didn't last long&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Why didn't you tell us?"</p>
+<p>"Laura was here."</p>
+<p>Deborah gave a shrug of impatience, and Roger saw how tired she
+was, her nerves on edge from her long day.</p>
+<p>"Never mind about it now," he put in.</p>
+<p>"What a pity," Deborah muttered. "If we had been told, we could
+have cut down."</p>
+<p>"I don't agree with you!" Edith rejoined. "I have already done
+that myself! I've done nothing else!"</p>
+<p>"Have the servants been paid?" her sister asked.</p>
+<p>"No, they haven't-"</p>
+<p>"Since when?"</p>
+<p>"Three months!"</p>
+<p>Roger got up and walked the room. Deborah tried to speak
+quietly:</p>
+<p>"I can't quite see where the money has gone."</p>
+<p>"Can't you? Then look at my check book." And Edith produced it
+with a glare. Her sister turned over a few of the stubs.</p>
+<p>"What's this item?"</p>
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+<p>"Here. A hundred and twenty-two dollars."</p>
+<p>"The dentist," Edith answered. "Not extravagant, is it&mdash;for
+five children?"</p>
+<p>"I see," said Deborah. "And this?"</p>
+<p>"Bedding," was Edith's sharp response. "A mattress <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span>and more
+blankets. I found there weren't half enough in the house."</p>
+<p>"You burned John's, didn't you?"</p>
+<p>"Naturally!"</p>
+<p>All at once both grew ashamed.</p>
+<p>"Let's be sensible," Deborah said. "We must do something,
+Edith&mdash;and we can't till we're certain where we stand."</p>
+<p>"Very well&mdash;"</p>
+<p>They went on more calmly and took up the items one by one.
+Deborah finished and was silent.</p>
+<p>"Well, father, what's to be done?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"I don't know," he answered shortly.</p>
+<p>"Somehow or other," Deborah said, "we've got to cut our expenses
+down."</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid that's impossible," Edith rejoined. "I've already
+cut as much as I can."</p>
+<p>"So did I, in my school," said her sister. "And when I thought I
+had reached the end, I called in an expert. And he showed me ways
+of saving I had never dreamed of."</p>
+<p>"What kind of expert would you advise here?" Edith's small lip
+curled in scorn.</p>
+<p>"Domestic science, naturally&mdash;I have a woman who does
+nothing else. She shows women in their homes just how to make money
+count the most."</p>
+<p>"What women? And what homes? Tenements?"</p>
+<p>"Yes. She's one of my teachers."</p>
+<p>"Thank you!" said Edith indignantly. "But I don't care to have
+my children brought down to tenement standards!"</p>
+<p>"I didn't mean to <i>have</i> them! But I know she could show
+you a great many things you can buy for less!"</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid I shouldn't agree with her!"</p>
+<p>"Why not, Edith?"</p>
+<p>"Because she knows only tenement children&mdash;nothing of
+children bred like mine!"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id=
+"Page_249"></a>[249]</span>Deborah drew a quick short breath, her
+brows drew tight and she looked away. She bit her lip, controlled
+herself:</p>
+<p>"Very well, I'll try again. This house is plenty large enough so
+that by a little crowding we could make room for somebody else. And
+I know a teacher in one of my schools who'd be only too
+glad&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Take a boarder, you mean?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I do! We've got to do something!"</p>
+<p>"No!"</p>
+<p>Deborah threw up her hands:</p>
+<p>"All right, Edith, I'm through," she said. "Now what do you
+propose?"</p>
+<p>"I can try to do without Hannah again&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"That will be hard&mdash;on all of us. But I guess you'll have
+to."</p>
+<p>"So it seems."</p>
+<p>"But unfortunately that won't he enough."</p>
+<p>Edith's face grew tenser:</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid it will have to be&mdash;just now&mdash;I've had
+about all I can stand for one night!"</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. For a moment they confronted each
+other. And Edith's look said to Deborah plainly, "You're spending
+thousands, thousands, on those tenement children! You can get money
+enough for them, but you won't raise a hand to help with mine!" And
+as plainly Deborah answered, "My children are starving, shivering,
+freezing! What do yours know about being poor?" Two mothers, each
+with a family, and each one baffled, brought to bay. There was
+something so insatiable in each angry mother's eyes.</p>
+<p>"I think you'd better leave this to me," said Roger very
+huskily. And both his daughters turned with a start, as though in
+their bitter absorption they had forgotten his presence there. Both
+flushed, and now the glances of all three in that room avoided each
+other. For <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id=
+"Page_250"></a>[250]</span>they felt how sordid it had been.
+Deborah turned to her sister.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry, Edith," she said again, and this time there were
+tears in her eyes.</p>
+<p>"So am I," said Edith unsteadily, and in a moment she left the
+room. Deborah stood watching her father.</p>
+<p>"I'm ashamed of myself," she said. "Well? Shall we talk it
+over?"</p>
+<p>"No," he replied. "I can manage it somehow, Deborah, and I
+prefer that you leave it to me."</p>
+<p>Roger went into his study and sank grimly into his chair. Yes,
+it had been pretty bad; it had been ugly, ominous. He took paper
+and pencil and set to work. How he had come to hate this job of
+wrestling with figures. Of the five thousand dollars borrowed in
+August he had barely a thousand left. The first semi-annual
+interest was due next week and must be paid. The balance would
+carry them through March and on well into April. By that time he
+hoped to be making money, for business was better every week. But
+what of this nine hundred dollars in debts? Half at least must be
+paid at once. Lower and lower he sank in his chair. But a few
+moments later, his blunt heavy visage cleared, and with a little
+sigh of relief he put away his papers, turned out the lights and
+went upstairs. The dark house felt friendly and comforting now.</p>
+<p>In his room he opened the safe in the corner where his
+collection of curious rings had lain unnoticed for many months. He
+drew out a tray, sat down by the light and began to look them over.
+At first only small inanimate objects, gradually as from tray after
+tray they glittered duskily up at him, they began to yield their
+riches as they had so often done before. Spanish, French, Italian,
+Bohemian, Hungarian, Russian and Arabian, rings small and rings
+enormous, religious rings and magic rings, poison rings, some black
+with age for all his careful polishing&mdash;<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span>again
+they stole deep into Roger's imagination with suggestions of the
+many hands that had worn them through the centuries, of women
+kneeling in old churches, couples in dark crooked streets,
+adventures, love, hate, jealousy. Youth and fire, dreams and
+passion....</p>
+<p>At last he remembered why he was here. He thought of possible
+purchasers. He knew so many dealers, but he knew, too, that the war
+had played the devil with them as with everyone else. Still, he
+thought of several who would find it hard to resist the temptation.
+He would see them to-morrow, one by one, and get them bidding,
+haggling. Roger frowned disgustedly.</p>
+<p>No help for it, though, and it was a relief. It would bring a
+truce in his house for a time.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>But the truce was brief.</p>
+<p>On the afternoon when he sold his collection Roger came home all
+out of sorts. He had been forced to haggle long; it had been a mean
+inglorious day; one of the brightest paths in his life had ended in
+a pigstie. But at least he had bought some peace in his home!
+Women, women, women! He shut the front door with a slam and went up
+to his room for a little rest, a little of what he had paid for! On
+the stairs he passed young Betsy, and he startled the girl by the
+sudden glare of reproach he bestowed upon her. Savagely he told
+himself he was no "feminist" that night!</p>
+<p>The brief talk he had with Edith was far from reassuring. With
+no Deborah there to wound her pride, Edith quickly showed herself
+friendly to her father; but when he advised her to keep her nurse,
+she at once refused to consider it.</p>
+<p>"I want you to," he persisted, with an anxious note in his
+voice. He had tried life without Hannah here and he did not care to
+try it again.</p>
+<p>"It is already settled, father, I sent her away this
+morning."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id=
+"Page_252"></a>[252]</span>Then you get her right back!" he
+exclaimed. But Edith's face grew obstinate.</p>
+<p>"I don't care to give Deborah," she replied, "another chance to
+talk as she did."</p>
+<p>Roger looked at her gloomily. "You will, though," he was
+thinking. "You two have only just begun. Let any little point
+arise, which a couple of men would settle offhand, and you two will
+get together and go it! There'll be no living in the house!"</p>
+<p>With deepening displeasure he watched the struggle between them
+go on. Sometimes it seemed to Roger there was not a topic he could
+bring up which would not in some way bring on a clash. One night in
+desperation he proposed the theatre.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid we can't afford it," said Edith, glancing at
+Deborah. And she had the same answer, again and again, for the
+requests her children made, if they involved but the smallest
+expense. "No, dear, I'm afraid we can't afford that," she would say
+gently, with a sigh. And under this constant pressure, these
+nightly little thrusts and jabs, Deborah would grow rigid with
+annoyance and impatience.</p>
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, Edith," she burst out, one night when the
+children had gone to their lessons, "can you think of nothing on
+earth, except your own little family?"</p>
+<p>"Here it comes again," thought Roger, scowling into his paper.
+He heard Edith's curt reply:</p>
+<p>"No, I can't, not nowadays. Nobody <i>else</i> seems to think of
+them."</p>
+<p>"You mean that I don't!"</p>
+<p>"Do you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes! I'm thinking of George! Do you want him killed in the
+trenches&mdash;in a war with Germany or Japan?"</p>
+<p>"Are you utterly mad?" demanded Edith.</p>
+<p>"No, I'm awake&mdash;my eyes are open! But yours are shut so
+tight, my dear, you can't see what has happened!<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span> You
+know this war has made us poor and your own life harder, but that's
+all. The big thing it has done you know nothing about!"</p>
+<p>"Suppose you teach me," Edith said, with a prim provoking little
+smile. Deborah turned on her angrily:</p>
+<p>"It has shown that all such mothers as you are out of date and
+have got to change! That we're bound together&mdash;all over the
+world&mdash;whether we like it or whether we don't! And that if we
+want to keep out of war, we've got to do it by coming right out of
+our own little homes&mdash;<i>and thinking, Edith,
+thinking!</i>"</p>
+<p>"Votes for women," Edith said. Deborah looked at her, rose with
+a shrug.</p>
+<p>"All right, Edith, I give up."</p>
+<p>"Thank you. I'm not worth it. You'd better go back to your
+office now and go on with your work of saving the world. And use
+every hour of your time and every dollar you possess. I'll stay
+here and look after my children."</p>
+<p>Deborah had gone into the hall. Roger, buried deep in his paper,
+heard the heavy street door close. He looked up with a feverish
+sigh&mdash;and saw at the open door of his study George and Betsy
+standing, curious, solemn and wide eyed. How long had they been
+listening?</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXV</h2>
+<p>There came a season of sleet and rain when the smaller children
+were shut indoors and it was hard to keep them amused. They did not
+look well, and Edith was worried. She had always dreaded the
+spring, and to carry her family safely through she had taken them,
+in former years, to Atlantic City for two weeks. That of course was
+impossible now. Trouble was bound to come, she thought. And it was
+not long in coming. Bobby, who was ten years old and went to school
+with his brother George, caught a wretched cold one day. Edith
+popped him into bed, but despite her many precautions he gave his
+cold to Bruce and Tad.</p>
+<p>"Suppose I ask Allan Baird to come," Deborah suggested. "He's
+wonderful with children, you know."</p>
+<p>Edith curtly accepted his services. She felt he had been sent
+for to prevent her getting Doctor Lake. But she said nothing. She
+would wait. Through long hard days and longer nights she slaved
+upstairs. All Deborah's proffers of aid she declined. She kept
+Elizabeth home from school to help her with the many meals, the
+medicines and the endless task of keeping her lively patients in
+bed. She herself played with them by the hour, while the ache in
+her head was a torment. At night she was up at the slightest sound.
+Heavy circles came under her eyes. Within a few days her baby,
+Bruce, had developed pneumonia.</p>
+<p>That evening after dinner, while Deborah was sitting with Roger
+in the living room, she heard her sister coming downstairs. She
+listened acutely, and glancing around she saw that Roger was
+listening, too. Edith passed the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span>doorway and went on down
+the hall, where they heard her voice at the telephone. She came
+back and looked in at the door.</p>
+<p>"I've called Doctor Lake," she said. "I've just taken Bruce's
+temperature. It's a hundred and five and two fifths." Deborah
+glanced up with a start.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Edith!" she said softly. Her sister turned and looked at
+her.</p>
+<p>"I ought to have had him before," she said. "When he comes,
+please bring him right up to the room." And she hurried
+upstairs.</p>
+<p>"Pshaw!" breathed Roger anxiously. He had seen Bruce an hour
+ago; and the sight of the tiny boy, so exhausted and so still, had
+given him a sudden scare. Could it be that <i>this</i> would
+happen? Roger rose and walked the floor. Edith was right, he told
+himself, they should have had Lake long before. And they would
+have, by George, if it had not been for Deborah's interference! He
+glanced at her indignantly. Bringing in Baird to save money, eh?
+Well, it was just about time they stopped saving money on their own
+flesh and blood! What had Bruce to do with tenement babies? But he
+had had tenement treatment, just that! Deborah had had her way at
+last with Edith's children, and one of them might have to pay with
+its life! Again Roger glared at his silent daughter. And now, even
+in his excited state, he noticed how still and rigid she was, how
+unnatural the look she bent on the book held tightly in her
+hands.</p>
+<p>Still Deborah said nothing. She could feel her father's anger.
+Both he and Edith held her to blame. She felt herself in a position
+where she could not move a hand. She was stunned, and could not
+think clearly. A vivid picture was in her mind, vivid as a burning
+flame which left everything else in darkness. It was of Bruce, one
+adorable baby, fighting for breath. "What would I do if he were
+mine?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id=
+"Page_256"></a>[256]</span>When the doctor arrived she took him
+upstairs and then came down to her father.</p>
+<p>"Well?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"I don't know. We'll have to wait." And they both sat silent. At
+last they heard a door open and close, and presently steps coming
+down the stairs. Roger went out into the hall:</p>
+<p>"Come right in here, doctor, won't you? I want to hear about
+this myself."</p>
+<p>"Very well, sir." And Lake entered the room, with Edith close
+behind him. He took no notice of anyone else. "Write this down," he
+said to her. "And give it to the nurse when she comes." A heavy man
+of middle age, with curious dark impassive eyes that at times
+showed an ironic light, Lake was a despot in a world of mothers to
+whom his word was law. He was busy to-night, with no time to waste,
+and his low harsh voice now rattled out orders which Edith wrote
+down in feverish haste&mdash;an hourly schedule, night and day. He
+named a long list of things needed at once. "Night nurse will be
+here in an hour," he ended. "Day nurse, to-morrow, eight a.m. Get
+sleep yourself and plenty of it. As it is you're not fit to take
+care of a cat." Abruptly he turned and left the room. Edith
+followed. The street door closed, and in a moment after that his
+motor was off with a muffled roar. Edith came back, picked up her
+directions and turned to her sister:</p>
+<p>"Will you go up and sit with Bruce? I'll telephone the
+druggist," she said.</p>
+<p>Deborah went to the sick room. Bruce's small face, peaked and
+gray in the soft dim light, turned as she entered and came to the
+bed.</p>
+<p>"Well, dear?" she whispered. The small boy's eyes, large and
+heavy with fever, looked straight into hers.</p>
+<p>"Sick," said the baby hoarsely. The next instant he tossed up
+his hands and went through a spasm, trying to <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span>breathe.
+It passed, he relaxed a little, and again stared solemnly at his
+aunt. "Sick," he repeated. "Wery sick."</p>
+<p>Deborah sat silent. The child had another fight for his breath;
+and this time as he did so, Deborah's body contracted, too. A few
+moments later Edith came in. Deborah returned downstairs, and for
+over an hour she sat by herself. Roger was in his study, Betsy and
+George had gone to bed. The night nurse arrived and was taken
+upstairs. Still Deborah's mind felt numb and cold. Instinctively
+again and again it kept groping toward one point: "If I had a baby
+as sick as that, what would I do? What would I do?"</p>
+<p>When the doorbell rang again, she frowned, rose quickly and went
+to the door. It was Allan.</p>
+<p>"Allan&mdash;come in here, will you?" she said, and he followed
+her into the living room.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"Bruce is worse."</p>
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I'm sorry. Why didn't Edith let me know?"</p>
+<p>"She had Lake to-night," said Deborah. He knitted his brows in
+annoyance, then smiled.</p>
+<p>"Well, I don't mind that," he replied. "I'm rather glad. She'll
+feel easier now. What did he tell her?"</p>
+<p>"He seemed to consider it serious&mdash;by the number of things
+he ordered."</p>
+<p>"Two nurses, of course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, day and night." Deborah was silent a moment.</p>
+<p>"I may be wrong," she continued, "but I still feel sure the
+child will live. But I know it means a long hard fight. The expense
+of it all will be heavy."</p>
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+<p>"Whatever it is, I'll meet it," she said. "Father can't, he has
+reached the end. But even if he could help still, it wouldn't make
+much difference in what I've been deciding. Because when I was with
+Bruce to-night,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id=
+"Page_258"></a>[258]</span> I saw as clear as I see you now that if
+I had a child like that&mdash;as sick as that&mdash;I'd sacrifice
+anything&mdash;everything&mdash;schools, tenement children,
+thousands! I'd use the money which should have been theirs, and the
+time and the attention! I'd shut them all out, they could starve if
+they liked! I'd be like Edith&mdash;exactly! I'd center on this one
+child of mine!"</p>
+<p>Deborah turned her eyes to his, stern and gleaming with her
+pain. And she continued sharply:</p>
+<p>"But I don't mean to shut those children out! And so it's clear
+as day to me that I can't ever marry you! That baby to-night was
+the finishing stroke!"</p>
+<p>She made a quick restless movement. Baird leaned slowly forward.
+Her hands in her lap were clenched together. He took them both and
+held them hard.</p>
+<p>"No, this isn't clear," he said. "I can feel it in your hands.
+This is nerves. This is the child upstairs. This is Edith in the
+house. This is school, the end of the long winter's strain."</p>
+<p>"No, it's what I've decided!"</p>
+<p>"But this is the wrong decision," Allan answered steadily.</p>
+<p>"It's made!"</p>
+<p>"Not yet, it isn't, not to-night. We won't talk of it now,
+you're in no condition." Deborah's wide sensitive lips began to
+quiver suddenly:</p>
+<p>"We <i>will</i> talk of it now, or never at all! I want it
+settled&mdash;done with! I've had enough&mdash;it's killing
+me!"</p>
+<p>"No," was Allan's firm reply, "in a few days things will change.
+Edith's child will be out of danger, your other troubles will clear
+away!"</p>
+<p>"But what of next winter, and the next? What of Edith's
+children? Can't you see what a load they are on my father? Can't
+you see he's ageing fast?"</p>
+<p>"Suppose he dies," Baird answered. "It will leave them on your
+hands. You'll have <i>these</i> children, won't <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span>you,
+whether you marry or whether you don't! And so will I! I'm their
+guardian!"</p>
+<p>"That won't be the same," she cried, "as having children of our
+own&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Look into my eyes."</p>
+<p>"I'm looking&mdash;" Her own eyes were bright with tears.</p>
+<p>"Why are you always so afraid of becoming a mother?" Allan
+asked. In his gruff low voice was a fierce appeal. "It's this
+obsession in your mind that you'll be a mother like Edith. And
+that's absurd! You never will! You say you're afraid of not keeping
+school the first thing in your life! But you always do and you
+always will! You're putting it ahead of me now!"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I can put it ahead of <i>you</i>! But I couldn't put it
+ahead of <i>my child</i>!" He winced at this and she noticed it.
+"Because you are strong, and the child would be weak! The child
+would be like Bruce to-night!"</p>
+<p>"Are you sure if you marry you must have a child?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," she answered huskily, "if I married you I'd want a child.
+And that want in me would grow and grow until it made both of us
+wretched. I'm that kind of a woman. That's why my work has
+succeeded so far&mdash;because I've a passion for children! They're
+not my work, they're my very life!" She bowed her head, her mouth
+set hard. "But so are you," she whispered. "And since this is
+settled, Allan, what do you think? Shall we try to go
+on&mdash;working together side by side&mdash;seeing each other
+every day as we have been doing all these months? Rather hard on
+both of us, don't you think? I do, I feel that way," she said.
+Again her features quivered. "The kind of feeling I have&mdash;for
+you&mdash;would make that rather&mdash;difficult!"</p>
+<p>His grip tightened on her hands.</p>
+<p>"I won't give you up," he said. "Later you will change your
+mind."</p>
+<p>He left the room and went out of the house. Deborah <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span>sat
+rigid. She trembled and the tears came. She brushed them angrily
+away. Struggling to control herself, presently she grew quieter.
+Frowning, with her clear gray eyes intently staring before her, she
+did not see her father come into the doorway. He stopped with a
+jerk at sight of her face.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?" he asked. She started.</p>
+<p>"Nothing's the matter! How is Bruce?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know. Who went out a few minutes ago?"</p>
+<p>"Allan Baird," she answered.</p>
+<p>"Oh. You explained to him, of course, about Lake&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, he understands," she said. "He won't come here after
+this&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Roger looked at her sharply, wondering just what she meant. He
+hesitated. No, he would wait.</p>
+<p>"Good-night," he said, and went upstairs.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXVI</h2>
+<p>On the morrow Bruce did not grow better. If anything, the child
+grew worse. But by the next morning the crisis had passed. In the
+house the tension relaxed, and Roger suddenly felt so weak that he
+went to see his own physician. They had a long and serious talk.
+Later he went to his office, but he gave little heed to his work.
+Sitting there at his desk, he stared through the window far out
+over the city. A plan was forming in his mind.</p>
+<p>At home that night, at dinner, he kept watching Deborah, who
+looked tired and pale and rather relaxed. And as soon as she was
+out of the house he telephoned Allan to come at once.</p>
+<p>"It's something which can't wait," he urged.</p>
+<p>"Very well, I'll come right up."</p>
+<p>When Baird arrived a little later, Roger opened the door
+himself, and they went back into his study.</p>
+<p>"Sit down," he said. "Smoke, Allan?"</p>
+<p>"No, thanks." Baird looked doubly tall and lean, his face had a
+gaunt appearance; and as he sat down, his lithe supple right hand
+slowly closed on the arm of his chair.</p>
+<p>"Now then," began Roger, "there are two things we want to get
+clear on. The first is about yourself and Deborah. There has been
+trouble, hasn't there?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"She has made up her mind not to marry you."</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"I guessed as much." And Roger paused. "Do you mind my asking
+questions?</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id=
+"Page_262"></a>[262]</span>Are you still in love with her,
+Allan?"</p>
+<p>"I am."</p>
+<p>"And she with you?"</p>
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+<p>"Then it's the same old trouble."</p>
+<p>"Yes." And he told a part of what she had said. As he talked in
+clear, terse, even tones, Baird's steady eyes had a tortured light,
+the look of a man who has almost reached the end of his endurance.
+Roger smoked in silence.</p>
+<p>"What do you propose to do?"</p>
+<p>"Wait," said Allan, "a few days more. Then try again. If I fail
+I'm through." Roger shot a quick look at him.</p>
+<p>"I don't think you'll fail, my boy&mdash;and what's more I think
+I can help you. This is a large house, Allan&mdash;there's more in
+it than you know. My second point concerns myself. I'm going to die
+within a year."</p>
+<p>As Baird turned on him suddenly, Roger grimly smiled and said,
+"We won't go into the details, but I've been examined lately and I
+have quite positive knowledge of what I've suspected for some time.
+So far, I have told no one but you. And I'm telling you only
+because of the bearing it has on Deborah." Roger leaned forward
+heavily. "She's the one of my daughters who means the most, now
+that I'm so near the end. When I die next year that may be
+all&mdash;I may simply end&mdash;a blank, a grave&mdash;I am not
+sure. But I've made up my mind above everything else to see Deborah
+happy before I go. And I mean to do it by setting her free&mdash;so
+free I think it will frighten her."</p>
+<p>Roger went on to explain his plan, and they talked together for
+some time.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Another week had soon gone by. Bruce still recovered rapidly,
+and the other sick children were up and about. Deborah, in the
+meantime, had barely been in the house <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span>at all.
+But late on Saturday evening Roger found her in her room. She was
+working. He came behind her.</p>
+<p>"What is it, dad?"</p>
+<p>"Busy, eh?" He hesitated, and laid his hand on her shoulder with
+a little affectionate pressure. "You've kept so busy lately," he
+said, "I haven't had time to see anything of you. How's your work
+going?"</p>
+<p>"Much better, thanks&mdash;now that the winter is over."</p>
+<p>He questioned her about her schools. And then after a brief
+pause,</p>
+<p>"Well, daughter," he said, "it has been a great fight, and I'm
+proud of you for it. And if I've got anything to say&mdash;" his
+hand was still on her shoulder, and he felt her tighten
+suddenly&mdash;"it isn't by way of criticism&mdash;please be sure
+of that ahead. In this damnable war my faith in men has been badly
+shaken up. Humanity seems to me still a child&mdash;a child who
+needs to go to school. God knows we need men and women like
+you&mdash;and I'm proud of all you've accomplished, I'd be the last
+man to hold you back. I only want to help you go on&mdash;by seeing
+to it that you are free&mdash;from anything which can hinder you."
+He stopped again for a moment.</p>
+<p>"To begin with," he said, "I understand you're not going to
+marry Allan Baird." She stirred slightly:</p>
+<p>"Did he tell you so?"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I asked him," Roger replied. "I had Allan here a few
+nights ago, and he told me you had decided to give up your
+happiness for the sake of all those children in that big family of
+yours. You felt you must keep yourself free for them. Very well, if
+that is your decision I propose to clear the way." She looked
+intently up at his face. "You're not free now," he continued. "We
+have Edith and her children here. And I'm growing old&mdash;that
+has got to be thought of&mdash;I don't want to leave them on your
+hands. So as soon as the baby is well enough, I'm going to move
+them up to the mountains&mdash;not only for the sum<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id=
+"Page_264"></a>[264]</span>mer&mdash;they are to stay the whole
+year 'round. From this time on they're to make it their home."</p>
+<p>"Father! But they can't do that! Think of the winters!" Deborah
+cried.</p>
+<p>"It's already settled," he answered. "I've talked to Edith and
+she has agreed. She has always loved the farm, and it will be good
+for her children. In the meantime I've been talking to George.
+'George,' I told him, 'I'm going to talk to you, man to man, about
+a man's job I want you to tackle.'"</p>
+<p>"The farm? But, dearie! He's only a boy!"</p>
+<p>"He's nearly seventeen," said Roger, "and a young moose for his
+age. And old Dave Royce will still be there. It's the work George
+has been dreaming about ever since he was a child. You should have
+seen how he was thrilled by the scheme. I told him we'd spend the
+summer together up there laying all our plans, investing our money
+carefully to make every dollar count."</p>
+<p>"What money?" Deborah sharply asked. But her father was talking
+steadily on:</p>
+<p>"We already have a fine lot of cattle. We'll add to it and
+enlarge the barn and put in some new equipment. In short, we'll put
+it in fine shape, make it a first class dairy farm. 'And then,
+George,' I said to him, 'I'm going to turn it over to you. I shall
+give the farm to your mother, and the rest of the money I have I
+mean to invest in her name down here, so that she'll have a small
+income until you can make your dairy pay.'"</p>
+<p>"What money are you speaking of?" Deborah's voice was thick and
+hard, her sensitive lips were parted and she was breathing
+quickly.</p>
+<p>"I've sold the house," he told her. Convulsively she gripped his
+arms:</p>
+<p>"Then tell me where <i>you</i> mean to live!"</p>
+<p>"I'm not going to live&mdash;I'm going to die&mdash;very
+soon&mdash;I have definite knowledge."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id=
+"Page_265"></a>[265]</span>Without speaking Deborah rose; her face
+went white. Her father kept tight hold of her hands, and he felt
+them trembling, growing cold.</p>
+<p>"You're soon to be free of everyone," he continued painfully. "I
+know this is hurting you, but I see so plain, so plain, my child,
+just what it is I've got to do. I'm trying to clear the way for you
+to make a simple definite choice&mdash;a choice which is going to
+settle your life one way or the other. I want to make sure you see
+what you're doing. Because you mean so much to me. We're flesh and
+blood&mdash;eh, my daughter?&mdash;and in this family of ours we've
+been the closest ones of all!" She seemed to sway a little.</p>
+<p>"<i>You're not going to die</i>!" she whispered.</p>
+<p>"So it hurts you to lose me," he replied. "It will be hard to be
+so free. Would you rather not have had me at all? I've been quite a
+load on your back, you know. A fearful job you had of it, dragging
+me up when I was down. And since then Edith and Bruce and the rest,
+what burdens they have been at times. What sharp worries, heavy
+sorrows, days and nights you and I have gone through, when we
+should have been quietly resting&mdash;free&mdash;to keep up our
+strength for our next day's work. Suppose you had missed them,
+lived alone, would you have worked better? You don't know. But you
+will know soon, you're to give it a trial. For I've cleared the
+way&mdash;so that if you throw over Baird to be free you shall get
+the freedom you feel you need!"</p>
+<p>"Father! Please! Is this fair? Is this kind?" She asked in a
+harsh frightened tone. Her eyes were wet with angry tears.</p>
+<p>"This isn't a time to be kind, my dear." His voice was quivering
+like her own. "I'm bungling it&mdash;I'm bungling it&mdash;but you
+must let me stumble along and try to show you what I mean. You will
+have your work, your crowded schools, to which you'll be able to
+give your life. But I <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id=
+"Page_266"></a>[266]</span>look ahead, I who know you&mdash;and I
+don't see you happy, I don't even see you whole. For you there will
+be no family. None of the intimate sorrows and joys that have been
+in this house will come to you. I look back and I see them
+all&mdash;for a man who has come so near the end gets a larger
+vision." He shut his eyes, his jaw set tight. "I look into my
+family back and back, and I see how it has been made of many
+generations. Certain figures stand out in my mind&mdash;they cover
+over a hundred years. And I see how much they've meant to me. I see
+that I've been one of them&mdash;a link in a long chain of
+lives&mdash;all inter-bound and reaching on. In my life they have
+all been here&mdash;as I shall be in lives to come.</p>
+<p>"And this is what I want for you." He held her close a moment.
+The tears were rolling down her cheeks. "Until now you have been
+one of us, too. You have never once been free. You have been the
+one in this house to step in and take hold and try to decide what's
+best to be done. I'm not putting you up on a pedestal, I don't say
+you've made no mistakes&mdash;but I say you're the kind of a woman
+who craves what's in a family. You're the one of my daughters who
+has loved this house the most!"</p>
+<p>"Yes," she said, "I've loved this house&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But now for you all this will stop&mdash;quite suddenly," he
+told her. "This house of ours will soon be sold. And within a few
+months I shall be dead, and your family will have dropped out of
+your life."</p>
+<p>"Stop! Can't you? Stop! It's brutal! It isn't true about you!"
+she cried. "I won't believe it!" Her voice broke.</p>
+<p>"Go and see my physician," he said.</p>
+<p>"How long have you known it? Why didn't you tell me?"</p>
+<p>"Because we had troubles enough as it was, other things to think
+of. But there's only one thing now, this freedom you are
+facing."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id=
+"Page_267"></a>[267]</span>Please! Please!" she cried imploringly.
+"I don't want to talk of myself but of you! This
+physician&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"No," he answered with stern pain, "you'll have to hear me out,
+my child. We're talking of you&mdash;of you alone when I am gone.
+How will it be? Are you quite sure? You will have your work, that
+vision of yours, and I know how close it has been to you, vivid and
+warm, almost like a friend. But so was my business once like that,
+when I was as young as you. And the business grew and it got
+cold&mdash;impersonal, a mere machine. Thank God I had a family.
+Isn't your work growing too? Are you sure it won't become a
+machine? And won't you lose touch with the children then, unless
+you have a child of your own? Friends won't be enough, you'll find,
+they're not bound up into yourself. The world may reach a stage at
+last where we shall live on in the lives of all&mdash;we may all be
+one big family. But that time is still far off&mdash;we hold to our
+own flesh and blood. And so I'm sure it will be with you. You see
+you have been young, my dear, and your spirit has been fresh and
+new. But how are you going to keep it so, without the ties you've
+always had?" He felt the violent clutch of her hand.</p>
+<p>"<i>You won't die</i>!" she whispered. But he went on
+relentlessly:</p>
+<p>"And what will you do without Allan Baird? For you see you have
+not even worked alone. You have had this man who has loved you
+there. I've seen how much he has helped you&mdash;how you have
+grown and he has grown since you two got together. And if you throw
+him over now, it seems to me you are not only losing what has done
+the most for your work, but you're running away from life as well.
+You've never won by doing that, you've always won by meeting life,
+never evading it, taking it all, living it full, taking chances! If
+you marry Baird, I see you both go on together in your work, while
+in your home you struggle through the troubles, tangles, joys and
+griefs <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id=
+"Page_268"></a>[268]</span>which most of us mortals know so well! I
+see you in a world of children, but with children, too, of your
+own&mdash;to keep your spirit always young! Living on in your
+children's lives!"</p>
+<p>Roger stopped abruptly. He groped for something more to say.</p>
+<p>"On the one side, all that," he muttered, "and on the other, a
+lonely life which will soon grow old."</p>
+<p>There fell a dangerous silence. And sharply without warning, the
+influence, deep and invisible, of many generations of stolid folk
+in New England made itself felt in each of them. Father and
+daughter grew awkward, both. The talk had been too emotional. Each
+made, as by an instinct, a quick strong effort at self-control, and
+felt about for some way to get back upon their old easy footing.
+Roger turned to his daughter. Her head was still bent, her hands
+clasped tight, but she was frowning down at them now, although her
+face was still wet with tears. She drew a deep unsteady breath.</p>
+<p>"Well, Deborah," he said simply, "here I've gone stumbling on
+like a fool. I don't know what I've said or how you have
+listened."</p>
+<p>"I've listened," she said thickly.</p>
+<p>"I have tried," he went on in a steadier tone, "to give you some
+feeling of what is ahead&mdash;and to speak for your mother as well
+as myself. And more than that&mdash;much more than that&mdash;for
+the world has changed since she was here. God knows I've tried to
+be modern." A humorous glint came into his eyes, "Downright
+modern," he declared. "Have I asked you to give up your career? Not
+at all, I've asked you to marry Baird, and go right on with him in
+your work. And if you can't marry Allan Baird, after what he has
+done for you, how in God's name can you modern women ever marry
+anyone? Now what do you say? Will you marry him? Don't laugh at me!
+I'm serious! Talk!"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id=
+"Page_269"></a>[269]</span>But Deborah was laughing&mdash;although
+her father felt her hands still cold and trembling in his. Her gray
+eyes, bright and luminous, were shining up into his own.</p>
+<p>"What a time you've been having, haven't you, dear!" his
+daughter cried unsteadily. "Fairly lying awake at night and racking
+your brains for everything modern I've ever said&mdash;to turn it
+and twist it and use it against me!"</p>
+<p>"Well?" he demanded. "How does it twist?"</p>
+<p>"It twists hard, thank you," she declared. "You've turned and
+twisted me about till I barely see how I can live at all!"</p>
+<p>"You can, though! Marry Allan Baird!"</p>
+<p>"I'll think it over&mdash;later on."</p>
+<p>"What is there left to think about? Can you point to one hole in
+all I've said?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, a good many&mdash;and one right off."</p>
+<p>"Out with it!"</p>
+<p>"You're not dying," Deborah told him calmly, "I feel quite
+certain you'll live for years."</p>
+<p>"Oh, you do, eh&mdash;then see my physician!"</p>
+<p>"I will, I'll see him to-morrow. How long did you give yourself?
+Just a few months?"</p>
+<p>"No, he said it might be more," admitted Roger grudgingly. "If I
+had no worries to wear me out&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Me, you mean."</p>
+<p>"Exactly."</p>
+<p>"Well, you've worried quite enough. You're going to leave it to
+me to decide."</p>
+<p>"Very well," he agreed. He looked at her. "You have
+listened&mdash;hard?" he gruffly asked.</p>
+<p>"Yes, dear." Her hands slowly tightened on his. "But don't speak
+of this again. You're to leave it to me. You promise?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>And Roger left her.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id=
+"Page_270"></a>[270]</span>He went to bed but he could not sleep.
+With a sudden sag in his spirits he felt what a bungler he had
+been. He was not used to these solemn talks, he told himself
+irately. What a fool to try it! And how had Deborah taken it all?
+He did not mind her laughter, nor that lighter tone of hers. It was
+only her way of ending the talk, an easy way out for both of them.
+But what had she thought underneath? Had his points gone home? He
+tried to remember them. Pshaw! He had been too excited, and he
+could recall scarcely anything. He had not meant to speak of
+Baird&mdash;he had meant to leave him out! Yes, how he must have
+bungled it! Doubtless she was smiling still. Even the news about
+himself she had not taken seriously.</p>
+<p>But as he thought about that news, Roger's mood completely
+changed. The talk of the evening grew remote, his family no longer
+real, mere little figures, shadowy, receding swiftly far away....
+Much quieter now, he lay a long time listening to the life of the
+house, the occasional sounds from the various rooms. From the
+nursery adjoining came little Bruce's piping laugh, and Roger could
+hear the nurse moving about. Afterwards for a long time he could
+hear only creaks and breathings. Never had the old house seemed so
+like a living creature. For nearly forty years it had held all that
+he had loved and known, all he had been sure of. Outside of it was
+the strange, the new, the uncertain, the vast unknown, stretching
+away to infinity....</p>
+<p>Again he heard Bruce's gay little laugh. What did it remind him
+of? He puzzled. Then he had it. Edith had been a baby here. Her
+cradle had been in this very room, close by the bed. And how she
+had laughed! What gurgles and ripples of bursting glee! The first
+child in his family....</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXVII</h2>
+<p>On the next day, which was Sunday, Deborah made an appointment
+with her father's physician, and had a long talk with him at his
+house. Upon her return she went to her room and stayed there until
+evening, but when she came down to supper her manner was as usual.
+At the table she joined in the talk of Edith and the children,
+already deep in their preparations for the move up to the farm.
+George could hardly wait to start. That life would be a change
+indeed in Edith's plans for her family, and as they talked about it
+now the tension of hostility which had so long existed between the
+two sisters passed away. Each knew the clash had come to an end,
+that they would live together no more; and as though in remorse
+they drew close, Deborah with her suggestions, Edith in her
+friendly way of taking and discussing each one. Then Deborah went
+again to her room. Her room was just over Roger's, and waking
+several times in the night he heard his daughter walking the
+floor.</p>
+<p>The next day she was up early and off to her school before he
+came down. It was a fine spring morning, Roger had had a good
+night's sleep, and as he walked to his office he was buoyed up by a
+feeling both of hope for his daughter and of solid satisfaction in
+himself as he remembered all that he had said to her. Curiously
+enough he could recall every word of it now. Every point which he
+had made rose up before him vividly. How clear he had been, how
+simple and true, and yet with what a tremendous effect he had piled
+the points one on the other. "By George," he thought with a little
+glow, "for a fellow who's never been in a pulpit I put up a
+devilish strong appeal." And he <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span>added sagely, "Let it work
+on the girl, give it a chance. She'll come out of this all right.
+This idea some fellows have, that every woman is born a fool, isn't
+fair, it isn't true. Just let a line of argument be presented to
+her strong and clear&mdash;straight from the shoulder&mdash;by some
+man&mdash;"</p>
+<p>And again with a tingle of pleasure his mind recurred to his
+sermon. His pleasures had been few of late, so he dwelt on this
+little glow of pride and made the most of it while it was here.</p>
+<p>At the office, as he entered his room, he stopped with a slight
+shock of surprise. John, standing on his crutches in front of a
+large table, had been going through the morning's mail, sorting out
+the routine letters Roger did not need to see. To-day he had just
+finished and was staring at the window. The light fell full on his
+sallow face and showed an amazing happiness. At Roger's step he
+started.</p>
+<p>"Well, Johnny, how goes it this morning?"</p>
+<p>"Fine, thank you," was the prompt reply. And John hobbled
+briskly over to his typewriter in the corner. Roger sat down at his
+desk. As he did so he glanced again at the cripple and felt a
+little pang of regret. "What will become of him," he asked, "when I
+close out my business?" He still thought of him as a mere boy, for
+looking at the small crooked form it was difficult to remember that
+John was twenty years of age. The lad had worked like a Trojan of
+late. Even Roger, engrossed as he had been in family anxieties, had
+noticed it in the last few weeks. He would have to make some
+provision for John. Deborah would see to it.... Roger went slowly
+through his mail. One letter was from the real estate firm through
+whom he was to sell the house. The deal had not been closed as yet,
+there were certain points still to be settled. So Roger called John
+to his desk and dictated a reply. When he finished there was a
+brief pause.</p>
+<p>"That's all," said Roger gruffly.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id=
+"Page_273"></a>[273]</span>So you're sellin' the house," John
+ventured.</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>The lad limped back to his corner and went to work at his
+machine. But presently he came over again and stood waiting
+awkwardly.</p>
+<p>"What is it, Johnny?" Roger inquired, without looking up.</p>
+<p>"Say, Mr. Gale," the boy began, in a carefully casual tone,
+"would you mind talking business a minute or two?"</p>
+<p>"No. Fire ahead."</p>
+<p>"Well, sir, you've had your own troubles lately, you haven't had
+much time for things here. The last time you went over the books
+was nearly a couple of weeks ago."</p>
+<p>John paused and his look was portentous.</p>
+<p>"Well," asked Roger, "what about it? Business been picking up
+any since then?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir!" was the answer. "We didn't lose a cent last week! We
+made money! Fifteen dollars!"</p>
+<p>"Good Lord, Johnny, we're getting rich."</p>
+<p>"But that's nothing," John continued. "The fact of the matter
+is, Mr. Gale, I have been working lately on a new line I thought
+of. And now it's got agoing so fast it's getting clean away from
+me!" Again he stopped, and swallowed hard.</p>
+<p>"Out with it, then," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"I got it from the war," said John. "The papers are still half
+full of war news, and that's what's keeping our business
+down&mdash;because we ain't adopting ourselves to the new war
+conditions. So I figured it like this. Say there are a million
+people over here in America who've got either friends or relations
+in the armies over there. Say that all of 'em want to get
+news&mdash;not just this stuff about battles, but real live news of
+what's happened to Bill. Has Bill still got his legs and arms? Can
+he hold down a job when he gets home? News which counts for
+something! See? A big new market! Business for us! So I tried to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id=
+"Page_274"></a>[274]</span>see what I could do!" John excitedly
+shifted his crutches. Roger was watching intently.</p>
+<p>"Go on, Johnny."</p>
+<p>"Sure, I'll go on! One night I went to a library where they have
+English papers. I went over their files for about a month. I took
+one Canadian regiment&mdash;see?&mdash;and traced it through, and I
+got quite a story. Then I used some of the money I've saved and
+bought a whole bunch of papers. I piled 'em up in the room where I
+sleep and went through 'em nights. I hired two kids to help me.
+Well, Mr. Gale, the thing worked fine! In less than a week I had
+any amount of little bunches of clippings. See how I mean? Each
+bunch was the story of one regiment for a month. So I knew we could
+deliver the goods!</p>
+<p>"Well, this was about ten days ago. And then I went after the
+market. I went to a man I met last year in an advertising office,
+and for fifty dollars we put an 'ad' in the Sunday Times. After
+that there was nothing to do but wait. The next day&mdash;nothing
+doing! I was here at seven-thirty and I went through every mail.
+Not a single answer to my 'ad'&mdash;and I thought I was busted!
+But Tuesday morning there were three, with five dollar checks
+inside of 'em! In the afternoon there were two more and the next
+day eleven! By the end of last week we'd had forty-six! Friday I
+put in another 'ad' and there've been over seventy more since then!
+That makes a hundred and twenty in all&mdash;six hundred dollars!
+And I'm swamped! I ain't done nothing yet&mdash;I've just kept 'em
+all for you to see!"</p>
+<p>He went quickly to the table, gathered a pile of letters there
+and brought them over to Roger's desk. Roger glanced over a few of
+them, dazed. He looked around into John's shrewd face, where
+mingled devotion and triumph and business zeal were shining.</p>
+<p>"Johnny," he said huskily, "you've adopted my busi<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span>ness and
+no mistake." John swallowed again and scowled with joy.</p>
+<p>"Let's figure it out!" he proposed.</p>
+<p>"We will!"</p>
+<p>They were at it all day, laying their plans, "adopting" the work
+of the office to the new conditions. They found they would need a
+larger force, including a French and a German translator. They
+placed other "ads" in the papers. They forgot to have lunch and
+worked steadily on, till the outer rooms were empty and still. At
+last they were through. Roger wearily put on his cuffs, and went
+and got his coat and hat.</p>
+<p>"Say, Mr. Gale," John asked him, "how about this
+letter&mdash;the one you dictated this morning to that firm about
+your house?" Roger turned and looked at him.</p>
+<p>"Throw it into the basket," he said. "We'll write 'em another
+to-morrow and tell 'em we have changed our minds." He paused for
+just a moment, and then he added brusquely, "If this goes through
+as I hope it will, I guess you'd better come into the firm."</p>
+<p>And he left the room abruptly. Behind him there was not a
+sound.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>At home in his study, that evening, he made some more
+calculations. In a few weeks he would have money enough to start
+Edith and her family in their new life on the farm. For the present
+at least, the house was safe.</p>
+<p>"Why, father." Edith came into the room. "I didn't know you had
+come home. What kept you so long at the office?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, business, my dear&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Have you had any supper?"</p>
+<p>"No, and I'd like some," he replied.</p>
+<p>"I'll see to it myself," she said. Edith was good at this sort
+of thing, and the supper she brought was delicious. He ate it with
+keen relish. Then he went back to his study <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span>and
+picked up a book, an old favorite. He started to read, but
+presently dozed. The book dropped from his hands and he fell
+asleep.</p>
+<p>He awakened with a start, and saw Deborah looking down at him.
+For a moment he stared up, as he came to his senses, and in his
+daughter's clear gray eyes he thought he saw a happiness which set
+his heart to beating fast.</p>
+<p>"Well?" he questioned huskily.</p>
+<p>"We're to be married right away."</p>
+<p>He stared a moment longer; "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad, my dear. I
+was afraid you&mdash;" he stopped short. Deborah bent close to him,
+and he felt her squeeze his arm:</p>
+<p>"I've been over and over all you said," she told him, in a low
+sweet voice. "I had a good many ups and downs. But I'm all through
+now&mdash;I'm sure you were right." And she pressed her cheek to
+his. "Oh, dad, dad&mdash;it's such a relief! And I'm so happy!...
+Thank you, dear."</p>
+<p>"Where is Allan?" he asked presently.</p>
+<p>"I'll get him," she said. She left the room, and in a moment
+Allan's tall ungainly form appeared in the doorway.</p>
+<p>"Well, Allan, my boy," Roger cried.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Roger Gale," said Allan softly. He was wringing Roger's
+hand.</p>
+<p>"So she decided to risk you, eh," Roger said unsteadily. "Well,
+Baird, you look like a devilish risk for a woman like her&mdash;who
+has the whole world on her back as it is&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I know&mdash;I know&mdash;and how rash she has been! Only two
+years and her mind was made up!"</p>
+<p>"But that's like her&mdash;that's our Deborah&mdash;always
+acting like a flash&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Stop acting like children!" Deborah cried. "And be sensible and
+listen to me! We're to be married to-morrow morning&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Why to-morrow?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"Because," she said decidedly, "there has been enough
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id=
+"Page_277"></a>[277]</span>fuss over this affair. So we'll just be
+married and have it done. And when Edith and the children go up
+next week to the mountains, we want to move right into this
+house."</p>
+<p>"This house?" exclaimed her father.</p>
+<p>"I know&mdash;it's sold," she answered. "But we're going to get
+a lease. We'll see the new owner and talk him around."</p>
+<p>"Then you'll have to talk <i>your father</i> around&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<i>You</i> around?" And Deborah stared. "You mean to say you're
+not going to sell?"</p>
+<p>"I do," said Roger blithely. He told them the story of John's
+new scheme. "And if things turn out in the office as I hope they
+will," he ended, "we'll clear the mortgage on the house and then
+make it your wedding gift&mdash;from the new firm to the new
+family."</p>
+<p>Deborah choked a little:</p>
+<p>"Allan! What do you think of us now?"</p>
+<p>"I think," he answered, in a drawl, "that we'd better try to
+persuade the new firm to live with the new family."</p>
+<p>"We will, and the sooner the better!" she said.</p>
+<p>"I'm going up to the mountains," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"Yes, but you're coming back in the fall, and when you do you're
+coming here! And you're going to live here years and years!"</p>
+<p>"You're forgetting my doctor."</p>
+<p>"Not at all. I had a long talk with him Sunday and I know just
+what I'm saying."</p>
+<p>"You don't look it, my dear," said Roger, "but of course you may
+be right. If you take the proper care of me here&mdash;and John
+keeps booming things for the firm&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"And George makes a huge success of the farm," Deborah added
+quickly.</p>
+<p>"And Deborah of teaching the world&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Oh, Allan, hush up!"</p>
+<p>"Look here," he said. "You go upstairs and tell Edith all this.
+Your father and I want to be alone."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id=
+"Page_278"></a>[278]</span>And when the two men were left alone,
+they smoked and said nothing. They smiled at each other.</p>
+<p>"It's hard to decide," grunted Roger at last. "Which did
+it&mdash;my wonderful sermon or your own long waiting game? I'm
+inclined to think it was the game. For any other man but
+you&mdash;with all you've done, without any talk&mdash;no, sir,
+there wouldn't have been a chance. For she's modern, Baird, she's
+modern. And I'm going to live just as long as I can. I want to see
+what happens here."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>The next night in his study, how quiet it was. Edith was busy
+packing upstairs, Deborah and Allan were gone. Thoughts drifted
+slowly across his mind. Well, she was married, the last of his
+daughters, the one whom he cared most for, the one who had taken
+the heaviest risks. And this was the greatest risk of all. For
+although she had put it happily out of her thoughts for the moment,
+Roger knew the old troublesome question was still there in
+Deborah's mind. The tenement children or her own, the big family or
+the small? He felt there would still be struggles ahead. And with a
+kind of a wistfulness he tried to see into the future here.</p>
+<p>He gave a sudden start in his chair.</p>
+<p>"By George!" he thought. "They forgot the ring!" Scowling, he
+tried to remember. Yes, in the brief simple service that day, in
+which so much had been omitted&mdash;music, flowers, wedding
+gown&mdash;even the ring had been left out. Why? Not from any
+principle, he knew that they were not such fools. No, they had
+simply forgotten it, in the haste of getting married at once. Well,
+by thunder, for a girl whose father had been a collector of rings
+for the best part of his natural life, it was pretty shabby to say
+the least! Then he recollected that he, too, had forgotten it. And
+this quieted him immediately.</p>
+<p>"I'll get one, though," he promised himself. "And no
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id=
+"Page_279"></a>[279]</span>plain wedding ring either. I'll make A.
+Baird attend to that. No, I'll get her a ring worth while."</p>
+<p>He sank deep in his chair and took peace to his soul by thinking
+of the ring he would choose. And this carried his thoughts back
+over the years. For there had been so many rings....</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXVIII</h2>
+<p>It was a clear beautiful afternoon toward the end of May. And as
+the train puffing up the grade wound along the Connecticut River,
+Roger sat looking out of the window. The orchards were pink and
+white on the hills. Slowly the day wore away. The river narrowed,
+the hills reared high, and in the sloping meadows gray ribs and
+shoulders of granite appeared. The air had a tang of the mountains.
+Everywhere were signs of spring, of new vigor and fresh life. But
+the voices at each station sounded drowsier than at the last, the
+eyes appeared more stolid, and to Roger it felt like a journey far
+back into old ways of living, old beliefs and old ideals. He had
+always had this feeling, and always he had relished it, this dive
+into his boyhood. But it was different to-day, for this was more
+than a journey, it was a migration, too. Close about him in the car
+were Edith and her children, bound for a new home up there in the
+very heart and stronghold of all old things in America.</p>
+<p>Old things dear to Edith's heart. As she sat by the window
+staring out, he watched her shapely little head; he noted the
+hardening lines on her forehead and the gray which had come in her
+hair. It had been no easy move for her, this, she'd shown pluck to
+take it so quietly. He saw her smile a little, then frown and go on
+with her thinking. What was she thinking about, he
+wondered&mdash;all she had left behind in New York, or the rest of
+her life which lay ahead? She had always longed for things simple
+and old. Well, she would have them now with a vengeance, summer and
+winter, the year 'round, in the battered frame house on the
+mountain side, the birthplace of her family. A <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id=
+"Page_281"></a>[281]</span>recollection came to him of a summer's
+dusk two years ago and a woman with a lawn mower cutting the grass
+on the family graves. Would Edith ever be like that, a mere
+custodian of the past? If she did, he thought, she would be false
+to the very traditions she tried to preserve. For her forefathers
+had never been mere guardians of things gone by. Always they had
+been pioneers. That house had not been old to them, but a thrilling
+new adventure. Their old homes they had left behind, far down in
+the valleys to the east. And even those valley homes had been new
+to the rugged men come over the sea. Would Edith ever understand?
+Would she see that for herself the new must emerge from her
+children, from the ideas, desires and plans already teeming in
+their minds? Would she show keen interest, sympathy? Would she be
+able to keep her hold?</p>
+<p>In the seat behind her mother, Betsy was sitting with Bruce in
+her lap, looking over a picture book. Quietly Roger watched the
+girl.</p>
+<p>"What are you going to be?" he asked. "A woman's college
+president, a surgeon or a senator? And what will your mother think
+of you then?"</p>
+<p>They changed cars, and on a train made up of antiquated coaches
+they wound through a side valley, down which rushing and tumbling
+came the river that bore Roger's name. He went into the smoking
+car, and presently George joined him there. George did not yet
+smoke, (with his elders), but he had bought a package of gum and he
+was chewing absorbedly. Plainly the lad was excited over the great
+existence which he saw opening close ahead. Roger glanced at the
+boy's broad shoulders, noticed the eager lines of his jaw, looked
+down at his enormous hands, unformed as yet, ungainly; but in them
+was a hungriness that caused a glow in Roger's breast. One more of
+the family starting out.</p>
+<p>"It's all going to depend on you," Roger gravely <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id=
+"Page_282"></a>[282]</span>counseled. "Your whole life will depend
+on the start you make. Either you're going to settle down, like so
+many of your neighbors up there, or you're going to hustle, plan
+out your day, keep on with your studies and go to college&mdash;the
+State Agricultural College, I mean. In short, keep up to date, my
+boy, and become in time a big figure in farming."</p>
+<p>"I'm going to do it," George replied. His grandfather glanced
+again at his face, so scowling, so determined. And a gleam of
+compassion and yearning came for a moment in Roger's eyes. His
+heavy hand lay on George's knee.</p>
+<p>"That's right, son," he grunted. "Make the family proud of you.
+I'll do all I can to help you start. My business is picking up,
+thank God, and I'll be able to back you now. I'll stay up here a
+good part of the summer. We've both of us got a lot to
+learn&mdash;and not only from books&mdash;we want to remember we've
+plenty to learn from the neighbors, too. Take old Dave Royce, for
+instance, who when all is said and done has worked our farm for
+twenty odd years and never once run me into debt."</p>
+<p>"But, Gee!" demurred George. "He's so 'way out of date!"</p>
+<p>"I know he is, son, but we've got to go slow." And Roger's look
+passed furtively along the faces in the car. "We don't want to
+forget," he warned, "that this is still New England. Every new idea
+we have we want to go easy with, snake it in."</p>
+<p>"I've got an awful lot of 'em," the boy muttered hungrily.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>At the farm, the next morning at daybreak, Roger was awakened by
+the sound of George's voice. It was just beneath his window:</p>
+<p>"But cattle are only part of it, Dave," the boy declared, in
+earnest tones, "just part of what we can have up <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span>here.
+Think what we've got&mdash;over three hundred acres! And we want to
+make every acre count! We want to get in a whole lot more of
+hogs&mdash;Belted Hampshires, if we can afford 'em&mdash;and a
+couple of hundred hens. White Leghorns ought to fill the bill. Of
+course that's just a starter. I've got a scheme for some
+incubators&mdash;electric&mdash;run by the dynamo which we'll put
+in down by the dam. And we can do wonders with bees, too,
+Dave&mdash;I've got a book on 'em I'd like you to read. And
+besides, there's big money in squab these days. Rich women in New
+York hotels eat thousands of 'em every night. And ducks, of course,
+and turkeys. I'd like a white gobbler right at the start, if we
+knew where we could get one cheap." The voice broke off and there
+was a pause. "We can do an awful lot with this place."</p>
+<p>Then Dave's deep drawl:</p>
+<p>"That's so, George&mdash;yes, I guess that's so. Only we don't
+want to fool ourselves. That ain't Noah's Ark over thar&mdash;it's
+a barn. And just for a starter, if I was you&mdash;" Here Dave
+deliberated. "Of course it's none of my business," he said, "it's
+for you and your grandfather to decide&mdash;and I don't propose to
+interfere in what ain't any of my affair&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, yes, Dave, sure! That's all right! But go on! <i>What</i>,
+just for a starter?"</p>
+<p>"Cows," came the tranquil answer. "I've been hunting around
+since you wrut me last month. And I know of three good
+milkers&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Three? Why, Dave, I wrote we want thirty or forty!"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;you wrut," Dave answered. "But I've druv all around
+these parts&mdash;and there ain't but three that I can find. And I
+ain't so sure of that third one. She looks like she might&mdash;"
+George cut in.</p>
+<p>"But you only had a buggy, Dave! Gee! I'm going to have a
+Ford!"</p>
+<p>"That so, George?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id=
+"Page_284"></a>[284]</span>You bet it's so! And we'll go on a cow
+hunt all over the State!"</p>
+<p>"Well&mdash;I dunno but what you're right," Dave responded
+cautiously. "You might get more cows if you had a Ford&mdash;an'
+got so you could run it. Yes, I guess it's a pretty good scheme. I
+believe in being conservative, George&mdash;but I dunno now but
+what a Ford&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Their voices passed from under the window, and Roger relaxed and
+smiled to himself. It was a good beginning, he thought.</p>
+<p>They bought a Ford soon afterwards and in the next few weeks of
+June they searched the farms for miles around, slowly adding to
+their herd. To Roger's surprise he found many signs of a new life
+stirring there&mdash;the farmers buying "autos" and improved
+machinery, thinking of new processes; and down in the lower valleys
+they found several big stock farms which were decidedly modern
+affairs. At one such place, the man in charge took a fancy to
+George and asked him to drop over often.</p>
+<p>"You bet I'll drop over often!" George replied, as he climbed
+excitedly into his Ford. "I want to see more of those milking
+machines! We're going to have 'em some day ourselves! A dynamo
+too!"</p>
+<p>And at home, down by the ruined mill he again set about
+rebuilding the dam.</p>
+<p>Roger felt himself growing stronger. His sleeps were sound, and
+his appetite had come back to a surprising degree. The mountain air
+had got into his blood and George's warm vigor into his soul. One
+afternoon, watching the herd come home, some thirty huge animals
+swinging along with a slow heavy power in their limbs, he breathed
+the strong sweet scent of them on the mountain breeze. George came
+running by them and stopped a moment by Roger's side, watching
+closely and eagerly every animal as it passed. And Roger glanced at
+George's face. The herd passed on and George followed behind, his
+collie dog <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id=
+"Page_285"></a>[285]</span>leaping and barking beside him. And
+Roger looked up at a billowy cloud resting on a mountain top and
+wondered whether after all that New York doctor had been right.</p>
+<p>He followed the herd into the barn. In two long rows, the great
+heads of the cattle turned hungrily, lowing and sniffing deep,
+breathing harshly, stamping, as the fodder cart came down the
+lines. What a splendidly wholesome work for a lad, growing up with
+his roots in the soil, in these massive simple forces of life. What
+of Edith's other children? Would they be willing to stay here long?
+Each morning Roger breakfasted with Bruce the baby by his side.
+"What a thing for you, little lad," he thought, "if you could live
+here all your days. But will you? Will you want to stay? Won't you,
+too, get the fever, as I did, for the city?" In the joyous,
+shining, mysterious eyes of the baby he found no reply. He had many
+long talks with Betsy, who was eager to go away to school, and with
+Bob and little Tad who were going to school in the village that
+fall. And the feeling came to Roger that surely he would see these
+lives, at least for many years ahead. They were so familiar and so
+real, so fresh and filled with hopes and dreams. And he felt
+himself so a part of them all.</p>
+<p>But one morning, climbing the steep upper field to a spring
+George wanted to show him, Roger suddenly swayed, turned faint. He
+caught hold of a boulder on the wall and held himself rigid,
+breathing hard. It passed, and he looked at his grandson. But
+George had noticed nothing. The boy had turned and his brown eyes
+were fixed on a fallow field below. Wistfully Roger watched his
+face. They both stood motionless for a long time.</p>
+<p>As the summer drew slowly to a close, Roger spent many quiet
+hours alone by the copse of birches, where the glory of autumn was
+already stealing in and out among the tall slender stems of the
+trees. And he thought of the silent winter there, and of the spring
+which would come again, and the long fragrant summer. And he
+watched the glow on <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id=
+"Page_286"></a>[286]</span>the mountains above and the rolling
+splendors of the clouds. At dusk he heard the voices of animals,
+birds and insects, murmuring up from all the broad valley, then
+gradually sinking to deep repose, many never to wake again. And the
+span of his life, from the boyhood which he could recall so vividly
+here among these children, seemed brief to him as a summer's day,
+only a part of a mighty whole made up of the innumerable lives, the
+many generations, of his family, his own flesh and blood, come out
+of a past he could never know, and going on without him now,
+branching, dividing, widening out to what his eyes would never
+see.</p>
+<p>Vaguely he pictured them groping their way, just as he himself
+had done. It seemed to Roger that all his days he had been only
+entering life, as some rich bewildering thicket like this copse of
+birches here, never getting very deep, never seeing very clearly,
+never understanding all. And so it had been with his children, and
+so it was with these children of Edith's, and so it would be with
+those many others&mdash;always groping, blundering,
+starting&mdash;children, only children all. And yet what lives they
+were to lead, what joys and revelations and disasters would be
+theirs, in the strange remote world they would live in&mdash;"my
+flesh and blood that I never shall know."</p>
+<p>But the stars were quiet and serene. The meadows and the forests
+on the broad sweep of the mountain side took on still brighter,
+warmer hues. And there was no gloom in these long good-byes.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>On a frosty night in September, he left the farm to go to the
+city. From his seat in the small automobile Roger looked back at
+the pleasant old house with its brightly lighted windows, and then
+he turned to George by his side:</p>
+<p>"We're in good shape for the winter, son."</p>
+<p>But George did not get his full meaning.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id=
+"Page_287"></a>[287]</span>At the little station, there were no
+other passengers. They walked the platform for some time. Then the
+train with a scream came around the curve. A quick grip on George's
+hand, and Roger climbed into the car. Inside, a moment later, he
+looked out through the window. By a trainman with a lantern, George
+stood watching, smiling up, and he waved his hand as the train
+pulled out.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXIX</h2>
+<p>The next morning on his arrival in town, Roger went to his
+office. He had little cause for uneasiness there, for twice in the
+summer he had come down to keep an eye on the business, while John
+had taken brief vacations at a seaside place nearby. The boy had no
+color now in his cheeks; as always, they were a sallow gray with
+the skin drawn tight over high cheek bones; his vigor was all in
+his eyes. But here was a new John, nevertheless, a successful man
+of affairs. He had on a spruce new suit of brown, no cheap
+ready-made affair but one carefully fitted to conceal and soften
+his deformity. He was wearing a bright blue tie and a cornflower in
+his buttonhole, and his sandy hair was sleekly brushed. He showed
+Roger into his private room, a small place he had partitioned off,
+where over his desk was a motto in gold: "This is no place for your
+troubles or mine."</p>
+<p>"Lord, but you've got yourself fixed up fine in here," said
+Roger. John smiled broadly. "And you're looking like a new man,
+Johnny."</p>
+<p>"I had a great time at the seashore. Learned to sail a boat
+alone. What do you think of this chair of mine?" And John
+complacently displayed the ingenious contrivance in front of his
+desk, somewhat like a bicycle seat. It was made of steel and
+leather pads.</p>
+<p>"Wonderful," said Roger. "Where'd you ever pick it up?"</p>
+<p>"I had it made," was the grave reply. "When a fellow has got up
+in life enough to have a stenographer, it's high time he was
+sitting down."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id=
+"Page_289"></a>[289]</span>Let's see you do it." John sat down.
+"Now how is business?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"Great. Since the little slump we had in August it has taken a
+new start&mdash;and not only war business, at that&mdash;the old
+people are sending in orders again. I tell you what it is, Mr.
+Gale, this country is right on the edge of a boom!"</p>
+<p>And the junior member of the firm tilted triumphantly back in
+his chair.</p>
+<p>With the solid comfort which comes to a man when he returns to
+find his affairs all going well, Roger worked on until five
+o'clock, and then he started for his home.</p>
+<p>Deborah had not yet come in, and a deep silence reigned in the
+house. He looked through the rooms downstairs, and with content he
+noticed how little had been altered. His beloved study had not been
+touched. On the third floor, in the large back room, he found John
+comfortably installed. There were gay prints upon the walls, fresh
+curtains at the windows, a mandolin lying on a chair. And Roger,
+glancing down at the keen glad face of his partner, told himself
+that the doctor who had said this lad would die was a fool.</p>
+<p>"These doctors fool themselves often," he thought.</p>
+<p>Deborah and Allan had the front room on the floor below. Roger
+went in, and for a moment he stood looking about him. How restful
+and how radiant was this large old-fashioned chamber, so softly
+lighted, waiting. Through a passageway lined with cupboards he went
+into his room at the back. Deborah had repapered it, but with a
+pattern so similar that Roger did not notice the change. He only
+felt a vague freshness here, as though even this old chamber, too,
+were making a new start in life. And he felt as though he were to
+live here for years. Slowly he unpacked his trunk and took a bath
+and dressed at his leisure. Then he heard Deborah's voice at the
+door.</p>
+<p>"Come in, come in!" he answered.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id=
+"Page_290"></a>[290]</span>Why, father! Dearie!" Deborah cried "Oh,
+how well you're looking, dad!" And she kissed him happily. "Oh, but
+I'm glad to have you back&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"That's good," he said, and he squeezed her hand "Here, come to
+the light, let me look at you." He saw her cheeks a little flushed,
+the gladness in her steady eyes. "Happy? Everything just right?"
+His daughter nodded, smiling, and he gave a whimsical frown. "No
+ups and down at all? That's bad."</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, plenty&mdash;but all so small."</p>
+<p>"Good fellow to live with."</p>
+<p>"Very."</p>
+<p>"And your work?</p>
+<p>"It's going splendidly. I'll tell you about it this evening,
+after you give me the news from the farm."</p>
+<p>They chatted on for a short while, but he saw she was barely
+listening.</p>
+<p>"Can't you guess what it means," she asked him softly, "to a
+woman of my age&mdash;after she has been so afraid she was too old,
+that she'd married too late&mdash;to know at last&mdash;to be sure
+at last&mdash;that she's to have a baby, dad?" He drew back a
+little, and a lump rose in his throat.</p>
+<p>"By George!" he huskily exclaimed. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" And
+he held her close in his arms for some time, till both of them grew
+sensible.</p>
+<p>Soon after she had gone to her room, he heard Allan coming
+upstairs. He heard her low sweet cry of welcome, a silence, then
+their voices. He heard them laughing together and later Deborah
+humming a song. And still thinking of what she had told him, he
+felt himself so close to it all. And again the feeling came to him
+that surely he would live here for years.</p>
+<p>Allan came in and they had a talk.</p>
+<p>"Deborah says she has told you the news."</p>
+<p>"Yes. Everything's all right, I suppose&mdash;her condition, I
+mean," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id=
+"Page_291"></a>[291]</span>Couldn't be better."</p>
+<p>"Just as I thought."</p>
+<p>"Those six weeks we had up in Maine&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, you both show it. Working hard?"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"And Deborah?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"You'll have to help me hold her in."</p>
+<p>They talked a few moments longer and went down to the living
+room. John was there with Deborah. All four went in to dinner. And
+through the conversation, from time to time Roger noticed the looks
+that went back and forth between husband and wife; and again he
+caught Deborah smiling as though oblivious of them all. After
+dinner she went with him into his den.</p>
+<p>"Well! Do you like the house?" she inquired.</p>
+<p>"Better than ever," he replied.</p>
+<p>"I wonder if you'll mind it. There'll be people coming to
+dinner, you know&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"That won't bother me any," he said.</p>
+<p>"And committee meetings now and then. But you're safe in here,
+it's a good thick door."</p>
+<p>"Let 'em talk," he retorted, "as hard as they please. You're
+married now&mdash;they can't scare me a bit. Only at ten o'clock,
+by George, you've got to knock off and go to bed."</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'll take care of myself," she said.</p>
+<p>"If you don't, Allan will. We've had a talk."</p>
+<p>"Scheming already."</p>
+<p>"Yes. When will it be?"</p>
+<p>"In April, I think."</p>
+<p>"You'll quit work in your schools?"</p>
+<p>"A month before."</p>
+<p>"And in the meantime, not too hard."</p>
+<p>"No, and not too easy. I'm so sure now that I can do both." And
+Deborah kissed him gently. "I'm so happy, dearie&mdash;and oh, so
+very glad you're here!"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id=
+"Page_292"></a>[292]</span>There followed for Roger, after that,
+many quiet evenings at home, untroubled days in his office. Seldom
+did he notice the progress of his ailment. His attention was upon
+his house, as this woman who mothered thousands of children worked
+on for her great family, putting all in order, making ready for the
+crisis ahead when she would become the mother of one.</p>
+<p>Now even more than ever before, her work came crowding into his
+home. The house was old, but the house was new. For from schools
+and libraries, caf&eacute;s and tenements and streets, the mighty
+formless hunger which had once so thrilled her father poured into
+the house itself and soon became a part of it. He felt the presence
+of the school. He heard the daily gossip of that bewildering system
+of which his daughter was a part: a world in itself, with its
+politics, its many jarring factions, its jealousies, dissensions,
+its varied personalities, ambitions and conspiracies; but in spite
+of these confusions its more progressive elements downing all
+distrusts and fears and drawing steadily closer to life, fearlessly
+rousing everywhere the hunger in people to live and learn and to
+take from this amazing world all the riches that it holds: the
+school with its great challenge steadily increasing its demands in
+the name of its children, demands which went deep down into
+conditions in the tenements and ramified through politics to the
+City Hall, to Albany, and even away to Washington&mdash;while day
+by day and week by week, from cities, towns and villages came the
+vast prophetic story of the free public schools of the land.</p>
+<p>And meanwhile, in the tenements, still groping and testing,
+feeling her way, keeping close watch on her great brood, their
+wakening desires, their widening curiosities, Deborah was bringing
+them, children, mothers and fathers too, together through the one
+big hope of brighter and more ample lives for everybody's children.
+Step by step this hope was spread out into the surrounding swamps
+and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id=
+"Page_293"></a>[293]</span>jungles of blind driven lives, to find
+surprising treasures there deep buried under dirt and din, locked
+in the common heart of mankind&mdash;old songs and fables, hopes
+and dreams and visions of immortal light, handed down from father
+to son, nurtured, guarded, breathed upon and clothed anew by
+countless generations, innumerable millions of simple men and women
+blindly struggling toward the sun. Over the door of one of the
+schools, were these words carved in the stone:</p>
+<p>"Humanity is still a child. Our parents are all people who have
+lived upon the earth&mdash;our children, all who are to come. And
+the dawn at last is breaking. The great day has just begun."</p>
+<p>This spirit of triumphal life poured deep into Roger's house. It
+was as though his daughter, in these last months which she had left
+for undivided service, were strengthening her faith in it all and
+pledging her devotion&mdash;as communing with herself she felt the
+crisis drawing near.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span>CHAPTER
+XL</h2>
+<p>There came an interruption. One night when Deborah was out and
+Roger sat in his study alone, the maid came in highly flustered and
+said,</p>
+<p>"Mr. Gale! It's Miss Laura to see you!"</p>
+<p>He turned with a startled jerk of his head and his face slowly
+reddened. But when he saw the maid's eager expression and saw that
+she was expecting a scene, with a frown of displeasure he rose from
+his chair.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he said, and he went to his daughter. He found her
+in the living room. No repentant Magdalene, but quite unabashed and
+at her ease, she came to her father quickly.</p>
+<p>"Oh, dad, I'm so glad to see you, dear!" And she gave him a
+swift impetuous kiss, her rich lips for an instant pressing warmly
+to his cheek.</p>
+<p>"Laura!" he said thickly. "Come into my study, will you? I'm
+alone this evening."</p>
+<p>"I'm so glad you are!" she replied. She followed him in and he
+closed the door. He glanced at her confusedly. In her warmth, her
+elegance, an indefinable change in the tone and accent of her high
+magnetic voice, and in her ardent smiling eyes, she seemed to him
+more the foreigner now. And Roger's thoughts were in a whirl. What
+had happened? Had she married again?</p>
+<p>"Is Edith here still?" she was asking.</p>
+<p>"No, she's up in the mountains. She's living there," he
+answered.</p>
+<p>"Edith? In the mountains?" demanded Laura, in surprise. And she
+asked innumerable questions. He <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span>replied to each one of
+them carefully, slowly, meanwhile getting control of himself.</p>
+<p>"And Deborah married&mdash;married at last! How has it worked?
+Is she happy, dad?"</p>
+<p>"Very," he said.</p>
+<p>"And is she still keeping up her schools?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, for the present. She'll have to stop soon." Laura leaned
+forward, curious:</p>
+<p>"Tell me, dad&mdash;a baby?"</p>
+<p>"Yes." She stared a moment.</p>
+<p>"Deborah!" she softly exclaimed; and in a moment, "I
+wonder."</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" her father asked, but Laura evaded his
+question. She plied him with her inquiries for a few minutes
+longer, then turned to him with a challenging smile:</p>
+<p>"Well, father, don't you think you had better ask me now about
+myself?" He looked away a moment, but turned resolutely back:</p>
+<p>"I suppose so. When did you land?"</p>
+<p>"This morning, dear, from Italy&mdash;with my husband," she
+replied. And Roger started slightly. "I want you to meet him soon,"
+she said.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he answered. At his disturbed, almost guilty
+expression Laura laughed a little and rose and came over and hugged
+him tight.</p>
+<p>"Oh, but, father dearest&mdash;it's working out so splendidly! I
+want you to know him and see for yourself! We've come to live in
+New York for a while&mdash;he has more to do here about war
+supplies."</p>
+<p>"More shrapnel, eh, machine guns. More wholesale death," her
+father growled. But Laura smiled good-naturedly.</p>
+<p>"Yes, love, from America. Aren't you all ashamed of
+yourselves&mdash;scrambling so, to get rich quick&mdash;out of this
+war you disapprove of."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id=
+"Page_296"></a>[296]</span><i>You</i> look a bit rich," her father
+retorted.</p>
+<p>"Rather&mdash;for the moment," was her cheerful answer.</p>
+<p>"And you still like living in Italy?"</p>
+<p>"Tremendously! Rome is wonderful now!"</p>
+<p>"Reborn, eh. Wings of the Eagles."</p>
+<p>"Yes, and we're doing rather well."</p>
+<p>"I haven't noticed it," Roger said. "Why don't you send a few of
+your troops to help those plucky Frenchmen?"</p>
+<p>"Because," she replied, "we have a feeling that this is a war
+where we had much better help ourselves."</p>
+<p>"High ideals," he snorted.</p>
+<p>"Rome reborn," she remarked, unabashed. And her father scowled
+at her whimsically.</p>
+<p>"You're a heathen. I give you up," he declared. Laura had risen,
+smiling.</p>
+<p>"Oh, no, don't give me up," she said. "For you see," she added
+softly, "I'm a heathen with a great deal of love in her heart for
+thee, my dearest dad. May I bring him down, my husband?"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I'll telephone to Deborah to-morrow and arrange it."</p>
+<p>When she had gone he returned to his chair and sat for a long
+time in a daze. He was still disturbed and bewildered. What a
+daughter of his! And what did it mean? Could she really go on being
+happy like this? Sinning? Yes, she was sinning! Laura had broken
+her marriage vows, she had "run off with another fellah." Those
+were the plain ugly facts. And now, divorced and re-married, she
+was careering gayly on! And her views of the war were plain
+heathenish! And yet there was something about her&mdash;yes, he
+thought, he loved her still! What for? For being so happy! And yet
+she was wrong to be happy, all wrong! His thoughts went 'round in
+circles.</p>
+<p>And his confusion and dismay grew even deeper the <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span>next
+night when Laura brought her new husband to dine. For in place of
+the dark polished scoundrel whom Roger had expected, here was a
+spruce and affable youth with thick light hair and ruddy cheeks, a
+brisk pleasant manner of talking and a decidedly forcible way of
+putting the case of his country at war. They kept the conversation
+to that. For despite Deborah's friendly air, she showed plainly
+that she wanted to keep the talk impersonal. And Laura, rather
+amused at this, replied by treating Deborah and Allan and her
+father, too, with a bantering forbearance for their old-fashioned,
+narrow views and Deborah's religion of brotherhood, democracy. All
+that to Laura was pass&eacute;.</p>
+<p>From time to time Roger glanced at her face, into her clear and
+luminous eyes so warm with the joy of living with this new man, her
+second. How his family had split apart. He wrote Edith the news of
+her sister, and he received but a brief reply. Nor did Deborah
+speak of it often. She seemed to want to forget Laura's life as the
+crisis in her own drew near.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span>CHAPTER
+XLI</h2>
+<p>Deborah had not yet stopped work. Again and again she put it
+off. For in her busy office so many demands both old and new kept
+pressing in upon her, such unexpected questions and vexing little
+problems kept cropping up as Deborah tried to arrange her work for
+the colleague who was to take her place in the spring, that day
+after day she lingered there&mdash;until one afternoon in March her
+husband went to her office, gave her an hour to finish up, and then
+brought her home with him. She had a fit of the blues that night.
+Allan was called out on a case, and a little while later Roger
+found his daughter alone in the living room, a book unopened in her
+lap, her gray eyes glistening with tears. She smiled when she
+caught sight of him.</p>
+<p>"It's so silly!" she muttered unsteadily. "Just my condition, I
+suppose. I feel as though I had done with school for the remainder
+of my days!... Better leave me now, dearie," she added. "I'm not
+very proud of myself to-night&mdash;but I'll be all right in the
+morning."</p>
+<p>The next day she was herself again, and went quietly on with her
+preparations for the coming of her child. But still the ceaseless
+interests of those hordes of other children followed her into the
+house. Not only her successor but principals and teachers came for
+counsel or assistance. And later, when reluctantly she refused to
+see such visitors, still the telephone kept ringing and letters
+poured in by every mail. For in her larger family there were
+weddings, births and deaths, and the endless savage struggle for
+life; and there were many climaxes of dreams and aspirations, of
+loves and bitter jealousies. And out <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_299" id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span>of all this straining and
+this fever of humanity, came messages to Deborah: last appeals for
+aid and advice, and gifts for the child who was to be born; tiny
+garments quaintly made by women and girls from Italy, from Russia
+and from Poland; baby blankets, wraps and toys and curious charms
+and amulets. There were so many of these gifts.</p>
+<p>"There's enough for forty babies," Deborah told her father.
+"What on earth am I to do, to avoid hurting anyone's feelings? And
+isn't it rather awful, the way these inequalities will crop up in
+spite of you? I know of eight tenement babies born down there in
+this one week. How much fuss and feathers is made over them, and
+their coming into the world, poor mites?" Roger smiled at his
+daughter.</p>
+<p>"You remind me of Jekyll and Hyde," he said.</p>
+<p>"Father! What a horrible thought! What have Jekyll and Hyde to
+do with me?"</p>
+<p>"Nothing, my dear," he answered. "Only it's queer and a little
+uncanny, something I've never seen before, this double mother life
+of yours."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>It was only a few days later when coming home one evening he
+found that Deborah's doctor had put her to bed and installed a
+nurse. There followed a week of keen suspense when Roger stayed
+home from the office. She liked to have him with her, and sitting
+at her bedside he saw how changed his daughter was, how far in
+these few hours she had drawn into herself. He had suspected for
+some time that all was not well with Deborah, and Allan confirmed
+his suspicions. There was to be grave danger both for the mother
+and the child. It would come out all right, of course, he strove to
+reassure himself. Nothing else could happen now, with her life so
+splendidly settled at last. That Fate could be so
+pitiless&mdash;no, it was unthinkable!</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id=
+"Page_300"></a>[300]</span>This is what comes of your modern
+woman!" Roger exclaimed to Allan one night. "This is the price
+she's paying for those nerve-racking years of work!"</p>
+<p>The crisis came toward the end of the week. And while for one
+entire night and through the day that followed and far into the
+next night the doctors and nurses fought for life in the room
+upstairs, Roger waited, left to himself, sitting in his study or
+restlessly moving through the house. And still that thought was
+with him&mdash;the price! It was kept in his mind by the anxious
+demands which her big family made for news. The telephone kept
+ringing. Women in motors from uptown and humbler visitors young and
+old kept coming to make inquiries. More gifts were brought and
+flowers. And Roger saw these people, and as he answered their
+questions he fairly scowled in their faces&mdash;unconsciously, for
+his mind was not clear. Reporters came. Barely an hour passed
+without bringing a man or a woman from some one of the papers. He
+gave them only brief replies. Why couldn't they leave his house
+alone? He saw her name in headlines: "Deborah Gale at Point of
+Death." And he turned angrily away. Vividly, on the second night,
+there came to him a picture of Deborah's birth so long ago in this
+same house. How safe it had been, how different, how secluded and
+shut in. No world had clamored <i>then</i> for news. And so vivid
+did this picture grow, that when at last there came to his ears the
+shrill clear cry of a new life, it was some time before he could be
+sure whether this were not still his dream of that other night so
+long ago.</p>
+<p>But now a nurse had led him upstairs, and he stood by a cradle
+looking down at a small wrinkled face almost wholly concealed by a
+soft woolly blanket. And presently Allan behind him said,</p>
+<p>"It's a boy, and he's to be named after you." Roger looked
+up.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id=
+"Page_301"></a>[301]</span>How's the mother?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Almost out of danger," was the reply. Then Roger glanced at
+Allan's face and saw how drawn and gray it was. He drew a long
+breath and turned back to the child. Allan had gone and so had the
+nurse, and he was alone by the cradle. Relief and peace and
+happiness stole into his spirit. He felt the deep remoteness of
+this strange new little creature from all the clamoring world
+without&mdash;which he himself was soon to leave. The thought grew
+clearer, clearer, as with a curious steady smile Roger stood there
+looking down.</p>
+<p>"Well, little brother, you're here, thank God. And nobody knows
+how close we'll be&mdash;for a little while," he thought. "For
+we're almost out of the world, you and I."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Days passed, Deborah's strength increased, and soon they let
+Roger come into the room. She, too, was remote from the world for a
+time. That great family outside was anxious no longer, it left her
+alone. But soon it would demand her. Never again, he told himself,
+would she be so close, so intimate, as here in her bed with this
+child of hers to whom she had given her father's name. "These hours
+are my real good-byes."</p>
+<p>Two long quiet weeks of this happiness, and then in a twinkling
+it was gone. The child fell sick, within a few hours its small
+existence hung by a thread&mdash;and to Roger's startled eyes a new
+Deborah was revealed! Tense and silent on her bed, her sensitive
+lips compressed with pain, her birthmark showing a jagged line of
+fiery red upon her brow as her ears kept straining to catch every
+sound from the nursery adjoining, through hours of stern anguish
+she became the kind of mother that she had once so
+dreaded&mdash;shutting out everything else in the world: people,
+schools, all other children, rich or poor, well, sick or dying!
+Here was the crisis of Deborah's life!</p>
+<p>One night as she lay listening, with her hand
+gripping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id=
+"Page_302"></a>[302]</span> Roger's tight, frowning abruptly she
+said to him, in a harsh, unnatural voice:</p>
+<p>"They don't care any longer, none of them care! <i>I'm</i> safe
+and they've stopped worrying, for they know they'll soon have me
+back at work! The work," she added fiercely, "that made my body
+what it is, not fit to bear a baby!" She threw a quick and tortured
+look toward the door of the other room. "My work for those others,
+all those years, will be to blame if this one dies! And if it
+doesn't live I'm through! I won't go on! I couldn't! I'd be too
+bitter after this&mdash;toward all of them&mdash;<i>those
+children</i>!"</p>
+<p>These last two words were whispers so bitter they made Roger
+cold.</p>
+<p>"But this child is going to live," he responded hoarsely. Its
+mother stared up with a quivering frown. The next moment her limbs
+contracted as from an electric shock. There had come a faint wail
+from the other room.</p>
+<p>And this went on for three days and nights. Again Roger lived as
+in a dream. He saw haggard faces from time to time of doctors,
+nurses, servants. He saw Allan now and then, his tall ungainly
+figure stooped, his features gaunt, his strong wide jaw set like a
+vise, but his eyes kind and steady still, his low voice reassuring.
+And Roger noticed John at times hobbling quickly down a hall and
+stopping on his crutches before a closed door, listening. Then
+these figures would recede, and it was as though he were alone in
+the dark.</p>
+<p>At last the nightmare ended. One afternoon as he sat in his
+study, Allan came in slowly and dropped exhausted into a chair. He
+turned to Roger with a smile.</p>
+<p>"Safe now, I think," he said quietly.</p>
+<p>Roger went to Deborah and found her asleep, her face at peace.
+He went to his room and fell himself into a long dreamless
+slumber.</p>
+<p>In the days which followed, again he sat at her bedside and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id=
+"Page_303"></a>[303]</span>together they watched the child in her
+arms. So feeble still the small creature appeared that they both
+spoke in whispers. But as little by little its strength returned,
+Deborah too became herself. And though still jealously watchful of
+its every movement, she had time for other thinking. She had talks
+with her husband, not only about their baby but about his work and
+hers. Slowly her old interest in all they had had in common
+returned, and to the messages from outside she gave again a
+kindlier ear.</p>
+<p>"Allan tells me," she said one day, when she was alone with her
+father, "that I can have no more children. And I'm glad of that.
+But at least I have one," she added, "and he has already made me
+feel like a different woman than before. I feel sometimes as though
+I'd come a million miles along in life. And yet again it feels so
+close, all that I left back there in school. Because I'm so much
+closer now&mdash;to every mother and every child. At last I'm one
+of the family."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span>CHAPTER
+XLII</h2>
+<p>Of that greater family, one member had been in the house all
+through the month which had just gone by. But he had been so quiet,
+so carefully unobtrusive, that he had been scarcely noticed. Very
+early each morning, day after day, John had gone outside for his
+breakfast and thence to the office where he himself had handled the
+business as well as he could, only coming to Roger at night now and
+then with some matter he could not settle alone, but always stoutly
+declaring that he needed no other assistance.</p>
+<p>"Don't come, Mr. Gale," he had urged. "You look worn out. You'll
+be sick yourself if you ain't careful. And anyhow, if you hang
+around you'll be here whenever she wants you."</p>
+<p>Early in Deborah's illness, John had offered to give up his room
+for the use of one of the nurses.</p>
+<p>"That's mighty thoughtful of you, Johnny," Allan had responded.
+"But we've got plenty of room as it is. Just you stick around. We
+want you here."</p>
+<p>"All right, Doc. If there's any little thing, you
+know&mdash;answering the 'phone at night or anything else that I
+can do&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Thank you, so; I'll let you know. But in the meantime go to
+bed."</p>
+<p>From that day on, John had taken not only his breakfast but his
+supper, too, outside, and no one had noticed his absence. Coming in
+late, he had hobbled silently up to his room, stopping to listen at
+Deborah's door. He had kept so completely out of the way, it was
+not <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id=
+"Page_305"></a>[305]</span>till the baby was three weeks old, and
+past its second crisis, that Deborah thought to ask for John. When
+he came to her bed, she smiled up at him with the baby in her
+arms.</p>
+<p>"I thought we'd see him together," she said. John stood on his
+crutches staring down. And as Deborah watched him, all at once her
+look grew intent. "Johnny," she said softly, "go over there, will
+you, and turn up the light, so we can see him better."</p>
+<p>And when this was done, though she still talked smilingly of the
+child, again and again she glanced up at John's face, at the
+strange self-absorbed expression, stern and sad and wistful, there.
+When he had gone the tears came in her eyes. And Deborah sent for
+her husband.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>The next day, at the office, John came into Roger's room. Roger
+had been at work several days and they had already cleared up their
+affairs.</p>
+<p>"Here's something," said John gruffly, "that I wish you'd put
+away somewhere."</p>
+<p>And he handed to his partner a small blue leather album, filled
+with the newspaper clippings dealing with Deborah's illness. On the
+front page was one with her picture and a long record of her
+service to the children of New York.</p>
+<p>"She wouldn't want to see it now," John continued awkwardly.
+"But I thought maybe later on the boy would like to have it. What
+do you think?" he inquired. Roger gave him a kindly glance.</p>
+<p>"I think he will. It's a fine thing to keep." And he handed it
+back. "But I guess you'd better put it away, and give it to her
+later yourself."</p>
+<p>John shifted his weight on his crutches, so quickly that Roger
+looked up in alarm:</p>
+<p>"Look here! You're not well!" He saw now that the face of the
+cripple was white and the sweat was glistening on his brow. John
+gave a harsh little nervous laugh.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id=
+"Page_306"></a>[306]</span>Oh, it's nothing much, partner," he
+replied. "That's another thing I wanted to tell you. I've had some
+queer pains lately&mdash;new ones!" He caught his breath.</p>
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me, you young fool?"</p>
+<p>"You had your own troubles, didn't you?" John spoke with
+difficulty. "But I'll be all right, I guess! All I need is a few
+days off!"</p>
+<p>Roger had pressed a button, and his stenographer came in.</p>
+<p>"Call a taxi," he said sharply. "And, John, you go right over
+there and lie down. I'm going to take you home at once!"</p>
+<p>"I've got a better scheme," said John, setting his determined
+jaws. The sweat was pouring down his cheeks. "It may be a
+week&mdash;but there's just a chance it&mdash;may be a little worse
+than that! So I've got a room in a hospital! See? Be better all
+round!" He swayed forward.</p>
+<p>"Johnny!" Roger caught him just in time, and the boy lay
+senseless in his arms.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>At home, a few hours later, Allan came with another physician
+down from John's small bedroom. He saw his colleague to the door
+and then came in to Roger.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid Johnny has come to the end."</p>
+<p>For a moment Roger stared at him.</p>
+<p>"Has, eh," he answered huskily. "You're absolutely sure he has?
+There's nothing&mdash;nothing on earth we can do?"</p>
+<p>"Nothing more than we're doing now."</p>
+<p>"He has fooled you fellows before, you know&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Not this time."</p>
+<p>"How long will it be?"</p>
+<p>"Days or hours&mdash;I don't know."</p>
+<p>"He mustn't suffer!"</p>
+<p>"I'll see to that." Roger rose and walked the floor.</p>
+<p>"It was the last month did it, of course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id=
+"Page_307"></a>[307]</span>Yes&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I blame myself for that."</p>
+<p>"I wouldn't," said Allan gently. "You've done a good deal for
+Johnny Geer."</p>
+<p>"He has done a good deal for this family! Can Deborah see
+him?"</p>
+<p>"I wish she could."</p>
+<p>"Better stretch a point for her, hadn't you? She's been a kind
+of a mother to John."</p>
+<p>"I know. But she can't leave her bed."</p>
+<p>"Then you won't tell her?"</p>
+<p>"I think she knows. She talked to me about him last night."</p>
+<p>"That's it, a mother!" Roger cried. "She was watching! We were
+blind!" He came back to his chair and dropped into it.</p>
+<p>"Does John know this himself?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"He suspects it, I think," said Allan.</p>
+<p>"Then go and tell him, will you, that he's going to get well.
+And after you've done it I'll see him myself. I've got something in
+mind I want to think out."</p>
+<p>After Allan had left the room, Roger sat thinking about John. He
+thought of John's birth and his drunken mother, the accident and
+his struggle for life, through babyhood and childhood, through
+ignorance and filth and pain, through din and clamor and hunger,
+fear; of the long fierce fight which John had made not to be "put
+away" in some big institution, of his battle to keep up his head,
+to be somebody, make a career for himself. He thought of John's
+becoming one of Deborah's big family, only one of thousands, but it
+seemed now to Roger that John had stood out from them all, as the
+figure best embodying that great fierce hunger for a full life, and
+as the link connecting, the one who slowly year by year had emerged
+from her greater family and come into her small one. And last of
+all he thought of John as his own <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_308" id="Page_308"></a>[308]</span>companion, his only one,
+in the immense adventure on which he was so soon to embark.</p>
+<p>A few moments later he stood by John's bed.</p>
+<p>"Pretty hard, Johnny?" he gently asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, not so bad as it might be, I guess&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"You'll soon feel better, they tell me, boy." John shut his
+eyes.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he muttered.</p>
+<p>"Can you stand my talking, just a minute?"</p>
+<p>"Sure I can," John whispered. "I'm not suffering any now. He's
+given me something to put me to sleep. What is it you want to talk
+about? Business?"</p>
+<p>"Not exactly, partner. It's about the family. You've got so
+you're almost one of us. I guess you know us pretty well."</p>
+<p>"I guess I do. It's meant a lot to me, Mr. Gale&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But I'll tell you what you don't know, John," Roger went on
+slowly. "I had a son in the family once, and he died when he was
+three months old. That was a long time ago&mdash;and I never had
+another, you see&mdash;to take his place&mdash;till you came
+along." There fell a breathless silence. "And I've been thinking
+lately," Roger added steadily. "I haven't long to live, you know.
+And I've been wondering whether&mdash;you'd like to come into the
+family&mdash;take my name. Do you understand?"</p>
+<p>John said nothing. His eyes were still closed. But presently,
+groping over the bed, he found Roger's hand and clutched it tight.
+After this, from time to time his throat contracted sharply. Tears
+welled from under his eyelids. Then gradually, as the merciful drug
+which Allan had given did its work, his clutch relaxed and he began
+breathing deep and hard. But still for some time longer Roger sat
+quietly by his side.</p>
+<p>The next night he was there again. Death had come to the huddled
+form on the bed, but there had been no relaxing. With the head
+thrown rigidly far back and <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_309" id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span>all the features tense and
+hard, it was a fighting figure still, a figure of stern protest
+against the world's injustice. But Roger was not thinking of this,
+but of the discovery he had made, that in their talk of the night
+before John had understood him&mdash;completely. For upon a piece
+of paper which Allan had given the lad that day, these words had
+been painfully inscribed:</p>
+<p>"This is my last will and testament. I am in my right
+mind&mdash;I know what I am doing&mdash;though nobody else
+does&mdash;nobody is here. To my partner Roger Gale I leave my
+share in our business. And to my teacher Deborah Baird I leave my
+crutches for her school."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a>[310]</span>CHAPTER
+XLIII</h2>
+<p>After John had gone away the house was very quiet. Only from the
+room upstairs there could be heard occasionally the faint clear cry
+of Deborah's child. And once again to Roger came a season of
+repose. He was far from unhappy. His disease, although progressing
+fast, gave him barely any pain; it rather made its presence felt by
+the manner in which it affected his mind. His inner life grew
+uneven. At times his thoughts were as in a fog, again they were
+amazingly clear and vistas opened far ahead. He could not control
+his thinking.</p>
+<p>This bothered him at the office, in the work he still had to do.
+For some months he had been considering an offer from one of his
+rivals, a modern concern which wished to buy out his business
+together with that of three other firms and consolidate them all
+into one corporation. And Roger was selling, and it was hard; for
+the whole idea of bargaining was more distasteful than ever now. He
+had to keep reminding himself of Edith and her children.</p>
+<p>At last it was over, his books were closed, and there was
+nothing left to be done. Nor did he care to linger. These rooms had
+meant but little to him; they had been but a place of transition
+from the old office far downtown, so full of memories of his youth,
+to the big corporation looming ahead, the huge impersonal clipping
+mill into which his business was to merge. And it came to his mind
+that New York was like that&mdash;no settled calm abiding place
+cherishing its memories, but only a town of transition, a great
+turbulent city of change, restlessly shaking off its past, tearing
+down and building anew, building higher, higher, higher, rearing to
+the very stars, and shouting,<span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_311" id="Page_311"></a>[311]</span> "Can you see me now?"
+What was the goal of this mad career? What dazzling city would be
+here? For a time he stared out of his window as into a promised
+land. Slowly at last he rose from his desk. Clippings, clippings,
+clippings. He looked at those long rows of girls gleaning in items
+large and small the public reputations of all kinds of men and
+women, new kinds in a new nation seething with activities, sweeping
+on like some wide river swollen at flood season to a new America, a
+world which Roger would not know. And yet it would be his world
+still, for in it he would play a part.</p>
+<p>"In their lives, too, we shall be there&mdash;the dim strong
+figures of the past."</p>
+<p>From his desk he gathered a few belongings. Then he looked into
+John's small room, with the big gold motto over the desk: "This is
+no place for your troubles or mine." On the desk lay that small
+album, John's parting gift to Deborah's boy. Roger picked it up and
+walked out of the office. He had never liked good-byes.</p>
+<p>In the elevator he noticed that his shoes needed shining, and
+when he reached the street below he stopped at the stand on the
+corner. The stocky Greek with bushy black hair, who had run the
+stand for many years, gave him a cheery greeting; for Roger had
+stopped there frequently&mdash;not that he cared about his shoes,
+but he had always liked to watch the crowds of people passing.</p>
+<p>"No hurry, boss?"</p>
+<p>"None," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"Then I give a fine shine! Polish, too?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, polish, too." And Roger settled back to watch.</p>
+<p>"And put in new shoe strings," he added, with a whimsical
+smile.</p>
+<p>Men and women, girls and boys by thousands passed him, pushing,
+hurrying, shuffling by. Girls tittering and nudging and darting
+quick side glances. Bobbing heads and figures, vigorous steps and
+dancing eyes. Life <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id=
+"Page_312"></a>[312]</span>bubbling over everywhere, in laughter,
+in sharp angry tones, in glad expectant chatter. Deborah's big
+family. Across the street was a movie between two lurid posters,
+and there was a dance hall overhead. The windows were all open, and
+faintly above the roar of the street he could hear the piano, drum,
+fiddle and horn. The thoroughfare each moment grew more tumultuous
+to his ears, with trolley cars and taxis, motor busses, trucks and
+drays. A small red motor dashed uptown with piles of evening
+papers; a great black motor hearse rushed by. In a taxi which had
+stopped in a jam, a man was kissing a girl in his arms, and both of
+them were laughing. The smart little toque of blue satin she wore
+was crushed to one side. How red were her lips as she threw back
+her head....</p>
+<p>"Silk or cotton, boss? Which you like?" Roger glanced at the
+shoe strings and pondered.</p>
+<p>"Silk," he grunted in reply. Idly for a moment he watched this
+busy little man. From whence had he come in far away Greece? What
+existence had he here, and what kind of life would he still have
+through those many years to come? A feeling half of sadness crept
+into Roger's heavy eyes as he looked at the man, at his smiling
+face and then at other faces in the multitudes sweeping past. The
+moment he tried to single them out, how doubly chaotic it became.
+What an ocean of warm desires, passions, vivid hopes and worries.
+Vaguely he could feel them pass. Often in the midst of his life,
+his active and self-centered life, Roger had looked at these crowds
+on the street and had thought these faces commonplace. But now at
+the end it was not so.</p>
+<p>A woman with a baby carriage stopped directly in front of him
+and stood there anxiously watching for a chance to cross the
+street. And Roger thought of Deborah. Heavily he climbed down from
+his seat, paid the man and bade him good-night, and went home to
+see Deborah's baby.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id=
+"Page_313"></a>[313]</span>For a long time he sat by the cradle.
+Presently Deborah joined him, and soon they were laughing heartily
+at the astonishing jerks and kicks and grimaces of the tiny boy. He
+was having his bath and he hated it. But safe at last on his
+mother's lap, wrapped to his ears in a big soft towel, he grew very
+gay and contented and looked waggishly about.</p>
+<p>There followed long lazy days of spring, as April drifted into
+May. Early in the morning Roger could hear through his window the
+cries of the vendors of flowers and fruits. And he listened
+drowsily. He rose late and spent most of the day in the house; but
+occasionally he went out for a stroll. And one balmy evening when
+groups of youths came trooping by, singing in close harmony, Roger
+called a taxi and went far down through the tenement streets to a
+favorite haunt of his, a little Syrian pawnshop, where after long
+delving he purchased a ring to put in the new collection that he
+had been making lately. He had nearly a dozen now.</p>
+<p>Days passed. The house was still so quiet, Deborah was still
+upstairs. At last, one night upon leaving his study, he stopped
+uncertainly in the hall. He took more time than was his wont in
+closing up the house for the night, in trying all the windows, in
+turning out the various lights. Room after room he left in the
+dark. Then he went slowly up the stairs, his hand gratefully
+feeling those guiding points grown so familiar to his touch through
+many thousand evenings. His hand lingered on the banister and he
+stopped again to listen there.</p>
+<p>He did not come downstairs again.</p>
+<p>He was able to sleep but little at night. Turning restlessly on
+his bed, he would glance out of the window up at the beetling wall
+close by, tier on tier of apartments from which faint voices
+dropped out of the dark. Gradually as the night wore on, these
+voices would all die away into long mysterious silences&mdash;for
+to him at least such silences <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_314" id="Page_314"></a>[314]</span>had grown to be very
+mysterious. Alone in the hours that followed, even these modern
+neighbors and this strange new eager town pressing down upon his
+house seemed no longer strange to him nor so appallingly immense,
+seemed even familiar and small to him, as the eyes of his mind
+looked out ahead.</p>
+<p>From his bed he could see on the opposite wall the picture
+Judith had given him, always so fresh and cool and dim with its
+deep restful tones of blue, of the herdsmen and the cattle on the
+dark mountain rim at dawn. And vaguely he wondered whether it was
+because he saw more clearly, or whether his mind in this curious
+haze could no longer see so well, that as he looked before him he
+felt no fear nor any more uncertainty. All his doubts had lifted,
+he was so sure of Judith now. As though she were coming to meet
+him, her image grew more vivid, with memories emerging out of all
+the years gone by. What memories, what vivid scenes! What intimate
+conversations they had, her voice so natural, close in his ear, as
+together they planned for their children.... Wistfully he would
+search the years for what he should soon tell his wife&mdash;until
+the drowsiness returned, and then again came visions.</p>
+<p>But by day it was not so, for the life of the house would rouse
+him and at intervals hold his attention.</p>
+<p>One evening a slight rustle, a faint fragrance in the room, made
+Roger suddenly open his eyes. And he saw Laura by his bed, her
+slender figure clad in blue silk, something white at her full
+bosom. He noticed her shapely shoulders, her glossy hair and moist
+red lips. She was smiling down at him.</p>
+<p>"See what I've brought you, dear," she said. And she turned to a
+chair where, one on the other, tray after tray, was piled his whole
+collection of rings. At sight of them his eyes grew fixed; he could
+feel his pulse beat faster.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id=
+"Page_315"></a>[315]</span>How did you ever find them?" he asked
+his daughter huskily.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I had a long hunt all by myself. But I found them at last
+and I've brought them home. Shall we look them over a little
+while?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," he said. She turned up the light, and came and sat down
+at the bedside with a tray of rings in her lap. One by one she held
+them up to his gaze, still smiling and talking softly on in that
+rich melodious voice of hers, of which he heard but snatches. How
+good it felt to be so gay. No solemn thoughts nor questionings,
+just these dusky glittering beauties here, deep soft gleams of
+color, each with its suggestion of memories for Roger, a procession
+of adventures reaching back into his life. He smiled and lay in
+silence watching, until at last she bent over him, kissed him
+softly, breathed a good-night and went out of the room. Roger
+followed her with his glance. He knew he would never see her again.
+How graceful of her to go like that.</p>
+<p>He lay there thinking about her. In her large blue limousine he
+saw his gay young daughter speeding up the Avenue, the purple
+gleaming pavement reflecting studded lines of lights. And he
+thought he could see her smiling still. He recalled scattered
+fragments of her life&mdash;the first luxurious little
+m&eacute;nage, and the second. How many more would there be? She
+was only in her twenties still. Uneasily he tried to see into the
+years ahead for her, and he thought he saw a lonely old age,
+childless, loveless, cynical, hard. But this fear soon fell from
+his mind. No, whatever happened, she would do it gracefully, an
+artist always, to the end. He sighed and gave up the effort. For he
+could not think of Laura as old, nor could he think of her any more
+as being a part of his family.</p>
+<p>Edith came to him several times, and there was something in her
+face which gave him sharp forebodings. Making a great effort he
+tried to talk to her clearly.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id=
+"Page_316"></a>[316]</span>It's hard to keep up with your
+children," he said. "It means keeping up with everything new. And
+you stay in your rut and then it's too late. Before you know it you
+are old."</p>
+<p>But his words subsided in mutterings, and Roger wearily closed
+his eyes. For a glance up into Edith's face had shown him only pity
+there and no heed to his warning. He saw that she looked upon him
+as old and still upon herself as young, though he noticed the
+threads of gray in her hair.... Then he realized she had gone and
+that his chamber had grown dark. He must have been dreaming. Of
+what, he asked. He tried to remember. And suddenly out of the
+darkness, so harsh and clear it startled him, a picture rose in
+Roger's mind of a stark lonely figure, a woman in a graveyard
+cutting the grass on family graves. Where had he seen it? He could
+not recall. What had it to do with Edith? Was she not living in New
+York?... What had so startled him just now? Some thought, some
+vivid picture, some nightmare he could not recall.</p>
+<p>His last talks were with Deborah. All through those days and the
+long nights, too, he kept fancying she was in the room, and it
+brought deep balm to his restless soul. He asked her to tell him
+about the schools, and Deborah talked to him quietly. She was going
+back to her work in the fall. She felt very humble about
+it&mdash;she told him she felt older now and she saw that her work
+was barely begun. But she was even happier than before. Her hand
+lay in his, and it tightened there. He opened his eyes and looked
+up into hers.</p>
+<p>"All so strange," he muttered, "life." There was a sharp
+contracting of her wide and sensitive mouth.</p>
+<p>"Yes, dear, strange!" she whispered.</p>
+<p>"But I'm so glad you're going on." He frowned as he tried to be
+simple and clear, and make her feel he understood what she had set
+herself to do. "All people," he <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_317" id="Page_317"></a>[317]</span>said slowly, "never
+counted so much as now. And never so hungry&mdash;all&mdash;as
+now&mdash;for all of life&mdash;like children&mdash;children who
+should go to school. Your work will grow&mdash;I can see ahead.
+Never a time when every man and woman and child could grow so
+much&mdash;and hand it on&mdash;and hand it on&mdash;as you will do
+to your small son."</p>
+<p>He felt her hand on his forehead, and for some moments nothing
+was said. Vaguely in glimpses Roger saw his small grandson growing
+up; and he pictured other children here, not her own but of her
+greater family, as the two merged into one. He felt that she would
+not grow old. Children, lives of children; work, dreams and
+aspirations. How bright it seemed as he stared ahead. Then he heard
+the cry of her baby.</p>
+<p>"Shall I nurse him here?" he heard her ask. He pressed her hand
+in answer. And when again he opened his eyes she was by his side
+with the child at her breast. Its large round eyes, so pure and
+clear, gazed into his own for a long, long time.</p>
+<p>"Now he's so sleepy," she whispered. "Would you like him beside
+you a moment?"</p>
+<p>"Please."</p>
+<p>He felt the faint scent of the tiny boy, and still those eyes
+looked into his. He forgot his daughter standing there; and as he
+watched, a sweet fresh sense of the mystery of this life so new
+stole deep into his spirit. All at once the baby fell asleep.</p>
+<p>"Good-night, little brother," he whispered. "God grant the world
+be very kind." He could feel the mother lift it up, and he heard
+the door close softly.</p>
+<p>Smiling he, too, fell asleep. And after that there were only
+dreams.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a>[318]</span>CHAPTER
+XLIV</h2>
+<p>And his dreams were of children. Their faces passed before him.
+Now they were young again in the house. They were eating their
+suppers, three small girls, chattering like magpies. From her end
+of the table their mother smiled quietly across at him. "Come
+children," she was saying, "that will do for a little while." But
+Roger said, "Oh, let them talk."... Then he saw new-comers. Bruce
+came in with Edith, and George and young Elizabeth, and Allan came
+with Deborah who had a baby in her arms, and Laura stood beside
+them. Here were his three daughters, grown, but still in some
+uncanny way they looked to him like children still; and behind them
+he detected figures long forgotten, of boys and girls whom he had
+known far back in his own childhood. John, too, had come into the
+house. Strangely now the walls were gone, had lifted, and a
+clamorous throng, laughing, shouting, pummeling, hedged him in on
+every hand&mdash;Deborah's big family!</p>
+<p>Soon the uproar wearied him, and Roger tried to shut them out,
+to bring back again the walls to his house. And sometimes he
+succeeded, and he was left for a while in peace with Judith and his
+three small girls. But despite his efforts to keep them there, new
+faces kept intruding. Swiftly his small family grew, split into
+other families, and these were merged with other figures pressing
+in from every side. Again he felt the presence of countless
+families all around, dividing, reuniting, with ceaseless changes
+and fresh life&mdash;a never ending multitude. Here they were
+singing and dancing, and Laura gaily waved to him. At another place
+were only men, and they were <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_319" id="Page_319"></a>[319]</span>struggling savagely to
+clutch things from each other's hands. A sea of scowling visages,
+angry shouts, fists clinched in air. And he thought he saw Bruce
+for an instant. Behind them lay wide valleys obscured by heavy
+clouds of smoke, and he could hear the roar of guns. But they
+vanished suddenly, and he saw women mourning now, and Edith with
+her children turned to him her anxious eyes. He tried to reach and
+help her, but already she had gone. And behind her came huge
+bending forms, men heaving at great burdens, jaws set in scowls of
+fierce revolt. And John was there on his crutches, and near him was
+a figure bound into a chair of steel, with terror in the straining
+limbs, while in desperation Deborah tried to wrench him free.
+Abruptly Roger turned away.</p>
+<p>And in a twinkling all was gone, the tumult and the clamor, and
+he was in a silent place high up on a mountain side. It was dusk. A
+herd of cattle passed, and George came close behind them. And
+around him Roger saw, emerging from the semi-dark, faces turning
+like his own to the summits of the mountains and the billowy
+splendors there. It grew so dark he could see no more. There fell a
+deep silence, not a sound but the occasional chirp of a bird or the
+faint whirr of an insect. Even the glow on the peaks was gone.
+Darkness, only darkness.</p>
+<p>"Surely this is death," he thought. After that he was alone. And
+presently from far away he heard the booming of a bell, deep and
+slow, sepulchral, as it measured off his life. Another silence
+followed, and this time it was more profound; and with a breathless
+awe he knew that all the people who had ever lived on earth were
+before him in the void to which he himself was drifting: people of
+all nations, of countless generations reaching back and back and
+back to the beginnings of mankind: the mightiest family of all,
+that had stumbled up through the ages, had slaved and starved and
+dreamed and died, had blindly hated, blindly killed, had raised up
+gods and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id=
+"Page_320"></a>[320]</span>idols and yearned for everlasting life,
+had laughed and played and danced along, had loved and mated, given
+birth, had endlessly renewed itself and handed on its heritage, had
+striven hungrily to learn, had groped its way in darkness, and
+after all its struggles had come now barely to the dawn. And then a
+voice within him cried,</p>
+<p>"What is humanity but a child? In the name of the dead I salute
+the unborn!"</p>
+<p>Slowly a glow appeared in his dream, and once again the scene
+had changed. The light was coming from long rows of houses rising
+tall and steep out of a teeming city street. And from these lighted
+houses children now came pouring forth. They filled the street from
+wall to wall with a torrent of warm vivid hues, they joined in mad
+tempestuous games, they shouted and they danced with glee, they
+whirled each other 'round and 'round. The very air seemed
+quivering. Then was heard the crash of a band, and he saw them
+marching into school. In and in and in they pressed, till the
+school seemed fairly bursting. Out they came by another way, and
+went off marching down the street with the big flag waving at their
+head. He followed and saw the street divide into narrower streets
+and bye-ways, into roads and country lanes. And all were filled
+with children. In endless multitudes they came&mdash;marching,
+marching, spreading, spreading, like wide bobbing fields of flowers
+rolling out across the land, toward a great round flashing sun
+above a distant rim of hills.</p>
+<p>The sun rose strangely dazzling. It filled the heavens with
+blinding light. He felt himself drawn up and up&mdash;while from
+somewhere far behind he heard the cry of Deborah's child. A clear
+sweet thrill of happiness came. And after that&mdash;we do not
+know.</p>
+<p>For he had left his family.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h5>Printed in the United States of America</h5>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id=
+"Page_321"></a>[321]</span>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14396 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14396 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14396)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of His Family, by Ernest Poole
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: His Family
+
+Author: Ernest Poole
+
+Release Date: December 20, 2004 [EBook #14396]
+[Date last updated: April 8, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS FAMILY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS
+ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO
+
+MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
+LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
+MELBOURNE
+
+THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
+TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+BY
+ERNEST POOLE
+AUTHOR OF "THE HARBOR"
+
+New York
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+1917
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917
+BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1917
+BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+TO M.A.
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of _old_ New York--he had
+heard of that from old, old men when he himself had still been young and
+had smiled at their garrulity. He was thinking of a _young_ New York, the
+mighty throbbing city to which he had come long ago as a lad from the New
+Hampshire mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting
+drivers, hurrying crowds, the crack of whips and the clatter of wheels; an
+uproarious, thrilling town of enterprise, adventure, youth; a city of
+pulsing energies, the center of a boundless land; a port of commerce with
+all the world, of stately ships with snowy sails; a fascinating pleasure
+town, with throngs of eager travellers hurrying from the ferry boats and
+rolling off in hansom cabs to the huge hotels on Madison Square. A city
+where American faces were still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner
+and a kindlier town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar
+scramble. A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling
+trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and groups of
+youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark. A place of music
+and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on those dazzling evenings
+when as a boy he had ushered there for the sake of hearing the music, how
+the rich joy of being alive, of being young, of being loved, had shone out
+of women's eyes. Shimmering satins, dainty gloves and little jewelled
+slippers, shapely arms and shoulders, vivacious movements, nods and smiles,
+swift glances, ripples, bursts of laughter, an exciting hum of voices.
+Then silence, sudden darkness--and music, and the curtain. The great wide
+curtain slowly rising....
+
+But all that had passed away.
+
+Roger Gale was a rugged heavy man not quite sixty years of age. His broad,
+massive features were already deeply furrowed, and there were two big
+flecks of white in his close-curling, grayish hair. He lived in a narrow
+red brick house down on the lower west side of the town, in a neighborhood
+swiftly changing. His wife was dead. He had no sons, but three grown
+daughters, of whom the oldest, Edith, had been married many years. Laura
+and Deborah lived at home, but they were both out this evening. It was
+Friday, Edith's evening, and as was her habit she had come from her
+apartment uptown to dine with her father and play chess. In the living
+room, a cheerful place, with its lamp light and its shadows, its
+old-fashioned high-back chairs, its sofa, its book cases, its low marble
+mantel with the gilt mirror overhead, they sat at a small oval table in
+front of a quiet fire of coals. And through the smoke of his cigar Roger
+watched his daughter.
+
+Edith had four children, and was soon to have another. A small demure woman
+of thirty-five, with light soft hair and clear blue eyes and limbs softly
+rounded, the contour of her features was full with approaching maternity,
+but there was a decided firmness in the lines about her little mouth. As he
+watched her now, her father's eyes, deep set and gray and with signs of
+long years of suffering in them, displayed a grave whimsical wistfulness.
+For by the way she was playing the game he saw how old she thought him. Her
+play was slow and absent-minded, and there came long periods when she did
+not make a move. Then she would recall herself and look up with a little
+affectionate smile that showed she looked upon him as too heavy with his
+age to have noticed her small lapses.
+
+He was grimly amused at her attitude, for he did not feel old at all. With
+that whimsical hint of a smile which had grown to be a part of him, he
+tried various moves on the board to see how far he could go without
+interrupting her reveries. He checkmated her, re-lit his cigar and waited
+until she should notice it. And when she did not notice, gravely he moved
+back his queen and let the game continue. How many hundreds of games, he
+thought, Edith must have played with him in the long years when his spirit
+was dead, for her now to take such chances. Nearly every Friday evening for
+nearly sixteen years.
+
+Before that, Judith his wife had been here. It was then that the city had
+been young, for to Roger it had always seemed as though he were just
+beginning life. Into its joys and sorrows too he had groped his way as most
+of us do, and had never penetrated deep. But he had meant to, later on.
+When in his busy city days distractions had arisen, always he had promised
+himself that sooner or later he would return to this interest or passion,
+for the world still lay before him with its enthralling interests, its
+beauties and its pleasures, its tasks and all its puzzles, intricate and
+baffling, all some day to be explored.
+
+This deep zest in Roger Gale had been bred in his boyhood on a farm up in
+the New Hampshire mountains. There his family had lived for many
+generations. And from the old house, the huge shadowy barn and the crude
+little sawmill down the road; from animals, grown people and still more
+from other boys, from the meadows and the mountain above with its cliffs
+and caves and forests of pine, young Roger had discovered, even in those
+early years, that life was fresh, abundant, new, with countless glad
+beginnings.
+
+At seventeen he had come to New York. There had followed hard struggles in
+lean years, but his rugged health had buoyed him up. And there had been
+genial friendships and dreams and explorations, a search for romance, the
+strange glory of love, a few furtive ventures that left him dismayed. But
+though love had seemed sordid at such times it had brought him crude
+exultations. And if his existence had grown more obscure, it had been
+somber only in patches, the main picture dazzling still. And still he had
+been just making starts.
+
+He had ventured into the business world, clerking now at this, now at that,
+and always looking about him for some big opportunity. It had come and he
+had seized it, despite the warnings of his friends. What a wild adventure
+it had been a bureau of news clippings, a business new and unheard of but
+he had been sure that here was growth, he had worked at it day and night,
+and the business widening fast had revealed long ramifications which went
+winding and stretching away into every phase of American life. And this
+life was like a forest, boundless and impenetrable, up-springing,
+intertwining. How much could _he_ ever know of it all?
+
+Then had come his marriage. Judith's family had lived long in New York, but
+some had died and others had scattered until only she was left. This house
+had been hers, but she had been poor, so she had leased it to some friends.
+It was through them he had met her here, and within a few weeks he had
+fallen in love. He had felt profound disgust for the few wild oats he had
+sown, and in his swift reaction he had overworshipped the girl, her beauty
+and her purity, until in a delicate way of her own she had hinted that he
+was going too far, that she, too, was human and a passionate lover of
+living, in spite of her low quiet voice and her demure and sober eyes.
+
+And what beginnings for Roger now, what a piling up of intimate joys,
+surprises, shocks of happiness. There had come disappointments, too, sudden
+severe little checks from his wife which had brought him occasional
+questionings. This love had not been quite _all_ he had dreamed, this woman
+not so ardent. He had glimpsed couples here and there that set him to
+imagining more consuming passions. Here again he had not explored very
+deep. But he had dismissed regrets like these with only a slight
+reluctance. For if they had settled down a bit with the coming of their
+children, their love had grown rich in sympathies and silent
+understandings, in humorous enjoyment of their funny little daughters'
+chattering like magpies in the genial old house. And they had looked
+happily far ahead. What a woman she had been for plans. It had not been all
+smooth sailing. There had come reverses in business, and at home one baby,
+a boy, had died. But on they had gone and the years had swept by until he
+had reached his forties. Absorbed in his growing business and in his
+thriving family, it had seemed to Roger still as though he were just
+starting out.
+
+But one day, quite suddenly, the house had become a strange place to him
+with a strange remote figure in it, his wife. For he had learned that she
+must die. There had followed terrible weeks. Then Judith had faced their
+disaster. Little by little she had won back the old intimacy with her
+husband; and through the slow but inexorable progress of her ailment, again
+they had come together in long talks and plans for their children. At this
+same chessboard, in this room, repeatedly she would stop the game and
+smiling she would look into the future. At one such time she had said to
+him,
+
+"I wonder if it won't be the same with the children as it has been with us.
+No matter how long each one of them lives, won't their lives feel to them
+unfinished like ours, only just beginning? I wonder how far they will go.
+And then their children will grow up and it will be the same with them.
+Unfinished lives. Oh, dearie, what children all of us are."
+
+He had put his arm around her then and had held her very tight. And feeling
+the violent trembling of her husband's fierce revolt, slowly bending back
+her head and looking up into his eyes she had continued steadily:
+
+"And when you come after me, my dear, oh, how hungry I shall be for all you
+will tell me. For you will live on in our children's lives."
+
+And she had asked him to promise her that.
+
+But he had not kept his promise. For after Judith's dying he had felt
+himself terribly alone, with eternity around him, his wife slipping far
+away. And the universe had grown stark and hard, impersonal, relentless,
+cold. A storm of doubts had attacked his faith. And though he had resisted
+long, for his faith in God had been rooted deep in the mountains of New
+England, in the end it had been wrenched away, and with it he had lost all
+hope that either for Judith or himself was there any existence beyond the
+grave. So death had come to Roger's soul. He had been deaf and blind to his
+children. Nights by the thousand spent alone. Like a gray level road in his
+memory now was the story of his family.
+
+When had his spirit begun to awaken? He could not tell, it had been so
+slow. His second daughter, Deborah, who had stayed at home with her father
+when Laura had gone away to school, had done little things continually to
+rouse his interest in life. Edith's winsome babies had attracted him when
+they came to the house. Laura had returned from school, a joyous creature,
+tall and slender, with snapping black eyes, and had soon made her presence
+felt. One day in the early afternoon, as he entered the house there had
+burst on his ears a perfect gale of laughter; and peering through the
+portières he had seen the dining-room full of young girls, a crew as wild
+as Laura herself. Hastily he had retreated upstairs. But he had enjoyed
+such glimpses. He had liked to see her fresh pretty gowns and to have her
+come in and kiss him good-night.
+
+Then had come a sharp heavy jolt. His business had suffered from long
+neglect, and suddenly for two anxious weeks he had found himself facing
+bankruptcy. Edith's husband, a lawyer, had come to his aid and together
+they had pulled out of the hole. But he had been forced to mortgage the
+house. And this had brought to a climax all the feelings of guiltiness
+which had so long been stirring within him over his failure to live up to
+the promise he had made his wife.
+
+And so Roger had looked at his children.
+
+And at first to his profound surprise he had had it forced upon him that
+these were three grown women, each equipped with her own peculiar feminine
+traits and desires, the swift accumulations of lives which had expanded in
+a city that had reared to the skies in the many years of his long sleep.
+But very slowly, month by month, he had gained a second impression which
+seemed to him deeper and more real. To the eye they were grown women all,
+but inwardly they were children still, each groping for her happiness and
+each held back as he had been, either by checks within herself or by the
+gay distractions of the absorbing city. He saw each of his daughters, parts
+of himself. And he remembered what Judith had said: "You will live on in
+our children's lives." And he began to get glimmerings of a new
+immortality, made up of generations, an endless succession of other lives
+extending into the future.
+
+Some of all this he remembered now, in scattered fragments here and there.
+Then from somewhere far away a great bell began booming the hour, and it
+roused him from his revery. He had often heard the bell of late. A calm
+deep-toned intruder, it had first struck in upon his attention something
+over two years ago. Vaguely he had wondered about it. Soon he had found it
+was on the top of a tower a little to the north, one of the highest
+pinnacles of this tumultuous modern town. But the bell was not tumultuous.
+And as he listened it seemed to say, "There is still time, but you have not
+long."
+
+Edith, sitting opposite him, looked up at the sound with a stir of relief.
+Ten o'clock. It was time to go home.
+
+"I wonder what's keeping Bruce," she said. Bruce was still in his office
+downtown. As a rule on Friday evenings he came with his wife to supper
+here, but this week he had some new business on hand. Edith was vague about
+it. As she tried to explain she knitted her brows and said that Bruce was
+working too hard. And her father grunted assent.
+
+"Bruce ought to knock off every summer," he said, "for a good solid month,
+or better two. Can't you bring him up to the mountains this year?" He
+referred to the old New Hampshire home which he had kept as a summer place.
+But Edith smiled at the idea.
+
+"Yes, I could bring him," she replied, "and in a week he'd be perfectly
+crazy to get back to his office again." She compressed her lips. "I know
+what he needs--and we'll do it some day, in spite of him."
+
+"A suburb, eh," her father said, and his face took on a look of dislike.
+They had often talked of suburbs.
+
+"Yes," his daughter answered, "I've picked out the very house." He threw at
+her a glance of impatience. He knew what had started her on this line.
+Edith's friend, Madge Deering, was living out in Morristown. All very well,
+he reflected, but her case was not at all the same. He had known Madge
+pretty well. Although the death of her husband had left her a widow at
+twenty-nine, with four small daughters to bring up, she had gone on
+determinedly. Naturally smart and able, Madge was always running to town,
+keeping up with all her friends and with every new fad and movement there,
+although she made fun of most of them. Twice she had taken her girls
+abroad. But Edith was quite different. In a suburb she would draw into her
+house and never grow another inch. And Bruce, poor devil, would commute and
+take work home from the office. But Roger couldn't tell her that.
+
+"I'd be sorry to see you do it," he said. "I'd miss you up in the
+mountains."
+
+"Oh, we'd come up in the summer," she answered. "I wouldn't miss the
+mountains for worlds!"
+
+Then they talked of summer plans. And soon again Edith's smooth pretty
+brows were wrinkling absorbedly. It was hard in her planning not to be sure
+whether her new baby would come in May or early June. It was only the first
+of April now. While she talked her father watched her. He liked her quiet
+fearlessness in facing the ordeal ahead. Into the bewildering city he felt
+her searching anxiously to find good things for her small brood, to make
+every dollar count, to keep their little bodies strong, to guard their
+hungry little souls from many things she thought were bad. Of all his
+daughters, he told himself, she was the one most like his wife.
+
+While she was talking Bruce came in. Of medium height and a wiry build, his
+quick kindly smile of greeting did not conceal the fine tight lines about
+his mouth and between his eyes. His small trim moustache was black, but his
+hair already showed streaks of gray although he was not quite thirty-eight,
+and as he lit a cigarette his right hand twitched perceptibly.
+
+Bruce Cunningham had married just after he left law school. He had worked
+in a law office which took receiverships by the score, and through managing
+bankrupt concerns by slow degrees he had made himself a financial surgeon.
+He had set up an office of his own and was doing splendidly. But he worked
+under fearful tension. Bruce had to deal with bankrupts who had barely
+closed their eyes for weeks, men half out of their minds from the strain,
+the struggle to keep up their heads in those angry waters of finance which
+Roger vaguely pictured as a giant whirlpool. Though honest enough in his
+own affairs, Bruce showed a genial relish for all the tricks of the savage
+world which was as the breath to his nostrils. And at times he appeared so
+wise and keen he made Roger feel like a child. But again it was Bruce who
+seemed the child. He seemed to be so naïve at times, and Edith had him so
+under her thumb. Roger liked to hear Bruce's stories of business, when
+Edith would let her husband talk. But this she would not often do, for she
+said Bruce needed rest at night. She reproved him now for staying so late,
+she wrung from him the fact that he'd had no supper.
+
+"Well, Bruce," she exclaimed impatiently, "now isn't that just like you?
+You're going straight home--that's where you're going--"
+
+"To be fed up and put to bed," her husband grumbled good-naturedly. And
+while she made ready to bundle him off he turned to his father-in-law.
+
+"What do you think's my latest?" he asked, and he gave a low chuckle which
+Roger liked. "Last week I was a brewer, to-day I'm an engineer," he said.
+"Can you beat it? A building contractor. Me." And as he smoked his
+cigarette, in laconic phrases he explained how a huge steel construction
+concern had gone to the wall, through building skyscrapers "on spec" and
+outstripping even the growth of New York. "They got into court last week,"
+he said, "and the judge handed me the receivership. The judge and I have
+been chums for years. He has hay fever--so do I."
+
+"Come, Bruce, I'm ready," said his wife.
+
+"I've been in their office all day," he went on. "Their general manager was
+stark mad. He hadn't been out of the office since last Sunday night, he
+said. You had to ask him a question and wait--while he looked at you and
+held onto his chair. He broke down and blubbered--the poor damn fool--he'll
+be in Matteawan in a week--"
+
+"You'll be there yourself if you don't come home," broke in Edith's voice
+impatiently.
+
+"And out of that poor devil, and out of the mess his books are in, I've
+been learning engineering!"
+
+He had followed his wife out on the steps. He turned back with a quick
+appealing smile:
+
+"Well, good-night--see you soon--"
+
+"Good-night, my boy," said Roger. "Good luck to the engineering."
+
+"Oh, father dear," cried Edith, from the taxi down below. "Remember supper
+Sunday night--"
+
+"I won't forget," said Roger.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He watched them start off up the street. The night was soft, refreshing,
+and the place was quiet and personal. The house was one of a dozen others,
+some of red brick and some of brown stone, that stood in an uneven row on a
+street but a few rods in length, one side of a little triangular park
+enclosed by a low iron fence, inside of which were a few gnarled trees and
+three or four park benches. On one of these benches his eye was caught by
+the figure of an old woman there, and he stood a moment watching her, some
+memory stirring in his mind.
+
+Occasionally somebody passed. Otherwise it was silent here. But even in the
+silence could be felt the throes of change; the very atmosphere seemed
+charged with drastic things impending. Already the opposite house line had
+been broken near the center by a high apartment building, and another still
+higher rose like a cliff just back of the house in which Roger lived. Still
+others, and many factory lofts, reared shadowy bulks on every hand. From
+the top of one an enormous sign, a corset pictured forth in lights, flashed
+out at regular intervals; and from farther off, high up in the misty haze
+of the night, could be seen the gleaming pinnacle where hour by hour that
+great bell slowly boomed the time away. Yes, here the old was passing.
+Already the tiny parklet was like the dark bottom of a pit, with the hard
+sparkling modern town towering on every side, slowly pressing, pressing in
+and glaring down with yellow eyes.
+
+But Roger noticed none of these things. He watched the old woman on the
+bench and groped for the memory she had stirred. Ah, now at last he had it.
+An April night long, long ago, when he had sat where she was now, while
+here in the house his wife's first baby, Edith, had begun her life....
+
+Slowly he turned and went inside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Roger's hearing was extremely acute. Though the room where he was sitting,
+his study, was at the back of the house, he heard Deborah's key at the
+street door and he heard the door softly open and close.
+
+"Are you there, dearie?" Her voice from the hallway was low; and his
+answer, "Yes, child," was in the same tone, as though she were with him in
+the room. This keen sense of hearing had long been a peculiar bond between
+them. To her father, Deborah's voice was the most distinctive part of her,
+for often as he listened the memory came of her voice as a girl,
+unpleasant, hurried and stammering. But she had overcome all that. "No
+grown woman," she had declared, when she was eighteen, "has any excuse for
+a voice like mine." That was eleven years ago; and the voice she had
+acquired since, with its sweet magnetic quality, its clear and easy
+articulation, was to him an expression of Deborah's growth. As she took off
+her coat and hat in the hall she said, in the same low tone as before,
+
+"Edith has been here, I suppose--"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I'm so sorry I missed her. I tried to get home early, but it has been a
+busy night."
+
+Her voice sounded tired, comfortably so, and she looked that way as she
+came in. Though only a little taller than Edith, she was of a sturdier
+build and more decided features. Her mouth was large with a humorous droop
+and her face rather broad with high cheekbones. As she put her soft black
+hair up over her high forehead, her father noticed her birthmark, a faint
+curving line of red running up from between her eyes. Imperceptible as a
+rule, it showed when she was tired. In the big school in the tenements
+where she had taught for many years, she gave herself hard without stint to
+her work, but she had such a good time through it all. She had a way, too,
+he reflected, of always putting things in their place. As now she came in
+and kissed him and sank back on his leather lounge with a tranquil breath
+of relief, she seemed to be dropping school out of her life.
+
+Roger picked up his paper and continued his reading. Presently they would
+have a talk, but first he knew that she wanted to lie quite still for a
+little while. Vaguely he pictured her work that night, her class-room
+packed to bursting with small Jews and Italians, and Deborah at the
+blackboard with a long pointer in her hand. The fact that for the last two
+years she had been the principal of her school had made little impression
+upon him.
+
+And meanwhile, as she lay back with eyes closed, her mind still taut from
+the evening called up no simple class-room but far different places--a mass
+meeting in Carnegie Hall where she had just been speaking, some schools
+which she had visited out in Indiana, a block of tenements far downtown and
+the private office of the mayor. For her school had long curious arms these
+days.
+
+"Was Bruce here too this evening?" she asked her father presently. Roger
+finished what he was reading, then looked over to the lounge, which was in
+a shadowy corner.
+
+"Yes, he came in late." And he went on to tell her of Bruce's
+"engineering." At once she was interested. Rising on one elbow she
+questioned him good-humoredly, for Deborah was fond of Bruce.
+
+"Has he bought that automobile he wanted?"
+
+"No," replied her father. "Edith said they couldn't afford it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"This time it's the dentist's bills. Young Betsy's teeth aren't
+straightened yet--and as soon as she's been beautified they're going to put
+the clamps on George."
+
+"Poor Georgie," Deborah murmured. At the look of pain and disapproval on
+her father's heavy face, she smiled quietly to herself. George, who was
+Edith's oldest and the worry of her days, was Roger's favorite grandson.
+"Has he been bringing home any more sick dogs?"
+
+"No, this time it was a rat--a white one," Roger answered. A glint of dry
+relish appeared in his eyes. "George brought it home the other night. He
+had on a pair of ragged old pants."
+
+"What on earth--"
+
+"He had traded his own breeches for the rat," said Roger placidly.
+
+"No! Oh, father! Really!" And she sank back laughing on the lounge.
+
+"His school report," said Roger, "was quite as bad as ever."
+
+"Of course it was," said Deborah. And she spoke so sharply that her father
+glanced at her in surprise. She was up again on one elbow, and there was an
+eager expression on her bright attractive face. "Do you know what we're
+going to do some day? We're going to put the rat in the school," Deborah
+said impatiently. "We're going to take a boy like George and study him till
+we think we know just what interests him most. And if in his case it's
+animals, we'll have a regular zoo in school. And for other boys we'll have
+other things they really want to know about. And we'll keep them until five
+o'clock--when their mothers will have to drag them away." Her father looked
+bewildered.
+
+"But arithmetic, my dear."
+
+"You'll find they'll have learned their arithmetic without knowing it,"
+Deborah answered.
+
+"Sounds a bit wild," murmured Roger. Again to his mind came the picture of
+hordes of little Italians and Jews. "My dear, if I had _your children_ to
+teach, I don't think I'd add a zoo," he said. And with a breath of
+discomfort he turned back to his reading. He knew that he ought to question
+her, to show an interest in her work. But he had a deep aversion for those
+millions of foreign tenement people, always shoving, shoving upward through
+the filth of their surroundings. They had already spoiled his neighborhood,
+they had flowed up like an ocean tide. And so he read his paper, frowning
+guiltily down at the page. He glanced up in a little while and saw Deborah
+smiling across at him, reading his dislike of such talk. The smile which he
+sent back at her was half apologetic, half an appeal for mercy. And Deborah
+seemed to understand. She went into the living room, and there at the piano
+she was soon playing softly. Listening from his study, again the feeling
+came to him of her fresh and abundant vitality. He mused a little enviously
+on how it must feel to be strong like that, never really tired.
+
+And while her father thought in this wise, Deborah at the piano, leaning
+back with eyes half closed, could feel her tortured nerves relax, could
+feel her pulse stop throbbing so and the dull aching at her temples little
+by little pass away. She played like this so many nights. Soon she would be
+ready for sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After she had gone to bed, Roger rose heavily from his chair. By long habit
+he went about the house trying the windows and turning out lights. Last he
+came to the front door. There were double outer doors with a ponderous
+system of locks and bolts and a heavy chain. Mechanically he fastened them
+all; and putting out the light in the hall, in the darkness he went up the
+stairs. He could so easily feel his way. He put his hand lightly, first on
+the foot of the banister, then on a curve in it halfway up, again on the
+sharper curve at the top and last on the knob of his bedroom door. And it
+was as though these guiding objects came out to meet him like old friends.
+
+In his bedroom, while he slowly undressed, his glance was caught by the
+picture upon the wall opposite his bed, a little landscape poster done in
+restful tones of blue, of two herdsmen and their cattle far up on a
+mountainside in the hour just before the dawn, tiny clear-cut silhouettes
+against the awakening eastern sky. So immense and still, this birth of the
+day--the picture always gave him the feeling of life everlasting. Judith
+his wife had placed it there.
+
+From his bed through the window close beside him he looked up at the
+cliff-like wall of the new apartment building, with tier upon tier of
+windows from which murmurous voices dropped out of the dark: now soft, now
+suddenly angry, loud; now droning, sullen, bitter, hard; now gay with
+little screams of mirth; now low and amorous, drowsy sounds. Tier upon tier
+of modern homes, all overhanging Roger's house as though presently to crush
+it down.
+
+But Roger was not thinking of that. He was thinking of his children--of
+Edith's approaching confinement and all her anxious hunting about to find
+what was best for her family, of Bruce and the way he was driving himself
+in the unnatural world downtown where men were at each other's throats, of
+Deborah and that school of hers in the heart of a vast foul region of
+tenement buildings swarming with strange, dirty little urchins. And last he
+thought of Laura, his youngest daughter, wild as a hawk, gadding about the
+Lord knew where. She even danced in restaurants! Through his children he
+felt flowing into his house the seething life of this new town. And
+drowsily he told himself he must make a real effort, and make it soon, to
+know his family better. For in spite of the storm of long ago which had
+swept away his faith in God, the feeling had come to him of late that
+somewhere, in some manner, he was to meet his wife again. He rarely tried
+to think this out, for as soon as he did it became a mere wish, a hungry
+longing, nothing more. So he had learned to let it lie, deep down inside of
+him. Sometimes he vividly saw her face. After all, who could tell? And she
+would want to hear of her children. Yes, he must know them better. Some day
+soon he must begin.
+
+Suddenly he remembered that Laura had not yet come home. With a sigh of
+discomfort he got out of bed and went downstairs, re-lit the gas in the
+hallway, unfastened the locks and the chain at the door. He came back and
+was soon asleep. He must have dozed for an hour or two. He was roused by
+hearing the front door close and a big motor thundering. And then like a
+flash of light in the dark came Laura's rippling laughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+On the next evening, Saturday, while Roger ate his dinner, Laura came to
+sit with him. She herself was dining out. That she should have dressed so
+early in order to keep him company had caused her father some surprise, and
+a faint suspicion entered his mind that she had overdrawn at the bank, as
+she had the last time she sat with him like this. Her manner certainly was
+a bit strange.
+
+But Roger put the thought aside. Whatever she wanted, Laura was worth it.
+In a tingling fashion he felt what a glorious time she was having, what a
+gorgeous town she knew. It was difficult to realize she was his own
+daughter, this dashing stranger sitting here, playing idly with a knife and
+caressing him with her voice and her eyes. The blue evening gown she was
+wearing to-night (doubtless not yet paid for) made her figure even more
+supple and lithe, set off her splendid bosom, her slender neck, her creamy
+skin. Her hair, worn low over her temples, was brown with just a tinge of
+red. Her eyes were black, with gleaming lights; her lips were warm and
+rich, alive. He did not approve of her lips. Once when she had kissed him
+Roger had started slightly back. For his daughter's lips were rouged, and
+they had reminded him of his youth. He had asked her sister to speak to
+her. But Deborah had told him she did not care to speak to people in that
+way--"especially women--especially sisters," she had said, with a quiet
+smile. All very well, he reflected, but somebody ought to take Laura in
+hand.
+
+She had been his favorite as a child, his pet, his tiny daughter. He
+remembered her on his lap like a kitten. How she had liked to cuddle there.
+And she had liked to bite his hand, a curious habit in a child. "I hurt
+daddy!" He could still recollect the gay little laugh with which she said
+that, looking up brightly into his face.
+
+And here she was already grown, and like a light in the sober old house,
+fascinating while she disturbed him. He liked to hear her high pitched
+voice, gossiping in Deborah's room or in her own dainty chamber chatting
+with the adoring maid who was dressing her to go out. He loved her joyous
+thrilling laugh. And he would have missed her from the house as he would
+have missed Fifth Avenue if it had been dropped from the city. For the
+picture Roger had formed of this daughter was more of a symbol than of a
+girl, a symbol of the ardent town, spending, wasting, dancing mad. It was
+Laura who had kept him living right up to his income.
+
+"Where are you dining to-night?" he asked.
+
+"With the Raymonds." He wondered who they were. "Oh, Sarah," she added to
+the maid. "Call up Mrs. Raymond's apartment and ask what time is dinner
+to-night."
+
+"Are you going to dance later on?" he inquired.
+
+"Oh, I guess so," she replied. "On the Astor Roof, I think they said--"
+
+Her father went on with his dinner. These hotel dances, he had heard, ran
+well into Sunday morning. How Judith would have disapproved. He hesitated
+uneasily.
+
+"I don't especially care for this dancing into Sunday," he said. For a
+moment he did not look up from his plate. When he did he saw Laura
+regarding him.
+
+"Oh, do you mind? I'm sorry. I won't, after this," she answered. And Roger
+colored angrily, for the glint of amusement in Laura's mischievous black
+eyes revealed quite unmistakably that she regarded both her father and his
+feeling for the Sabbath as very dear and quaint and old. Old? Of course he
+seemed old to _her_, Roger thought indignantly. For what was Laura but a
+child? Did she ever think of anything except having a good time? Had she
+ever stopped to think out her own morals, let alone anyone else's? Was she
+any judge of what was old--or of _who_ was old? And he determined then and
+there to show her he was in his prime. Impatiently he strove to remember
+the names of her friends and ask her about them, to show a keen lively
+interest in this giddy gaddy life she led. And when that was rather a
+failure he tried his daughter next on books, books of the most modern kind.
+Stoutly he lied and said he was reading a certain Russian novel of which he
+had heard Deborah speak. But this valiant falsehood made no impression
+whatever, for Laura had never heard of the book.
+
+"I get so little time for reading," she murmured. And meanwhile she was
+thinking, "As soon as he finishes talking, poor dear, I'll break the news."
+
+Then Roger had an audacious thought. He would take her to a play, by
+George! Mustering his courage he led up to it by speaking of a play Deborah
+had seen, a full-fledged modern drama all centered upon the right of a
+woman "to lead her own life." And as he outlined the story, he saw he had
+caught his daughter's attention. With her pretty chin resting on one hand,
+watching him and listening, she appeared much older, and she seemed
+suddenly close to him.
+
+"How would you like to go with me and see it some evening?" he inquired.
+
+"See what, my love?" she asked him, her thoughts plainly far away; and he
+looked at her in astonishment:
+
+"That play I've just been speaking of!"
+
+"Why, daddy, I'd love to!" she exclaimed.
+
+"When?" he asked. And he fixed a night. He was proud of himself. Eagerly he
+began to talk of opening nights at Wallack's. Roger and Judith, when they
+were young, had been great first nighters there. And now it was Laura who
+drew him out, and as he talked on she seemed to him to be smilingly trying
+to picture it all.... "Now I'd better tell him," she thought.
+
+"Do you remember Harold Sloane?" she asked a little strangely.
+
+"No," replied her father, a bit annoyed at the interruption.
+
+"Why--you've met him two or three times--"
+
+"Have I?" The queer note in her voice made him look up. Laura had risen
+from her chair.
+
+"I want you to know him--very soon." There was a moment's silence. "I'm
+going to marry him, dad," she said. And Roger looked at her blankly. He
+felt his limbs beginning to tremble. "I've been waiting to tell you when we
+were alone," she added in an awkward tone. And still staring up at her he
+felt a rush of tenderness and a pang of deep remorse. Laura in love and
+settled for life! And what did he know of the affair? What had he ever done
+for her? Too late! He had begun too late! And this rush of emotion was so
+overpowering that while he still looked at her blindly she was the first to
+recover her poise. She came around the table and kissed him softly on the
+cheek. And now more than ever Roger felt how old his daughter thought him.
+
+"Who is he?" he asked hoarsely. And she answered smiling,
+
+"A perfectly nice young man named Sloane."
+
+"Don't, Laura--tell me! What does he do?"
+
+"He's in a broker's office--junior member of the firm, Oh, you needn't
+worry, dear, he can even afford to marry _me_."
+
+They heard a ring at the front door.
+
+"There he is now, I think," she said. "Will you see him? Would you mind?"
+
+"See him? No!" her father cried.
+
+"But just to shake hands," she insisted. "You needn't talk or say a word.
+We've only a moment, anyway." And she went swiftly out of the room.
+
+Roger rose in a panic and strode up and down. Before he could recover
+himself she was back with her man, or rather her boy--for the fellow, to
+her father's eyes, looked ridiculously young. Straight as an arrow,
+slender, his dress suit irreproachable, the chap nevertheless was more than
+a dandy. He looked hard, as though he trained, and his smooth and ruddy
+face had a look of shrewd self-reliance. So much of him Roger fathomed in
+the indignant cornered glance with which he welcomed him into the room.
+
+"Why, good evening, Mr. Gale--glad to see you again, sir!" Young Sloane
+nervously held out his hand. Roger took it and muttered something. For
+several moments, his mind in a whirl, he heard their talk and laughter and
+his own voice joining in. Laura seemed enjoying herself, her eyes brimming
+with amusement over both her victims. But at last she had compassion,
+kissed her father gaily and took her suitor out of the room.
+
+Soon Roger heard them leave the house. He went into his study, savagely bit
+off a cigar and gripped his evening paper as though he meant to choke it.
+The maid came in with coffee. "Coffee? No!" he snapped at her. A few
+moments later he came to his senses and found himself smoking fast and
+hard. He heartily damned this fellow Sloane for breaking into the family
+and asking poor Laura to risk her whole life--just for his own selfish
+pleasure, his whim! Yes, "whim" was the very word for it! Laura's attitude,
+too! Did she look at it seriously? Not at all! Quite plainly she saw her
+career as one long Highland fling and dance, with this Harry boy as her
+partner! Who had he danced with in his past? The fellow's past must be gone
+into, and at once, without delay!
+
+Here indeed was a jolt for Roger Gale, a pretty shabby trick of fate. This
+was not what he had planned, this was a little way life had of jabbing a
+man with surprises. For months he had been slowly and comfortably feeling
+his way into the lives of his children, patiently, conscientiously. But
+now without a word of warning in popped this young whipper-snapper, turning
+the whole house upside down! Another young person to be known, another life
+to be dug into, and with pick and shovel too! The job was far from
+pleasant. Would Deborah help him? Not at all. She believed in letting
+people alone--a devilish easy philosophy! Still, he wanted to tell her at
+once, if only to stir her up a bit. He did not propose to bear this alone!
+But Deborah was out to-night. Why must she always be out, he asked, in that
+infernal zoo school? But no, it was not school to-night. She was dining out
+in some café with a tall lank doctor friend of hers. Probably she was to
+marry him!
+
+"I'll have that news for breakfast!" Roger smote his paper savagely. Why
+couldn't Laura have waited a little? Restlessly he walked the room. Then he
+went into the hall, took his hat and a heavy stick which he used for his
+night rambles, and walked off through the neighborhood. It was the first
+Saturday evening of Spring, and on those quiet downtown streets he met
+couples strolling by. A tall thin lad and a buxom girl went into a cheap
+apartment building laughing gaily to themselves, and Roger thought of
+Laura. A group of young Italians passed, humming "Trovatore," and it put
+him in mind of the time when he had ushered at the opera. Would Laura's
+young man be willing to usher? More like him to _tango_ down the aisle!
+
+He reached Washington Square feeling tired but even more restless than
+before. He climbed to the top of a motor 'bus, and on the lurching ride
+uptown he darkly reflected that times had changed. He thought of the Avenue
+he had known, with its long lines of hansom cabs, its dashing broughams and
+coupés with jingling harness, livened footmen, everything sprucely
+up-to-date. How the horses had added to the town. But they were gone, and
+in their place were these great cats, these purring motors, sliding softly
+by the 'bus. Roger had swift glimpses down into lighted limousines. In one
+a big rich looking chap with a beard had a dressy young woman in his arms.
+Lord, how he was hugging her! Laura would have a motor like that, kisses
+like that, a life like that! She was the kind to go it hard! Ahead as far
+as he could see was a dark rolling torrent of cars, lights gleaming by the
+thousand. A hubbub of gay voices, cries and little shrieks of laughter
+mingled with the blare of horns. He looked at huge shop windows softly
+lighted with displays of bedrooms richly furnished, of gorgeous women's
+apparel, silks and lacy filmy stuffs. And to Roger, in his mood of anxious
+premonition, these bedroom scenes said plainly,
+
+"O come, all ye faithful wives! Come let us adore him, and deck ourselves
+to please his eye, to catch his eye, to hold his eye! For marriage is a
+game these days!"
+
+Yes, Laura would be a spender, a spender and a speeder too! How much money
+had he, that chap? And damn him, what had he in his past? How Roger hated
+the very thought of poking into another man's life! Poking where nobody
+wanted him! He felt desperately alone. To-night they were dancing, he
+recalled, not at a party in somebody's home, but in some flashy public
+place where girls of her kind and fancy women gaily mixed together! How
+mixed the whole city was getting, he thought, how mad and strange, gone out
+of its mind, this city of his children's lives crowding in upon him!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+He breakfasted with Deborah late on Sunday morning. He had come down at the
+usual hour despite his long tramp of the previous night, for he wanted to
+tell her the news and talk it all out before Laura came down--because
+Deborah, he hadn't a doubt, with her woman's curiosity had probed deep into
+Laura's affairs in the many long talks they had had in her room. He had
+often heard them there. And so, as he waited and waited and still his
+daughter did not come, Roger grew distinctly annoyed; and when at last she
+did appear, his greeting was perfunctory:
+
+"What kept you out so late last night?"
+
+"Oh, I was having a very good time," said Deborah contentedly. She poured
+herself some coffee. "I've always wanted," she went on, "to see Laura
+really puzzled--downright flabbergasted. And I saw her just like that last
+night."
+
+Roger looked up with a jerk of his head:
+
+"You and Laura--together last night?"
+
+"Exactly--on the Astor Roof." At her father's glare of astonishment a look
+of quiet relish came over her mobile features. Her wide lips twitched a
+little. "Well, why not?" she asked him. "I'm quite a dancer down at school.
+And last night with Allan Baird--we were dining together, you know--he
+proposed we go somewhere and dance. He's a perfectly awful dancer, and so I
+held out as long as I could. But he insisted and I gave in, though I much
+prefer the theater."
+
+"Well!" breathed Roger softly. "So you hoof it with the rest!" His
+expression was startled and intent. Would he ever get to know these girls?
+"Well," he added with a sigh, "I suppose you know what you're about."
+
+"Oh no, I don't," she answered. "I never know what I'm about. If you always
+do, you miss so much--you get into a solemn habit of trying nothing till
+you're sure. But to return to Laura. As we came gaily down the room we ran
+right into her, you see. That's how Allan dances. And when we collided, I
+smiled at her sweetly and said, 'Why, hello, dearie--you here too?" And
+Deborah sipped her coffee. "I have never believed that the lower jaw of a
+well-bred girl could actually drop open. But Laura's did. With a good
+strong light, Allan told me, he could have examined her tonsils for her.
+Rather a disgusting thought. You see until she saw me there, poor Laura had
+me so thoroughly placed--my school-marm job, my tastes and habits,
+everything, all cut and dried. She has never once come to my school, and in
+every talk we've ever had there has always been some perfectly good and
+absorbing reason why we should talk about Laura alone."
+
+"There is now," said her father. He was in no mood for tomfoolery. His
+daughter saw it and smiled a little.
+
+"What is it?" she inquired. And then he let her have it!
+
+"Laura wants to get married," he snapped.
+
+Deborah caught her breath at that, and an eager excited expression swept
+over her attractive face. She had leaned forward suddenly.
+
+"Father! No! Which one?" she asked. "Tell me! Is it Harold Sloane?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Oh, dad." She sank back in her chair. "Oh, dad," she repeated.
+
+"What's the matter with Sloane?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing--it's all right--"
+
+"It is, eh? How do you know it is?" His anxious eyes were still upon hers,
+and he saw she was thinking fast and hard and shutting him completely out.
+And it irritated him. "What do you know of this fellow Sloane?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--nothing--"
+
+"Nothing! Humph! Then why do you sit here and say it's all right? Don't
+talk like a fool!" he exclaimed. He waited, but she said no more, and
+Roger's exasperation increased. "He has money enough apparently--and
+they'll spend it like March hares!"
+
+Deborah looked up at him:
+
+"What did Laura tell you, dear?"
+
+"Not very much. I'm only her father. She had a dinner and dance on her
+mind."
+
+But Deborah pressed her questions and he gave her brief replies.
+
+"Well, what shall we do about it?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing--until we know something more." Roger regarded her fiercely.
+
+"Why don't you go up and talk to her, then?"
+
+"She's asleep yet--"
+
+"Never mind if she is! If she's going to marry a chap like that and ruin
+her life it's high time she was up for her breakfast!"
+
+While he scanned his Sunday paper he heard Deborah in the pantry. She
+emerged with a breakfast tray and he saw her start up to Laura's room. She
+was there for over an hour. And when she returned to his study, he saw her
+eyes were shining. How women's eyes will shine at such times, he told
+himself in annoyance.
+
+"Well?" he demanded.
+
+"Better leave her alone to-day," she advised. "Harold is coming some night
+soon."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To have a talk with you."
+
+Her father smote his paper. "What did she tell you about him?" he asked.
+
+"Not much more than she told you. His parents are dead--but he has a rich
+widowed aunt in Bridgeport who adores him. They mean to be married the end
+of May. She wants a church wedding, bridesmaids, ushers--the wedding
+reception here, of course--"
+
+"Oh, Lord," breathed Roger dismally.
+
+"We won't bother you much, father dear--"
+
+"You _will_ bother me much," he retorted. "I propose to be
+bothered--bothered a lot! I'm going to look up this fellow Sloane--"
+
+"But let's leave him alone for to-day." She bent over her father
+compassionately. "What a night you must have had, poor dear." Roger looked
+up in grim reproach.
+
+"You like all this," he grunted. "You, a grown woman, a teacher too."
+
+"I wonder if I do," she said. "I guess I'm a queer person, dad, a curious
+family mixture--of Laura and Edith and mother and you, with a good deal of
+myself thrown in. But it feels rather good to be mixed, don't you think?
+Let's stay mixed as long as we can--and keep together the family."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That afternoon, to distract him, Deborah took her father to a concert in
+Carnegie Hall. She had often urged him to go of late, but despite his
+liking for music Roger had refused before, simply because it was a change.
+But why balk at going anywhere now, when Laura was up to such antics at
+home?
+
+"Do you mind climbing up to the gallery?" Deborah asked as they entered the
+hall.
+
+"Not at all," he curtly answered. He did mind it very much!
+
+"Then we'll go to the very top," she said. "It's a long climb but I want
+you to see it. It's so different up there."
+
+"I don't doubt it," he replied. And as they made the slow ascent, pettishly
+he wondered why Deborah must always be so eager for queer places.
+Galleries, zoo schools, tenement slums--why not take a two dollar seat in
+life?
+
+Deborah seated him far down in the front of the great gallery, over at the
+extreme right, and from here they could look back and up at a huge dim
+arena of faces.
+
+"Now watch them close," she whispered. "See what the music does to them."
+
+As the symphony began below the faces all grew motionless. And as the music
+cast its spell, the anxious ruffled feelings which had been with Roger all
+that day little by little were dispelled, and soon his imagination began to
+work upon this scene. He saw many familiar American types. He felt he knew
+what they had been doing on Sundays only a few years before. After church
+they had eaten large Sunday dinners. Then some had napped and some had
+walked and some had gone to Sunday school. At night they had had cold
+suppers, and afterwards some had gone back to church; while others, as in
+Roger's house in the days when Judith was alive, had gathered around the
+piano for hymns. Young men callers, friends of their daughters, had joined
+in the family singing. Yes, some of these people had been like that. To
+them, a few short years ago, a concert on the Sabbath would have seemed a
+sacrilege. He could almost hear from somewhere the echo of "Abide With Me."
+
+But over this memory of a song rose now the surging music of Tschaikovsky's
+"Pathetique." And the yearnings and fierce hungers in this tumultuous music
+swept all the hymns from Roger's mind. Once more he watched the gallery,
+and this time he became aware that more than half were foreigners. Out of
+the mass from every side individual faces emerged, swarthy, weird, and
+staring hungrily into space. And to Roger the whole shadowy place, the very
+air, grew pregnant, charged with all these inner lives bound together in
+this mood, this mystery that had swept over them all, immense and
+formless, baffling, this furious demanding and this blind wistful groping
+which he himself had known so well, ever since his wife had died and he had
+lost his faith in God. What was the meaning of it all if life were nothing
+but a start, and there were nothing but the grave?
+
+"You will live on in our children's lives."
+
+He glanced around at Deborah. Was _she_ so certain, so serene? "What do I
+know of her?" he asked. "Little or nothing," he sadly replied. And he tried
+to piece together from things she had told him her life as it had passed
+him by. Had there been no questionings, no sharp disillusionments? There
+must have been. He recalled irritabilities, small acts and exclamations of
+impatience, boredom, "blues." And as he watched her he grew sure that his
+daughter's existence had been like his own. Despite its different setting,
+its other aims and visions, it had been a mere beginning, a feeling for a
+foothold, a search for light and happiness. And Deborah seemed to him still
+a child. "How far will _you_ go?" he wondered.
+
+Although he was still watching her even after the music had ceased, she did
+not notice him for a time. Then she turned to him slowly with a smile.
+
+"Well? What did you see?" she asked.
+
+"I wasn't looking," he replied.
+
+"Why, dearie," she retorted. "Where's that imagination of yours?"
+
+"It was with you," he answered. "Tell me what you were thinking."
+
+And still under the spell of the music, Deborah said to her father,
+
+"I was thinking of hungry people--millions of them, now, this minute--not
+only here but in so many places--concerts, movies, libraries. Hungry, oh,
+for everything--life, its beauty, all it means. And I was thinking this is
+youth--no matter how old they happen to be--and that to feed it we have
+schools. I was thinking how little we've done as yet, and of all that
+we're so sure to do in the many, many years ahead. Do you see what I mean?"
+she squeezed his hand.
+
+"Welcome back to school," she said, "back into the hungry army of youth!...
+Sh-h-h!"
+
+Again the music had begun. And sitting by her side he wondered whether it
+was because she knew that Laura's affair had made him feel old that Deborah
+had brought him here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They went to Edith's for supper.
+
+The Cunninghams' apartment was on the west side, well uptown. It was not
+the neighborhood which Edith would have chosen, for nearly all the nice
+people she knew lived east of the park. But rents were somewhat lower here
+and there was at least an abundance of fresh air for her family. Edith had
+found that her days were full of these perplexing decisions. It was all
+very simple to resolve that her children be old-fashioned, normal,
+wholesome, nice. But then she looked into the city--into schools and
+kindergartens, clothes and friends and children's parties, books and plays.
+And through them all to her dismay she felt conflicting currents, clashes
+between old and new. She felt New York. And anxiously she asked herself,
+"What is old-fashioned? What is normal? What is wholesome? What is nice?"
+Cautiously she made her way, testing and comparing, trying small
+experiments. Often sharply she would draw in her horns. She had struck
+something "common!" And she knew all this was nothing compared to the
+puzzles that lay ahead. For from her friend, Madge Deering, whose girls
+were well along in their 'teens, she heard of deeper problems. The girls
+were so inquisitive. Dauntlessly Madge was facing each month the most
+disturbing questions. Thank Heaven, Edith had only one daughter. Sons were
+not quite so baffling.
+
+So she had groped her way along.
+
+When her father and Deborah arrived, placidly she asked them what they had
+been doing. And when she heard that they had been at a concert on the
+Sabbath, though this was far from old-fashioned and something she would not
+have done herself, it did not bother her half so much as the fact that
+Hannah, the Irish nurse, had slapped little Tad that afternoon. She had
+never known Hannah to do it before. Could it be that the girl was tired or
+sick? Perhaps she needed a few days off. "I must have a talk with her,"
+Edith thought, "as soon as father and Deborah go."
+
+Roger always liked to come here. Say what you would about Edith's habit of
+keeping too closely to her home, the children to whom she had devoted
+herself were a fine, clean, happy lot. Here were new lives in his family,
+glorious fresh beginnings. He sat on the floor with her three boys,
+watching the patient efforts of George to harness his perturbed white rat
+to Tad's small fire engine. George was a lank sprawling lad of fourteen,
+all legs and arms and elbows, with rumpled hair and freckled face, a quick
+bright smile and nice brown eyes--frank, simple, understandable eyes. All
+but one of Edith's children were boys, and boys were a blessed relief to a
+man who had three grown-up daughters.
+
+And while Roger watched them, with a gentle glow of anticipation he waited
+for what should follow, when as had been already arranged Deborah should
+break to her sister the news of Laura's engagement. And he was not
+disappointed. The change in Edith was something tremendous. Until now so
+quietly self-absorbed, at the news that Laura was to be married instantly
+she was all alert. Sitting there in the midst of her children and facing a
+time of agony only a few weeks ahead which would add one more to her
+family, Edith's pretty florid face grew flushed and radiant as she
+exclaimed,
+
+"What a perfectly wonderful thing for Laura! Now if only she can have a
+child!"
+
+Her questions followed thick and fast, and with them her thoughts of what
+should be done. Bruce must look up this suitor at once. Bruce demurred
+stoutly but without avail. She eagerly questioned her sister as to Laura's
+plans for the wedding, but plainly she considered that Deborah was no woman
+to give her the full information she wanted. She must see Laura herself at
+once. For though she had thoroughly disapproved of the gay helter-skelter
+existence of her youngest sister, still Laura was now to be married, and
+this made all the difference.
+
+Just before Roger and Deborah left, Edith drew her father aside, and with a
+curious concern and pity in her voice, she said,
+
+"I'm so sorry I shan't be able to help you with the wedding, dear, and make
+it the sweet old-fashioned kind that mother would have wanted. Of course
+there's Deborah, she'll be there. But her head is so full of new ideas. I'm
+afraid she may find the house rather a burden after Laura has gone away."
+Edith gave a worried little sigh. "I'll be so glad," she added, "when we
+get that place in Morristown. We'll want you out there often, and for good
+long visits too. You may even find you'll care to try staying there with us
+for a while."
+
+Roger scowled and thanked her. She had given him a shock of alarm.
+
+"So she thinks that Deborah will find the housekeeping too hard," he
+reflected anxiously. And as he walked home with his daughter, he kept
+glancing at her face, which for all its look of quiet had so much tensity
+beneath. She had packed her life so full of school. What if she wanted to
+give up their home? "She'll try, of course, she'll try her best--but she'll
+find it too much of an added strain." And again he felt that sickening
+dread. Deborah said nothing. He felt as though they had drifted apart.
+
+And at night in his bed, as Roger stared up at the beetling cliff of
+apartment windows just outside, drearily he asked himself how it would feel
+to live like that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+One afternoon a few days later Roger was riding in the park. He rode
+"William," a large lazy cob who as he advanced in age had so subtly and
+insidiously slackened his pace from a trot to a jog that Roger barely
+noticed how slowly he was riding. As he rode along he liked to watch the
+broad winding bridle path with its bobbing procession of riders that kept
+appearing before him under the tall spreading trees. Though he knew
+scarcely anyone by name, he was a familiar figure here and he recognized
+scores of faces. To many men he nodded at passing, and to not a few
+alluring young dames, ardent creatures with bright eyes who gave him smiles
+of greeting, Roger gravely raised his hat. One was "The Silver Lady" in a
+Broadway musical show, but he thought she was "one of the Newport crowd."
+He liked to make shrewd guesses like that. There were so many kinds of
+people here. There were stout anxious ladies riding for figures and lean
+morose gentlemen riding for health. There were joyous care-free girls,
+chatting and laughing merrily. There were some gallant foreigners, and
+there were riding masters, and Roger could not tell them apart. There were
+mad boys from the Squadron who rode at a furious canter, and there were
+groups of children, eager and flushed, excited and gay, with stolid grooms
+behind them. The path in several places ran close beside the main road of
+the park, and with the coming of the dusk this road took on deep purple
+hues and glistened with reflections from countless yellow motor eyes. And
+from the polished limousines, sumptuous young women smiled out upon the
+riders.
+
+At least so Roger saw this life. And after those bleak lonely years
+confronted by eternity, it was good to come here and forget, to feel
+himself for the moment a part of the thoughtless gaiety, the ease and
+luxury of the town. Here he was just on the edge of it all. Often as a
+couple passed he would wonder what they were doing that night. In the
+riding school where he kept his horse, it was a lazy pleasure to have the
+English "valet" there pull off his boots and breeches--though if anyone had
+told him so, Roger would have denied it with indignation and surprise. For
+was he not an American?
+
+It had been a wonderful tonic, a great idea of Laura's, this forcing him up
+here to ride. In one of her affectionate moods, just after a sick spell he
+had been through, his gay capricious daughter had insisted that he have his
+horse brought down from the mountains. She had promised to ride with him
+herself, and she had done so--for a week. Since then he had often met her
+here with one of her many smart young men. What a smile of greeting would
+flash on her face--when Laura happened to notice him.
+
+He was thinking of Laura now, and there was an anxious gleam in his eyes.
+For young Sloane was coming to dinner to-night. What was he going to say to
+the fellow? Bruce had learned that Sloane played polo, owned and drove a
+racing car and was well liked in his several clubs. But what about women
+and his past? Edith had urged her father to go through the lad's life with
+a fine tooth comb, and if he should find anything there to kick up no end
+of a row for the honor of the family. All of which was nothing but words,
+reflected Roger pettishly. It all came to this, that he had a most ticklish
+evening ahead! On the path as a rider greeted him, his reply was a dismal
+frown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Laura's suitor arrived at six o'clock. In his study Roger heard the bell,
+listened a moment with beating heart, then raised himself heavily from his
+chair and went into the hallway.
+
+"Ah, yes! It's you!" he exclaimed, with a nervous cordiality. "Come in, my
+boy, come right in! Here, let me help you with your coat. I don't know just
+where Laura is. Ahem!" He violently cleared his throat. "Suppose while
+we're waiting we have a smoke." He kept it up back into his den. There the
+suitor refused a cigar and carefully lit a cigarette. Roger noticed again
+how young the chap was, and marriage seemed so ridiculous! All this
+feverish trouble was for something so unreal!
+
+"Well, sir," the candidate blurted forth, "I guess I'd better come right to
+the point. Mr. Gale, I want to marry your daughter."
+
+"Laura?"
+
+"Yes." Roger cursed himself. Why had he asked, "Laura?" Of course it was
+Laura! Would this cub be wanting Deborah?
+
+"Well, my boy," he said thickly. "I--I wish I knew you better."
+
+"So do I, sir. Suppose we begin." The youth took a quick pull at his
+cigarette. He waited, stirred nervously in his seat. "You'll have some
+questions to ask, I suppose--"
+
+"Yes, there are questions." Roger had risen mechanically and was slowly
+walking the room. He threw out short gruff phrases. "I'm not interested in
+your past--I don't care about digging into a man--I never have and I never
+will--except as it might affect my daughter. That's the main question, I
+suppose. Can you make her happy?"
+
+"I think so," said Sloane, decidedly. Roger gave him a glance of
+displeasure.
+
+"That's a large order, young man," he rejoined.
+
+"Then let's take it in sections," the youngster replied. Confound his
+boyish assurance! "To begin with," he was saying, "I rather think I have
+money enough. We'd better go into that, hadn't we?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger indifferently. "We might as well go into it." Of course
+the chap had money enough. He was a money maker. You could hear it in his
+voice; you could see it in his jaw, in his small aggressive blonde
+moustache. Now he was telling briefly of his rich aunt in Bridgeport, of
+the generous start she had given him, his work downtown, his income.
+
+"Twenty-two thousand this year," he said. "We can live on that all right, I
+guess."
+
+"You won't starve," was the dry response. Roger walked for a moment in
+silence, then turned abruptly on young Sloane.
+
+"Look here, young man, I don't want to dig," he continued very huskily.
+"But I know little or nothing of what may be behind you. I don't care to
+ask you about it now--unless it can make trouble."
+
+"It can't make trouble." At this answer, low but sharp, Roger wheeled and
+shot a glance into those clear and twinkling eyes. And his own eyes gleamed
+with pain. Laura had been such a little thing in the days when she had been
+his pet, the days when he had known her well. What could he do about it?
+This was only the usual thing. But he felt suddenly sick of life.
+
+"How soon do you want to get married?" he demanded harshly.
+
+"Next month, if we can."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Abroad," said Sloane. Roger caught at this topic as at a straw. Soon they
+were talking of the trip, and the tension slackened rapidly. He had never
+been abroad himself but had always dreamed of going there. With maps and
+books of travel Judith and he had planned it out. In imagination they had
+lived in London and Paris, Munich and Rome, always in queer old lodgings
+looking on quaint crooked streets. He had dreamed of long delicious
+rambles, glimpses into queer old shops, vast, silent, dark cathedrals. For
+Laura how different it would be. This boy of hers knew Europe as a group
+of gorgeous new hotels.
+
+The moment Laura joined them, her father's eye was caught and held by the
+ring upon her finger. Roger knew rings, they were his hobby, and this huge
+yellow solitaire in its new and brilliant setting at once awakened his
+dislike. It just fitted the life they were to lead! What life? As he
+listened to his daughter he kept wondering if she were so sure. Had she
+felt no uneasiness? She must have, he decided, for all her gay excitement.
+One Laura in that smiling face; another Laura deep inside, doubting and
+uncertain, reaching for her happiness, now elated, now dismayed,
+exclaiming, "Now at last I'm starting!" Oh, what an ignorant child she was.
+He wanted to cry out to her, "You'll _always_ be just starting! You'll
+never be sure, you'll never be happy, you'll always be just beginning to
+be! And the happier you are, the more you will feel it is only a start!...
+And then-"
+
+More and more his spirit withdrew from these two heedless children. Later
+on, when Deborah came, he barely noticed her meeting with Sloane. And
+through dinner, while they talked of plans for the wedding, the trip
+abroad, still Roger took no part at all. He felt dull and heavy. Deborah
+too, he noticed, after her first efforts to be welcoming and friendly, had
+gradually grown silent. He saw her watching Laura with a mingled look of
+affection and of whimsical dismay. Soon after dinner she left them, and
+Roger smoked with the boy for a while and learned that he was twenty-nine.
+Both had grown uneasy and rather dull with each other. It was a relief when
+again Laura joined them, dressed to go out. She and her lover left the
+house.
+
+Roger sat motionless for some time. His cigar grew cold unheeded. One of
+the sorrows of his life had been that his only son had died. Bruce had been
+almost like a son. But this young man of Laura's? No.
+
+Later he went for his evening walk. And as though drawn by invisible
+chains he strayed far down into the ghetto. Soon he was elbowing his way
+through a maze of uproarious tenement streets as one who had been there
+many times. But he noticed little around him. He went on, as he had always
+gone, seeing and hearing this seething life only as a background to his own
+adventure. He reached his destination. Pushing his way through a swarm of
+urchins playing in front of a pawnshop, he entered and was a long time
+inside, and when he came out again at last the whole expression of his face
+had undergone a striking change. As one who had found the solace he needed
+for the moment, his pace unconsciously quickened and he looked about him
+with brighter eyes.
+
+Around the corner from his home, he went into a small jewelry shop, a
+remnant of the town of the past. There were no customers in the place, and
+the old Galician jeweler sat at the back playing solitaire. At sight of
+Roger he arose; and presently in a small back room, beneath the glare of a
+powerful lamp, the two were studying the ring which Roger had found in the
+ghetto that night. It was plain, just a thin worn band of gold with an
+emerald by no means large; but the setting was old and curious, and
+personal, distinctive. Somebody over in Europe had worked on it long and
+lovingly. Now as the Galician gently rubbed and polished and turned the
+ring this way and that, the light revealed crude tiny figures, a man and a
+woman under a tree. And was that a vine or a serpent? They studied it long
+and absorbedly.
+
+At home, up in his bedroom, Roger opened a safe which stood in one corner,
+took out a large shallow tray and sat down with it by his lamp. A strange
+array of rings was there, small and delicate, huge, bizarre; great signet
+rings and poison rings, love tokens, charms and amulets, rings which had
+been worn by wives, by mistresses, by favorite slaves and by young girls in
+convents; rings with the Madonna and rings with many other saints graven
+on large heavy stones; rings French and Russian, Polish, Italian, Spanish,
+Syrian. Some were many centuries old. In nine shallow metal trays they
+filled the safe in Roger's room. Although its money value was small, the
+Gale collection was well known to a scattered public of connoisseurs, and
+Roger took pride in showing it. But what had always appealed to him most
+was the romance, the mystery, stored up in these old talismans that had
+lived so many ages, travelled through so many lands, decked so many
+fingers. Roger had found every one of them in the pawnshops of New York.
+What new recruits to America had brought them here and pawned them? From
+what old cities had they come? What passions of love and jealousy, of
+hatred, faith, devotion were in this glittering array? Roger's own love
+affair had been deep, but quiet and even and happy. All the wild
+adventures, the might-have-beens in his sex life, were gathered in these
+dusky trays with their richly colored glints of light.
+
+Of his daughters, Laura had been the one most interested in his rings, and
+so he thought of Laura now as he placed in the tray the new ring he had
+bought, the one he would have liked for her. But a vague uneasiness filled
+his mind, for he knew she had the same craving as he for what gleamed out
+of these somber trays. The old Galician jeweler had long been quite a
+friend of hers, she had often dropped in at his shop to ask him curious
+questions about his women patrons. And it was just this side of him that
+Roger did not care for. So many of those women were from a dubious
+glittering world, and the old Galician took a weird vicarious joy in many
+of the gay careers into which he sent his beloved rings, his brooches,
+earrings, necklaces, his clasps and diamond garters. And Laura loved to
+make him talk.... Yes, she was her father's child, a part of himself. He,
+too, had had his yearnings, his burning curiosities, his youthful ventures
+into the town. "You will live on in our children's lives." With her
+inheritance what would she do? Would she stop halfway as he had done, or
+would she throw all caution aside and let the flames within her rise?
+
+He heard a step in the doorway, and Deborah stood there smiling.
+
+"A new one?" she inquired. He nodded, and she bent over the tray. "Poor
+father," Deborah murmured. "I saw you eyeing Laura's engagement ring at
+dinner to-night. It wasn't like this one, was it?" He scowled:
+
+"I don't like what I see ahead of her. Nor do you," he said. "Be honest."
+She looked at him perplexedly.
+
+"We can't stop it, can we? And even if we could," she said, "I'm not quite
+sure I'd want to. It's her love affair, not yours or mine--grown out of a
+life she made for herself--curious, eager, thrilled by it all--and in the
+center of her soul the deep glad growing certainty, 'I'm going to be a
+beautiful woman--I myself, I, Laura Gale!' Oh, you don't know--nor do I.
+And so she felt her way along--eagerly, hungrily, making mistakes--and you
+and I left her to do it alone. I'm afraid we both rather neglected her,
+dad," Deborah ended sadly. "And all we can do now, I think, is to give her
+the kind of wedding she wants."
+
+Roger started to speak but hesitated.
+
+"What is it?" she inquired.
+
+"Queer," he answered gruffly, "how a man can neglect his children--as I
+have done, as I do still--when the one thing he wants most in life is to
+see each one of 'em happy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Roger soon grew accustomed to seeing young Sloane about the house. They
+could talk together more easily, and he began to call him Harold. Harold
+asked him with Laura to lunch at the Ritz to meet the aunt from Bridgeport,
+a lady excessively stout and profound. But that ended the formalities. It
+had all been so much easier than Roger had expected. So, in its calm sober
+fashion, the old house took into its life this new member, these new plans,
+and the old seemed stronger for the new--for Laura and Edith and Deborah
+drew together closer than they had been in many years. But only because
+they felt themselves on the eve of a still deeper and more lasting
+separation, as the family of Roger Gale divided and went different ways. At
+times he noticed it sadly. Laura, who had scarcely ever been home for
+dinner, now spent many evenings here. She needed her home for her wedding,
+he thought. Each daughter needed it now and then. But as the years wore
+slowly on, the seasons when they needed it grew steadily wider and wider
+apart....
+
+Early in May, when Roger came home from his office one night he found
+Edith's children in the house. From the hallway he could hear their gay
+excited voices, and going into the dining room he found them at their
+supper. Deborah was with them, and at once her father noticed how much
+younger she appeared--as she always did with these children who all
+idolized her so. She rose and followed him into the hall, and her quiet
+voice had a note of compassion.
+
+"Edith's baby is coming," she said.
+
+"Good Lord. Is anything wrong?" he asked.
+
+"No, no, it's all right--"
+
+"But I thought the child wasn't due for three weeks."
+
+"I know, and poor Edith is fearfully worried. It has upset all her plans.
+I'd go up and see her if I were you. Your supper is ready; and if you like
+you can have it with the children."
+
+There followed a happy boisterous meal, with much expectant chatter about
+the long summer so soon to begin at the farm up in the mountains. George,
+whose hair was down over his eyes, rumpled it back absorbedly as he told of
+a letter he had received from his friend Dave Royce, Roger's farmer, with
+whom George corresponded. One of the cows was to have a calf, and George
+was anxious to get there in time.
+
+"I've never seen a real new calf, new absolutely," he explained. "And I
+want a look at this one the very minute that he's born. Gee, I hope we can
+get there in time--"
+
+"Gee! So do I!" cried Bobby aged nine. And then Tad, the chubby
+three-year-old who had been intently watching his brothers, slowly took the
+spoon from his mouth and in his grave sweet baby voice said very softly,
+"Gee." At her end of the table, Elizabeth, blonde and short and rather
+plump, frowned and colored slightly. For she was eleven and she knew there
+was something dark and shameful about the way calves appear in barns. And
+so, with a quick conscious cough, she sweetly interrupted:
+
+"Oh, Aunt Deborah! Won't you please tell us about--about--"
+
+"About--about," jeered the ironical George. "About what, you little ninny?"
+Poor Elizabeth blushed desperately. She was neither quick nor resourceful.
+
+"Now, George," said his aunt warningly.
+
+"Wasn't I talking?" the boy rejoined. "And didn't Betsy butt right
+in--without even a thing to butt in about? About--about," he jeered again.
+
+"About Paris!" cried his sister, successful at last in her frantic search
+for a proper topic of conversation. "Aunt Deborah's trip to Paris!"
+
+"How many times has she told it already?" her brother replied with
+withering scorn. "And anyhow, I was talking of cows!"
+
+"Very well," said his aunt, "we'll talk about cows, some cows I saw on a
+lovely old farm in a little village over in France."
+
+"There!" cried his young sister. "Did she ever tell of _that_ part of her
+trip?" And she made a little face at her brother.
+
+"I don't care," he answered doggedly. "She has told about Paris lots of
+times--and that was what _you_ wanted. Yes, you did. You said, 'About
+Paris.' Didn't she, Bob?"
+
+"You bet she did," young Bob agreed.
+
+"Now, children, children, what does it matter?"
+
+"All right, go ahead with your barn in France," said George with patient
+tolerance. "Did they have any Holsteins?"
+
+Soon the questions were popping from every side, while little Tad beamed
+from one to the other. To Tad it was all so wonderful, to be having supper
+away from home, to be here, to go to bed upstairs, to take part perhaps in
+a pillow fight.... And glancing at the glowing face and the parted lips of
+his small grandson Roger felt a current of warm new life pour into his
+soul.
+
+Early in the evening he went up to Edith's apartment. He found his daughter
+in her room, looking flushed and very tense. He took her arm and they
+walked for a time. A trained nurse was soaping the windows. Roger asked the
+reason for this and was told that in case the baby did not come till
+morning the doctor wanted to pull up the shades in order to work by
+daylight. "And neighbors in New York are such cats! You've no idea!" said
+Edith. She looked out at the numberless windows crowding close about her
+home, and she fairly bristled with scorn. "Oh, how I loathe apartments!"
+
+"They seem to have come to stay, my dear. In a few years more New York will
+be a city without a house," he said. "Only a palace here and there." The
+thought flashed in his mind, "But I shall be gone."
+
+"Then we'll move out to the country!" she cried. Still walking the floor
+with her father, she talked of the perplexities which in her feverish state
+of mind had loomed suddenly enormous. She had planned everything so nicely
+for the baby to come the first of June, but now her plans were all upset.
+She did not want the children here, it would make too much confusion. They
+had much better go up to the mountains, even though George and Elizabeth
+lost their last few weeks at school. But who could she find to take them?
+Bruce was simply rushed to death with his new receivership. Laura was
+getting her trousseau. Deborah, said Edith, had time for nothing on earth
+but school.
+
+"Suppose I take them," Roger ventured. But she only smiled at this. "My
+dear," he urged, "your nurse will be with me, and when we arrive there's
+the farmer's wife." But Edith impatiently shook her head. Her warm bright
+eyes seemed to picture it all, hour by hour, day and night, her children
+there without her.
+
+"You poor dear," she told him, "you haven't the slightest idea what it
+means. The summer train is not on yet, and you have to change three times
+on the way--with all the children--luggage, too. And there are their naps,
+and all their meals. You don't arrive till late at night. No," she decided
+firmly, "Bruce will simply have to go." She drew a breath of discomfort.
+"You go and talk to him," she said.
+
+"I will, my dear." Roger looked at his daughter in deep concern. Awkwardly
+his heavy hand touched her small plump shoulder, and he felt the constant
+quivering there. "Now, now," he muttered, uneasily, "it's going to be all
+right, you know--" And at that she gave him a rapid glance out of those
+warm hunted eyes, as though to ask, "What do you know of this?" And Roger
+flinched and turned to the door.
+
+Bruce was working at his desk, with an old briar pipe in his teeth. He
+looked up with a quick nervous smile which showed his dread of the coming
+ordeal, but his voice had a carefully casual tone.
+
+"Does she want me now?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Roger. And he told of her plan for the children. "I volunteered
+myself," he added, "but she wouldn't hear to it."
+
+"Oh, my God, man, you wouldn't do," said Bruce, in droll disparagement.
+"You with forty-nine bottles of pasteurized milk? Suppose you smashed one?
+Where'd you be? Moving our family isn't a job; it's a science, and I've got
+my degree." He rose and his face softened. "Poor girl, she mustn't worry
+like that. I'll run in and tell her I'll do it myself--just to get it off
+her mind."
+
+He went to his wife. And when he came back his dark features appeared a
+little more drawn.
+
+"Poor devil," thought Roger, "he's scared to death--just as I used to be
+myself."
+
+"Pretty tough on a woman, isn't it?" Bruce muttered, smiling constrainedly.
+
+"Did Baird say everything's going well?" Baird was Edith's physician.
+
+"Yes. He was here this afternoon, and he said he'd be back this evening."
+Bruce stopped with a queer little scowl of suspense. "I told her I'd see to
+the trip with the kiddies, and it seemed to relieve her a lot." His eye
+went to a pile of documents that lay on the desk before him. "It'll play
+the very devil with business, taking three days off just now. But I guess I
+can manage it somehow--"
+
+A muscle began to twitch on his face. He re-lit his pipe with elaborate
+care and looked over at Roger confidingly:
+
+"Do you know what's the matter with kids these days? It's the twentieth
+century," he said. "It's a disease. It starts in their teeth. No modern
+girl can get married unless she has had her teeth straightened for years.
+Our dentist's bill, this year alone, was over eight hundred dollars. But
+that isn't all. It gets into their young intestines, God bless 'em, and
+makes you pasteurize all they eat. It gets into their nerves and tears 'em
+up, and your only chance to save 'em is school--not a common school but a
+'simple' school, tuition four hundred dollars a year. And you hire a
+dancing teacher besides--I mean a rhythm teacher--and let 'em shake it out
+of their feet. And after that you buy 'em clothes--not fluffy clothes, but
+'simple' clothes, the kind which always cost the most. And then you build a
+simple home, in a simple place like Morristown. The whole idea is
+simplicity. If you can't make enough to buy it, you're lost. If you can
+make enough, just barely enough, you get so excited you lose your head--and
+do what I did Monday."
+
+The two men smiled at each other. Roger was very fond of Bruce.
+
+"What did you do Monday?" he asked.
+
+"I bought that car I told you about."
+
+"Splendid! Best thing in the world for you! Tell me all about it!"
+
+And while Bruce rapidly grew engrossed in telling of the car's fine points,
+Roger pictured his son-in-law upon hot summer evenings (for Bruce spent his
+summers in town) forgetting his business for a time and speeding out into
+the country. Then he thought of Edith and the tyranny of her motherhood,
+always draining her husband's purse and keeping Edith so wrapt up in her
+children and their daily needs that she had lost all interest in anything
+outside her home. What was there wrong about it? He knew that Edith prided
+herself on being like her mother. But Judith had always found time for her
+friends. He himself had been more as Edith was now. How quickly after
+Judith died he had dropped all friends, all interests. "That's it," he
+ruefully told himself, "Edith takes after her father." And the same curious
+feeling which he had had with Laura, came back to him with her sister. This
+daughter, too, was a part of himself. His deep instinctive craving to keep
+to himself and his family was living on in Edith, was already dominating
+her home. What a queer mysterious business it was, this tie between a man
+and his child.
+
+He was thinking of this when Baird arrived. Allan Baird was not only the
+doctor who had brought Edith's children into the world, he was besides an
+intimate friend, he had been Bruce's room-mate at college. As he came
+strolling into the room with his easy greeting of "Well, folks--" his low
+gruff voice, his muscular frame, over six feet two, and the kindly calm
+assurance in his lean strong visage, gave to Bruce and Roger the feeling of
+safety they needed. For this kind of work was his life. He had specialized
+on women, and after over fifteen years of toilsome uphill labor he had
+become at thirty-seven one of the big gynecologists. He was taking his
+success with the quiet relish of a man who had had to work for it hard. And
+yet he had not been spoiled by success. He worked even harder than
+before--so hard, in fact, that Deborah, with whom through Bruce and Edith
+he had long ago struck up an easy bantering friendship, had sturdily set
+herself the task of prying open his eyes a bit. She had taken him to her
+school at night and to queer little foreign cafés. And Baird, with a humor
+of his own, had retaliated by dragging her to the Astor Roof and to musical
+plays.
+
+"If my eyes are to be opened," he had doggedly declared, "I propose to have
+some diamonds in the scenery, and a little cheery ragtime, too. You've got
+a good heart, Deborah Gale, but your head is full of tenements."
+
+To-night to divert Bruce's thoughts from his wife, Baird started him
+talking of his work. In six weeks Bruce had crammed his mind with the
+details of skyscraper building, and his talk was bewildering now, bristling
+with technical terms, permeated through and through with the feeling of
+strain and fierce competition. As Roger listened he had again that sharp
+and oppressive sensation of a savage modern town unrelentingly pressing,
+pressing in. Restlessly he glanced at Baird who sat listening quietly. And
+Roger thought of the likeness between their two professions. For Bruce,
+too, was a surgeon. His patients were the husbands in their distracting
+offices. Baird's were the wives and mothers in their equally distracting
+homes. Which were more tense, the husbands or wives? And, good Lord, what
+was it all about, this feverish strain of getting and spending? What were
+they spending? Their very life's blood. And what were they getting?
+Happiness? What did most of them know of real happiness? How little they
+knew, how blind they were, and yet how they laughed and chattered along,
+how engrossed in their little games. What children, oh, what children!
+
+"And am I any better than the rest? Do I know what I'm after--what I'm
+about?"
+
+He left them soon, for he felt very tired. He went to his daughter to say
+good-night. And in her room the talk he had heard became to him suddenly
+remote, that restless world of small account. For in Edith, in the one
+brief hour since her father had seen her last, there had come a great
+transformation, into her face an eager light. She was slipping down into a
+weird small world which for a brief but fearful season was to be utterly
+her own, with agony and bloody sweat, and joy and a deep mystery. Clumsily
+he took her hand. It was moist and he felt it clutch his own. He heard her
+breathing rapidly.
+
+"Good-night," he said in a husky tone. "I'll be so glad, my dear, so
+glad."
+
+For answer she gave him a hurried smile, a glance from her bright restless
+eyes. Then he went heavily from the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home he found Deborah sitting alone, with a pile of school papers in her
+lap. As he entered she slowly turned her head.
+
+"How is Edith?" she asked him. Roger told of his visit uptown, and spoke of
+Edith's anxiety over getting the children up to the farm.
+
+"I'll take them myself," said Deborah.
+
+"But how can you get away from school?"
+
+"Oh, I think I can manage it. We'll leave on Friday morning and I can be
+back by Sunday night. I'll love it," Deborah answered.
+
+"It'll be a great relief to her," said Roger, lighting a cigar. Deborah
+resumed her work, and there was silence for a time.
+
+"I let George sit up with me till an hour after his bedtime," she told her
+father presently. "We started talking about white rats--you see it's still
+white rats with George--and that started us wondering about God. George
+wonders if God really knows about rats. 'Has he ever stuck his face right
+down and had a good close look at one? Has God ever watched a rat stand up
+and brush his whiskers with both paws? Has he ever really laughed at rats?
+And that's another thing, Aunt Deborah--does God ever laugh at all? Does he
+know how to take a joke? If he don't, we might as well quit right now!'"
+
+Roger laughed with relish, and his daughter smiled at him:
+
+"Then the talk turned from rats and God to a big dam out in the Rockies.
+George has been reading about it, he's thinking of being an engineer. And
+there was so much he wanted to know that he was soon upon the verge of
+discovering my ignorance--when all of a sudden a dreamy look, oh, a very
+dreamy look, came into his eyes--and he asked me this." And over her bright
+expressive face came a scowl of boyish intensity: "Suppose I _was_ an
+engineer--and I was working on a dam, or may be a bridge, in the Rockies.
+And say it was pretty far down south--say around the Grand Canyon. I should
+think they'd need a dam down there, or anyhow a bridge,' said George. And
+he eyed me in a cautious way which said as plain as the nose on your face,
+'Good Lord, she's only a woman, and she won't understand.' But I showed him
+I was serious, and he asked me huskily, 'Suppose it was winter, Aunt
+Deborah, and the Giants were in Texas. Do you think I could get a few days
+off?' And then before he could tell me the Giants were a baseball nine, I
+said I was sure he could manage it. You should have seen his face light up.
+And he added very fervently, 'Gee, it must be wonderful to be an engineer
+out there!'"
+
+Roger chuckled delightedly and Deborah went on with her work. "How good she
+is with young uns," he thought. "What a knack she has of drawing 'em out.
+What a pity she hasn't some of her own."
+
+He slept until late the next morning, and awoke to find Deborah by his bed.
+
+"It's another boy," she told him. Roger sat up excitedly. "Bruce has just
+telephoned the news. The children and I have breakfasted, and they're going
+out with their nurse. Suppose you and I go up and see Bruce and settle this
+trip to the mountains."
+
+About an hour later, arriving at Edith's apartment, they found Bruce
+downstairs with Allan Baird who was just taking his departure. Bruce's dark
+eyes shone with relief, but his hand was hot and nervous. Allan, on the
+contrary, held out to Edith's father a hand as steady and relaxed as was
+the bantering tone of his voice.
+
+"Bruce," he said, "has for once in his life decided to do something
+sensible. He's going to drop his wretched job and take a week off with his
+children."
+
+"And worry every minute he's gone," Deborah retorted, "and come back and
+work day and night to catch up. But he isn't going to do it. I've decided
+to take the children myself."
+
+"You have?" cried Bruce delightedly.
+
+"You'll do no such thing," said Allan, indignant.
+
+"Oh, you go to thunder," Bruce put in. "Haven't you any delicacy? Can't you
+see this is no business of yours?"
+
+"It isn't, eh," Allan sternly rejoined. And of Deborah he demanded, "Didn't
+you say you'd go with me to 'Pinafore' this Saturday night?"
+
+"Ah," sneered Bruce. "So that's your game. And for one little night of your
+pleasure you'd do me out of a week of my life!"
+
+"Like that," said Baird, with a snap of his fingers.
+
+"I'm going, though," said Deborah.
+
+"Quite right, little woman," Bruce admonished her earnestly. "Don't let him
+rob you of your happiness."
+
+"Come here," growled Baird to Deborah. She followed him into the living
+room, and Roger went upstairs with Bruce.
+
+"If he ever hopes to marry that girl," said Bruce, with an anxious backward
+glance, "he's got to learn to treat her with a little consideration."
+
+"Quit your quarreling," Roger said. "What's a week in the mountains to you?
+Hasn't your wife just risked her life?"
+
+"Sure she has," said Bruce feelingly. "And I propose to stick by her, too."
+
+"Can I see her?"
+
+"No, you can't--another of Baird's fool notions."
+
+"Then where's the baby?"
+
+"Right in here."
+
+Silently in front of the cradle Bruce and Roger stood looking down with the
+content which comes to men on such occasions when there is no woman by
+their side expecting them to say things.
+
+"I made it a rule in my family," Roger spoke up presently, "to have my
+first look at each child alone."
+
+"Same here," said Bruce. And they continued their silent communion. A few
+moments later, as they were leaving, Deborah came into the room and went
+softly to the cradle. Downstairs they found that Allan had gone, and when
+Deborah rejoined them she said she was going to stick to her plan. It was
+soon arranged that she and the youngsters should start on their journey the
+following day.
+
+Back at home she threw herself into the packing and was busy till late that
+night. At daybreak she was up again, for they were to make an early start.
+Bruce came with his new automobile, the children were all bundled in,
+together with Deborah and their nurse, and a half hour later at the train
+Bruce and Roger left them--Deborah flushed and happy, surrounded by
+luggage, wraps, small boys, an ice box, toys and picture books. The small
+red hat upon her head had already been jerked in a scrimmage, far down over
+one of her ears.
+
+"Don't worry about us, Bruce," she said. "We're going to have the time of
+our lives!" Bruce fairly beamed his gratitude.
+
+"If she don't marry," he declared, as he watched the train move slowly out,
+"there'll be a great mother wasted."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+In the weeks which followed, Roger found the peace of his home so
+interrupted and disturbed by wedding preparations that often retreating
+into his den he earnestly told himself he was through, that a man with
+three grown daughters was a fool to show any sympathy with the utter folly
+of their lives. Yield an inch and they took a mile! It began one night when
+Deborah said,
+
+"Now, dearie, I think you had better make up your mind to give Laura just
+the kind of wedding she likes."
+
+And Roger weakly agreed to this, but as time wore on he discovered that the
+kind of wedding Laura liked was a thing that made his blood run cold. There
+seemed to be no end whatever to the young bride's blithe demands. The
+trousseau part of it he didn't mind. To the gowns and hats and gloves and
+shoes and trunks and jaunty travelling bags which came pouring into the
+house, he made no objection. All that, he considered, was fair play. But
+what got on Roger's nerves was this frantic fuss and change! The faded hall
+carpet had to come up, his favorite lounge was whisked away, the piano was
+re-tuned while he was trying to take a nap, rugs were beaten, crates and
+barrels filled the halls, and one whole bedroom stripped and bare was
+transformed into a shop where the wedding presents were displayed. In the
+shuffle his box of cigars disappeared. In short, there was the devil to
+pay!
+
+And Deborah, was as bad as the bride. At times it appeared to Roger as
+though her fingers fairly itched to jab and tug at his poor old house,
+which wore an air of mute reproach. She revealed a part of her nature that
+he viewed with dark amazement. Every hour she could spare from school, she
+was changing something or other at home--with an eager glitter in her eyes.
+Doing it all for Laura, she said. Fiddlesticks and rubbish! She did it
+because she liked it!
+
+In gloomy wrath one afternoon he went up to see Edith and quiet down. She
+was well on the way to recovery, but instead of receiving solace here he
+only found fresh troubles. For sitting up in her old-fashioned bed, with an
+old-fashioned cap of lace upon her shapely little head, Edith made her
+father feel she had washed her hands of the whole affair.
+
+"I'm sorry," she said in an injured tone, "that Laura doesn't care enough
+about her oldest sister to put off the wedding two or three weeks so I
+could be there. It seems rather undignified, I think, for a girl to hurry
+her wedding so. I should have loved to make it the dear simple kind of
+wedding which mother would have wanted. But so long as she doesn't care for
+that--and in fact has only found ten minutes--once--to run in and see the
+baby--"
+
+In dismay her father found himself defending the very daughter of whom he
+had come to complain. It was not such a short engagement, he said, he had
+learned they had been engaged some time before they told him.
+
+"Do you approve of that?" she rejoined. "When I was engaged, I made Bruce
+go to you before I even let him--" here Edith broke off primly. "Of course
+that was some time ago. An engagement, Laura tells me, is 'a mere
+experiment' nowadays. They 'experiment' till they feel quite sure--then
+notify their parents and get married in a week."
+
+"She is rushing it, I admit," Roger soothingly replied. "But she has her
+mind set on Paris in June."
+
+"Paris in June," said Edith, "sums up in three words Laura's whole
+conception of marriage. You really ought to talk to her, father. It's your
+duty, it seems to me."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I'd rather not tell you." Edith's glance went sternly to the cradle by her
+bed. "Laura pities me," she said, "for having had five children."
+
+"Oh, now, my dear girl!"
+
+"She does, though--she said as much. When she dropped in the other day and
+I tried to be sympathetic and give her a little sound advice, she said I
+had had the wedding I liked and the kind of married life I liked, and she
+was going to have hers. And she made it quite plain that her kind is to
+include no children. It's to be simply an effort to find by 'experiment'
+whether or not she loves Hal Sloane. If she doesn't--" Edith gave a slight
+but emphatic wave of dismissal.
+
+"Do you mean to say Laura told you that?" her father asked with an angry
+frown.
+
+"I mean she made me feel it--as plainly as I'm telling it! What I can't
+understand," his daughter went on, "is Deborah's attitude in the affair."
+
+"What's the matter with Deborah?" inquired Roger dismally.
+
+"Oh, nothing's the matter with Deborah. She's quite self-sufficient. She at
+least can play with modern ideas and keep her head while she's doing it.
+But when poor Laura--a mere child with the mind of a chicken--catches
+vaguely at such ideas, applies them to her own little self and risks her
+whole future happiness, it seems to me perfectly criminal for Deborah not
+to interfere! Not even a word of warning!"
+
+"Deborah believes," said her father, "in everyone's leading his own life."
+
+"That's rot," was Edith's curt reply. "Do I lead my own life? Does Bruce?
+Do you?"
+
+"No," growled Roger feelingly.
+
+"Do my children?" Edith demanded. "I know Deborah would like them to.
+That's her latest and most modern fad, to run a school where every child
+shall sit with a rat in its lap or a goat, and do just what he
+pleases--follow his natural bent, she says. I hope she won't come up to the
+mountains and practice on my children. I should hate to break with
+Deborah," Edith ended thoughtfully.
+
+Roger rose and walked the room. The comforting idea entered his mind that
+when the wedding was over he would take out his collection of rings and
+carefully polish every one. But even this hope did not stay with him long.
+
+"With Laura at home," he heard Edith continue, "you at least had a daughter
+to run your house. If Deborah tries to move you out--"
+
+"She won't!" cried Roger in alarm.
+
+"If she does," persisted Edith, "or if she begins any talk of the kind--you
+come to me and _I'll_ talk to her!"
+
+Her father walked in silence, his head down, frowning at the floor.
+
+"It seems funny," Edith continued, "that women like me who give children
+their lives, and men like Bruce who are building New York--actually doing
+it all the time--have so little to say in these modern ideas. I suppose
+it's because we're a little too real."
+
+"To come back to the wedding," Roger suggested.
+
+"To come back to the wedding, father dear," his daughter said
+compassionately. "I'm afraid it's going to be a 'mere form' which will make
+you rather wretched. When you get so you can't endure it, come in and see
+me and the baby."
+
+As he started for home, her words of warning recurred to his mind. Yes,
+here was the thing that disturbed him most, the ghost lurking under all
+this confusion, the part which had to do with himself. It was bad enough to
+know that his daughter, his own flesh and blood, was about to settle her
+fate at one throw. But to be moved out of his house bag and baggage! Roger
+strode wrathfully up the street.
+
+"It's your duty to talk to her," Edith had said. And he meditated darkly on
+this: "Maybe I will and maybe I won't. I know my duties without being told.
+How does Edith know what her mother liked? We had our own likings, her
+mother and I, and our own ideas, long after she was tucked into bed. And
+yet she's always harping on 'what mother would have wanted.' What I should
+like to know--right now--is what Judith would want if she were here!"
+
+With a pang of utter loneliness amid these vexing problems, Roger felt it
+crowding in, this city of his children's lives. As he strode on down
+Broadway, an old hag selling papers thrust one in his face and he caught a
+glimpse of a headline. Some bigwig woman re-divorced. How about Laura's
+"experiment"? A mob of street urchins nearly upset him. How about Deborah?
+How about children? How about schools, education, the country? How about
+God? Was anyone thinking? Had anyone time? What a racket it made,
+slam-banging along. The taxis and motor trucks thundered and brayed, dark
+masses of people swept endlessly by, as though their very souls depended on
+their dinners or their jobs, their movies, roaring farces, thrills, their
+harum scarum dances, clothes. A plump little fool of a woman, her skirt so
+tight she could barely walk, tripped by on high-heeled slippers. That was
+it, he told himself, the whole city was high-heeled! No solid footing
+anywhere! And, good Lord, how they chattered!
+
+He turned into a less noisy street. What would Judith want if she were
+here? It became disturbingly clear to him that she would undoubtedly wish
+him to have a talk with Laura now, find out if she'd really made up her
+mind not to have any children, and if so to tell her plainly that she was
+not only going against her God but risking her own happiness. For though
+Judith had been liberal about any number of smaller things, she had been
+decidedly clear on this. Yes, he must talk to Laura.
+
+"And she'll tell me," he reflected, "that Edith put me up to it!"
+
+If only his oldest daughter would leave the other girls alone! Here she was
+planning a row with Deborah over whether poor young George should be
+allowed to play with rats! It was all so silly!... Yes, his three children
+were drifting apart, each one of them going her separate way. And he rather
+took comfort in the thought, for at least it would stop their wrangling.
+But again he pulled himself up with a jerk. No, certainly Judith would not
+have liked this. If she'd ever stood for anything, it was for keeping the
+family together. It had been the heart and center of their last talks
+before she died.
+
+His face relaxed as he walked on, but in his eyes was a deeper pain. If
+only Judith could be here. Before he reached home he had made up his mind
+to talk with Laura that very night. He drew out his latchkey, opened his
+door, shut it firmly and strode into his house. In the hall they were
+putting down the new carpet. Cautiously picking his way upstairs, he
+inquired for Laura and was told she was dressing for dinner. He knocked at
+her door.
+
+"Yes?" came her voice.
+
+"It's I," he said, "your father."
+
+"Oh, hello, dad," came the answer gaily, in that high sweet voice of hers.
+"I'm frightfully rushed. It's a dinner dance to-night for the bridesmaids
+and the ushers." Roger felt a glow of relief. "Come in a moment, won't
+you?"
+
+What a resplendent young creature she was, seated at her dresser. Behind
+her the maid with needle and thread was swiftly mending a little tear in
+the fluffy blue tulle she was wearing. The shaded light just over her head
+brought a shimmer of red in her sleek brown hair. What lips she had, what a
+bosom. She drew a deep breath and smiled at him.
+
+"What are you doing to-morrow night?" her father asked her.
+
+"Oh, dad, my love, we have every evening filled and crammed right up to the
+wedding," she replied. "No--the last evening I'll be here. Hal's giving his
+ushers a dinner that night."
+
+"Good. I want to talk to you, my dear." He felt his voice solemn, a great
+mistake. He saw the quick glance from her luminous eyes.
+
+"All right, father--whenever you like."
+
+Much embarrassed Roger left the room.
+
+The few days which remained were a crowding confusion of dressmakers, gowns
+and chattering friends and gifts arriving at all hours. As a part of his
+resolve to do what he could for his daughter, Roger stayed home from his
+office that week. But all he could do was to unpack boxes, take out
+presents and keep the cards, and say, "Yes, my dear, it's very nice. Where
+shall I put this one?" As the array of presents grew, from time to time
+unconsciously he glanced at the engagement ring upon Laura's finger. And
+all the presents seemed like that. They would suit her apartment
+beautifully. He'd be glad when they were out of the house.
+
+The only gift that appealed to his fancy was a brooch, neither rich nor
+new, a genuine bit of old jewelry. But rather to his annoyance he learned
+that it had been sent to Laura by the old Galician Jew in the shop around
+the corner. It recalled to his mind the curious friendship which had
+existed for so long between the old man and his daughter. And as she turned
+the brooch to the light Roger thought he saw in her eyes anticipations
+which made him uneasy. Yes, she was a child of his. "June in Paris--"
+other Junes--"experiments"--no children. Again he felt he must have that
+talk. But, good Lord, how he dreaded it.
+
+The house was almost ready now, dismantled and made new and strange. It was
+the night before the wedding. Laura was taking her supper in bed. What was
+he going to say to her? He ate his dinner silently. At last he rose with
+grim resolution.
+
+"I think I'll go up and see her," he said. Deborah quickly glanced at him.
+
+"What for?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, I just want to talk to her--"
+
+"Don't stay long," she admonished him. "I've a masseuse coming at nine
+o'clock to get the child in condition to rest. Her nerves are rather tense,
+you know."
+
+"How about mine?" he said to himself as he started upstairs. "Never mind,
+I've got to tackle it."
+
+Laura saw what he meant to say the moment that he entered the room, and the
+tightening of her features made it all the harder for Roger to think
+clearly, to remember the grave, kind, fatherly things which he had intended
+to tell her.
+
+"I don't want to talk of the wedding, child, but of what's coming after
+that--between you and this man--all your life." He stopped short, with his
+heart in his mouth, for although he did not look at her he had a quick
+sensation as though he had struck her in the face.
+
+"Isn't this rather late to speak about that? Just now? When I'm nervous
+enough as it is?"
+
+"I know, I know." He spoke hurriedly, humbly. "I should have talked to you
+long ago, I should have known you better, child. I've been slack and
+selfish. But it's better late than never."
+
+"But you needn't!" the girl exclaimed. "You needn't tell me anything! I
+know more than you think--I know enough!" Roger looked at her, then at the
+wall. She went on in a voice rather breathless: "I know what I'm
+doing--exactly--just what I'm getting into. It's not as it was when you
+were young--it's different--we talk of these things. Harold and I have
+talked it all out." In the brief and dangerous pause which followed Roger
+kept looking at the wall.
+
+"Have you talked--about having children?"
+
+"Yes," came the answer sharply, and then he felt the hot clutch of her
+hand. "Hadn't you better go now, dad?" He hesitated.
+
+"No," he said. His voice was low. "Do you mean to have children, Laura?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I think you do know. Do you mean to have children?" Her big black eyes,
+dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.
+
+"Well then, no, I don't!" she replied. He made a desperate effort to think
+what he could say to her. Good God, how he was bungling! Where were all his
+arguments?
+
+"How about your religion?" he blurted out.
+
+"I haven't any--which makes me do that--I've a right to be happy!"
+
+"You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed. In accent and in quality it
+was like a voice from the heart of New England where he had been born and
+bred. "I mean you won't be happy--not unless you have a child! It's what
+you need--it'll fill your life! It'll settle you--deepen you--tone you
+down!"
+
+"Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost hysterical.
+"I'm no Puritan--I want to live! I tell you we are different now! We're not
+all like Edith--and we're not like our mothers! We want to live! And we
+have a right to! Why don't you go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? It's my
+last night, my very last! I don't want to talk to you--I don't even know
+what I'm saying! And you come and try to frighten me!" Her voice caught
+and broke into sobs. "You know nothing about me! You never did! Leave me
+alone, can't you--leave me alone!"
+
+"Father?" He heard Deborah's voice, abrupt and stern, outside the door.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He went in blind fashion out of the room and
+down to his study. He lit a cigar and smoked wretchedly there. When
+presently Deborah appeared he saw that her face was set and hard; but as
+she caught the baffled look, the angry tortured light in his eyes, her own
+expression softened.
+
+"Poor father," she said, in a pitying way. "If Edith had only let you
+alone."
+
+"I certainly didn't do much good."
+
+"Of course you didn't--you did harm--oh, so much more harm than you know."
+Into the quiet voice of his daughter crept a note of keen regret. "I wanted
+to make her last days in this house a time she could look back on, so that
+she'd want to come home for help if ever she's in trouble. She has so
+little--don't you see?--of what a woman needs these days. She has grown up
+so badly. Oh, if you'd only let her alone. It was such a bad, bad time to
+choose." She went to her father and kissed him. "Well, it's over now," she
+said, "and we'll make the best we can of it. I'll tell her you're sorry and
+quiet her down. And to-morrow we'll try to forget it has happened."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For Roger the morrow went by in a whirl. The wedding, a large church
+affair, was to take place at twelve o'clock. He arose early, put on his
+Prince Albert, went down and ate his breakfast alone. The waitress was
+flustered, the coffee was burnt. He finished and anxiously wandered about.
+The maids were bustling in and out, with Deborah giving orders pellmell.
+The caterers came trooping in. The bridesmaids were arriving and hurrying
+up to Roger's room. That place was soon a chaos of voices, giggles, peals
+of laughter. Laura's trunks were brought downstairs, and Roger tagged them
+for the ship, one for the cabin and three for the hold, and saw them into
+the wagon. Then he strode distractedly everywhere, till at last he was
+hustled by Deborah into a taxi waiting outside.
+
+"It's all going so smoothly," Deborah said, and a faint sardonic glimmer
+came into her father's hunted eyes. Deborah was funny!
+
+Soon he found himself in the church. He heard whispers, eager voices, heard
+one usher say to another, "God, what a terrible head I've got!" And Roger
+glared at him for that. Plainly these youngsters, all mere boys, had been
+up with the groom a good part of the night.... But here was Laura, pale and
+tense. She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. There was silence, then the
+organ, and now he was taking her up the aisle. Strange faces stared. His
+jaw set hard. At last they reached the altar. An usher quickly touched his
+arm and he stepped back where he belonged. He listened but understood
+nothing. Just words, words and motions.
+
+"If any man can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined
+together, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace."
+
+"No," thought Roger, "I won't speak."
+
+Just then he caught sight of Deborah's face, and at the look in her steady
+gray eyes all at once he could feel the hot tears in his own.
+
+At the wedding breakfast he was gay to a boisterous degree. He talked to
+strange women and brought them food, took punch with men he had never laid
+eyes on, went off on a feverish hunt for cigars, came back distractedly,
+joked with young girls and even started some of them dancing. The whole
+affair was over in no time. The bride and the groom came rushing
+downstairs; and as they escaped from the shower of rice, Roger ran after
+them down the steps. He gripped Sloane's hand.
+
+"Remember, boy, it's her whole life!" entreated Roger hoarsely.
+
+"Yes, sir! I'll look out! No fear!"
+
+"Good-bye, daddy!"
+
+"God bless you, dear!"
+
+They were speeding away. And with the best man, who looked weary and spent,
+Roger went slowly back up the steps. It was an effort now to talk. Thank
+Heaven these people soon were gone. Last of all went the ponderous aunt of
+the groom. How the taxi groaned as he helped her inside and started her off
+to Bridgeport. Back in his study he found his cigars and smoked one
+dismally with Bruce. Bruce was a decent sort of chap. He knew when to be
+silent.
+
+"Well," he spoke finally, rising, "I guess I'll have to get back to the
+office." He smiled a little and put his hand on Roger's weary shoulder.
+"We're glad it's over--eh?" he asked.
+
+"Bruce," said Roger heavily, "you've got a girl of your own growing up.
+Don't let her grow to feel you're old. Live on with her. She'll need you."
+His massive blunt face darkened. "The world's so damnably new," he
+muttered, "so choked up with fool ideas." Bruce still smiled
+affectionately.
+
+"Go up and see Edith," he said, "and forget 'em. She never lets one into
+the flat. She said you were to be sure to come and tell her about the
+wedding."
+
+"All right, I'll go," said Roger. He hunted about for his hat and coat.
+What a devilish mess they had made of the house. A half hour later he was
+with Edith; but there, despite his efforts to answer all her questions, he
+grew heavier and heavier, till at last he barely spoke. He sat watching
+Edith's baby.
+
+"Did you talk to Laura?" he heard her ask.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "It did no good." He knew that Edith was waiting for
+more, but he kept doggedly silent.
+
+"Well, dear," she said presently, "at least you did what you could for
+her."
+
+"I've never done what I could," he rejoined. "Not with any one of you." He
+glanced at her with a twinge of pain. "I don't know as it would have helped
+much if I had. This town is running away with itself. I want a rest now,
+Edith, I want things quiet for a while." He felt her anxious, pitying look.
+
+"Where's Deborah?" she asked him. "Gone back to school already?"
+
+"I don't know where she is," he replied. And then he rose forlornly. "I
+guess I'll be going back home," he said.
+
+On his way, as his thoughts slowly cleared, the old uneasiness rose in his
+mind. Would Deborah want to keep the house? Suppose she suggested moving to
+some titty-tatty little flat. No, he would not stand in her way. But, Lord,
+what an end to make of his life.
+
+His home was almost dark inside, but he noticed rather to his surprise that
+the rooms had already been put in order. He sank down on the living room
+sofa and lay motionless for a while. How tired he was. From time to time he
+drearily sighed. Yes, Deborah would find him old and life here dull and
+lonely. Where was she to-night, he wondered. Couldn't she quit her zoo
+school for one single afternoon? At last, when the room had grown pitch
+dark, he heard the maid lighting the gas in the hall. Roger loudly cleared
+his throat, and at the sound the startled girl ejaculated, "Oh, my Gawd!"
+
+"It's I," said Roger sternly. "Did Miss Deborah say when she'd be back?"
+
+"She didn't go out, sir. She's up in her room."
+
+Roger went up and found her there. All afternoon with both the maids she
+had been setting the house to rights, and now she ached in every limb. She
+was lying on her bed, and she looked as though she had been crying.
+
+"Where have you been?" she inquired.
+
+"At Edith's," her father answered. She reached up and took his hand, and
+held it slowly tighter.
+
+"You aren't going to find it too lonely here, with Laura gone?" she asked
+him. And the wistfulness in her deep sweet voice made something thrill in
+Roger.
+
+"Why should I?" he retorted. Deborah gave a queer little laugh.
+
+"Oh, I'm just silly, that's all," she said. "I've been having a fit of
+blues. I've been feeling so old this afternoon--a regular old woman. I
+wanted you, dearie, and I was afraid that you--" she broke off.
+
+"Look here," said Roger sharply. "Do you really want to keep this house?"
+
+"Keep this house? Why, father!"
+
+"You think you can stand it here alone, just the two of us?" he demanded.
+
+"I can," cried Deborah happily. Her father walked to the window. There as
+he looked blindly out, his eyes were assaulted by the lights of all those
+titty-tatty flats. And a look of vicious triumph appeared for a moment on
+his face.
+
+"Very well," he said quietly, turning back. "Then we're both suited." He
+went to the door. "I'll go and wash up for supper," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+It was a relief to him to find how smoothly he and Deborah dropped back
+into their old relations. It was good to get home those evenings; for in
+this new stage of its existence, with its family of two, the house appeared
+to have filled itself with a deep reposeful feeling. Laura had gone out of
+its life. He glanced into her room one night, and it looked like a guest
+room now. The sight of it brought him a pang of regret. But the big ship
+which was bearing her swiftly away to "Paris in June" seemed bearing off
+Roger's uneasiness too. He could smile at his former fears, for Laura was
+safely married and wildly in love with her husband. Time, he thought, would
+take care of the rest. Occasionally he missed her here--her voice,
+high-pitched but musical, chatting and laughing at the 'phone, her bustle
+of dressing to go out, glimpses of her extravagances, of her smart suits
+and evening gowns, of all the joyous color and dash that she had given to
+his home. But these regrets soon died away. The old house shed them easily,
+as though glad to enter this long rest.
+
+For the story of his family, from Roger's point of view at least, was a
+long uneven narrative, with prolonged periods of peace and again with
+events piling one on the other. And now there came one of those peaceful
+times, and Roger liked the quiet. The old routine was re-established--his
+dinner, his paper, his cigar and then his book for the evening, some good
+old-fashioned novel or some pleasant book of travel which he and Judith had
+read aloud when they were planning out their lives. They had meant to go
+abroad so often when the children had grown up. And he liked to read about
+it still. Life was so quiet over the sea, things were so old and mellow
+there. He resumed, too, his horseback rides, and on the way home he would
+stop in for a visit with Edith and her baby. The wee boy grew funnier every
+day, with his sudden kicks and sneezes, his waving fists and mighty yawns.
+And Roger felt drawn to his daughter here, for in these grateful seasons of
+rest that followed the birth of each of her children, Edith loved to lie
+very still and make new plans for her small brood.
+
+Only once she spoke of Laura, and then it was to suggest to him that he
+gather together all the bills his daughter had doubtless left behind.
+
+"If you don't settle them," Edith said, "they'll go to her husband. And you
+wouldn't like that, would you?"
+
+Roger said he would see to it, and one evening after dinner he started in
+on Laura's bills. It was rather an appalling time. He looked into his bank
+account and found that Laura's wedding would take about all his surplus.
+But this did not dismay him much, for money matters never did. It simply
+meant more work in the office.
+
+The next day he rose early and was in his office by nine o'clock. He had
+not been so prompt in months, and many of his employees came in late that
+morning. But nobody seemed very much perturbed, for Roger was an easy
+employer. Still, he sternly told himself, he had been letting things get
+altogether too slack. He had been neglecting his business again. The work
+had become so cut and dried, there was nothing creative left to do. It had
+not been so in years gone by. Those years had fairly bristled with ideas
+and hopes and schemes. But even those old memories were no longer here to
+hearten him. They had all been swept away when Bruce had made him move out
+of his office in a dark creaky edifice down close under Brooklyn Bridge,
+and come up to this new building, this steel-ribbed caravansary for all
+kinds of business ventures, this place of varnished woodwork, floods of
+daylight, concrete floors, this building fireproof throughout. That
+expressed it exactly, Roger thought. Nothing could take fire here, not even
+a man's imagination, even though he did not feel old. Now and then in the
+elevator, as some youngster with eager eyes pushed nervously against him,
+Roger would frown and wonder, "What are you so excited about?"
+
+But again the business was running down, and this time he must jerk it back
+before it got beyond him. He set himself doggedly to the task, calling in
+his assistants one by one, going through the work in those outer rooms,
+where at tables long rows of busy young girls, with colored pencils,
+scissors and paste, were demolishing enormous piles of newspapers and
+magazines. And vaguely, little by little, he came to a realization of how
+while he had slumbered the life of the country had swept on. For as he
+studied the lists and the letters of his patrons, Roger felt confusedly
+that a new America was here.
+
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. Business men and business firms, gigantic
+corporations, kept sending here for clippings, news of themselves or their
+rivals, keeping keen watch on each other's affairs for signs of strength or
+weakness. How savage was the fight these days. Here was news of mines and
+mills and factories all over the land, clippings sent each morning by
+special messengers downtown to reach the brokers' offices before the market
+opened. One broker wrote, "Please quote your terms for the following. From
+nine to two o'clock each day our messenger will call at your office every
+hour for clippings giving information of the companies named below."
+
+The long list appended carried Roger's fancy out all over the continent.
+And then came this injunction: "Remember that our messenger must leave your
+office every hour. In information of this kind every minute counts."
+
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. As Roger turned over his morning mail, in
+spite of himself he grew absorbed. What a change in the world of
+literature. What a host of names of scribblers, not authors but just
+writers, not only men but women too, novelists and dramatists, poets and
+muckrakers all jumbled in together, each one of them straining for a place.
+And the actors and the actresses, the musicians and the lecturers, each
+with his press agent and avid for publicity, "fame!" And here were society
+women, from New York and other cities, all eager for press notices of
+social affairs they had given or managed, charity work they had conducted,
+suffrage speeches they had made. Half the women in the land were fairly
+talking their heads off, it seemed. Some had been on his lists for years.
+They married and wanted to hear what was said in the papers about their
+weddings, they quarreled and got divorces and still sent here for
+clippings, they died and still their relatives wrote in for the funeral
+notices. And even death was commercialized. A maker of monuments wanted
+news "of all people of large means, dead or dangerously ill, in the State
+of Pennsylvania." Here were demands from charity bodies, hospitals and
+colleges, from clergymen with an anxious eye on the Monday morning papers.
+And here was an anarchist millionaire! And here was an insane asylum
+wanting to see itself in print!
+
+With a grim smile on his heavy visage, Roger stared out of his window.
+Slowly the smile faded, a wistful look came on his face.
+
+"Who'll take my business when I'm gone?"
+
+If his small son had only lived, with what new zest and vigor it might have
+been made to grow and expand. If only his son had been here by his side....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+DEBORAH needed rest, he thought, for the bright attractive face of his
+daughter was looking rather pale of late, and the birthmark on her forehead
+showed a faint thin line of red. One night at dinner, watching her, he
+wondered what was on her mind. She had come in late, and though several
+times she had made an effort to keep up the conversation, her cheeks were
+almost colorless and more than once in her deepset eyes came a flash of
+pain that startled him.
+
+"Look here. What's the matter with you?" he asked. Deborah looked up
+quickly.
+
+"I'd rather not talk about it, dad--"
+
+"Very well," he answered. And with a slight hesitation, "But I think I know
+the trouble," he said. "And perhaps some other time--when you do feel like
+talking--" He stopped, for on her wide sensitive lips he saw a twitch of
+amusement.
+
+"What do you think is the trouble?" she asked. And Roger looked at her
+squarely.
+
+"Loneliness," he answered.
+
+"Why?" she asked him.
+
+"Well, there's Edith's baby--and Laura getting married--"
+
+"I see--and so I'm lonely for a family of my own. But you're forgetting my
+school," she said.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," he retorted. "But that's not at all the same.
+Interesting work, no doubt, but--well, it isn't personal."
+
+"Oh, isn't it?" she answered, and she drew a quivering breath. Rising from
+the table she went into the living room, and there a few moments later he
+found her walking up and down. "I think I will tell you now," she said.
+"I'm afraid of being alone to-night, of keeping this matter to myself." He
+looked at her apprehensively.
+
+"Very well, my dear," he said.
+
+"This is the trouble," she began. "Down in my school we've a family of
+about three thousand children. A few I get to know so well I try to follow
+them when they leave. And one of these, an Italian boy--his name is Joe
+Bolini--was one of the best I ever had, and one of the most appealing. But
+Joe took to drinking and got in with a gang of boys who blackmailed small
+shopkeepers. He used to come to me at times in occasional moods of
+repentance. He was a splendid physical type and he'd been a leader in our
+athletics, so I took him back into the school to manage our teams in
+basket-ball. He left the gang and stopped drinking, and we had long talks
+together about his great ambition. He wanted to enter the Fire Department
+as soon as he was twenty-one. And I promised to use my influence." She
+stopped, still frowning slightly.
+
+"What happened?" Roger asked her.
+
+"His girl took up with another man, and Joe has hot Italian blood. He got
+drunk one night and--shot them both." There was another silence. "I did
+what I could," she said harshly, "but he had a bad record behind him, and
+the young assistant district attorney had his own record to think of, too.
+So Joe got a death sentence. We appealed the case but it did no good. He
+was sent up the river and is in the death house now--and he sent for me to
+come to-day. His letter hinted he was scared, he wrote that his priest was
+no good to him. So I went up this afternoon. Joe goes to the chair
+to-morrow at six."
+
+Deborah went to the sofa and sat down inertly. Roger remained motionless,
+and a dull chill crept over him.
+
+"So you see my work is personal," he heard her mutter presently. All at
+once she seemed so far away, such a stranger to him in this life of hers.
+
+"By George, it's horrible!" he said. "I'm sorry you went to see the boy!"
+
+"I'm glad," was his daughter's quick retort. "I've been getting much too
+sure of myself--of my school, I mean, and what it can do. I needed this to
+bring me back to the kind of world we live in!"
+
+"What do you mean?" he roughly asked.
+
+"I mean there are schools and prisons! And gallows and electric chairs! And
+I'm for schools! They've tried their jails and gallows for whole black
+hideous centuries! What good have they done? If they'd given Joe back to
+the school and me, I'd have had him a fireman in a year! I know, because I
+studied him hard! He'd have _grown_ fighting fires, he would have _saved_
+lives!"
+
+Again she stopped, with a catch of her breath. In suspense he watched her
+angry struggle to regain control of herself. She sat bolt upright, rigid;
+her birthmark showed a fiery red. In a few moments he saw her relax.
+
+"But of course," she added wearily, "it's much more complex than that. A
+school is nothing nowadays--just by itself alone, I mean--it's only a part
+of a city's life--which for most tenement children is either very dull and
+hard, or cheap and false and overexciting. And behind all that lie the
+reasons for that. And there are so many reasons." She stared straight past
+her father as though at something far away. Then she seemed to recall
+herself: "But I'm talking too much of my family."
+
+Roger carefully lit a cigar:
+
+"I don't think you are, my dear. I'd like to hear more about it." She
+smiled:
+
+"To keep my mind off Joe, you mean."
+
+"And mine, too," he answered.
+
+They had a long talk that evening about her hope of making her school what
+Roger visaged confusedly as a kind of mammoth home, the center of a
+neighborhood, of one prodigious family. At times when the clock on the
+mantle struck the hour loud and clear, there would fall a sudden silence,
+as both thought of what was to happen at dawn. But quickly Roger would
+question again and Deborah would talk steadily on. It was after midnight
+when she stopped.
+
+"You've been good to me to-night, dearie," she said. "Let's go to bed now,
+shall we?"
+
+"Very well," he answered. He looked at his daughter anxiously. She no
+longer seemed to him mature. He could feel what heavy discouragements, what
+problems she was facing in the dark mysterious tenement world which she had
+chosen to make her own. And compared to these she seemed a mere girl, a
+child groping its way, just making a start. And so he added wistfully, "I
+wish I could be of more help to you." She looked up at him for a moment.
+
+"Do you know why you are such a help?" she said. "It's because you have
+never grown old--because you've never allowed yourself to grow absolutely
+certain about anything in life." A smile half sad and half perplexed came
+on her father's heavy face.
+
+"You consider that a strong point?" he asked.
+
+"I do," she replied, "compared to being a bundle of creeds and prejudices."
+
+"Oh, I've got prejudices enough."
+
+"Yes," she said. "And so have I. But we're not even sure of _them_, these
+days."
+
+"The world has a habit of crowding in," her father muttered vaguely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger did not sleep that night. He could not keep his thoughts away from
+what was going to happen at dawn. Yes, the city was crowding in upon this
+quiet house of his. Dimly he could recollect, in the genial years of long
+ago, just glancing casually now and then at some small and unobtrusive
+notice in his evening paper: "Execution at Sing Sing." It had been so
+remote to him. But here it was smashing into his house, through the life
+his own daughter was leading day and night among the poor! Each time he
+thought of that lad in a cell, again a chill crept over him! But savagely
+he shook it off, and by a strong effort of his will he turned his thoughts
+to the things she had told him about her school. Yes, in her main idea she
+was right. He had no use for wild reforms, but here was something solid, a
+good education for every child. More than once, while she had talked,
+something very deep in Roger had leaped up in swift response.
+
+For Deborah, too, was a part of himself. He, too, had had his feeling for
+humanity in the large. For years he had run a boys' club at a little
+mission school in which his wife had been interested, and on Christmas Eve
+he had formed the habit of gathering up a dozen small urchins right off the
+street and taking them 'round and fitting them out with good warm winter
+clothing, after which he had gone home to help Judith trim the Christmas
+tree and fill their children's stockings. And later, when she had gone to
+bed, invariably he had taken "The Christmas Carol" from its shelf and had
+settled down with a glow of almost luxurious brotherhood. There was
+sentiment in Roger Gale, and as he read of "Tiny Tim" his deepset eyes
+would glisten with tears.
+
+And now here was Deborah fulfilling a part of him in herself. "You will
+live on in our children's lives." But this was going much too far! She was
+letting herself be swallowed up completely by this work of hers! It was all
+very well for the past ten years, but she was getting on in age! High time
+to marry and settle down!
+
+Again angrily he shook off the thought of that boy Joe alone in a cell,
+eyes fixed in animal terror upon the steel door which would open so soon.
+
+The day was slowly breaking. It was the early part of June. How fresh and
+lovely it must be up there in the big mountains with Edith's happy little
+lads. Here it was raw and garish, weird. Some sparrows began quarreling
+just outside his window. Roger rose and walked the room. Restlessly he went
+into the hall. The old house appeared so strange in this light--as though
+stripped bare--there was something gone. Softly he came to Deborah's door.
+It was open wide, for the night had been warm, and she lay awake upon her
+bed with her gaze fixed on the ceiling. She turned her head and saw him
+there. He came in and sat down by her window. For a long time neither made
+a sound. Then the great clock on the distant tower, which had been silent
+through the night, resumed its deep and measured boom. It struck six times.
+There was silence again. More and more taut grew his muscles, and suddenly
+it felt to him as though Deborah's fierce agony were pounding into his very
+soul. The slow, slow minutes throbbed away. At last he rose and left her.
+There was a cold sweat on his brow.
+
+"I'll go down and make her some coffee," he thought.
+
+Down in the kitchen it was a relief to bang about hunting for the utensils.
+On picnics up in the mountains his coffee had been famous. He made some now
+and boiled some eggs, and they breakfasted in Deborah's room. She seemed
+almost herself again. Later, while he was dressing, he saw her in the
+doorway. She was looking at her father with bright and grateful,
+affectionate eyes.
+
+"Will you come to school with me to-day? I'd like you to see it," Deborah
+said.
+
+"Very well," he answered gruffly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Out of the subway they emerged into a noisy tenement street. Roger had
+known such streets as this, but only in the night-time, as picturesque and
+adventurous ways in an underground world he had explored in search of
+strange old glittering rings. It was different now. Gone were the Rembrandt
+shadows, the leaping flare of torches, the dark surging masses of weird
+uncouth humanity. Here in garish daylight were poverty and ugliness, here
+were heaps of refuse and heavy smells and clamor. It disgusted and repelled
+him, and he was tempted to turn back. But glancing at Deborah by his side
+he thought of the night she had been through. No, he decided, he would go
+on and see what she was up to here.
+
+They turned into a narrower street between tall dirty tenements, and in a
+twinkling all was changed. For the street, as far as he could see, was gay
+with flaunting colors, torrents of bobbing hats and ribbons, frocks and
+blouses, shirts and breeches, vivid reds and yellows and blues. It was
+deafening with joyous cries, a shrill incessant chatter, chatter, piercing
+yells and shrieks of laughter. Children, swarms of children, children of
+all sizes passed him, clean and dirty, smiling, scowling, hurrying,
+running, pummeling, grabbing, whirling each other 'round and 'round--till
+the very air seemed quivering with wild spirits and new life!
+
+He heard Deborah laughing. Five hilarious small boys had hold of her hands
+and were marching in triumph waving their caps. "Heigh there--heigh there!
+Heigh--heigh--heigh!"
+
+The school was close in front of them. An enormous building of brick and
+tile wedged into a disordered mass of tenements, shops and factories, it
+had been built around a court shut out from the street by a high steel
+fence. They squeezed into the gateway, through which a shouting punching
+mob of urchins were now pushing in; and soon from a balcony above Roger
+looked down into the court, where out of a wild chaos order was appearing.
+Boys to the right and girls to the left were forming in long sinuous lines,
+and three thousand faces were turned toward the building. In front appeared
+the Stars and Stripes. Then suddenly he heard a crash from underneath the
+balcony, and looking down he saw a band made up of some thirty or forty
+boys. Their leader, a dark Italian lad, made a flourish, a pass with his
+baton, and the band broke into a blaring storm, an uproarious, booming
+march. The mob below fell into step, and line after line in single file the
+children marched into their school.
+
+"Look up! Look all around you!" He heard Deborah's eager voice in his ear.
+And as he looked up from the court below he gave a low cry of amazement. In
+hundreds of windows all around, of sweatshops, tenements, factories, on
+tier upon tier of fire escapes and even upon the roofs above, silent
+watchers had appeared. For this one moment in the day the whole congested
+neighborhood had stopped its feverish labor and become an amphitheater with
+all eyes upon the school. And the thought flashed into Roger's mind:
+"Deborah's big family!"
+
+He had a strange confusing time. In her office, in a daze, he sat and heard
+his daughter with her two assistant principals, her clerk and her
+stenographer, plunge into the routine work of the day. What kind of school
+teacher was this? She seemed more like the manager of some buzzing factory.
+Messages kept coming constantly from class-rooms, children came for
+punishment, and on each small human problem she was passing judgment
+quickly. Meanwhile a score of mothers, most of them Italians with colored
+shawls upon their heads, had straggled in and taken seats, and one by one
+they came to her desk. For these women who had been children in peasant
+huts in Italy now had children of their own in the great city of New York,
+and they found it very baffling. How to keep them in at night? How to make
+them go to the priest? How to feed and clothe them? How to live in these
+tenement homes, in this wild din and chaos? They wanted help and they
+wanted advice. Deborah spoke in Italian, but turning to her father she
+would translate from time to time.
+
+A tired scowling woman said, "My boy won't obey me. His father is dead.
+When I slap him he only jumps away. I lock him in and he steals the key, he
+keeps it in his pocket. He steals the money that I earn. He says I'm from
+the country." And a flabby anxious woman said, "My girl runs out to dance
+halls. Sometimes she comes back at two in the morning. She is fifteen and
+she ought to get married. But what can I do? A nice steady man who never
+dances comes sometimes to see her--but she makes faces and calls him a
+fatty, she dances before him and pushes him out and slams the door. What
+can I do?"
+
+"Please come and see our janitor and make him fix our kitchen sink!" an
+angry little woman cried. "When I try to wash the dishes the water spouts
+all over me!" And then a plump rosy mother said in a soft coaxing voice, "I
+have eight little children, all nice and clean. When you tell them to do
+anything they always do it quickly. They smile at you, they are like
+saints. So could the kind beautiful teacher fix it up with a newspaper to
+send them to the country--this summer when it is so hot? The newspaper
+could send a man and he could take our pictures."
+
+"Most of us girls used to be in this school," said a bright looking Jewess
+of eighteen. "And you taught us how we should live nice. But how can we
+live nice when our shop is so rotten? Our boss is trying to kiss the
+girls, he is trying to hug them on the stairs. And what he pays us is a
+joke, and we must work till nine o'clock. So will you help us, teacher, and
+give us a room for our meetings here? We want to have a union."
+
+A truant officer brought in two ragged, frightened little chaps. Found on
+the street during school hours, they had to give an account of themselves.
+Sullenly one of them gave an address far up in the Bronx, ten miles away.
+They had not been home for a week, he said. Was he lying? What was to be
+done? Somewhere in the city their homes must be discovered. And the talk of
+the truant officer made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out
+through the police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He
+thought of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy
+complexity of it all.
+
+And this was part and parcel of his daughter's daily work in school! Still
+dazed, disturbed but curious, he sat and watched and listened, while the
+bewildering demands of Deborah's big family kept crowding in upon her. He
+went to a few of the class-rooms and found that reading and writing,
+arithmetic and spelling were being taught in ways which he had never
+dreamed of. He found a kindergarten class, a carpenter shop and a printing
+shop, a sewing class and a cooking class in a large model kitchen. He
+watched the nurse in her hospital room, he went into the dental clinic
+where a squad of fifty urchins were having their teeth examined, and out
+upon a small side roof he found a score of small invalids in steamer
+chairs, all fast asleep. It was a strange astounding school! He heard
+Deborah speak of a mothers' club and a neighborhood association; and he
+learned of other ventures here, the school doctor, the nurse and the
+visitor endlessly making experiments, delving into the neighborhood for
+ways to meet its problems. And by the way Deborah talked to them he felt
+she had gone before, that years ago by day and night she had been over the
+ground alone. And she'd done all this while she lived in his house!
+
+Scattered memories out of the past, mere fragments she had told him, here
+flashed back into his mind: humorous little incidents of daily battles she
+had waged in rotten old tenement buildings with rags and filth and garbage,
+with vermin, darkness and disease. Mingled with these had been accounts of
+dances, weddings and christenings and of curious funeral rites. And
+struggling with such dim memories of Deborah in her twenties, called forth
+in his mind by the picture of the woman of thirty here, Roger grew still
+more confused. What was to be the end of it? She was still but a pioneer in
+a jungle, endlessly groping and trying new things.
+
+"How many children are there in the public schools?" he asked.
+
+"About eight hundred thousand," Deborah said.
+
+"Good Lord!" he groaned, and he felt within him a glow of indignation rise
+against these immigrant women for breeding so inconsiderately. With the mad
+city growing so fast, and the people of the tenements breeding, breeding,
+breeding, and packing the schools to bursting, what could any teacher be
+but a mere cog in a machine, ponderous, impersonal, blind, grinding out
+future New Yorkers?
+
+He reached home limp and battered from the storm of new impressions coming
+on top of his sleepless night. He had thought of a school as a simple
+place, filled with little children, mischievous at times perhaps and some
+with dirty faces, but still with minds and spirits clean, unsoiled as yet
+by contact with the grim spirit of the town. He had thought of childhood as
+something intimate and pure, inside his home, his family. Instead of that,
+in Deborah's school he had been disturbed and thrilled by the presence all
+around him of something wild, barbaric, dark, compounded of the city
+streets, of surging crowds, of rushing feet, of turmoil, filth, disease and
+death, of poverty and vice and crime. But Roger could still hear that band.
+And behind its blaring crash and din he had felt the vital throbbing of a
+tremendous joyousness, of gaiety, fresh hopes and dreams, of leaping young
+emotions like deep buried bubbling springs bursting up resistlessly to
+renew the fevered life of the town! Deborah's big family! Everybody's
+children!
+
+"You will live on in our children's lives." The vision hidden in those
+words now opened wide before his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+She told him the next morning her night school closed for the summer that
+week.
+
+"I think I should like to see it," her father said determinedly. She gave
+him an affectionate smile:
+
+"Oh, dearie. Haven't you had enough?"
+
+"I guess I can stand it if you can," was his gruff rejoinder, "though if I
+ran a school like yours I think by night I'd have schooled enough. Do most
+principals run night schools too?"
+
+"A good many of them do."
+
+"Isn't it taxing your strength?" he asked.
+
+"Don't you have to tax your strength," his daughter replied good humoredly,
+"to really accomplish anything? Don't you have to risk yourself in order to
+really live these days? Suppose you come down to-morrow night. We won't go
+to the school, for I doubt if the clubs and classes would interest you very
+much. I'll take you through the neighborhood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They went down the following evening. The night was warm and humid, and
+through the narrow tenement streets there poured a teeming mass of life.
+People by the thousands passed, bareheaded, men in shirt sleeves, their
+faces glistening with sweat. Animal odors filled the air. The torches on
+the pushcarts threw flaring lights and shadows, the peddlers shouted
+hoarsely, the tradesmen in the booths and stalls joined in with cries,
+shrill peals of mirth. The mass swept onward, talking, talking, and its
+voice was a guttural roar. Small boys and girls with piercing yells kept
+darting under elbows, old women dozed on doorsteps, babies screamed on
+every side. Mothers leaned out of windows, and by their faces you could see
+that they were screaming angrily for children to come up to bed. But you
+could not hear their cries. Here around a hurdy gurdy gravely danced some
+little girls. A tense young Jew, dark faced and thin, was shouting from a
+wagon that all men and women must be free and own the factories and mills.
+A mob of small boys, clustered 'round a "camp fire" they had made on the
+street, were leaping wildly through the flames. It was a mammoth cauldron
+here, seething, bubbling over with a million foreign lives. Deborah's big
+family.
+
+She turned into a doorway, went down a long dark passage and came into a
+court-yard enclosed by greasy tenement walls that reared to a spot of dark
+blue sky where a few quiet stars were twinkling down. With a feeling of
+repugnance Roger followed his daughter into a tall rear building and up a
+rickety flight of stairs. On the fourth landing she knocked at a door, and
+presently it was opened by a stout young Irish woman with flushed haggard
+features and disheveled hair.
+
+"Oh. Good evening, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"Good evening. Come in," was the curt reply. They entered a small stifling
+room where were a stove, two kitchen chairs and three frowzled beds in
+corners. On one of the beds lay a baby asleep, on another two small
+restless boys sat up and watched the visitors. A sick man lay upon the
+third. And a cripple boy, a boarder here, stood on his crutches watching
+them. Roger was struck at once by his face. Over the broad cheek bones the
+sallow skin was tightly drawn, but there was a determined set to the jaws
+that matched the boy's shrewd grayish eyes, and his face lit up in a
+wonderful smile.
+
+"Hello, Miss Deborah," he said. His voice had a cheery quality.
+
+"Hello, Johnny. How are you?"
+
+"Fine, thank you."
+
+"That's good. I've brought my father with me."
+
+"Howdado, sir, glad to meet you."
+
+"It's some time since you've been to see me, John," Deborah continued.
+
+"I know it is," he answered. And then with a quick jerk of his head, "He's
+been pretty bad," he said. Roger looked at the man on the bed. With his
+thin waxen features drawn, the man was gasping for each breath.
+
+"What's the matter?" Roger whispered.
+
+"Lungs," said the young woman harshly. "You needn't bother to speak so low.
+He can't hear you anyhow. He's dying. He's been dying weeks."
+
+"Why didn't you let me know of this?" Deborah asked gently.
+
+"Because I knew what you'd want to do--take him off to a hospital! And I
+ain't going to have it! I promised him he could die at home!"
+
+"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. There was a moment's silence, and the baby
+whimpered in its sleep. One child had gone to his father's bed and was
+frowning at his agony as though it were a tiresome sight.
+
+"Are any of them coughing?" Deborah inquired.
+
+"No," said the woman sharply.
+
+"Yes, they are, two of 'em," John cheerfully corrected her.
+
+"You shut up!" she said to him, and she turned back to Deborah. "It's my
+home, I guess, and my family, too. So what do you think that _you_ can do?"
+Deborah looked at her steadily.
+
+"Yes, it's your family," she agreed. "And it's none of my business, I
+know--except that John is one of my boys--and if things are to go on like
+this I can't let him board here any more. If he had let me know before I'd
+have taken him from you sooner. You'll miss the four dollars a week he
+pays."
+
+The woman swallowed fiercely. The flush on her face had deepened. She
+scowled to keep back the tears.
+
+"We can all die for all I care! I've about got to the end of my rope!"
+
+"I see you have." Deborah's voice was low. "You've made a hard plucky
+fight, Mrs. Berry. Are there any empty rooms left in this building?"
+
+"Yes, two upstairs. What do you want to know for?"
+
+"I'm going to rent them for you. I'll arrange it to-night with the janitor,
+on condition that you promise to move your children to-morrow upstairs and
+keep them there until this is over. Will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's sensible. And I'll have one of the visiting nurses here within an
+hour."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"And later on we'll have a talk."
+
+"All right--"
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"Good-night, Miss Gale, I'm much obliged.... Say, wait a minute! Will you?"
+The wife had followed them out on the landing and she was clutching
+Deborah's arm. "Why can't the nurse give him something," she whispered, "to
+put him to sleep for good and all? It ain't right to let a man suffer like
+that! I can't stand it! I'm--I'm--" she broke off with a sob. Deborah put
+one arm around her and held her steadily for a moment.
+
+"The nurse will see that he sleeps," she said. "Now, John," she added,
+presently, when the woman had gone into the room, "I want you to get your
+things together. I'll have the janitor move them upstairs. You sleep there
+to-night, and to-morrow morning come to see me at the school."
+
+"All right, Miss Deborah, much obliged. I'll be all right. Good-night,
+sir--"
+
+"Good-night, my boy," said Roger, and suddenly he cleared his throat. He
+followed his daughter down the stairs. A few minutes she talked with the
+janitor, then joined her father in the court.
+
+"I'm sorry I took you up there," she said. "I didn't know the man was
+sick."
+
+"Who are they?" he asked.
+
+"Poor people," she said. And Roger flinched.
+
+"Who is this boy?"
+
+"A neighbor of theirs. His mother, who was a widow, died about two years
+ago. He was left alone and scared to death lest he should be 'put away' in
+some big institution. He got Mrs. Berry to take him in, and to earn his
+board he began selling papers instead of coming to our school. So our
+school visitor looked him up. Since then I have been paying his board from
+a fund I have from friends uptown, and so he has finished his schooling.
+He's to graduate next week. He means to be a stenographer."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Seventeen," she replied.
+
+"How was he crippled? Born that way?"
+
+"No. When he was a baby his mother dropped him one Saturday night when she
+was drunk. He has never been able to sit down. He can lie down or he can
+stand. He's always in pain, it never stops. I learned that from the doctor
+I took him to see. But whenever you ask him how he feels you get the same
+answer always: 'Fine, thank you.' He's a fighter, is John."
+
+"He looks it. I'd like to help that boy--"
+
+"All right--you can help him," Deborah said. "You'll find him quite a
+tonic."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A tonic," she repeated. And with a sudden tightening of her wide and
+sensitive mouth, Deborah added slowly, "Because, though I've known many
+hungry boys, Johnny Geer is the hungriest of them all--hungry to get on in
+life, to grow and learn and get good things, get friends, love, happiness,
+everything!" As she spoke of this child in her family, over her strong
+quiet face there swept a fierce, intent expression which struck Roger
+rather cold. What a fight she was making, this daughter of his, against
+what overwhelming odds. But all he said to her was this:
+
+"Now let's look at something more cheerful, my dear."
+
+"Very well," she answered with a smile. "We'll go and see Isadore Freedom."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Isadore Freedom," said Deborah, "is the beginning of something tremendous.
+He came from Russian Poland--and the first American word he learned over
+there was 'freedom.' So in New York he changed his name to that--very
+solemnly, by due process of law. It cost him seven dollars. He had nine
+dollars at the time. Isadore is a flame, a kind of a torch in the
+wilderness."
+
+"How does the flame earn his living?"
+
+"At first in a sweatshop," she replied. "But he came to my school five
+nights a week, and at ten o'clock when school was out he went to a little
+basement café, where he sat at a corner table, drank one glass of Russian
+tea and studied till they closed at one. Then he went to his room, he told
+me, and used to read himself to sleep. He slept as a rule four hours. He
+said he felt he needed it. Now he's a librarian earning fifteen dollars a
+week, and having all the money he needs he has put the thought of it out of
+his life and is living for education--education in freedom. For Isadore has
+studied his name until he thinks he knows what it means."
+
+They found him in a small public library on an ill-smelling ghetto street.
+The place had been packed with people, but the clock had just struck ten
+and the readers were leaving reluctantly, many with books under their arms.
+At sight of Deborah and her father, Isadore leaped up from his desk and
+came quickly to meet them with outstretched hands.
+
+"Oh, this is splendid! Good evening!" he cried. Hardly more than a boy,
+perhaps twenty-one, he was short of frame but large of limb. He had wide
+stooping shoulders and reddish hollows in his dark cheeks. Yet there was a
+springiness in his step, vigor and warmth in the grip of his hand, in the
+very curl of his thick black hair, in his voice, in his enormous smile.
+
+"Come," he said to Roger, when the greetings were over. "You shall see my
+library, sir. But I want that you shall not see it alone. While you look
+you must close for me your eyes and see other libraries, many, many, all
+over the world. You must see them in big cities and in very little towns
+to-night. You must see people, millions there, hungry, hungry people. Now I
+shall show you their food and their drink." As he spoke he was leading them
+proudly around. In the stacks along the walls he pointed out fiction,
+poetry, history, books of all the sciences.
+
+"They read all, all!" cried Isadore. "Look at this Darwin on my desk. In a
+year so many have read this book it is a case for the board of health. And
+look at this shelf of economics. I place it next to astronomy. And I say to
+these people, 'Yes, read about jobs and your hours and wages. Yes, you must
+strike, you must have better lives. But you must read also about the
+stars--and about the big spaces--silent--not one single little sound for
+many, many million years. To be free you must grow as big as that--inside
+of your head, inside of your soul. It is not enough to be free of a czar, a
+kaiser or a sweatshop boss. What will you do when they are gone? My fine
+people, how will you run the world? You are deaf and blind, you must be
+free to open your own ears and eyes, to look into the books and see what is
+there--great thoughts and feelings, great ideas! And when you have seen,
+then you must think--you must think it all out every time! That is
+freedom!'" He stopped abruptly. Again on his dark features came a huge and
+winning smile, and with an apologetic shrug, "But I talk too much of my
+books," he said. "Come. Shall we go to my café?"
+
+On a neighboring street, a few minutes later, down a flight of steep wooden
+stairs they descended into a little café, shaped like a tunnel, the ceiling
+low, the bare walls soiled by rubbing elbows, dirty hands, the air blue and
+hot with smoke. Young men and girls packed in at small tables bent over
+tall glasses of Russian tea, and gesturing with their cigarettes declaimed
+and argued excitedly. Quick joyous cries of greeting met Isadore from every
+side.
+
+"You see?" he said gaily. "This is my club. Here we are like a family." He
+ordered tea of a waiter who seemed more like a bosom friend. And leaning
+eagerly forward, he began to speak in glowing terms of the men and girls
+from sweatshops who spent their nights in these feasts of the soul,
+talking, listening, grappling, "for the power to think with minds as clear
+as the sun when it rises," he ardently cried. "There is not a night in this
+city, not one, when hundreds do not talk like this until the breaking of
+the day! And then they sleep! A little joke! For at six o'clock they must
+rise to their work! And that is a force," he added, "not only for those
+people but a force for you and me. Do you see? When you feel tired, when
+all your hopes are sinking low, you think of those people and you say, 'I
+will go to their places.' And you go. You listen and you watch their faces,
+and such fire makes you burn! You go home, you are happy, you have a new
+life!
+
+"And perhaps at last you will have a religion," he continued, in fervent
+tones. "You see, with us Jews--and with Christians, too--the old religion,
+it is gone. And in its place there is nothing strong. And so the young
+people go all to pieces. They dance and they drink. If you go to those
+dance halls you say, 'They are crazy!' For dancing alone is not enough. And
+you say, 'These people must have a religion.' You ask, 'Where can I find a
+new God?' And you reply, 'There is no God.' And then you must be very sad.
+You know how it is? You feel too free. And you feel scared and lonely. You
+look up at the stars. There are millions. You are only a speck of dust--on
+one.
+
+"But then you come to my library. And you see those hungry people--more
+hungry than men have ever been. And you see those books upon the shelves.
+And you know when they come together at last, when that power to think as
+clear as the sun comes into the souls of those people so hungry, then we
+shall have a new god for the world. For there is no end to what they shall
+do," Isadore ended huskily.
+
+Roger felt a lump in his throat. He glanced into his daughter's eyes and
+saw a suspicious brightness there. Isadore looked at her happily.
+
+"You see?" he said to Roger. "When she came here to-night she was tired,
+half sick. But now she is all filled with life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, on the street outside when Isadore had left them, Deborah turned to
+her father:
+
+"Before we go home, there's one place more."
+
+And they went to a building not far away, a new structure twelve floors
+high which rose out of the neighboring tenements. It had been built, she
+told him, by a socialist daily paper. A dull night watchman half asleep
+took them in the elevator up to the top floor of the building, where in a
+bustling, clanking loft the paper was just going to press. Deborah seemed
+to know one of the foremen. He smiled and nodded and led the way through
+the noise and bustle to a large glass door at one end. This she opened and
+stepped out upon a fire escape so broad it was more like a balcony. And
+with the noise of the presses subdued, from their high perch they looked
+silently down.
+
+All around them for miles, it seemed, stretched dark uneven fields of
+roofs, with the narrow East River winding its way through the midst of them
+to the harbor below, silvery, dim and cool and serene, opening to the
+distant sea. From the bridges rearing high over the river, lights by
+thousands sparkled down. But directly below the spot where they stood was
+only a dull hazy glow, rising out of dark tenement streets where dimly they
+could just make out numberless moving shadowy forms, restless crowds too
+hot to sleep. The roofs were covered everywhere with men and women and
+children--families, families, families, all merged together in the dark.
+And from them rose into the night a ceaseless murmur of voices, laughing
+and joking, quarreling, loving and hating, demanding, complaining, and
+fighting and slaving and scheming for bread and the means of stark
+existence. But among these struggling multitudes confusedly did Roger feel
+the brighter presence here and there of more aspiring figures, small groups
+in glaring, stilling rooms down there beneath the murky dark, young people
+fiercely arguing, groping blindly for new gods. And all these voices, to
+his ears, merged into one deep thrilling hum, these lights into one
+quivering glow, that went up toward the silent stars.
+
+And there came to him a feeling which he had often had before in many
+different places--that he himself was a part of all this, the great, blind,
+wistful soul of mankind, which had been here before he was born and would
+be here when he was dead--still groping, yearning, struggling upward, on
+and on--to something distant as the sun. And still would he be a part of it
+all, through the eager lives of his children. He turned and looked at
+Deborah and caught the light that was in her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Roger awoke the next morning feeling sore and weary, and later in his
+office it was hard to keep his mind on his work. He thought of young
+Isadore Freedom. He was glad he had met that boy, and so he felt toward
+Deborah's whole terrific family. Confused and deafening as it was, there
+was something inspiring in it all. But God save him from many such
+evenings! For half his life Roger had been a collector, not only of rings
+but of people, too, of curious personalities. These human bits, these
+memories, he had picked up as he lived along and had taken them with him
+and made them his own, had trimmed and polished every one until its rough
+unpleasant edges were all nicely smoothed away and it glittered and shone
+like the gem that it was. For Roger was an idealist. And so he would have
+liked to do here. What a gem could be made of Isadore with a little careful
+polishing.
+
+But Deborah's way was different. She stayed in life, lived in it close,
+with its sharp edges bristling. In this there was something splendid, but
+there was something tragic, too. It was all very well for that young Jew to
+burn himself up with his talk about freedom, his feverish searching for new
+gods. "In five years," Roger told himself, "Mr. Isadore Freedom will either
+tone down or go stark mad."
+
+But quite probably he would tone down, for he was only a youngster, these
+were Isadore's wild oats. But this was no longer Deborah's youth, she had
+been at this job ten years. And she hadn't gone mad, she had kept herself
+sane, she had many sides her father knew. He knew her in the mountains, or
+bustling about at home getting ready for Laura's wedding, or packing
+Edith's children off for their summer up at the farm. But did that make it
+any easier? No. To let yourself go was easy, but to keep hold of yourself
+was hard. It meant wear and tear on a woman, this constant straining effort
+to keep her balance and see life whole.
+
+"Well, it will break her down, that's all, and I don't propose to allow
+it," he thought. "She's got to rest this summer and go easier next fall."
+
+But how could he accomplish it? As he thought about her school, with its
+long and generous arms reaching upon every side out into the tenements, the
+prospect was bewildering. He searched for something definite. What could he
+do to prove to his daughter his real interest in her work? Presently he
+remembered Johnny Geer, the cripple boy whom he had liked, and at once he
+began to feel himself back again upon known ground. Instead of millions
+here was one, one plucky lad who needed help. All right, by George, he
+should have it! And Roger told his daughter he would be glad to pay the
+expense of sending John away for the summer, and that in the autumn perhaps
+he would take the lad into his office.
+
+"That's good of you, dearie," Deborah said. It was her only comment, but
+from the look she gave him Roger felt he was getting on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening not long afterwards, as they sat together at dinner, she rose
+unsteadily to her feet and said in a breathless voice,
+
+"It's rather close in here, isn't it? I think I'll go outside for a while."
+Roger jumped up.
+
+"Look here, my child, you're faint!" he cried.
+
+"No, no, it's nothing! Just the heat!" She swayed and reeled, pitched
+suddenly forward. "Father! Quick!" And Roger caught her in his arms. He
+called to the maid, and with her help he carried Deborah up to her bed.
+There she shuddered violently and beads of sweat broke out on her brow.
+Her breath came hard through chattering teeth.
+
+"It's so silly!" she said fiercely.
+
+But as moments passed the chill grew worse. Her whole body seemed to be
+shaking, and as Roger was rubbing one of her arms she said something to him
+sharply, in a voice so thick he could not understand.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"I can't feel anything."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"In my arm where you're rubbing--I can't feel your hand."
+
+"You'd better have a doctor!"
+
+"Telephone Allan--Allan Baird. He knows about this," she muttered. And
+Roger ran down to the telephone. He was thoroughly frightened.
+
+"All right, Mr. Gale," came Baird's gruff bass, steady and slow, "I think I
+know what the trouble is--and I wouldn't worry if I were you. I'll be there
+in about ten minutes." And it was hardly more than that when he came into
+Deborah's room. A moment he looked down at her.
+
+"Again?" he said. She glanced up at him and nodded, and smiled quickly
+through set teeth. Baird carefully examined her and then turned to Roger:
+"Now I guess you'd better go out. You stay," he added to Sarah, the maid.
+"I may need you here awhile."
+
+About an hour later he came down to Roger's study.
+
+"She's safe enough now, I guess," he said. "I've telephoned for a nurse for
+her, and she'll have to stay in bed a few days."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Acute indigestion."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed Roger brightly, with a rush of deep relief.
+Baird gave him a dry quizzical smile.
+
+"People have died of that," he remarked, "in less than an hour. We caught
+your daughter just in time. May I stay a few moments?"
+
+"Glad to have you! Smoke a cigar!"
+
+"Thanks--I will." As Baird reached out for the proffered cigar, Roger
+suddenly noticed his hand. Long and muscular, finely shaped, it seemed to
+speak of strength and skill and an immense vitality. Baird settled himself
+in his chair. "I want to talk about her," he said. "This little attack is
+only a symptom--it comes from nerves. She's just about ready for a smash.
+She's had slighter attacks of this kind before."
+
+"I never knew it," Roger said.
+
+"No--I don't suppose you did. Your daughter has a habit of keeping things
+like this to herself. She came to me and I warned her, but she wanted to
+finish out her year. Do you know anything about her school work?"
+
+"Yes, I was with her there this week."
+
+"What did she show you?" Baird inquired. Roger tried to tell him. "No,
+that's not what I'm after," he said. "That's just one of her usual
+evenings." For a moment he smoked in silence. "I'm hunting now for
+something else, for some unusual nervous shock which she appears to me to
+have had."
+
+"She has!" And Roger told him of her visit up to Sing Sing. Baird's lean
+muscular right hand slowly tightened on his chair.
+
+"That's a tough family of hers," he remarked.
+
+"Yes," said Roger determinedly, "and she's got to give it up."
+
+"You mean she ought to. But she won't."
+
+"She's got to be made to," Roger growled. "This summer at least." Baird
+shook his head.
+
+"You forget her fresh air work," he replied. "She has three thousand
+children on her mind. The city will be like a furnace, of course, and the
+children must be sent to camps. If you don't see the necessity, go and talk
+to her, and then you will."
+
+"But you can forbid it, can't you?"
+
+"No. Can you?"
+
+"I can try," snapped Roger.
+
+"Let's try what's possible," said Baird. "Let's try to keep her in bed
+three days."
+
+"Sounds modest," Roger grunted. And a glimmer of amusement came into
+Baird's impassive eyes.
+
+"Try it," he drawled. "By to-morrow night she'll ask for her stenographer.
+She'll make you think she is out of the woods. But she won't be, please
+remember that. A few years more," he added, "and she'll have used up her
+vitality. She'll be an old woman at thirty-five."
+
+"It's got to be stopped!" cried Roger.
+
+"But how?" came the low sharp retort. "You've got to know her trouble
+first. And her trouble is deep, it's motherhood--on a scale which has never
+been tried before--for thousands of children, all of whom are living in a
+kind of hell. I know your daughter pretty well. Don't make the mistake of
+mixing her up with the old-fashioned teacher. It isn't what those children
+learn, it's how they live that interests her, and how they are all growing
+up. I say she's a mother--in spirit--but her body has never borne a child.
+And that makes it worse--because it makes her more intense. It isn't
+natural, you see."
+
+A little later he rose to go.
+
+"By the way," he said, at the door, "there's something I meant to tell her
+upstairs--about a poor devil she has on her mind. A chap named
+Berry--dying--lungs. She asked me to go and see him."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I found it was only a matter of days." The tragic pity in Baird's quiet
+voice was so deep as barely to be heard.
+
+"So I shot him full of morphine. He won't wake up. Please tell her that."
+
+Tall, ungainly, motionless, he loomed there in the doorway. With a little
+shrug and a smile he turned and went slowly out of the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Deborah's recovery was rapid and determined. The next night she was sitting
+up and making light of her illness. On the third day she dismissed her
+nurse, and when her father came home from his office he found gathered
+about her bed not only her stenographer but both her assistant principals.
+He frowned severely and went to his room, and a few minutes later he heard
+them leave. Presently she called to him, and he came to her bedside. She
+was lying back on the pillow with rather a guilty expression.
+
+"Up to your old antics, eh?" he remarked.
+
+"Exactly. It couldn't be helped, you see. It's the last week of our school
+year, and there are so many little things that have to be attended to. It's
+simply now or never."
+
+"Humph!" was Roger's comment. "It's now or never with you," he thought. He
+went down to his dinner, and when he came back he found her exhausted. In
+the dim soft light of her room her face looked flushed and feverish, and
+vaguely he felt she was in a mood where she might listen to reason. He felt
+her hot dry hand on his. Her eyes were closed, she was smiling.
+
+"Tell me the news from the mountains," she said. And he gave her the gossip
+of the farm in a letter he had had from George. It told of a picnic supper,
+the first one of the season. They had had it in the usual place, down by
+the dam on the river, "with a bonfire--a perfect peach--down by the big
+yellow rock--the one you call the Elephant." As Roger read the letter he
+could feel his daughter listening, vividly picturing to herself the great
+dark boulders by the creek, the shadowy firs, the stars above and the cool
+fresh tang of the mountain night.
+
+"After this little sickness of yours--and that harum scarum wedding," he
+said, "I feel we're both entitled to a good long rest in mountain air."
+
+"We'll have it, too," she murmured.
+
+"With Edith's little youngsters. They're all the medicine you need." He
+paused for a moment, hesitating. But it was now or never. "The only trouble
+with you," he said, "is that you've let yourself be caught by the same
+disease which has its grip upon this whole infernal town. You're like
+everyone else, you're tackling about forty times what you can do. You're
+actually trying not only to teach but to bring 'em all up as your own,
+three thousand tenement children. And this is where it gets you."
+
+Again he halted, frowning. What next?
+
+"Go on, dear, please," said Deborah, in demure and even tones. "This is
+very interesting."
+
+"Now then," he continued, "in this matter of your school. I wouldn't ask
+you to give it up, I've already seen too much of it. But so long as you've
+got it nicely started, why not give somebody else a chance? One of those
+assistants of yours, for example--capable young women, both. You could
+stand right behind 'em with help and advice--"
+
+"Not yet," was Deborah's soft reply. She had turned her head on her pillow
+and was looking at him affectionately. "Why not?" he demanded.
+
+"Because it's not nicely started at all. There's nothing brilliant about
+me, dear--I'm a plodder, feeling my way along. And what I have done in the
+last ten years is just coming to a stage at last where I can really see a
+chance to make it count for something. When I feel I've done that, say in
+five years more--"
+
+"Those five years," said her father, "may cost you a very heavy price." As
+Deborah faced his troubled regard, her own grew quickly serious.
+
+"I'd be willing to pay the price," she replied.
+
+"But why?" he asked with impatience. "Why pay when you don't have to? Why
+not by taking one year off get strength for twenty years' work later on?
+You'd be a different woman!"
+
+"Yes, I think I should be. I'd never be the same again. You don't quite
+understand, you see. This work of mine with children--well, it's like
+Edith's having a baby. You have to do it while you're young."
+
+"That works both ways," her father growled.
+
+"What do you mean?" He hesitated:
+
+"Don't you want any children of your own?"
+
+Again she turned her eyes toward his, then closed them and lay perfectly
+still. "Now I've done it," he thought anxiously. She reached over and took
+his hand.
+
+"Let's talk of our summer's vacation," she said.
+
+A little while later she fell asleep.
+
+Downstairs he soon grew restless and after a time he went out for a walk.
+But he felt tired and oppressed, and as he had often done of late he
+entered a little "movie" nearby, where gradually the pictures, continually
+flashing out of the dark, drove the worries from his mind. For a half an
+hour they held his gaze. Then he fell into a doze. He was roused by a roar
+of laughter, and straightening up in his seat with a jerk he looked angrily
+around. Something broadly comic had been flashed upon the screen; and men
+and women and children, Italians, Jews and Irish, jammed in close about
+him, a dirty and perspiring mass, had burst into a terrific guffaw. Now
+they were suddenly tense again and watching the screen in absorbed
+suspense, while the crude passions within themselves were played upon in
+the glamorous dark. And Roger scanned their faces--one moment smiling, all
+together, as though some god had pulled a string; then mawkish,
+sentimental, soft; then suddenly scowling, twitching, with long rows of
+animal eyes. But eager--eager all the time! Hungry people--yes, indeed!
+Hungry for all the good things in the town, and for as many bad things,
+too! On one who tried to feed this mob there was no end to their demands!
+What was one woman's life to them? Deborah's big family!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edith came to the house one afternoon, and she was in Deborah's room when
+her father returned from his office. Her convalescence over at last, she
+was leaving for the mountains.
+
+"Do learn your lesson, Deborah dear," she urged upon her sister. "Let Sarah
+pack your trunk at once and come up with me on Saturday night."
+
+"I can't get off for two weeks yet."
+
+"Why can't you?" Edith demanded. And when Deborah spoke of fresh air camps
+and baby farms and other work, Edith's impatience only grew. "You'll have
+to leave it to somebody else! You're simply in no condition!" she cried.
+
+"Impossible," said Deborah. Edith gave a quick sigh of exasperation.
+
+"Isn't it enough," she asked, "to have worked your nerves to a frazzle
+already? Why can't you be sensible? You've got to think of yourself a
+little!"
+
+"You'd like me to marry, wouldn't you, dear?" her sister put in wearily.
+
+"Yes, I should, while there is still time! Just now you look far from it!
+It's exactly as Allan was saying! If you keep on as you're going you'll be
+an old woman at thirty-five!"
+
+"Thank you!" said Deborah sharply. Two spots of color leaped in her checks.
+"You'd better leave me, Edith! I'll come up to the mountains as soon as I
+can! And I'll try not to look any more like a hag than I have to!
+Good-night!"
+
+Roger followed Edith out of the room.
+
+"That last shot of mine struck home," she declared to him in triumph.
+
+"I wouldn't have done it," her father said. "I gave you that remark of
+Baird's in strict confidence, Edith--"
+
+"Now father," was her good-humored retort, "suppose you leave this matter
+to me. I know just what I'm doing."
+
+"Well," he reflected uneasily, after she had left him, "here's more trouble
+in the family. If Edith isn't careful she'll make a fine mess of this whole
+affair."
+
+After dinner he went up to Deborah's room, but through the open doorway he
+caught a glimpse of his daughter which made him instinctively draw back.
+Sitting bolt upright in her bed, sternly she was eyeing herself in a small
+mirror in her hand. Her father chuckled noiselessly. A moment later, when
+he went in, the glass had disappeared from view. Soon afterwards Baird
+himself arrived, and as they heard him coming upstairs Roger saw his
+daughter frown, but she continued talking.
+
+"Hello, Allan," she said with indifference. "I'm feeling much better this
+evening."
+
+"Are you? Good," he answered, and he started to pull up an easy chair. "I
+was hoping I could stay awhile--I've been having one of those long mean
+days--"
+
+"I'd a little rather you wouldn't," Deborah put in softly. Allan turned to
+her in surprise. "I didn't sleep last night," she murmured, "and I feel so
+drowsy." There was a little silence. "And I really don't think there's any
+need of your dropping in to-morrow," she added. "I'm so much
+better--honestly."
+
+Baird looked at her a moment.
+
+"Right--O," he answered slowly. "I'll call up to-morrow night."
+
+Roger followed him downstairs.
+
+"Come into my den and smoke a cigar!" he proposed in hearty ringing tones.
+Allan thanked him and came in, but the puzzled expression was still on his
+face, and through the first moments of their talk he was very
+absent-minded. Roger's feeling of guilt increased, and he cursed himself
+for a meddlesome fool.
+
+"Look here, Baird," he blurted out, "there's something I think you ought to
+know." Allan slightly turned his head, and Roger reddened a little. "The
+worst thing about living in a house chock full of meddling women is that
+you get to be one yourself," he growled. "And the fact is--" he cleared his
+throat--"I've put my foot in it, Baird," he said. "I was fool enough the
+other day to quote you to Edith."
+
+"To what effect?"
+
+"That if Deborah keeps on like this she'll be an old woman at thirty-five."
+
+Allan sat up in his chair:
+
+"Was Edith here this afternoon?"
+
+"She was," said Roger.
+
+"Say no more."
+
+Baird had a wide, likable, generous mouth which wrinkled easily into a
+smile. He leaned back now and enjoyed himself. He puffed a little cloud of
+smoke, looked over at Roger and chuckled aloud. And Roger chuckled with
+relief. "What a decent chap he is," he thought.
+
+"I'm sorry, of course," he said to Baird. "I thought of trying to
+explain--"
+
+"Don't," said Allan. "Leave it alone. It won't do Deborah any harm--may
+even do her a little good. After all, I'm her physician--"
+
+"Are you?" Roger asked with a twinkle. "I thought upstairs you were
+dismissed."
+
+"Oh no, I'm not," was the calm reply. And the two men went on smoking.
+Roger's liking for Baird was growing fast. They had had several little
+talks during Deborah's illness, and Roger was learning more of the man.
+Raised on a big cattle ranch that his father had owned in New Mexico,
+riding broncos on the plains had given him his abounding health of body,
+nerve and spirit, his steadiness and sanity in all this feverish city life.
+
+"Are you riding these days?" he inquired.
+
+"No," said Roger, "the park is too hot--and they don't sprinkle the path as
+they should. I've had my cob sent up to the mountains. By the way," he
+added cordially, "you must come up there and ride with me."
+
+"Thanks, I'd like to," Allan said, and with a little inner smile he added
+dryly to himself, "He's getting ready to meddle again." But whatever
+amusement Baird had in this thought was concealed behind his sober gray
+eyes. Soon after that he took his leave.
+
+"Now then," Roger reflected, with a little glow of expectancy, "if Edith
+will only leave me alone, she may find I'm smarter then she thinks!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening in the following week, after Edith had left town, Roger had
+Bruce to dine at his club, a pleasant old building on Madison Square, where
+comfortably all by themselves they could discuss Baird's chances.
+
+"A. Baird and I have been chums," said Bruce, "ever since we were in
+college. Take it from me I know his brand. And he isn't the kind to be
+pushed."
+
+"Who wants to push him?" Roger demanded, with a sudden guilty twinge.
+
+"Edith does," Bruce answered. "And I tell you that won't do with A. Baird.
+He has his mind set on Deborah sure. He's been setting it harder and harder
+for months--and he knows it--and so does she. But they're both the kind of
+people who don't like interference, they've got to get to it by themselves.
+Edith must keep out of the way. She mustn't take it on herself to ask him
+up to the mountains." Roger gave a little start. "If she does, there'll be
+trouble with Deborah."
+
+Roger smoked for a moment in silence and then sagely nodded his head.
+
+"That's so," he murmured thoughtfully. "Yes, my boy, I guess you're right."
+
+Bruce lifted his mint julep:
+
+"God, but it's hot in here to-night. How about taking a spin up the river?"
+
+"Delighted," replied his father-in-law.
+
+And a half hour later in Bruce's new car, which was the pride and joy of
+his life, they were far up the river. On a long level stretch of road Bruce
+"let her out to show what she could do." And Roger with his heart in his
+mouth and his eye upon the speedometer, saw it creep to sixty-three.
+
+"Almost as good as a horse," remarked Bruce, when the car had slowed a
+little.
+
+"Almost," said Roger, "but not quite. It's--well, it's dissipation."
+
+"And a horse?"
+
+"Is life," was the grave reply. "You'll have a crash some day, my boy, if
+you go on at your present speed. It gets me worried sometimes. You see
+you're a family man."
+
+"I am and I'm glad of it. Edith and the kiddies suit me right down to the
+ground. I'm crazy about 'em--you know that. But a chap with a job like
+mine," Bruce continued pleadingly, as he drove his car rushing around a
+curve, "needs a little dissipation, too. I can't tell you what it means to
+me, when I'm kept late at the office, to have this car for the run up home.
+Lower Broadway's empty then, and I know the cops. I swing around through
+Washington Square, and the Avenue looks clear for miles, nothing but two
+long rows of lights to the big hump at Murray Hill. It's the time between
+crowds--say about ten. And I know the cops."
+
+"That's all right," said Roger. "No one was more delighted than I when you
+got this car. You deserve it. It's the _work_ that I was speaking of.
+You've got it going at such a speed--"
+
+"Only way on earth to get on--to get what I want for my family--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," muttered Roger vaguely. Bruce began talking of his work
+for the steel construction concern downtown.
+
+"Take it from me," he declared at the end, "this town has only just begun!"
+
+"Has, eh," Roger grunted. "Aren't the buildings high enough?"
+
+"My God, I wish they were twenty times higher," Bruce rejoined
+good-humoredly. "But they won't be--we've stopped going up. We've done
+pretty well in the air, and now we're going underground. And when we get
+through, this old rock of Manhattan will be such a network of tunnels
+there'll be a hole waiting at every corner to take you wherever you want to
+go. Speed? We don't even know what it means!"
+
+And again Bruce "let her out" a bit. It was _quite_ a bit. Roger grabbed
+his hat with one hand and the side of the car with the other.
+
+"They'll look back on a mile a minute," said Bruce, "as we look back on
+stage coach days! And in the rush hour there'll be a rush that'll make you
+think of pneumatic tubes! Not a sound nor a quiver--_just pure speed!_
+Shooting people home at night at a couple of hundred miles an hour! The
+city will be as big as that! And there won't be any accidents and there
+won't be any smoke. Instead of coal they'll use the sun! And, my God, man,
+the boulevards--and parks and places for the kids! The way they'll use the
+River--and the ocean and the Sound! The Catskills will be Central Park!
+Sounds funny, don't it--but it's true. I've studied it out from A to Z.
+This town is choking itself to death simply because we're so damn slow! We
+don't know how to spread ourselves! All this city needs is speed!"
+
+"Bruce," said Roger anxiously, "just go a bit easy on that gas. The fact
+is, it was a great mistake for me to eat those crabs to-night."
+
+Bruce slowed down compassionately, and soon they turned and started home.
+And as they drew near the glow of the town, other streets and boulevards
+poured more motors into the line, until at last they were rushing along
+amid a perfect bedlam made up of honks and shrieks of horns. The air grew
+hot and acrid, and looking back through the bluish haze of smoke and dust
+behind him Roger could see hundreds of huge angry motor eyes. Crowding and
+jamming closer, pell mell, at a pace which barely slackened, they sped on,
+a wild uproarious crew, and swept into the city.
+
+Roger barely slept that night. He felt the city clamoring down into his
+very soul. "Speed!" he muttered viciously. "Speed--speed! We need more
+speed!" The words beat in like a savage refrain. At last with a sigh of
+impatience he got up in his nightshirt and walked about. It was good to
+feel his way in the dark in this cool silent house which he knew so well.
+Soon his nerves felt quieter. He went back to his bed and lay there inert.
+How good it would be to get up to the farm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next Saturday evening, with Deborah, he started for the mountains. And
+Bruce came down to see them off.
+
+"Remember, son," said Roger, as the two walked on the platform. "Come up
+this year for a month, my boy. You need it." The train was about to start.
+
+"Oh, I'll be all right," was the answer. "My friend the Judge, who has hay
+fever, tells me he has found a cure."
+
+"Damn his cure! You come to us!"
+
+"Hold on a minute, live and learn. The Judge is quite excited about it.
+You drink little bugs, he says, a billion after every meal. They come in
+tall blue bottles. We're going to dine together next week and drink 'em
+till we're all lit up. Oh, we're going to have a hell of a time. _His_ wife
+left town on Tuesday."
+
+"Bruce," said Roger sternly, as the train began to move, "leave bugs alone
+and come up and breathe! And quit smoking so many cigarettes!" He stepped
+on the car.
+
+"Remember, son, a solid month!" Bruce nodded as the train moved out.
+
+"Good luck--good-bye--fine summer--my love to the wife and the kiddies--"
+and Bruce's dark, tense, smiling face was left behind. Roger went back into
+the smoker.
+
+"Now for the mountains," he thought. "Thank God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+A few hours later Roger awakened. His lower berth was still pitch dark. The
+train had stopped, and he had been roused by a voice outside his window.
+Rough and slow and nasal, the leisurely drawl of a mountaineer, it came
+like balm to Roger's ears. He raised the curtain and looked out. A train
+hand with a lantern was listening to a dairy man, a tall young giant in top
+boots. High overhead loomed a shadowy mountain and over its rim came the
+glow of the dawn. With a violent lurch the train moved on. And Roger, lying
+back on his pillow, looked up at the misty mountain sides all mottled in
+the strange blue light with patches of firs and birches and pines. In the
+narrow valley up which the train was thundering, were small herds of
+grazing cattle, a lonely farmhouse here and there. From one a light was
+twinkling. And the city with its heat and noise, its nervous throb, its
+bedlam nights, all dropped like a fever from his soul.
+
+Now, close by the railroad track, through a shallow rocky gorge a small
+river roared and foamed. Its cool breath came up to his nostrils and
+gratefully he breathed it in. For this was the Gale River, named after one
+of his forefathers, and in his mind's eye he followed the stream back up
+its course to the little station where he and Deborah were to get off.
+There the narrowing river bed turned and wound up through a cleft in the
+hills to the homestead several miles away. On the dark forest road beside
+it he pictured George, his grandson, at this moment driving down to meet
+them in a mountain wagon with one of the two hired men, a lantern swinging
+under the wheels. What an adventure for young George.
+
+Presently he heard Deborah stirring in the berth next to his own.
+
+At the station George was there, and from a thermos bottle which Edith had
+filled the night before he poured coffee piping hot, which steamed in the
+keen, frosty air.
+
+"Oh, how good!" cried Deborah. "How thoughtful of your mother, George. How
+is she, dear?"
+
+"Oh, she's all right, Aunt Deborah." His blunt freckled features flushed
+from his drive, George stood beaming on them both. He appeared, if
+anything, tougher and scrawnier than before. "Everything's all right," he
+said. "There ain't a sick animal on the whole farm."
+
+As Roger sipped his coffee he was having a look at the horses. One of them
+was William, his cob.
+
+"Do you see it?" inquired his grandson.
+
+"What?"
+
+"The boil," George answered proudly, "on William's rump. There it is--on
+the nigh side. Gee, but you ought to have seen it last week. It was a whale
+of a boil," said George, "but we poulticed him, me and Dave did--and now
+the swelling's nearly gone. You can ride him to-morrow if you like."
+
+Luxuriously Roger lit a cigar and climbed to the front seat with George. Up
+the steep and crooked road the stout horses tugged their way, and the wagon
+creaked, and the Gale River, here only a brook, came gurgling, dashing to
+meet them--down from the mountains, from the farm, from Roger's youth to
+welcome him home. And the sun was flashing through the pines. As they drew
+near the farmhouse through a grove of sugar maples, he heard shrill cries
+of, "There they come!" And he glimpsed the flying figures of George's
+brothers, Bob and Tad. George whipped up the horses, the wagon gained upon
+the boys and reached the house but a few rods behind the little runners.
+Edith was waiting by the door, fresh and smiling, blooming with health.
+How well this suited her, Roger thought. Amid a gay chorus of greetings he
+climbed down heavily out of the wagon, looked about him and drew a deep
+breath. The long lazy days on the farm had begun.
+
+From the mountain side the farm looked down on a wide sweeping valley of
+woods and fields. The old house straggled along the road, with addition
+after addition built on through generations by many men and women. Here lay
+the history, unread, of the family of Roger Gale. Inside there were steps
+up and down from one part to another, queer crooks in narrow passageways.
+The lower end was attached to the woodshed, and the woodshed to the barn.
+Above the house a pasture dotted with gray boulders extended up to a wood
+of firs, and out of this wood the small river which bore the name of the
+family came rushing down the field in a gully, went under the road, swept
+around to the right and along the edge of a birch copse just below the
+house. The little stream grew quieter there and widened into a mill pond.
+At the lower end was a broken dam and beside it a dismantled mill. Here was
+peace for Roger's soul. The next day at dawn he awakened, and through the
+window close by his bed he saw no tall confining walls; his eye was carried
+as on wings out over a billowy blanket of mist, soft and white and cool and
+still, reaching over the valley. From underneath to his sensitive ears came
+the numberless voices of the awakening sleepers there, cheeps and tremulous
+warbles from the birch copse just below, cocks crowing in the valley, and
+ducks and geese, dogs, sheep and cattle faintly heard from distant farms.
+Just so it had been when he was a boy. How unchanged and yet how new were
+these fresh hungry cries of life. From the other end of the house he heard
+Edith's tiny son lustily demanding his breakfast, as other wee boys before
+him had done for over a hundred years, as other babies still unborn would
+do in the many years to come. Soon the cry of the child was hushed. Quiet
+fell upon the house. And Roger sank again into deep happy slumber.
+
+Here was nothing new and disturbing. Edith's children? Yes, they were new,
+but they were not disturbing. Their growth each summer was a joy, a renewal
+of life in the battered old house. Here was no huge tenement family
+crowding in with dirty faces, clamorous demands for aid, but only five
+delightful youngsters, clean and fresh, of his own blood. He loved the
+small excitements, the plans and plots and discoveries, the many adventures
+that filled their days. He spent hours with their mother, listening while
+she talked of them. Edith did so love this place and she ran the house so
+beautifully. It was so cool and fragrant, so clean and so old-fashioned.
+
+Deborah, too, came under the spell. She grew as lazy as a cat and day by
+day renewed her strength from the hills and from Edith's little brood.
+Roger had feared trouble there, for he knew how Edith disapproved of her
+sister's new ideas. But although much with the children, Deborah apparently
+had no new ideas at all. She seemed to be only listening. One balmy day at
+sunset, Roger saw her lying on the grass with George sprawled by her side.
+Her head upon one arm, she appeared to be watching the cattle in the
+sloping pasture above. Slowly, as though each one of them was drawn by
+mysterious unseen chains, they were drifting down toward the barn where it
+was almost milking time. George was talking earnestly. She threw a glance
+at him from time to time, and Roger could see how intent were her eyes.
+Yes, Deborah knew how to study a boy.
+
+Only once during the summer did she talk about her work. On a walk with her
+father one day she took him into a small forlorn building, a mere cabin of
+one room. The white paint had long been worn away, the windows were all
+broken, half the old shingles had dropped from the roof and on the
+flagpole was no flag. It was the district schoolhouse where for nearly half
+his life Deborah's grandfather had taught a score of pupils. Inside were a
+blackboard, a rusty stove, a teacher's desk and a dozen forms, grown mouldy
+and worm-eaten now. A torn and faded picture of Lincoln was upon one wall,
+half hidden by a spider's web and by a few old dangling rags which once had
+been red, white and blue. Below, still clinging to the wall, was an old
+scrap of paper, on which in a large rugged hand there had been written long
+ago a speech, but it had been worn away until but three words were
+legible--"conceived and dedicated--"
+
+"Tell me about your school," she said. "All you can remember." Seated at
+her grandfather's desk she asked Roger many questions. And his
+recollections, at first dim and hazy, began to clear a little.
+
+"By George!" he exclaimed. "Here are my initials!"
+
+He stooped over one of the benches.
+
+"Oh, dearie! Where?" He pointed them out, and then while he sat on the rude
+old bench for some time more she questioned him.
+
+"But your school was not all here," she said musingly at last, "it was up
+on the farm, besides, where you learned to plough and sow and reap and take
+care of the animals in the barn, and mend things that were broken, and--oh,
+turn your hand to anything. But millions of children nowadays are growing
+up in cities, you see."
+
+Half frowning and half smiling she began to talk of her work in town. "What
+is there about her," Roger asked, "that reminds me so of my mother?" His
+mind strayed back into the past while the low quiet voice of his daughter
+went on, and a wistful expression crept over his face. What would she do
+with the family name? What life would she lead in those many years?...
+"What a mother she would make." The words rose from within him, but in a
+voice which was not his own. It was Deborah's grandmother speaking, so
+clearly and distinctly that he gave a start almost of alarm.
+
+"And if you don't believe they'll do it," Deborah was saying, "you don't
+know what's in children. Only we've got to help bring it out." What had she
+been talking about? He remembered the words "a new nation"--no more. "We've
+got to grope around in the dark and hunt for new ways and learn as we go.
+And when you've once got into the work and really felt the thrill of it
+all--well, then it seems rather foolish and small to bother about your own
+little life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger spent much of his time alone. He took long rides on William along
+crooked, hilly roads. As the afternoon drew to its end, the shadows would
+creep up the mountain sides to their summits where glowed the last rays of
+the sun, painting the slate and granite crags in lovely pink and purple
+hues. And sometimes mighty banks of clouds would rear themselves high
+overhead, gigantic mountains of the air with billowy, misty caverns, cliffs
+and jagged peaks, all shifting there before his eyes. And he would think of
+Judith his wife. And the old haunting certainty, that her soul had died
+with her body, was gone. There came to him the feeling that he and his wife
+would meet again. Why did this hope come back to him? Was it all from the
+glory of the sun? Or was it from the presence, silent and invisible, of
+those many other mortals, folk of his own flesh and blood, who at their
+deaths had gone to their graves to put on immortality? Or was this
+deepening faith in Roger simply a sign of his growing old age?
+
+He frowned at the thought and shook it off, and again stared up at the
+light on the hills. "You will live on in our children's lives." Was there
+no other immortality?
+
+He often thought of his boyhood here. On a ride one day he stopped for a
+drink at a spring in a grove of maples surrounding a desolate farmhouse not
+more than a mile away from his own. And through the trees as he turned to
+go he saw the stark figure of a woman, poorly clad and gaunt and gray. She
+stood motionless watching him with a look of sullen bitterness. She was the
+last of "the Elkinses," a mountain family run to seed. As he rode away he
+saw in the field a boy with a pitchfork in his hands, a meager ragged
+little chap. He was staring into the valley at a wriggling, blue smoke
+serpent made by the night express to New York. And something leaped in
+Roger, for he had once felt just like that! But the woman's harsh voice cut
+in on his dream, as she shouted to her son below, "Hey! Why the hell you
+standin' thar?" And the boy with a jump of alarm turned back quickly to his
+work. At home a few days later, George with a mysterious air took his
+grandfather into the barn, and after a pledge of secrecy he said in swift
+and thrilling tones, "You know young Bill Elkins? Yes, you do--the boy up
+on the Elkins place who lives alone with his mother. Well, look here!"
+George swallowed hard. "Bill has cleared out--he's run away! I was up at
+five this morning and he came hiking down the road! He had a bundle on his
+back and he told me he was off for good! And was he scared? You bet he was
+scared! And I told him so and it made him mad! 'Aw, you're scared!' I said.
+'I ain't neither!' he said. He could barely talk, but the kid had his
+nerve! 'Where you going?' I asked. 'To New York,' he said. 'Aw, what do you
+know of New York?' I said. And then, by golly, he busted right down. 'Gee!'
+he said, 'Gee! Can't you lemme alone?' And then he beat it down the road!
+You could hear the kid breathe, he was hustling so! He's way off now, he's
+caught the train! He wants to be a cabin boy on a big ocean liner!" For a
+moment there was silence. "Well?" the boy demanded, "What do you think of
+his chances?"
+
+"I don't know," said Roger huskily. He felt a tightening at his throat.
+Abruptly he turned to his grandson.
+
+"George," he asked, "what do _you_ want to be?" The boy flushed under his
+freckles.
+
+"I don't know as I know. I'm thinking," he answered very slowly.
+
+"Talk it over with your mother, son."
+
+"Yes, sir," came the prompt reply. "But he won't," reflected Roger.
+
+"Or if you ever feel you want to, have a good long talk with me."
+
+"Yes, sir," was the answer. Roger stood there waiting, then turned and
+walked slowly out of the barn. How these children grew up inside of
+themselves. Had boys always grown like that? Well, perhaps, but how strange
+it was. Always new lives, lives of their own, the old families scattering
+over the land. So the great life of the nation swept on. He kept noticing
+here deserted farms, and one afternoon in the deepening dusk he rode by a
+graveyard high up on a bare hillside. A horse and buggy were outside, and
+within he spied a lean young woman neatly dressed in a plain dark suit.
+With a lawn mower brought from home she was cutting the grass on her family
+lot. And she seemed to fit into the landscape. New England had grown very
+old.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late one night toward the end of July, there came a loud honk from down the
+hill, then another and another. And as George in his pajamas came rushing
+from his bedroom shouting radiantly, "Gee! It's dad!"--they heard the car
+thundering outside. Bruce had left New York at dawn and had made the run in
+a single day, three hundred and eleven miles. He was gray with dust all
+over and he was worn and hollow eyed, but his dark visage wore a look of
+solid satisfaction.
+
+"I needed the trip to shake me down," he pleaded, when Edith scolded him
+well for this terrific manner of starting his vacation. "I had to have it
+to cut me off from the job I left behind me. Now watch me settle down on
+this farm."
+
+But it appeared he could not settle down. For the first few days, in his
+motor, he was busy exploring the mountains. "We'll make 'em look foolish.
+Eh, son?" he said. And with George, who mutely adored him, he ran all about
+them in a day. Genially he gave everyone rides. When he'd finished with the
+family, he took Dave Royce the farmer and his wife and children, and even
+both the hired men, for Bruce was an hospitable soul. But more than anyone
+else he took George. They spent hours working on the car, and at times when
+they came into the house begreased and blackened from their work, Edith
+reproved them like bad boys--but Deborah smiled contentedly.
+
+But at the end of another week Bruce grew plainly restless, and despite his
+wife's remonstrances made ready to return to town. When she spoke of his
+hay fever he bragged to her complacently of his newly discovered cure.
+
+"Oh, bother your little blue bugs!" she cried.
+
+"The bugs aren't blue," he explained to her, in a mild and patient voice
+that drove Edith nearly wild. "They're so little they have no color at all.
+Poor friendly little devils--"
+
+"Bruce!" his wife exploded.
+
+"They've been almighty good to me. You ought to have heard my friend the
+Judge, the last night I was with him. He patted his bottle and said to me,
+'Bruce, my boy, with all these simple animals right here as our companions
+why be a damn fool and run off to the cows?' And there's a good deal in
+what he says. You ought to be mighty thankful, too, that my summer
+pleasures are so mild. If you could see what some chaps do--"
+
+And Bruce started back for the city. George rode with him the first few
+miles, then left him and came trudging home. His spirits were exceedingly
+low.
+
+As August drew toward a close, Deborah, too, showed signs of unrest. With
+ever growing frequency Roger felt her eagerness to return to her work in
+New York.
+
+"You're as bad as Bruce," he growled at her. "You don't have to be back,"
+he argued. "School doesn't begin for nearly three weeks."
+
+"There's the suffrage campaign," she answered. He gave her a look of
+exasperation.
+
+"Now what the devil has suffrage to do with your schools?" he demanded.
+
+"When the women get the vote, we'll spend more money on the children."
+
+"Suppose the money isn't there," was Roger's grim rejoinder.
+
+"Then we'll act like old-fashioned wives, I suppose," his daughter answered
+cheerfully, "and keep nagging till it is there. We'll keep up such a
+nagging," she added, in sweet even tones, "that you'll get the money by
+hook or crook, to save yourselves from going insane."
+
+After this he caught her reading in the New York papers the list of
+campaign meetings each night, meetings in hot stifling halls or out upon
+deafening corners. And as she read there came over her face a look like
+that of a man who has given up tobacco and suddenly sniffs it among his
+friends. She went down the last night of August.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger stayed on for another two weeks, on into the best time of the year.
+For now came the nights of the first snapping frosts when the dome of the
+heavens was steely blue, and clear sparkling mornings, the woods aflame
+with scarlet and gold. And across the small field below the house, at
+sunset Roger would go down to the copse of birches there and find it filled
+with glints of light that took his glance far in among the slender, creamy
+stems of the trees, all slowly swaying to and fro, the leafage rich with
+autumn hues, warm orange, yellow and pale green. Lovely and silent and
+serene. So it had been when he was a boy and so it would be when he was
+dead. Countless trees had been cut down but others had risen in their
+stead. Now and then he could hear a bird warbling.
+
+Long ago this spot had been his mother's favorite refuge from her busy day
+in the house. She had almost always come alone, but sometimes Roger
+stealing down would watch her sitting motionless and staring in among the
+trees. Years later in his reading he had come upon the phrase, "sacred
+grove," and at once he had thought of the birches. And sitting here where
+she had been, he felt again that boundless faith in life resplendent,
+conquering death, and serenely sweeping him on--into what he did not fear.
+For this had been his mother's faith. Sometimes in the deepening dusk he
+could almost see her sitting here.
+
+"This faith in you has come from me. This is my memory living on in you, my
+son, though you do not know. How many times have I held you back, how many
+times have I urged you on, roused you up or soothed you, made you hope or
+fear or dream, through memories of long ago. For you were once a part of
+me. I moulded you, my little son. And as I have been to you, so you will be
+to your children. In their lives, too, we shall be there--silent and
+invisible, the dim strong figures of the past. For this is the power of
+families, this is the mystery of birth."
+
+Suddenly he started. What was it that had thrilled him so? Only a tall dark
+fir in the birches. But looming in there like a shadowy phantom it had
+recalled a memory of a dusk far back in his boyhood, when seeing a shadow
+just like this he had thought it a ghost in very truth and had run for the
+house like a rabbit! How terribly real that fright had been! The
+recollection suddenly became so vivid in his mind, that as though a veil
+had been lifted he felt the living presence here, close by his side, of a
+small barefoot mountain lad, clothed in sober homespun gray, but filled
+with warm desires, dreams and curiosities, exploring upon every hand, now
+marching boldly forward, now stealing up so cautiously, now galloping away
+like mad! "I was once a child." To most of us these are mere words. To few
+is it ever given to attain so much as even a glimpse into the warm and
+quivering soul of that little stranger of long ago. We do not know how we
+were made.
+
+"I moulded you, my little son. And as I have been to you, so you will be to
+your children. In their lives, too, we shall be there."
+
+Darker, darker grew the copse and the chill of the night descended. But to
+Roger's eyes there was no gloom. For he had seen a vision.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+On his return to the city, Roger found that Deborah's school had apparently
+swept all other interests out of her mind. Baird hardly ever came to the
+house, and she herself was seldom there except for a hasty dinner at night.
+The house had to run itself more or less; and though Annie the cook was
+doing her best, things did not run so smoothly. Roger missed little
+comforts, attentions, and he missed Deborah most of all. When he came down
+to his breakfast she had already left the house, and often she did not
+return until long after he was in bed. She felt the difference herself, and
+though she did not put it in words her manner at times seemed to beg his
+forbearance. But there were many evenings when her father found it
+difficult to hold to the resolve he had made, to go slowly with his
+daughter until he could be more sure of his ground. She was growing so
+intense again. From the school authorities she had secured a still wider
+range and freedom for her new experiment, and she was working day and night
+to put her ideas into effect.
+
+"It's only too easy," she remarked, "to launch an idea in this town. The
+town will put it in headlines at once, and with it a picture of yourself in
+your best bib and tucker, looking as though you loved the whole world. And
+you can make a wonderful splurge, until they go on to the next new thing.
+The real trouble comes in working it out."
+
+And this she had set out to do. Many nights in the autumn Roger went down
+to the school, to try to get some clear idea of this vision of hers for
+children, which in a vague way he could feel was so much larger than his
+own, for he had seen its driving force in the grip it had upon her life. At
+first he could make nothing of it at all; everywhere chaos met his eyes.
+But he found something formless, huge, that made to him a strong appeal.
+
+The big building fairly hummed at night with numberless activities.
+Fathers, mothers and children came pouring in together and went skurrying
+off to their places. They learned to speak English, to read and write;
+grown men and women scowled and toiled over their arithmetic. They worked
+at trades in the various shops; they hammered and sawed and set up type;
+they cooked and sewed and gossiped. "The Young Galician Socialist Girls"
+debated on the question: "Resolved that woman suffrage has worked in
+Colorado." "The Caruso Pleasure Club" gave a dance to "The Garibaldi
+Whirlwinds." An orchestra rehearsed like mad. They searched their memories
+for the songs and all the folk tales they had heard in peasant huts in
+Italy, in hamlets along rocky coasts, in the dark old ghettos of crowded
+towns in Poland and in Russia. And some of these songs were sung in school,
+and some of these tales were dramatized here. Children and parents all took
+part. And speakers emerged from the neighborhood. It was at times
+appalling, the number of young Italians and Jews who had ideas to give
+forth to their friends on socialism, poverty, marriage and religion, and
+all the other questions that rose among these immigrants jammed into this
+tenement hive. But when there were too many of these self-appointed guides,
+the neighborhood shut down on them.
+
+"We don't want," declared one indignant old woman, "that every young loafer
+should shout in our face!"
+
+Roger was slowly attracted into this enormous family life, and yielding to
+an impulse he took charge of a boys' club which met on Thursday evenings
+there. He knew well this job of fathering a small jovial group of lads; he
+had done it before, many years ago, in the mission school, to please his
+wife; he felt himself back on familiar ground. And from this point of
+vantage, with something definite he could do, he watched with an interest
+more clear the school form steadily closer ties with the tenements that
+hedged it 'round, gathering its big family. And this family by slow degrees
+began to make itself a part of the daily life of Roger's house. Committees
+held their meetings here, teachers dropped in frequently, and Roger invited
+the boys in his club to come up and see him whenever they liked.
+
+His most frequent visitor was Johnny Geer, the cripple. He was working in
+Roger's office now and the two had soon become close friends. John kept
+himself so neat and clean, he displayed such a keen interest in all the
+details of office work, and he showed such a beaming appreciation of
+anything that was done for him.
+
+"That boy is getting a hold on me lately almost like a boy of my own,"
+Roger said one evening when Allan Baird was at the house. "He's the
+pluckiest young un I ever met. I've put him to work in my private office,
+where he can use the sofa to rest, and I've made him my own
+stenographer--partly because he's so quick at dictation and partly to try
+to make him slow down. He has the mind of a race horse. He runs at night to
+libraries until I should think he'd go insane. And his body can't stand it,
+he's breaking down--though whenever I ask him how he feels, he always says,
+'Fine, thank you.'" Here Roger turned to Allan. "I wish you'd take the
+boy," he said, "to the finest specialist in town, and see what can be done
+for his spine. I'll pay any price."
+
+"There won't be any price," said Allan, "but I'll see to it at once."
+
+He had John examined the same week.
+
+"Well?" asked Roger when next they met.
+
+"Well," said Baird, "it isn't good news."
+
+"You mean he's hopeless?" Allan nodded:
+
+"It's Pott's disease, and it's gone too far. John is eighteen. He may live
+to be thirty."
+
+"But I tell you, Baird, I'll do anything!"
+
+"There's almost nothing you can do. If he had been taken when he was a
+baby, he might have been cured and given a chance. But the same mother who
+dropped him then, when she was full of liquor, just went to the druggist on
+her block, and after listening to his advice she bought some patent
+medicine, a steel jacket and some crutches, and thought she'd done her
+duty."
+
+"But there must be something we can do!" retorted Roger angrily.
+
+"Yes," said Baird, "we can make him a little more comfortable. And
+meanwhile we can help Deborah here to get hold of other boys like John and
+give 'em a chance before it's too late--keep them from being crippled for
+life because their mothers were too blind and ignorant to act in time."
+Baird's voice had a ring of bitterness.
+
+"Most of 'em love their children," Roger said uneasily. Baird turned on him
+a steady look.
+
+"Love isn't enough," he retorted. "The time is coming very soon when we'll
+have the right to guard the child not only when it's a baby but even before
+it has been born."
+
+Roger drew closer to John after this. Often behind the beaming smile he
+would feel the pain and loneliness, and the angry grit which was fighting
+it down. And so he would ask John home to supper on nights when nobody else
+was there. One day late in the afternoon they were walking home together
+along the west side of Madison Square. The big open space was studded with
+lights sparkling up at the frosty stars, in a city, a world, a universe
+that seemed filled with the zest and the vigor of life. Out of these lights
+a mighty tower loomed high up into the sky. And stopping on his crutches, a
+grim small crooked figure in all this rushing turmoil, John set his jaws,
+and with his shrewd and twinkling eyes fixed on the top of the tower, he
+said,
+
+"I meant to tell you, Mr. Gale. You was asking me once what I wanted to be.
+And I want to be an architect."
+
+"Do, eh," grunted Roger. He, too, looked up at that thing in the stars, and
+there was a tightening at his throat. "All right," he added, presently,
+"why not start in and be one?"
+
+"How?" asked John alertly.
+
+"Well, my boy," said Roger, "I'd hate to lose you in the office--"
+
+"Yes, sir, and I'd hate to go." Just then the big clock in the tower began
+to boom the hour, and a chill struck into Roger.
+
+"You'd have to," he said gruffly. "You haven't any time to lose! I mean,"
+he hastily added, "that for a job as big as that you'd need a lot of
+training. But if it's what you want to be, go right ahead. I'll back you.
+My son-in-law is a builder at present. I'll talk to him and get his advice.
+We may be able to arrange to have you go right into his office, begin at
+the bottom and work straight up." In silence for a moment John hobbled on
+by Roger's side.
+
+"I'd hate to leave your place," he said.
+
+"I know," was Roger's brusque reply, "and I'd hate to lose you. We'll have
+to think it over."
+
+A few days later he talked with Bruce, who said he'd be glad to take the
+boy. And at dinner that night with Deborah, Roger asked abruptly,
+
+"Why not let Johnny come here for a while and use one of our empty
+bedrooms?"
+
+With a quick flush of pleased surprise, Deborah gave her father a look that
+embarrassed him tremendously.
+
+"Well, why not?" he snapped at her. "Sensible, isn't it?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+And sensible it turned out to be. When John first heard about it, he was
+apparently quite overcome, and there followed a brief awkward pause while
+he rapidly blinked the joy from his eyes. But then he said, "Fine, thank
+you. That's mighty good of you, Mr. Gale," in as matter of fact a tone as
+you please. And he entered the household in much the same way, for John had
+a sense of the fitness of things. He had always kept himself neat and
+clean, but he became immaculate now. He dined with Roger the first night,
+but early the next morning he went down to the kitchen and breakfasted
+there; and from this time on, unless he were especially urged to come up to
+the dining room, John took all his meals downstairs. The maids were
+Irish--so was John. They were good Catholics--so was John. They loved the
+movies--so did John. In short, it worked out wonderfully. In less than a
+month John had made himself an unobtrusive and natural part of the life of
+Roger's sober old house. It had had to stretch just a little, no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+But that winter there was more in the house than Deborah's big family.
+Though at times Roger felt it surging in with its crude, immense vitality,
+there were other times when it was not so, and the lives of his other two
+daughters attracted his attention, for both were back again in town.
+
+Laura and her husband had returned from abroad in October, and in a small
+but expensive apartment in a huge new building facing on Park Avenue they
+had gaily started the career of their own little family, or "ménage," as
+Laura called it. This word had stuck in Roger's mind, for he had a
+suspicion that a "ménage" was no place for babies. Grimly, when he went
+there first to be shown the new home by its mistress, he looked about him
+for a room which might be made a nursery. But no such room was in evidence.
+"We decided to have no guest room," he heard Laura say to Deborah. And
+glancing at his daughter then, sleek and smiling and demure, in her
+tea-gown fresh from Paris, Roger darkly told himself that a child would be
+an unwelcome guest. The whole place was as compact and sparkling as a jewel
+box. The bed chamber was luxurious, with a gorgeous bath adjoining and a
+dressing-room for Harold.
+
+"And look at this love of a closet!" said Laura to Deborah eagerly. "Isn't
+it simply enormous?" As Deborah looked, her father did, too, and his eye
+was met by an array of shimmering apparel which made him draw back almost
+with a start.
+
+They found Harold in the pantry. Their Jap, it appeared, was a marvellous
+cook and did the catering as well, so that Laura rarely troubled herself
+to order so much as a single meal. But her husband had for many years been
+famous for his cocktails, and although the Jap did everything else Hal had
+kept this in his own hands.
+
+"I thought this much of the house-keeping ought to remain in the family,"
+he said.
+
+Roger did not like this joke. But later, when he had imbibed the delicious
+concoction Harold had made, and had eaten the dinner created by that
+Japanese artist of theirs, his irritation subsided.
+
+"They barely know we're here," he thought. "They're both in love up to
+their ears."
+
+Despite their genial attempts to be hospitable and friendly, time and again
+he saw their glances meet in an intimate gleaming manner which made him
+rather uncomfortable. But where was the harm, he asked himself. They were
+married all right, weren't they? Still somehow--somehow--no, by George, he
+didn't like it, he didn't approve! The whole affair was decidedly mixing.
+Roger went away vaguely uneasy, and he felt that Deborah was even more
+disturbed than himself.
+
+"Those two," she remarked to her father, "are so fearfully wrapt up in each
+other it makes me afraid. Oh, it's all right, I suppose, and I wouldn't for
+worlds try to interfere. But I can't help feeling somehow that no two
+people with such an abundance of youth and money and happiness have the
+right to be so amazingly--selfish!"
+
+"They ought to have children," Roger said.
+
+"But look at Edith," his daughter rejoined. "She hasn't a single interest
+that I can find outside her home. It seems to have swallowed her, body and
+soul." A frowning look of perplexity swept over Deborah's mobile face, and
+with a whimsical sigh she exclaimed, "Oh, this queer business of families!"
+
+In December there came a little crash. Late one evening Laura came bursting
+in upon them in a perfect tantrum, every nerve in her lithe body tense,
+her full lips visibly quivering, her voice unsteady, and her big black eyes
+aflame with rage. She was jealous of her husband and "that nasty little
+cat!" Roger learned no more about it, for Deborah motioned him out of the
+room. He heard their two voices talk on and on, until Laura's slowly
+quieted down. Soon afterwards she left the house, and Deborah came in to
+him.
+
+"She's gone home, eh?" asked Roger.
+
+"Yes, she has, poor silly child--she said at first she had come here to
+stay."
+
+"By George," he said. "As bad as that?"
+
+"Of course it isn't as bad as that!" Deborah cried impatiently. "She just
+built and built on silly suspicions and let herself get all worked up! I
+don't see what they're coming to!" For a few moments nothing was said.
+"It's so unnatural!" she exclaimed. "Men and women weren't _made_ to live
+like that!" Roger scowled into his paper.
+
+"Better leave 'em alone," he admonished her. "You can't help--they're not
+your kind. Don't you mix into this affair."
+
+But Deborah did. She remembered that her sister had once shown quite a
+talent for amateur theatricals; and to give Laura something to do, Deborah
+persuaded her to take a dramatic club in her school. And Laura, rather to
+Roger's surprise, became an enthusiast down there. She worked like a slave
+at rehearsals, and upon the costumes she spent money with a lavish hand.
+Moreover, instead of being annoyed, as Edith was, at Deborah's prominence
+in the press, Laura gloried in it, as though this "radical" sister of hers
+were a distinct social asset among her giddy friends uptown. For even
+Laura's friends, her father learned with astonishment, had acquired quite
+an appetite for men and women with ideas--the more "radical," the better.
+But the way Laura used this word at times made Roger's blood run cold. She
+was vivid in her approval of her sister's whole idea, as a scheme of
+wholesale motherhood which would give "a perfectly glorious jolt" to the
+old-fashioned home with its overworked mothers who let their children
+absorb their days.
+
+"As though having children and bringing them up," she disdainfully
+declared, "were something every woman must do, whether she happens to like
+it or not, at the cost of any real growth of her own!"
+
+And smilingly she hinted at impending radical changes in the whole relation
+of marriage, of which she was hearing in detail at a series of lectures to
+young wives, delivered on Thursday mornings in a hotel ball-room.
+
+What the devil was getting into the town? Roger frowned his deep dislike.
+Here was Laura with her chicken's mind blithely taking her sister's
+thoughts and turning them topsy-turvy, to make for herself a view of life
+which fitted like a white kid glove her small and elegant "ménage." And
+although her father had only inklings of it all, he had quite enough to
+make him irate at this uncanny interplay of influences in his family. Why
+couldn't the girls leave each other alone?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early in the winter, Edith, too, had entered in. It had taken Edith just
+one glance into the bride's apartment to grasp Laura's whole scheme of
+existence.
+
+"Selfish, indulgent and abnormal," was the way she described it. She and
+Bruce were dining with Roger that night. "I wash my hands of the whole
+affair," continued Edith curtly. "So long as she doesn't want my help, as
+she has plainly made me feel, I certainly shan't stand in her way."
+
+"You're absolutely right," said her father.
+
+"Stick to it," said Bruce approvingly.
+
+But Edith did not stick to it. In her case too, as the weeks wore on, those
+subtle family ties took hold and made her feel the least she could do was
+"to keep up appearances." So she and Bruce dined with the bride and groom,
+and in turn had them to dinner. And these dinners, as Bruce confided to
+Roger, were occasions no man could forget.
+
+"They come only about once a month," he said in a tone of pathos, "but it
+seems as though barely a week had gone by when Edith says to me again,
+'We're dining with Laura and Hal to-night.' Well, and we dine. Young Sloane
+is not a bad sort of a chap--works hard downtown and worships his wife. The
+way he lives--well, it isn't mine--and mine isn't his--and we both let it
+go at that. But the women can't, they haven't it in 'em. Each sits with her
+way of life in her lap. You can't see it over the tablecloth, but, my God,
+how you feel it! The worst of it is," he ended, "that after one of these
+terrible meals each woman is more set than before in her own way of living.
+Not that I don't like Edith's way," her husband added hastily.
+
+Edith also disapproved of the fast increasing publicity which Deborah was
+getting.
+
+"I may be very old-fashioned," she remarked to her father, "but I can't get
+used to this idea that a woman's place is in headlines. And I think it's
+rather hard on you--the use she's making of your house."
+
+One Friday night when she came to play chess, she found her father in the
+midst of a boisterous special meeting of his club of Italian boys. It had
+been postponed from the evening before. And though Roger, overcome with
+dismay at having forgotten Edith's night, apologized profusely, the
+time-honored weekly game took place no more from that day on.
+
+"Edith's pretty sore," said Bruce, who dropped in soon afterwards. "She
+says Deborah has made your house into an annex to her school."
+
+Roger smoked in silence. His whole family was about his ears.
+
+"My boy," he muttered earnestly, "you and I must stick together."
+
+"We sure must," agreed his son-in-law. "And what's more, if we're to keep
+the peace, we've got to try to put some punch into Deborah's so-called love
+affair. She ought to get married and settle down."
+
+"Yes," said Roger, dubiously. "Only let's keep it to ourselves."
+
+"No chance of that," was the cheerful reply. "You can't keep Edith out of
+it. It would only make trouble in _my_ family." Roger gave him a pitying
+look and said,
+
+"Then, for the Lord's sake, let her in!"
+
+So they took Edith into their councils, and she gave them an indulgent
+smile.
+
+"Suppose you leave this to me," she commanded. "Don't you think I've been
+using my eyes? There's no earthly use in stepping in now, for Deborah has
+lost her head. She sees herself a great new woman with a career. But wait
+till the present flare-up subsides, till the newspapers all drop her and
+she is thoroughly tired out. Until then, remember, we keep our hands off."
+
+"Do you think you can?" asked Roger, with a little glimmer of hope.
+
+"I?" she retorted. "Most certainly! I mean to leave her alone
+absolutely--until she comes to me herself. When she does, we'll know it's
+time to begin."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm afraid Edith is hurt about something," said Deborah to her father,
+about a month after this little talk. "She hasn't been near us for over
+three weeks."
+
+"Let her be!" said Roger, in alarm. "I mean," he hastily added, "why can't
+you let Edith come when she likes? There's nothing the matter. It's simply
+her children--they take up her time."
+
+"No," said Deborah calmly, "it's I. She as good as told me so last month.
+She thinks I've become a perfect fanatic--without a spare moment or
+thought for my family."
+
+"Oh, my family!" Roger groaned. "I tell you, Deborah, you're wrong! Edith's
+children are probably sick in bed!"
+
+"Then I'll go and see," she answered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Something has happened to Deborah," Edith informed him blithely, over the
+telephone the next night.
+
+"Has, eh," grunted Roger.
+
+"Yes, she was here to see me to-day. And something has happened--she's
+changing fast. I felt it in all kinds of ways. She was just as dear as she
+could be--and lonely, as though she were feeling her age. I really think we
+can do something now."
+
+"All right, let's do something," Roger growled.
+
+And Edith began to do something. Her hostility to her sister had completely
+disappeared. In its place was a friendly affection, an evident desire to
+please. She even drew Laura into the secret, and there was a gathering of
+the clan. There were consultations in Roger's den. "Deborah is to get
+married." The feeling of it crept through the house. Nothing was said to
+her, of course, but Deborah was made to feel that her two sisters had drawn
+close. And their influence upon her choice was more deep and subtle than
+she knew. For although Roger's family had split so wide apart, between his
+three daughters there were still mysterious bonds reaching far back into
+nursery days. And Deborah in deciding whether to marry Allan Baird was
+affected more than she was aware by the married lives of her sisters. All
+she had seen in Laura's ménage, all that she had ever observed in Edith's
+growing family, kept rising from time to time in her thoughts, as she
+vaguely tried to picture herself a wife and the mother of children.
+
+So the family, with those subtle bonds from the past, began to press
+steadily closer and closer around this one unmarried daughter, and help her
+to make up her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+But she did not appear to care to be helped. Nor did Allan--he rarely came
+to the house, and he went to Edith's not at all. He was even absent from
+her Christmas tree for the children, a jolly little festivity which neither
+he nor Deborah had missed in years.
+
+"What has got into him?" Roger asked. And shortly after Christmas he called
+the fellow up on the 'phone. "Drop in for dinner to-night," he urged. And
+he added distinctly, "I'm alone."
+
+"Are you? I'll be glad to."
+
+"Thank you, Baird, I want your advice." And as he hung up the receiver he
+said, "Now then!" to himself, in a tone of firm decision. But later, as the
+day wore on, he cursed himself for what he had done. "Don't it beat the
+devil," he thought, "how I'm always putting my foot in it?" And when Baird
+came into the room that night he loomed, to Roger's anxious eye, if
+anything taller than before. But his manner was so easy, his gruff voice so
+natural, and he seemed to take this little party of two so quietly as a
+matter of course, that Roger was soon reassured, and at table he and Allan
+got on even better than before. Baird talked of his life as a student, in
+Vienna, Bonn and Edinburgh, and of his first struggles in New York. His
+talk was full of human bits, some tragic, more amusing. And Roger's liking
+for the man increased with every story told.
+
+"I asked you here," he bluntly began, when they had gone to the study to
+smoke, "to talk to you about Deborah." Baird gave him a friendly look.
+
+"All right. Let's talk about her."
+
+"It strikes me you were right last year," said Roger, speaking slowly.
+"She's already showing the strain of her work. She don't look to me as
+strong as she was."
+
+"She looks to me stronger," Allan replied. "You know, people fool doctors
+now and then--and she seems to have taken a fresh start. I feel she may go
+on for years." Roger was silent a moment, chagrined and disappointed.
+
+"Have you had a good chance to watch her?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, and I'm watching her still," said Baird. "I see her down there at the
+school. She tells me you've been there yourself."
+
+"Yes," said Roger, determinedly, "and I mean to keep on going. I'm trying
+not to lose hold of her," he added with harsh emphasis. Baird turned and
+frankly smiled at him.
+
+"Then you have probably seen," he replied, "that to keep any hold at all on
+her, you must make up your mind as I have done that, strength or no
+strength, this job of hers is going to be a life career. When a woman who
+has held a job without a break for eleven years can feel such a flame of
+enthusiasm, you can be pretty sure, I think, it is the deepest part of her.
+At least I feel that way," he said. "And I believe the only way to keep
+near her--for the present, anyhow--is to help her in her work."
+
+When Baird had gone, Roger found himself angry.
+
+"I'm not in the habit, young man," he thought, "of throwing my daughter at
+gentlemen's heads. If you feel as calm and contented as that you can go to
+the devil! Far be it from me to lift a hand! In fact, as I come to think of
+it, you would probably make her a mighty poor husband!" He worked himself
+into quite a rage. But an hour later, when he had subsided, "Hold on," he
+thought. "Am I right about this? Is the man as contented as he talks? No,
+sir, not for a minute he isn't! But what can he do? If he tried making love
+to Deborah he'd simply be killing his chances. Not the slightest doubt in
+the world. She can't think of anything but her career. Yes, sir, when all's
+said and done, to marry a modern woman is no child's play, it means thought
+and care. And A. Baird has made up his mind to it. He has made up his mind
+to marry her by playing a long waiting game. He's just slowly and quietly
+nosing his way into her school, because it's her life. And a mighty shrewd
+way of going about it. You don't need any help from me, my friend; all you
+need is to be let alone."
+
+In talks at home with Deborah, and in what he himself observed at school,
+Roger began to get inklings of "A. Baird's long waiting game." He found
+that several months before Allan had offered to start a free clinic for
+mothers and children in connection with the school, and that he alone had
+put it through, with only the most reluctant aid and gratitude from
+Deborah--as though she dreaded something. Baird took countless hours from
+his busy uptown practice; he hurt himself more than once, in fact, by
+neglecting rich patients to do this work. Where a sick or pregnant mother
+was too poor to carry out his advice, he followed her into her tenement
+home, sent one of his nurses to visit her, and even gave money when it was
+needed to ease the strain of her poverty until she should be well and
+strong. Soon scores of the mothers of Deborah's children were singing the
+praises of Doctor Baird.
+
+Then he began coming to the house.
+
+"I was right," thought Roger complacently.
+
+He laid in a stock of fine cigars and some good port and claret, too; and
+on evenings when Baird came to dine, Roger by a genial glow and occasional
+jocular ironies would endeavor to drag the talk away from clinics,
+adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the new education. But no joke
+was so good that Deborah could not promptly match it with some amusing
+little thing which one of her children had said or done. For she had a
+mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood. It was deep, it was
+uncanny, this queer community motherhood.
+
+"This poor devil," Roger thought, with a pitying glance at Baird, "might
+just as well be marrying a widow with three thousand brats."
+
+But Baird did not seem in the least dismayed. On the contrary, his
+assurance appeared to be deepening every week, and with it Deborah's air of
+alarm. For his clinic, as it swiftly grew, he secured financial backing
+from his rich women patients uptown, many of them childless and only too
+ready to respond to the appeals he made to them. And one Saturday evening
+at the house, while dining with Roger and Deborah, he told of an offer he
+had had from a wealthy banker's widow to build a maternity hospital. He
+talked hungrily of all it could do in co-operation with the school. He said
+nothing of the obvious fact that it would require his whole time, but Roger
+thought of that at once, and by the expression on Deborah's face he saw she
+was thinking, too.
+
+He felt they wanted to be alone, so presently he left them. From his study
+he could hear their voices growing steadily more intense. Was it all about
+work? He could not tell. "They've got working and living so mixed up, a man
+can't possibly tell 'em apart."
+
+Then his daughter was called to the telephone, and Allan came in to bid
+Roger good-night. And his eyes showed an impatience he did not seem to care
+to hide.
+
+"Well?" inquired Roger. "Did you get Deborah's consent?"
+
+"To what?" asked Allan sharply.
+
+"To your acceptance," Roger answered, "of the widow's mite." Baird grinned.
+
+"She couldn't help herself," he said.
+
+"But she didn't seem to like it, eh--"
+
+"No," said Baird, "she didn't." Roger had a dark suspicion.
+
+"By the way," he asked in a casual tone, "what's this philanthropic widow
+like?"
+
+"She's sixty-nine," Baird answered.
+
+"Oh," said Roger. He smoked for a time, and sagely added, "My daughter's a
+queer woman, Baird--she's modern, very modern. But she's still a woman, you
+understand--and so she's jealous--of her job." But A. Baird was in no
+joking mood.
+
+"She's narrow," he said sternly. "That's what's the matter with Deborah.
+She's so centered on her job she can't see anyone else's. She thinks I'm
+doing all this work solely in order to help her school--when if she'd use
+some imagination and try to put herself in my shoes, she'd see the chance
+it's giving _me_!"
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Roger, looking a bit bewildered.
+
+"Why," said Baird with an impatient fling of his hand, "there are men in my
+line all over the country who'd leave home, wives and children for the
+chance I've blundered onto here! A hospital fully equipped for research, a
+free hand, an opportunity which comes to one man in a million! But can she
+see it? Not at all! It's only an annex to her school!"
+
+"Yes," said Roger gravely, "she's in a pretty unnatural state. I think she
+ought to get married, Baird--" To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird
+replied with a rueful smile.
+
+"You do, eh," he growled. "Then tell her to plan her wedding to come before
+her funeral." As he rose to go, Roger took his hand.
+
+"I'll tell her," he said. "It's sound advice. Good-night, my boy, I wish
+you luck."
+
+A few moments later he heard in the hall their brief good-nights to each
+other, and presently Deborah came in. She was not looking quite herself.
+
+"Why are you eyeing me like that?" his daughter asked abruptly.
+
+"Aren't you letting him do a good deal for you?"
+
+Deborah flushed a little:
+
+"Yes, I am. I can't make him stop."
+
+Her father hesitated.
+
+"You could," he said, "if you wanted to. If you were sure," he added
+slowly, "that you didn't love him--and told him so." He felt a little
+panic, for he thought he had gone too far. But his daughter only turned
+away and restlessly moved about the room. At last she came to her father's
+chair:
+
+"Hadn't you better leave this to me?"
+
+"I had, my dear, I most certainly had. I was all wrong to mention it," he
+answered very humbly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From this night on, Baird changed his tack. Although soon busy with the
+plans for the hospital, to be built at once, he said little about it to
+Deborah. Instead, he insisted on taking her off on little evening sprees
+uptown.
+
+"Do you know what's the matter with both of us?" he said to her one
+evening. "We've been getting too durned devoted to our jobs and our ideals.
+You're becoming a regular school marm and I'm getting to be a regular slave
+to every wretched little babe who takes it into his head to be born. We
+haven't one redeeming vice."
+
+And again he took up dancing. The first effort which he made, down at
+Deborah's school one evening, was a failure quite as dismal as his attempts
+of the previous year. But he did not appear in the least discouraged. He
+came to the house one Friday night.
+
+"I knew I could learn to dance," he said, "in spite of all your taunts and
+jibes. That little fiasco last Saturday night--"
+
+"Was perfectly awful," Deborah said.
+
+"Did not discourage me in the least," he continued severely. "I decided the
+only trouble with me was that I'm tall and I've got to bend--to learn to
+bend."
+
+"Tremendously!"
+
+"So I went to a lady professor, and she saw the point at once. Since then
+I've had five lessons, and I can fox-trot in my sleep. To-morrow is
+Saturday. Where shall we go?"
+
+"To the theater."
+
+"Good. We'll start with that. But the minute the play is over we'll gallop
+off to the Plaza Grill--just as the music is in full swing--"
+
+"And we'll dance," she groaned, "for hours. And when I get home, I'll creep
+into bed so tired and sore in every limb--"
+
+"That you'll sleep late Sunday morning. And a mighty good thing for you,
+too--if you ask my advice--"
+
+"I don't ask your advice!"
+
+"You're getting it, though," he said doggedly. "If you're still to be a
+friend of mine we'll dance at the Plaza to-morrow night--and well into the
+Sabbath."
+
+"The principal of a public school--dancing on the Sabbath. Suppose one of
+my friends should see us there."
+
+"Your friends," he replied with a fine contempt, "do not dance in the Plaza
+Grill. I'm the only roisterer you know."
+
+"All right," she conceded grudgingly, "I'll roister. Come and get me. But
+I'd much prefer when the play is done to come home and have milk and
+crackers here."
+
+"Deborah," he said cheerfully, "for a radical school reformer you're the
+most conservative woman I know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+In Deborah's school, in the meantime, affairs had drawn to a climax. The
+moment had come for the city to say whether her new experiment should be
+dropped the following year or allowed to go on and develop. There came a
+day of sharp suspense when Deborah's friends and enemies on the Board of
+Education sat down to discuss and settle her fate. They were at it for
+several hours, but late in the afternoon they decided not only to let her
+go on the next year but to try her idea in four other schools and place her
+in charge with ample funds. The long strain came to an end at last in a
+triumph beyond her wildest hopes; when the news arrived she relaxed, grew
+limp, and laughed and cried a little. And her father felt her tremble as he
+held her a moment in his arms.
+
+"Now, Baird," he thought, "your chance has come. For God's sake, take it
+while it's here!"
+
+But in place of Baird that afternoon came men and women from the press, and
+friends and fellow workers. The door-bell and the telephone kept ringing
+almost incessantly. Why couldn't they leave her a moment's peace? Roger
+buried himself in his study. Later, when he was called to dinner, he found
+that Allan was there, too, but at first the conversation was all upon
+Deborah's victory. Flushed with success, for the moment engrossed in the
+wider field she saw ahead, she had not a thought for anything else. But
+after dinner the atmosphere changed.
+
+"To hear me talk," she told them, "you'd think the whole world depended on
+me, and on my school and my ideas. Me, me, me! And it has been me all
+winter long! What a time I've given both of you!"
+
+She grew repentant and grateful, first to her father and then to Allan, and
+then more and more to Allan, with her happy eyes on his. And with a keen
+worried look at them both, Roger rose and left the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Baird was leaning forward. He had both her hands in his own.
+
+"Well?" he asked. "Will you marry me now?"
+
+Her eyes were looking straight into his. They kept moving slightly,
+searching his. Her wide, sensitive lips were tightly compressed, but did
+not quite hide their quivering. When she spoke her voice was low and a
+little queer and breathless:
+
+"Do you want any children, Allan?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So do I. And with children, what of my work?"
+
+"I don't want to stop your work. If you marry me we'll go right on. You see
+I know you, Deborah, I know you've always grown like that--by risking what
+you've got to-day for something more to-morrow."
+
+"I've never taken a risk like this!"
+
+"I tell you this time it's no risk! Because you're a grown woman--formed!
+I'm not making a saint of you. You're no angel down among the poor because
+you feel it's your duty in life--it's your happiness, your passion! You
+couldn't neglect them if you tried!"
+
+"But the time," she asked him quickly. "Where shall I find the time for it
+all?"
+
+"A man finds time enough," he answered, "even when he's married."
+
+"But I'm not a man, I'm a woman," she said. And in a low voice which
+thrilled him, "A woman who wants a child of her own!" His lean muscular
+right hand contracted sharply upon hers. She winced, drew back a little.
+
+"Oh--I'm sorry!" he whispered. Then he asked her again,
+
+"Will you marry me now?" She looked suddenly up:
+
+"Let's wait awhile, please! It won't be long--I'm in love with you, Allan,
+I'm sure of that now! And I'm not drawing back, I'm not afraid! Oh, I want
+you to feel I'm not running away! What I want to do is to face this square!
+It may be silly and foolish but--you see, I'm made like that. I want a
+little longer--I want to think it out by myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Allan had gone she came in to her father. And her radiant expression
+made him bounce up from his chair.
+
+"By George," he cried, "he asked you!"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"And you've taken him!"
+
+"No!"
+
+Roger gasped.
+
+"Look here!" he demanded, angrily. "What's the matter? Are you mad?" She
+threw back her head and laughed at him.
+
+"No, I'm not--I'm happy!"
+
+"What the devil about?" he snapped.
+
+"We're going to wait a bit, that's all, till we're sure of everything!" she
+cried.
+
+"Then," said Roger disgustedly, "you're smarter than your father is. I'm
+sure of nothing--nothing! I have never been sure in all my days! If I'd
+waited, you'd never have been born!"
+
+"Oh, dearie," she begged him smilingly. "Please don't be so unhappy just
+now--"
+
+"I've a right to be!" said Roger. "I see my house agog with this--in a
+turmoil--in a turmoil!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But again he was mistaken. It was in fact astonishing how the old house
+quieted down. There came again one of those peaceful times, when his home
+to Roger's senses seemed to settle deep, grow still, and gather itself
+together. Day by day he felt more sure that Deborah was succeeding in
+making her work fit into her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy
+woman's life. And why shouldn't they live here, Allan and she? The thought
+of this dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead. How
+smoothly things were working out. The monstrous new buildings around his
+house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of their prey.
+
+On the mantle in Roger's study, for many years a bronze figure there, "The
+Thinker," huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching pose, the heavy chin
+on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon him. And in the years that had
+been so dark, it had been a figure of despair. Often he had looked up from
+his chair and grimly met its frowning gaze. But Roger seldom looked at it
+now, and even when it caught his eye it had little effect upon him. It
+appeared to brood less darkly. For though he did not think it out, there
+was this feeling in his mind:
+
+"There is to be nothing startling in this quiet home of mine, no crashing
+deep calamity here."
+
+Only the steadily deepening love between a grown man and a woman mature,
+both sensible, strong people with a firm control of their destinies. He
+felt so sure of this affair. For now, her tension once relaxed with the
+success which had come to her after so many long hard years, a new Deborah
+was revealed, more human in her yieldings. She let Allan take her off on
+the wildest little sprees uptown and out into the country. To Roger she
+seemed younger, more warm and joyous and more free. He loved to hear her
+laugh these nights, to catch the glad new tones in her voice.
+
+"There is to be no tragedy here."
+
+So, certain of this union and wistful for all he felt it would bring, Roger
+watched its swift approach. And when the news came, he was sure he'd been
+right. Because it came so quietly.
+
+"It's settled, dear, at last it's sure. Allan and I are to be married." She
+was standing by his chair. Roger reached up and took her hand:
+
+"I'm glad. You'll be very happy, my child."
+
+She bent over and kissed him, and putting his arm around her he drew her
+down on the side of his chair.
+
+"Now tell me all your plans," he said. And her answer brought him a deep
+peace.
+
+"We're going abroad for the summer--and then if you'll have us we want to
+come here." Roger abruptly shut his eyes.
+
+"By George, Deborah," he said, "you do have a way of getting right into the
+heart of things!" His arm closed about her with new strength and he felt
+all his troubles flying away.
+
+"What a time we'll have, what a rich new life." Her deep sweet voice was a
+little unsteady. "Listen, dearie, how quiet it is." And for some moments
+nothing was heard but the sober tick-tick of the clock on the mantle. "I
+wonder what we're going to hear."
+
+And they thought of new voices in the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Edith was radiant at the news.
+
+"I do hope they're not going to grudge themselves a good long wedding
+trip!" she exclaimed.
+
+"They're going abroad," said Roger.
+
+"Oh, splendid! And the wedding! Church or home?"
+
+"Home," said Roger blissfully, "and short and simple, not a frill. Just the
+family."
+
+"Oh, that's so nice," sighed Edith. "I was afraid she'd want to drag in her
+school."
+
+"School will be out by then," he said.
+
+"Well, I hope it stays out--for the remainder of her days. She can't do
+both, and she'll soon see. Wait till she has a child of her own."
+
+"Well, she wants one bad enough."
+
+"Yes, but can she?" Edith asked, with the engrossed expression which came
+on her pretty florid face whenever she neared such a topic. She spoke with
+evident awkwardness. "That's the trouble. Is it too late? Deborah's
+thirty-one, you know, and she has lived her life so hard. The sooner she
+gives up her school the better for her chances."
+
+The face of her father clouded.
+
+"Look here," he said uneasily, "I wouldn't go talking to her--quite along
+those lines, my dear."
+
+"I'm not such an idiot," she replied. "She thinks me homely enough as it
+is. And she's not altogether wrong. Bruce and I were talking it over last
+night. We want to be closer, after this, to Deborah and Allan. Bruce says
+it will do us _all_ good, and for once I think he's right. I _have_ given
+too much time to my children, and Bruce to his office--I see it now. Not
+that I regret it, but--well, we're going to blossom out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She struck the same note with Deborah. And so did Bruce.
+
+"Oh, Deborah dear," he said smiling, when he found a chance to see her
+alone, "if you knew how long I've waited for this big fine thing to happen.
+A. Baird is my best chum in the world. Don't yank him gently away from us
+now. We'll keep close--eh?--all four of us."
+
+"Very," said Deborah softly.
+
+"And you mustn't get too solemn, you know. You won't pull too much of the
+highbrow stuff."
+
+"Heaven forbid!"
+
+"That's the right idea. We'll have some fine little parties together. You
+and A. Baird will give us a hand and get us out in the evenings. We need
+it, God knows, we've been getting old." Deborah threw him a glance of
+affection.
+
+"Why, Brucie," she said, in admiring tones, "I knew you had it in you."
+
+"So has Edith," he sturdily declared. "She only needs a little shove. We'll
+show you two that we're regular fellows. Don't you be all school and we
+won't be all home. We'll jump out of our skins and be young again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In pursuance of this gay resolve, Bruce planned frequent parties to
+theaters and musical shows, and to Edith's consternation he even began to
+look about for a teacher from whom he could learn to dance. "A. Baird," he
+told her firmly, "isn't going to be the only soubrette in this family."
+
+One of the most hilarious of these small celebrations came early in June,
+when they dined all four together and went to the summer's opening of "The
+Follies of 1914." The show rather dragged a bit at first, but when Bert
+Williams took the stage Bruce's laugh became so contagious that people in
+seats on every hand turned to look at him and join in his glee. Only one
+thing happened to mar the evening's pleasure. When they came outside the
+theater Bruce found in his car something wrong with the engine. He tinkered
+but it would not go. Allan hailed a taxi.
+
+"Why not come with us?" asked Deborah.
+
+"No, thanks," said Bruce. "I've got this car to look after."
+
+"Oh, let it wait," urged Allan.
+
+"It does look a little like rain," put in Edith. Bruce glanced up at the
+cloudy sky and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Rain, piffle," he said good-humoredly. "Come on, wifey, stick by me. I
+won't be long." And he and Edith went back to his car.
+
+"What a dear he is," said Deborah. Allan put his arm around her, and they
+looked at each other and smiled. It was only nine days to the wedding.
+
+Out of the street's commotion came a sharp cry of warning. It was followed
+by a shriek and a crash. Allan looked out of the window, and then with a
+low exclamation he jumped from the taxi and slammed the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Roger had been spending a long quiet evening at home. He had asked John to
+dine with him and they had chatted for a time. Then John had started up to
+his room. And listening to the slow shuffling step of the cripple going
+upstairs, Roger had thought of the quick eager feet and the sudden scampers
+that would be heard as the silent old house renewed its life. Later he had
+gone to bed.
+
+He awakened with a start. The telephone bell was ringing.
+
+"Nice time to be calling folks out of bed," he grumbled, as he went into
+the hall. The next moment he heard Deborah's voice. It was clear and sharp
+with a note of alarm.
+
+"Father--it's I! You must come to Edith's apartment at once! Bruce is hurt
+badly! Come at once!"
+
+When Roger reached the apartment, it was Deborah who opened the door. Her
+face had changed, it was drawn and gray. She took him into the living room.
+
+"Tell me," he said harshly.
+
+"It was just outside the theater. Bruce and Edith were out in the street
+and got caught by some idiot of a chauffeur. Bruce threw Edith out of the
+way, but just as he did it he himself got struck in the back and went under
+a wheel. Allan brought him here at once, while I telephoned for a friend of
+his--a surgeon. They're with Bruce now."
+
+"Where's Edith?"
+
+"She's trying to quiet the children. They all woke up--" Deborah
+frowned--"when he was brought in," she added.
+
+"Well!" breathed Roger. "I declare!" Dazed and stunned, he sank into a
+chair. Soon the door opened and Allan came in.
+
+"He's gone," he said. And Deborah jumped. "No, no, I meant the doctor."
+
+"What does he say?"
+
+"Bruce can't live," said Allan gently. In the tense silence there came a
+chill. "And he knows it," Allan added. "He made me tell him--he said he
+must know--for business reasons. He wants to see you both at once, before
+Edith gets that child asleep."
+
+As they entered the room they saw Bruce on his bed. He was breathing
+quickly through his narrow tight-set jaws and staring up at the ceiling
+with a straining fixed intensity. As they entered he turned his head. His
+eyes met theirs and lighted up in a hard and terrible manner.
+
+"I'm not leaving them a dollar!" he cried.
+
+"We'll see to them, boy," said Roger, hoarsely, but Bruce had already
+turned to Baird.
+
+"I make you my executor, Allan--don't need it in writing--there isn't
+time." He drew a sudden quivering breath. "I have no will," he muttered on.
+"Never made one--never thought of this. Business life just
+starting--booming!--and I put in every cent!" There broke from him a low,
+bitter groan. "Made my money settling other men's muddles! Never thought of
+making this mess of my own! But even in mine--I could save something
+still--if I could be there--if I could be there--"
+
+The sweat broke out on his temples, and Deborah laid her hand on his head.
+"Sh-h-h," she breathed. He shut his eyes.
+
+"Hard to think of anything any more. I can't keep clear." He shuddered with
+pain. "Fix me for _them_," he muttered to Baird. "George and his mother.
+Fix me up--give me a couple of minutes clear. And Deborah--when you bring
+'em in--don't let 'em know. You understand? No infernal last good-byes!"
+Deborah sharply set her teeth.
+
+"No, dear, no," she whispered. She followed her father out of the room,
+leaving Allan bending over the bed with a hypodermic in his hand. And when,
+a few moments later, George came in with his mother, they found Bruce
+soothed and quieted. He even smiled as he reached up his hand.
+
+"They say I've got to sleep, old girl--just sleep and sleep--it'll do me
+good. So you mustn't stay in the room to-night. Stay with the kiddies and
+get 'em to sleep." He was still smiling up at her. "They say it'll be a
+long time, little wife--and I'm so sorry--I was to blame. If I'd done as
+you wanted and gone in their taxi. Remember? You said it might rain." He
+turned to George: "Look here, my boy, I'm counting on you. I'll be sick,
+you know--no good at all. You must stand by your mother."
+
+George gulped awkwardly:
+
+"Sure I will, dad." His father sharply pressed his hand:
+
+"That's right, old fellow, I know what you are. Now good-night, son.
+Good-night, Edith dear." He looked at her steadily just for a moment, then
+closed his eyes. "Oh, but I'm sleepy," he murmured. "Good-night."
+
+And they left him. Alone with Allan, Bruce looked up with a savage glare.
+
+"Look here!" he snarled, between his teeth. "If you think I'm going to lie
+here and die you're mistaken! I won't! I won't let go! I'll show you chaps
+you can be wrong! Been wrong before, haven't you, thousands of times! Why
+be so damnably sure about _me_?" He fell back suddenly, limp and weak. "So
+damnably sure," he panted.
+
+"We're never sure, my dear old boy," said Allan very tenderly. Again he
+was bending close over the bed. "We're not sure yet--by any means. You're
+so strong, old chap, so amazingly strong. You've given me hope--"
+
+"What are you sticking into my arm?" But Allan kept talking steadily on:
+
+"You've given me hope you'll pull through still. But not like this. You've
+got to rest. Let go, and try to go to sleep."
+
+"I'm afraid to," came the whisper. But soon, as again the drug took hold,
+he mumbled in a drowsy tone, "Afraid to go to sleep in the dark.... Say,
+Allan--get Deborah in here, will you--just for a minute. One thing more."
+
+When she came, he did not open his eyes.
+
+"That you, Deborah? Where's your hand?... Oh--there it is. Just one more
+point. You--you--" Again his mind wandered, but with an effort he brought
+it back. "You and Edith," he said in a whisper. "So--so--so different.
+Not--not like each other at all. But you'll stick together--eh?
+Always--always. Don't let go--I mean of my hand."
+
+"No, dear, no."
+
+And with her hand holding his, she sat for a long time perfectly still.
+Then the baby was heard crying, and Deborah went to the nursery.
+
+"Now, Edith, I'll see to the children," she said. "Allan says you can go to
+Bruce if you like."
+
+Edith looked up at Deborah quickly, and as quickly turned away. She went in
+to her husband. And there, hour by hour through the night, while he lay
+inert with his hand in hers, little by little she understood. But she asked
+no question of anyone.
+
+At last Bruce stirred a little and began breathing deep and fast.
+
+And so death came into the family.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Roger went through the next two days in a kind of a stupor. He remembered
+holding Edith and feeling her shudder as though from a chill. He remembered
+being stopped in the hall by George who had dressed himself with care in
+his first suit with long trousers. "I just wanted you to remember," the boy
+whispered solemnly, "that I'm nearly sixteen and I'll be here. He said to
+stand by her and I will." The rest of that ghastly time was a blank,
+punctuated by small quiet orders which Roger obeyed. Thank God, Deborah was
+there, and she was attending to everything.
+
+But when at last it was over, and Roger had spent the next day in his
+office, had found it impossible to work and so had gone home early, Deborah
+came to him in his room.
+
+"Now we must have a talk," she said. "Allan has gone through Bruce's
+affairs, and there are still debts to be settled, it seems."
+
+"How much do they come to, Deborah?"
+
+"About five thousand dollars," she said. And for a moment neither spoke. "I
+wish I could help you out," she went on, "but I have nothing saved and
+neither has Allan. We've both kept using our money downtown--except just
+enough for the trip abroad--and we'll need almost all of that to settle for
+the funeral."
+
+"I can manage," Roger said, and again there was a silence.
+
+"Edith will have to come here to live," Deborah said presently. Her
+father's heavy face grew stern.
+
+"I'd thought of that," he answered. "But it will be hard on her,
+Deborah--"
+
+"I know it will--but I don't see anything else to be done." The deep quiet
+voice of his daughter grew sweet with pity as she spoke. "At least we can
+try to make it a little easier for her. You can take her up to the
+mountains and I can close her apartment. But of course she won't agree to
+it unless she knows how matters stand." Deborah waited a little. "Don't you
+think you're the best one to tell her?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger, after a pause.
+
+"Then suppose we go to her. I'm sleeping up there for the next few nights."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They found Edith in her living room. She had sent the nurse out, put the
+children to bed, and left alone with nothing to do she had sat facing her
+first night. Her light soft hair was disheveled, her pretty features pale
+and set. But the moment Roger entered he saw that she had herself in hand.
+
+"Well, father," she said steadily. "You'd better tell me about our affairs.
+_My_ affairs," she corrected herself. When he had explained, she was silent
+a moment, and then in a voice harsh, bitter, abrupt, "That will be hard on
+the children," she said. On an impulse he started to take her hand, but she
+drew a little away from him.
+
+"The children, my dear," he said huskily, "will be taken care of always."
+
+"Yes." And again she was silent. "I've been thinking I'd like to go up to
+the mountains--right away," she continued.
+
+"Just our idea," he told her. "Deborah will arrange it at once."
+
+"That's good of Deborah," she replied. And after another pause: "But take
+her home with you--will you? I'd rather not have her here to-night."
+
+"I think she'd better stay, my dear."
+
+"All right." In a tone of weariness. "Madge Deering called me up to-night.
+She's coming in town to-morrow, and she means to stay till I go."
+
+"I'm glad," he said approvingly. Madge had been a widow for years. Living
+out in Morristown with four daughters to bring up, she had determinedly
+fought her way and had not only regained her hold but had even grown in
+strength and breadth since the death of her husband long ago. "I'm glad,"
+he said. "You and Madge--" he paused.
+
+"Yes, we'll have a good deal in common," Edith finished out his thought.
+"You look tired, dad. Hadn't you better go home now?" she suggested after a
+moment.
+
+"Yes," said Roger, rising. "Good-night, my child. Remember."
+
+In the outer hallway he found Deborah with Laura. Laura had been here
+several times. She was getting Edith's mourning.
+
+"There's a love of a hat at Thurn's," she was saying softly, "if only we
+can get her to wear it. It's just her type." And Laura drew an anxious
+breath. "Anything," she added, "to escape that hideous heavy crepe."
+
+Roger slightly raised his brows. He noticed a faint delicious perfume that
+irritated him suddenly. But glancing again at his daughter, trim, fresh and
+so immaculate, the joy of life barely concealed in her eyes, he stopped and
+talked and smiled at her, as Deborah was doing, enjoying her beauty and her
+youth, her love and all her happiness. And though they spoke of her sister,
+she knew they were thinking of herself, and that it was quite right they
+should, for it gave them a little relief from their gloom. She was honestly
+sorry for Edith, but she was sorrier still for Bruce, who she knew had
+always liked her more than he would have cared to say. She was sorrier for
+Bruce because, while Edith had lost only her husband, Bruce had lost his
+very life. And life meant so much to Laura, these days, the glowing,
+coursing, vibrant life of her warm beautiful body. She was thinking of that
+as she stood in the hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the evening, at home in his study, Roger heard a slight knock at the
+door. He looked up and saw John.
+
+"May I come in, Mr. Gale, for a minute?"
+
+"Yes, my boy." John hobbled in.
+
+"Only a minute." His voice was embarrassed. "Just two or three things I
+thought of," he said. "The first was about your son-in-law. You see, I was
+his stenographer--and while I was in his office--this morning helping
+Doctor Baird--I found a good deal I can do there still--about things no one
+remembers but me. So I'll stay there awhile, if it's all right. Only--" he
+paused--"without any pay. See what I mean?"
+
+"Yes, I see," said Roger. "And you'd better stay--in that way if you like."
+
+"Thanks," said John. "Then about his wife and family. You're to take them
+up to the mountains, I hear--and--well, before this happened you asked _me_
+up this summer. But I guess I'd better not."
+
+"I don't think you'd be in the way, my boy."
+
+"I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind. When I'm through in your
+son-in-law's office I thought I might go back to yours. I could send you
+your mail every two or three days."
+
+"I'd like that, John--it will be a great help."
+
+"All right, Mr. Gale." John stopped at the door. "And Miss Deborah," he
+ventured. "Is she to get married just the same?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I think so--later on."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+And John went out of the room.
+
+When _would_ Deborah be married? It came over Roger, when he was alone, how
+his family had shifted its center. Deborah would have come here to live,
+to love and be happy, a mother perhaps, but now she must find a home of her
+own. In her place would come Edith with her children. All would center on
+her in her grief.
+
+And for no cause! Just a trick of chance, a street accident! And Roger grew
+bitter and rebelled. Bruce was not the one of the family to die. Bruce, so
+shrewd and vigorous, so vital, the practical man of affairs. Bruce had been
+going the pace that kills--yes, Roger had often thought of it. But that had
+nothing to do with this! If Bruce had died at fifty, say, as a result of
+the life he had chosen, the fierce exhausting city which he had loved as a
+man will love drink, then at least there would have been some sense of
+fairness in it all! If the town had let him alone till his time! But to be
+knocked down by an automobile! The devilish irony of it! No
+reason--nothing! Just hideous luck!
+
+Well, life was like that. As for Edith and her children, he would be glad
+to have them here. Only, it would be different, the house would have to
+change again. He was sorry, too, for Deborah. No wedding trip as she had
+planned, no home awaiting her return.
+
+So his mind went over his family.
+
+But suddenly such thoughts fell away as trivial and of small account. For
+these people would still be alive. And Bruce was dead, and Roger was old.
+So he thought about Bruce and about himself, and all his children grew
+remote. "You will live on in our children's lives." Was there no other
+immortality? The clock ticked on the mantle and beside it "The Thinker"
+brooded down. And Roger looked up unafraid, but grim and gravely wondering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+But there was a rugged practical side to the character of Roger Gale, and
+the next morning he was ashamed of the brooding thoughts which had come in
+the night. He shook them off as morbid, and resolutely set himself to what
+lay close before him. There was work to be done on Bruce's affairs, and the
+work was a decided relief. Madge Deering, in the meantime, had offered to
+go with Edith and the children to the mountains and see them all well
+settled there. And a little talk he had with Madge relieved his mind still
+further. What a recovery _she_ had made from the tragedy of years ago. How
+alert and wide-awake she seemed. If Edith could only grow like that.
+
+Soon after their departure, one night when he was dining alone, he had a
+curious consciousness of the mingled presence of Edith and of Judith his
+wife. And this feeling grew so strong that several times he looked about in
+a startled, questioning manner. All at once his eye was caught by an old
+mahogany sideboard. It was Edith's. It had been her mother's. Edith, when
+she married, had wanted something from her old home. Well, now it was back
+in the family.
+
+The rest of Edith's furniture, he learned from Deborah that night, had been
+stored in the top of the house.
+
+"Most of it," she told him, "Edith will probably want to use in fitting up
+the children's rooms." With a twinge of foreboding, Roger felt the
+approaching change in his home.
+
+"When do you plan to be married?" he asked.
+
+"About the end of August. We couldn't very well till then, without hurting
+poor Edith a little, you see. You know how she feels about such things--"
+
+"Yes, I guess you're right," he agreed.
+
+How everything centered 'round Edith, he thought. To pay the debts which
+Bruce had left would take all Roger had on hand; and from this time on his
+expenses, with five growing children here, would be a fast increasing
+drain. He would have to be careful and husband his strength, a thing he had
+always hated to do.
+
+In the next few weeks, he worked hard in his office. He cut down his
+smoking, stayed home every evening and went to bed at ten o'clock. He tried
+to shut Deborah out of his mind. As for Laura, he barely gave her a
+thought. She dropped in one evening to bid him good-bye, for this summer
+again she was going abroad. She and her husband, she told him, were to
+motor through the Balkans and down into Italy. Her father gruffly answered
+that he hoped she would enjoy herself. It seemed infernally unfair that it
+should not be Deborah who was sailing the next morning. But when he felt
+himself growing annoyed, abruptly he put a check on himself. It was Edith
+he must think of now.
+
+But curiously it happened, in this narrowing of his attention, that while
+he shut out two of his daughters, a mere outsider edged closer in.
+
+Johnny Geer was a great help. He was back in Roger's office, and with the
+sharp wits he had gained in his eighteen years of fighting for a chance to
+stay alive, now at Roger's elbow John was watching like a hawk for all the
+little ways and means of pushing up the business. What a will the lad had
+to down bodily ills, what vim in the way he tackled each job. His shrewd
+and cheery companionship was a distraction and relief. John was so funny
+sometimes.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Gale," he said, as Roger came into the office one day.
+
+"Hello, Johnny. How are you?" Roger replied.
+
+"Fine, thank you." And John went on with his work of opening the morning's
+mail. But a few minutes later he gave a cackling little laugh.
+
+"What's so funny?" Roger asked.
+
+"Fellers," was the answer. "Fellers. Human nature. Here's a letter from
+Shifty Sam."
+
+"Who the devil is he? A friend of yours?"
+
+"No," said John, "he's a 'con man.' He works about as mean a graft as any
+you ever heard of. He reads the 'ads' in the papers--see?--of servant girls
+who're looking for work. He makes a specialty of cooks. Then he goes to
+where they live and talks of some nice family that wants a servant right
+away. He claims to be the butler, and he's dressed to look the part. 'There
+ain't a minute to lose,' he says. 'If you want a chawnce, my girl, come
+quick.' He says 'chawnce' like a butler--see? 'Pack your things,' he tells
+her, 'and come right along with me.' So she packs and hustles off with
+him--Sam carrying her suit case. He puts her on a trolley and says, 'I
+guess I'll stay on the platform. I've got a bit of a headache and the air
+will do me good.' So he stays out there with her suit case--and as soon as
+the car gets into a crowd, Sam jumps and beats it with her clothes."
+
+"I see," said Roger dryly. "But what's he writing _you_ about?"
+
+"Oh, it ain't me he's writing to--it's you," was John's serene reply. Roger
+started.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"Well," said the boy in a cautious tone, vigilantly eyeing his chief, "you
+see, a lot of these fellers like Sam have been in the papers lately.
+They're being called a crime wave."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Sam is up for trial this week--and half the Irish cooks in town are
+waiting 'round to testify. And Shifty seems to enjoy himself. His
+picture's in the papers--see? And he wants all the clippings. So he
+encloses a five dollar bill."
+
+"He does, eh--well, you write to Sam and send his money back to him!" There
+was a little silence.
+
+"But look here," said John with keen regret. "We've had quite a lot of
+these letters this week."
+
+Roger wheeled and looked at him.
+
+"John," he demanded severely, "what game have you been up to here?"
+
+"No game at all," was the prompt retort. "Just getting a little business."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, there's a club downtown," said John, "where a lot of these petty
+crooks hang out. I used to deliver papers there. And I went around one
+night this month--"
+
+"_To drum up business?_"
+
+"Yes, sir." Roger looked at him aghast.
+
+"John," he asked, in deep reproach, "do you expect this office to feed the
+vanity of thieves?"
+
+"Where's the vanity," John rejoined, "in being called a crime wave?" And
+seeing the sudden tremor of mirth which had appeared on Roger's face, "Look
+here, Mr. Gale," he went eagerly on. "When every paper in the town is
+telling these fellers where they belong--calling 'em crooks, degenerates,
+and preaching regular sermons right into their faces--why shouldn't we help
+'em to read the stuff? How do we know it won't do 'em good? It's church to
+'em, that's what it is--and business for this office. Nine of these guys
+have sent in their money just in the last week or so--"
+
+"Look out, my boy," said Roger, with slow and solemn emphasis. "If you
+aren't extremely careful you'll find yourself a millionaire."
+
+"But wait a minute, Mr. Gale--"
+
+"Not in this office," Roger said. "Send 'em back, every one of 'em!
+Understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir," was the meek reply. And with a little sigh of regret John
+turned his wits to other kinds and conditions of New Yorkers who might care
+to see themselves in print.
+
+As they worked together day by day, Roger had occasional qualms over
+leaving John here in the hot town while he himself went up to the
+mountains. He even thought of writing to Edith that he was planning to
+bring John, too. But no, she wouldn't like it. So he did something else
+instead.
+
+"John," he said, one morning, "I'm going to raise your salary to a hundred
+dollars a month." Instantly from the lad's bright eyes there shot a look of
+triumph.
+
+"Thanks, Mr. Gale," was his hearty response.
+
+"And in the meantime, Johnny, I want you to take a good solid month off."
+
+"All right, sir, thank you," John replied. "But I guess it won't be quite a
+month. I don't feel as if I needed it."
+
+The next day at the office he appeared resplendent in a brand-new suit of
+clothes, a summer homespun of light gray set off by a tie of flaming red.
+There was nothing soft about that boy. No, Johnny knew how to look out for
+himself.
+
+And Roger went up to the farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+George met him at the station, as he had done a year before. But at once
+Roger noticed a difference. In the short time since his father's death
+certain lines had come in the boy's freckled face, and they gave him a
+thoughtful, resolute look. George's voice was changing. One moment it was
+high and boyish, again a deep and manly bass. As he kept his eyes on the
+horses and talked about his mother, his grandfather from time to time threw
+curious side glances.
+
+"Oh, yes," George was saying, "mother's all right, she's doing fine. It was
+pretty bad at first, though. She wouldn't let me sit up with her any--she
+treated me like a regular kid. But any fellow with any sense could see how
+she was feeling. She'd get thinking of the accident." George stopped short
+and clamped his jaws. "You know, my dad did a wonderful thing," he
+continued presently. "Even when he was dying, and mother and I were there
+by his bed, he remembered how she'd get thinking alone--all about the
+accident. You see he knew mother pretty darned well. So he told her to
+remember that he was the one to blame for it. If it hadn't been for him, he
+said, they would have gone home in the taxi. That's a pretty good point to
+keep in her mind. Don't you think so?" he inquired. And Roger glanced
+affectionately into the anxious face by his side.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it's a mighty good point. Did you think of it?"
+
+"Yes, sir," George replied. "I've told it to her a good many times--that
+and two other points I thought of."
+
+"What are they, son?" asked Roger.
+
+"First," the boy said awkwardly, "about how good she was to him. And
+second, that she let him buy the new car before he died. He had such a lot
+of fun out of that car--"
+
+On the last words the lad's changing voice went from an impressive bass to
+a most undignified treble. He savagely scowled.
+
+"Those three points," he continued, in more careful measured tones, "were
+about all I could think of. I had to use 'em over and over--on mother when
+things got bad, I mean." A flush of embarrassment came on his face. "And
+hold her and kiss her," he muttered. Then he whipped his horses. "We've had
+some pretty bad times this month," he continued, loud and manfully. "You
+see, mother isn't so young as she was. She's well on in her thirties." A
+glimmer of amusement appeared in Roger's heavy eyes. "But she don't cry
+often any more, and with you here we'll pull her through." He shot a quick
+look at his grandfather. "Gee, but I'm glad you're here!" he said.
+
+"So am I," said Roger. And with a little pressure of his hand on George's
+shoulder, "I guess you've had about your share. Now tell me the news. How
+are things on the farm?"
+
+With a breath of evident relief, the lad launched into the animal world.
+And soon he was talking eagerly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the next few days with his daughter Roger found that George was right.
+She had been through the worst of it. But she still had her reactions, her
+spells of emptiness, bleak despair, her moods of fierce rebellion or of
+sudden self-reproach for not having given Bruce more while he lived. And in
+such hours her father tried to comfort her with poor success.
+
+"Remember, child, I'm with you, and I know how it feels," he said. "I went
+through it all myself: When your mother died--"
+
+"But mother was so much older!" He looked at his daughter compassionately.
+
+"How old are you?" he inquired.
+
+"Thirty-six."
+
+"Your mother was thirty-nine," he replied. And at that Edith turned and
+stared at him, bewildered, shocked, brought face to face with a new and
+momentous fact in her life.
+
+"Mother only my age when she died?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger gently, "only three years older." With a twinge of pain
+he noticed two quite visible streaks of gray in his daughter's soft blonde
+hair. "And she felt as you do now--as though she were just starting out.
+And I felt the same way, my dear. If I'm not mistaken, everyone does. You
+still feel young--but the new generation is already growing up--and you can
+feel yourself being pushed on. And it is hard--it is very hard." Clumsily
+he took her hand. "Don't let yourself drop out," he said. "Be as your
+mother would have been if she had been left instead of me. Go straight on
+with your children."
+
+To this note he could feel her respond. And at first, as he felt what a
+fight she was making, Roger glorified her pluck. As he watched her with her
+children at table, smiling at their talk with an evident effort to enter
+in, and again with her baby snug in her lap while she read bedtime stories
+to Bob and little Tad at her side, he kept noticing the resemblance between
+his daughter and his wife. How close were these two members of his family
+drawing together now, one of them living, the other dead.
+
+But later, as the weeks wore on, she began to plan for her children. She
+planned precisely how to fit them all into the house in town, she planned
+the hours for their meals, for their going alone or with the nurse or a
+maid to their different private schools, to music lessons, to dancing
+school and uptown to the park to play. She planned their fall clothes and
+she planned their friends. And there came to her father occasional moods of
+anxiety. He remembered Bruce's grim remarks about those "simple" schools
+and clothes, the kind that always cost the most. And he began to realize
+what Bruce's existence must have been. For scarcely ever in their talks did
+Edith speak of anything outside of her family. Night after night, with a
+tensity born of her struggle with her grief, she talked about her children.
+And Roger was in Bruce's place, he was the one she planned with. At moments
+with a vague dismay he glimpsed the life ahead in his home.
+
+George was hard at work each day down by the broken dam at the mill. He had
+an idea he could patch it up, put the old water-wheel back into place and
+make it run a dynamo, by which he could light the house and barn and run
+the machines in the dairy. In his new rôle as the man of his family, George
+was planning out his career. He was wrestling with a book entitled "Our New
+Mother Earth" and a journal called "The Modern Farm." And to Roger he
+confided that he meant to be a farmer. He wanted to go in the autumn to the
+State Agricultural College. But when one day, very cautiously, Roger spoke
+to Edith of this, with a hard and jealous smile which quite transformed her
+features, she said,
+
+"Oh, I know all about that, father dear. It's just a stage he's going
+through. And it's the same way with Elizabeth, too, and her crazy idea of
+becoming a doctor. She took that from Allan Baird, and George took his from
+Deborah! They'll get over it soon enough--"
+
+"They won't get over it!" Roger cried. "Their dreams are parts of something
+new! Something I'm quite vague about--but some of it has come to stay!
+You're losing all your chances--just as I did years ago! You'll never know
+your children!"
+
+But he uttered this cry to himself alone. Outwardly he only frowned. And
+Edith had gone on to say,
+
+"I do hope that Deborah won't come up this summer. She's been very good and
+kind, of course, and if she comes she'll be doing it entirely on my
+account. But I don't want her here--I want her to marry, the sooner the
+better, and come to her senses--be happy, I mean. And I wish you would tell
+her so."
+
+Within a few days after this Deborah wrote to her father that she was
+coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at first, he had
+William saddled and went for a ride to try to determine what he should do.
+But it was a ticklish business. For women were queer and touchy, and once
+more he felt the working of those uncanny family ties.
+
+"Deborah," he reflected, "is coming up here because she feels it's selfish
+of her to stay away. If she marries at once, as she told me herself, she
+thinks Edith will be hurt. Edith won't be hurt--and if Deborah comes,
+there'll be trouble every minute she stays. But can I tell her so? Not at
+all. I can't say, 'You're not wanted here.' If I do, _she'll_ be hurt. Oh
+Lord, these girls! And Deborah knows very well that if she does get married
+this month, with Laura abroad and Edith up here and only me at the wedding,
+Edith will smile to herself and say, 'Now isn't that just like Deborah?'"
+
+As Roger slowly rode along a steep and winding mountain road, gloomily he
+reflected to what petty little troubles a family of women could descend, so
+soon after death itself. And he lifted his eyes up to the hills and decided
+to leave this matter alone. If women would be women, let them settle their
+own affairs. Deborah was due to arrive on the following Friday evening. All
+right, let her come, he thought. She would soon see she was in the way, and
+then in a little affectionate talk he would suggest that she marry right
+off and have a decent honeymoon before the school year opened.
+
+So he dismissed it from his mind. And as he listened in the dusk to the
+numberless murmuring voices of living creatures large and small which rose
+out of the valley, and as from high above him the serenity of the mountains
+there towering over thousands of years stole into his spirit, Roger had a
+large quieting sense of something high and powerful looking down upon the
+earth, a sense of all humanity honeycombed with millions upon millions of
+small sorrows, absorbing joys and hopes and fears, and in spite of them all
+the Great Life sweeping on, with no Great Death to check its course, no
+immense catastrophe, all these little troubles like mere tiny specks of
+foam upon the surface of the tide.
+
+Deborah's visit, the following week, was as he had expected. Within an hour
+after her coming he could feel the tension grow. Deborah herself was tense,
+both from the work she had left in New York where she was soon to have five
+schools, and from the thought of her marriage, only a few weeks ahead. She
+said nothing about it, however, until as a sisterly duty Edith tried to
+draw her out by showing an interest in her plans. But the cloud of Bruce's
+death was there, and Deborah shunned the topic. She tried to talk of the
+children instead. But Edith at once was on the defensive, vigilant for
+trouble, and as she unfolded her winter plans she grew distinctly brief and
+curt.
+
+"If Deborah doesn't see it now, she's a fool," her father told himself.
+"I'll just wait a few days more, and then we'll have that little talk."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+It had rained so hard for the past two days that no one had gone to the
+village, which was nearly three miles from the farm. But when the storm was
+over at last, George and Elizabeth tramped down and came back at dusk with
+a bag full of mail. Their clothes were mud-bespattered and they hurried
+upstairs to change before supper, while Roger settled back in his chair and
+spread open his New York paper. It was July 30, 1914.
+
+From a habit grown out of thirty odd years of business life, Roger read his
+paper in a fashion of his own. By instinct his eye swept the page for news
+dealing with individual men, for it was upon people's names in print that
+he had made his living. And so when he looked at this strange front page it
+gave him a swift twinge of alarm. For the news was not of men but of
+nations. Austria was massing her troops along the Serbian frontier, and
+Germany, Italy, Russia, France and even England, all were in a turmoil,
+with panics in their capitals, money markets going wild.
+
+Edith came down, in her neat black dress with its narrow white collar,
+ready for supper. She glanced at her father.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Look at this." And he tossed her a paper.
+
+"Oh-h-h," she murmured softly. "Oh, how frightful that would be." And she
+read on with lips compressed. But soon there came from a room upstairs the
+sudden cry of one of her children, followed by a shrill wail of distress.
+And dropping the paper, she hurried away.
+
+Roger continued his reading.
+
+Deborah came. She saw the paper Edith had dropped, picked it up and sat
+down to read, and there were a few moments of absolute silence. Then Roger
+heard a quivering breath, and glancing up he saw Deborah's eyes, intent and
+startled, moving down the columns of print in a swift, uncomprehending way.
+
+"Pretty serious business," he growled.
+
+"It can't happen!" she exclaimed.
+
+And they resumed their reading.
+
+In the next three days, as they read the news, they felt war like a
+whirlpool sucking in all their powers to think or feel, felt their own
+small personal plans whirled about like leaves in a storm. And while their
+minds--at first dazed and stunned by the thought of such appalling armies,
+battles, death and desolation--slowly cleared and they strove to think, and
+Roger thought of business shivered to atoms in every land, and Deborah
+thought of schools by thousands all over Europe closing down, in cities and
+in villages, in valleys and on mountain sides, of homes in panic
+everywhere, of all ideals of brotherhood shaken, bending, tottering--war
+broke out in Europe.
+
+"What is this going to mean to me?"
+
+Millions of people were asking that. And so did Roger and Deborah. The same
+night they left for New York, while Edith with a sigh of relief settled
+back into her family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning at his office Roger found John waiting with misery stamped
+on his face. John had paid small heed to war. Barely stopping for sleep in
+the last two days he had gone through scores and hundreds of papers,
+angrily skipping all those names of kings and emperors and czars, and
+searching instead for American names, names of patrons--business! Gone!
+Each hour he had been opening mail and piling up letters cancelling
+contracts, ordering service discontinued.
+
+Roger sat down at his desk. As he worked and figured and dictated letters,
+glancing into the outer rooms he saw the long rows of girls at tables
+obviously trying to pretend that there was work for them to do. He felt
+them anxiously watching him--as in other offices everywhere millions of
+other employees kept furtively glancing at their chiefs.
+
+"War," he thought. "Shall I close _down?_" He shrank from what it would
+mean to those girls. "Business will pick up again soon. A few
+days--weeks--that's all I need."
+
+And he went to his bank. No credit there. He tried other sources, all he
+could think of, racking his brains as he went about town, but still he
+could not raise a loan. Finally he went to the firm which had once held a
+mortgage on his house. The chief partner had been close to Bruce, an old
+college friend. And when even this friend refused him aid, "It's a question
+of Bruce's children," Roger muttered, reddening. He felt like a beggar, but
+he was getting desperate. The younger man had looked away and was nervously
+tapping his desk with his pen.
+
+"Bad as that, eh," he answered. "Then I guess it's got to be done." He
+looked anxiously up at Roger, who just at that moment appeared very old.
+"Don't worry, Mr. Gale," he said. "Somehow or other we'll carry you
+through."
+
+"Thank you, sir." Roger rose heavily, feeling weak, and took his departure.
+"This is war," he told himself, "and I've got to look after my own."
+
+But he had a sensation almost of guilt, as upon his return to his office he
+saw those suddenly watchful faces. He walked past them and went into his
+room, and again he searched for ways and means. He tried to see his
+business as it would be that autumn, to see the city, the nation, the world
+as it would be in the months ahead. Repeatedly he fought off his fears.
+But slowly and inexorably the sense of his helplessness grew clear.
+
+"No, I must shut down," he thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On his way home that evening, in a crush at a turbulent corner he saw a big
+truck jam into a taxi, and with a throb of rebellion he thought of his
+son-in-law who was dead. Just the turn of a hair and Bruce might have lived
+and been here to look after the children! At the prospect of the crisis,
+the strain he saw before him, Roger again felt weak and old. He shook off
+his dread and strode angrily on.
+
+In his house, the rooms downstairs were still dismantled for the summer.
+There was emptiness and silence but no serenity in them now, only the quiet
+before the storm which he could feel from far and near was gathering about
+his home. He heard Deborah on the floor above, and went up and found her
+making his bed, for the chambermaid had not yet come. Her voice was a
+little unnatural.
+
+"It has been a hard day, hasn't it. I've got your bath-room ready," she
+said. "Don't you want a nice cool bath? Supper will be ready soon."
+
+When, a half hour later, somewhat refreshed, Roger came down to the table,
+he noticed it was set for two.
+
+"Isn't Allan coming?" he asked. Her mobile features tightened.
+
+"Not till later," she replied.
+
+They talked little and the meal was short. But afterwards, on the wooden
+porch, Deborah turned to her father,
+
+"Now tell me about your office," she said.
+
+"There's not enough business to pay the rent."
+
+"That won't last--"
+
+"I'm not so sure."
+
+"I am," she said determinedly. Her father slowly turned his head.
+
+"Are you, with this war?" he asked. Her eyes met his and moved away in a
+baffled, searching manner. "She has troubles of her own," he thought.
+
+"How much can we run the house on, Deborah?" he asked her. At first she did
+not answer. "What was it--about six thousand last year?"
+
+"I think so," she said restlessly. "We can cut down on that, of course--"
+
+"With Edith and the children here?"
+
+"Edith will have to manage it! There are others to be thought of!"
+
+"The children in your schools, you mean."
+
+"Yes," she answered with a frown. "It will be a bad year for the tenements.
+But please go on and tell me. What have you thought of doing?"
+
+"Mortgage the house again," he replied. "It hasn't been easy, for money is
+tight, but I think I'll be able to get enough to just about carry us
+through the year. At home, I mean," he added.
+
+"And the office?"
+
+"Shut down," he said. She turned on him fiercely.
+
+"You won't do that!"
+
+"What else can I do?"
+
+"Turn all those girls away?" she cried. At her tone his look grew troubled.
+
+"How can I help myself, Deborah? If I kept open it would cost me over five
+hundred a week to run. Have I five hundred dollars a week to lose?"
+
+"But I tell you it won't last!" she cried, and again the baffled, driven
+expression swept over her expressive face. "Can't you see this is only a
+panic--and keep going somehow? Can't you see what it means to the
+tenements? Hundreds of thousands are out of work! They're being turned off
+every day, every hour--employers all over are losing their heads! And City
+Hall is as mad as the rest! They've decided already down there to
+retrench!"
+
+He turned with a quick jerk of his head:
+
+"Are they cutting you down?" She set her teeth:
+
+"Yes, they are. But the work in my schools is going on--every bit of it
+is--for every child! I'm going to find a way," she said. And he felt a
+thrill of compassion.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear it," he muttered.
+
+"You needn't be." She paused a moment, smiled and went on in a quieter
+voice: "Don't think I'm blind--I'm sensible--I see you can't lose five
+hundred a week. But why not try what other employers, quite a few, have
+decided to do? Call your people together, explain how it is, and ask them
+to choose a committee to help you find which ones need jobs the most. Keep
+all you can--on part time, of course--but at least pay them something,
+carry them through. You'll lose money by it, I haven't a doubt. But you've
+already found you can mortgage the house, and remember besides that I shall
+be here. I'm not going to marry now"--her father looked at her
+quickly--"and of course I'll expect to do my share toward meeting the
+expenses. Moreover, I know we can cut down."
+
+"Retrench," said Roger grimly. "Turn off the servants instead of the
+clerks."
+
+"No, only one of them, Martha upstairs--and she is to be married. We'll
+keep the cook and the waitress. Edith will have to give up her nurse--and
+it will be hard on her, of course--but she'll have to realize this is war,"
+Deborah said sharply. "Besides," she urged, "it's not going to last.
+Business everywhere will pick up--in a few weeks or months at most. The war
+_can't_ go on--it's too horribly big!" She broke off and anxiously looked
+at him. Her father was still frowning.
+
+"I'm asking you to risk a good deal," she continued, her voice intense and
+low. "But somehow, dearie, I always feel that this old house of ours is
+strong. It can _stand_ a good deal. We can all of us stand so much, as soon
+as we know we have to." The lines of her wide sensitive mouth tightened
+firmly once again. "It's all so vague and uncertain, I know. But one thing
+at least is sure. This is no time for people with money--no matter how
+little--to shut themselves up in their own little houses and let the rest
+starve or beg or steal. This is the time to do our share."
+
+And she waited. But he made no reply.
+
+"Every nation at war is doing it, dad--become like one big family--with
+everyone helping, doing his share. Must a nation be at war to do that?
+Can't we be brothers without the guns? Can't you see that we're all of us
+stunned, and trying to see what war will mean to all the children in the
+world? And while we're groping, groping, can't we give each other a hand?"
+
+Still he sat motionless there in the dark. At last he stirred heavily in
+his chair.
+
+"I guess you're right," he told her. "At least I'll think it over--and try
+to work out something along the lines you spoke of."
+
+Again there was a silence. Then his daughter turned to him with a little
+deprecating smile.
+
+"You'll forgive my--preaching to you, dad?"
+
+"No preaching," he said gruffly. "Just ordinary common sense."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later Allan came in, and Roger soon left them and went to bed.
+Alone with Baird she was silent a moment.
+
+"Well? Have you thought it over?" she asked. "Wasn't I right in what I
+said?" At the anxious ring in her low clear voice, leaning over he took her
+hand; and he felt it hot and trembling as it quickly closed on his. He
+stroked it slowly, soothingly. In the semi-darkness he seemed doubly tall
+and powerful.
+
+"Yes, I'm sure you were right," he said.
+
+"Spring at the latest--I'll marry you then--"
+
+Her eyes were intently fixed on his.
+
+"Come here!" she whispered sharply, and Baird bent over and held her
+tight. "Tighter!" she whispered. "Tighter!... There!... I said, spring at
+the latest! I can't lose you, Allan--now--"
+
+She suddenly quivered as though from fatigue.
+
+"I'm going to watch you close down there," he said in a moment, huskily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Roger saw little of Deborah in the weeks that followed. She was gathering
+her forces for the long struggle she saw ahead. And his own worries filled
+his mind. On his house he succeeded in borrowing five thousand dollars at
+ten per cent, and in his office he worked out a scheme along the lines of
+Deborah's plan. At first it was only a struggle to save the remnants of
+what was left. Later the tide began to turn, new business came into the
+office again. But only a little, and then it stopped. Hard times were here
+for the winter.
+
+Soon Edith would come with the children. He wondered how sensible she would
+be. It was going to mean a daily fight to make ends meet, he told himself,
+and guiltily he decided not to let his daughter know how matters stood in
+his office. Take care of your own flesh and blood, and then be generous as
+you please--that had always been his way. And now Deborah had upset it by
+her emotional appeal. "How dramatic she is at times!" he reflected in
+annoyance. "Just lets herself out and enjoys herself!" He grew angry at her
+interference, and more than once he resolved to shut down. But back in the
+office, before those watchful faces, still again he would put it off.
+
+"Wait a little. We'll see," he thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime, in this interplay, these shifting lights and shadows which
+played upon the history of the life of Roger's home, there came to him a
+diversion from an unexpected source. Laura and Harold returned from abroad.
+Soon after landing they came to the house, and talking fast and eagerly
+they told how they had eluded the war.
+
+For them it had been a glorious game. In Venice in early August, Harold
+had seen a chance for a big stroke of business. He had a friend who lived
+in Rome, an Italian close to his government. At once they had joined
+forces, worked day and night, pulled wires, used money judiciously here and
+there, and so had secured large orders for munitions from the U.S.A. Then
+to get back to God's country! There came the hitch, they were too late.
+Naples, Genoa, and Milan, all were filled with tourist mobs. They took a
+train for Paris, and reaching the city just a week before the end of the
+German drive they found it worse than Italy. But there Hal had a special
+pull--and by the use of those wits of his, not to be downed by refusals, he
+got passage at last for Laura, himself and his new Italian partner. At
+midnight, making their way across the panic-stricken city, and at the
+station struggling through a wild and half crazed multitude of men and
+women and children, they boarded a train and went rushing westward right
+along the edge of the storm. To the north the Germans were so close that
+Laura was sure she could hear the big guns. The train kept stopping to take
+on troops. At dawn some twenty wounded men came crowding into their very
+car, bloody and dirty, pale and worn, but gaily smiling at the pain, and
+saying, "Ça n'fait rien, madame." Later Harold opened his flask for some
+splendid Breton soldier boys just going into action. And they stood up with
+flashing eyes and shouted out the Marseillaise, while Laura shivered and
+thrilled with delight.
+
+"I nearly kissed them all!" she cried.
+
+Roger greatly enjoyed the evening. He had heard so much of the horrors of
+war. Here was something different, something bright and vibrant with youth
+and adventure! Here at last was the thrill of war, the part he had always
+read about!
+
+He glanced now and then at Deborah and was annoyed by what he saw. For
+although she said nothing and forced a smile, he could easily tell by the
+set of her lips that Deborah thoroughly disapproved. All right, that was
+her way, he thought. But this was Laura's way, shedding the gloom and the
+tragic side as a duck will shed water off its back, a duck with bright new
+plumage fresh from the shops of the Rue de la Paix and taking some pleasure
+out of life! What an ardent gleaming beauty she was, he thought as he
+watched this daughter of his. And underneath his enjoyment, too, though
+Roger would not have admitted it, was a sense of relief in the news that at
+least one man in the family was growing rich instead of poor. Already Hal
+and his partner--a fascinating creature according to Laura's
+description--were fast equipping shrapnel mills. Plainly they expected a
+tremendous rush of business. And no matter how you felt about war, the word
+"profits" at least had a pleasant sound.
+
+"How has the war hit you, sir?" Harold asked his father-in-law.
+
+"Oh, so-so, I'll get on, my boy," was Roger's quiet answer. For Harold was
+not quite the kind he would ever like to ask for aid. Still, if the worst
+came to the worst, he would have someone to turn to.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long after they had left the house, he kept thinking over all they had
+said. What an amazing time they had had, the two young scalawags.
+
+Deborah was still in the room. As she sat working at her desk, her back was
+turned and she did not speak. But little by little her father's mood
+changed. Of course she was right, he admitted. For now they were gone, the
+spell they had cast was losing a part of its glamor. Yes, their talk had
+been pretty raw. Sheer unthinking selfishness, a bold rush for plunder and
+a dash to get away, trampling over people half crazed, women and children
+in panicky crowds, and leaving behind them, so to speak, Laura's joyous
+rippling laugh over their own success in the game. Yes, there was no
+denying the fact that Hal was rushing headlong into a savage dangerous
+game, a scramble and a gamble, with adventurers from all over Europe
+gathering here and making a little world of their own. He would work and
+live at a feverish pitch, and Laura would go it as hard as he. Roger
+thought he could see their winter ahead. How they would pile up money and
+spend!
+
+All at once, as though some figure silent and invisible were standing close
+beside him, from far back in his childhood a memory flashed into his mind
+of a keen and clear October night, when Roger, a little shaver of nine, had
+stood with his mother in front of the farmhouse and listened to the faint
+sharp roll of a single drum far down in the valley. And his mother's grip
+had hurt his hand, and a lump had risen in his throat--as Dan, his oldest
+brother, had marched away with his company of New Hampshire mountain boys.
+"We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." Dan had been
+killed at Shiloh.
+
+And it must be like that now in France. No, he did not like the look which
+he had seen on Laura's face as she had talked about the war and the fat
+profits to be made. Was this all we Yankees had to say to the people over
+in Europe?
+
+Frowning and glancing at Deborah's back, he saw that she was tired. It was
+nearly midnight, but still she kept working doggedly on, moving her
+shoulder muscles at times as though to shake off aches and pains, then
+bending again to her labor, her fight against such heavy odds in the winter
+just beginning for those children in the tenements. He recalled a fragment
+of the appeal she had made to him only the month before:
+
+"Can't you see that we're all of us stunned, and trying to see what war
+will mean to all the children in the world? And while we're groping,
+groping, can't we give each other a hand?"
+
+And as he looked at his daughter, she made him think of her grandmother,
+as she had so often done before. For Deborah, too, was a pioneer. She, too,
+had lived in the wilderness. Clearing roads through jungles? Yes. And
+freeing slaves of ignorance and building a nation of new men. And now she
+was doggedly fighting to save what she had builded--not from the raids of
+the Indians but from the ravages of this war which was sweeping
+civilization aside. With her school behind her, so to speak, she stood
+facing this great enemy with stern and angry, steady eyes. Her pioneer
+grandmother come to life.
+
+So, with the deep craving which was a part of his inmost self, Roger tried
+to bind together what was old and what was new. But his thoughts grew vague
+and drifting. He realized how weary he was, and said good-night and went to
+bed. There, just before he fell asleep, again he had a feeling of relief at
+the knowledge that one at least in the family was to be rich this year.
+With a guilty sensation he shook off the thought, and within a few moments
+after that his harsh regular breathing was heard in the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+It was only a few days later that Edith arrived with her children.
+
+Roger met her at the train at eight o'clock in the evening. The fast
+mountain express of the summer had been taken off some time before, so
+Edith had had to be up at dawn and to change cars several times on the
+trip. "She'll be worn out," he thought as he waited. The train was late. As
+he walked about the new station, that monstrous sparkling hive of travel
+with its huge halls and passageways, its little village of shops
+underground and its bewildering levels for trains, he remembered the
+interest Bruce had shown in watching this immense puzzle worked out, the
+day and night labor year after year without the stopping of a train, this
+mighty symbol of the times, of all the glorious power and speed in an age
+that had been as the breath to his nostrils. How Bruce had loved the city!
+As Roger paced slowly back and forth with his hands clasped behind his
+back, there came over his heavy visage a look of affection and regret which
+made even New Yorkers glance at him as they went nervously bustling by.
+From time to time he smiled to himself. "The Catskills will be Central
+Park! All this city needs is speed!"
+
+But suddenly he remembered that Bruce had always been here before to meet
+his wife and children, and that Edith on her approaching train must be
+dreading her arrival. And when at last the train rolled in, and he spied
+her shapely little head in the on-coming throng of travellers, Roger saw by
+her set steady smile and the strained expression on her face that he had
+guessed right. With a quick surge of compassion he pressed forward, kissed
+her awkwardly, squeezed her arm, then hastily greeted the children and
+hurried away to see to the trunks. That much of it was over. And to his
+relief, when they reached the house, Edith busied herself at once in
+helping the nurse put the children to bed. Later he came up and told her
+that he had had a light supper prepared.
+
+"Thank you, dear," she answered, "it was so thoughtful in you. But I'm too
+tired to eat anything." And then with a little assuring smile, "I'll be all
+right--I'm going to bed."
+
+"Good-night, child, get a fine long sleep."
+
+And Roger went down to his study, feeling they had made a good start.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What has become of Martha?" Edith asked her father at breakfast the next
+morning.
+
+"She left last month to be married," he said.
+
+"And Deborah hasn't replaced her yet?" In her voice was such a readiness
+for hostility toward her sister, that Roger shot an uneasy glance from
+under his thick grayish brows.
+
+"Has Deborah left the house?" he asked, to gain time for his answer.
+Edith's small lip slightly curled.
+
+"Oh, yes, long ago," she replied. "She had just a moment to see the
+children and then she had to be off to school--to her office, I mean. With
+so many schools on her hands these days, I don't wonder she hasn't had time
+for the servants."
+
+"No, no, you're mistaken," he said. "That isn't the trouble, it's not her
+fault. In fact it was all my idea."
+
+"_Your_ idea," she retorted, in an amused affectionate tone. And Roger
+grimly gathered himself. It would he extremely difficult breaking his
+unpleasant news.
+
+"Yes," he answered. "You see this damnable war abroad has hit me in my
+business."
+
+"Oh, father! How?" she asked him. In an instant she was all alert. "You
+don't mean seriously?" she said.
+
+"Yes, I do," he answered, and he began to tell her why. But she soon grew
+impatient. Business details meant nothing to Edith. "I see," she kept
+saying, "yes, yes, I see." She wanted him to come to the point.
+
+"So I've had to mortgage the house," he concluded. "And for very little
+money, my dear. And a good deal of that--" he cleared his throat--"had to
+go back into the business."
+
+"I see," said Edith mechanically. Her mind was already far away, roving
+over her plans for the children. For in Roger's look of suspense she
+plainly read that other plans had been made for them in her absence.
+"Deborah's in this!" flashed through her mind. "Tell me what it will mean,"
+she said.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to try to do without your nurse for a while."
+
+"Let Hannah go? Oh, father!" And Edith flushed with quick dismay. "How can
+I, dad? Five children--five! And two of them so little they can't even
+dress themselves alone! And there are all their meals--their baths--and the
+older ones going uptown to school! I can't let them go way uptown on the
+'bus or the trolley without a maid--"
+
+"But, Edith!" he interrupted, his face contracting with distress. "Don't
+you see that they can't go to school?" She turned on him. "Uptown, I mean,
+to those expensive private schools."
+
+"Father!" she demanded. "Do you mean you want my children to go to common
+public schools?" There was rage and amazement upon her pretty countenance,
+and with it an instant certainty too. Yes, this was Deborah's planning! But
+Roger thought that Edith's look was all directed at himself. And for the
+first time in his life he felt the shame and humility of the male provider
+no longer able to provide. He reddened and looked down at his plate.
+
+"You don't understand," he said. "I'm strapped, my child--I can't help
+it--I'm poor."
+
+"Oh. Oh, dad. I'm sorry." He glanced up at his daughter and saw tears
+welling in her eyes. How utterly miserable both of them were.
+
+"It's the war," he said harshly and proudly. This made a difference to his
+pride, but not to his daughter's anxiety. She was not interested in the
+war, or in any other cause of the abyss she was facing. She strove to think
+clearly what to do. But no, she must do her thinking alone. With a sudden
+quiet she rose from the table, went around to her father's chair and kissed
+him very gently.
+
+"All right, dear--I see it all now--and I promise I'll try my best," she
+said.
+
+"You're a brave little woman," he replied.
+
+But after she had gone, he reflected. Why had he called her a brave little
+woman? Why had it all been so intense, the talk upon so heroic a plane? It
+would be hard on Edith, of course; but others were doing it, weren't they?
+Think of the women in Europe these days! After all, she'd be very
+comfortable here, and perhaps by Christmas times would change.
+
+He shook off these petty troubles and went to his office for the day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As she busied herself unpacking the trunks, Edith strove to readjust her
+plans. By noon her head was throbbing, but she took little notice of that.
+She had a talk with Hannah, the devoted Irish girl who had been with her
+ever since George was born. It was difficult, it was brutal. It was almost
+as though in Edith's family there had been two mothers, and one was sending
+the other away.
+
+"There, there, poor child," Edith comforted her, "I'll find you another
+nice family soon where you can stay till I take you back. Don't you see it
+will not be for long?" And Hannah brightened a little.
+
+"But how in the wide wurrld," she asked, "will you ever do for the
+children, me gone?"
+
+"Oh, I'll manage," said Edith cheerfully. And that afternoon she began at
+once to rearrange her whole intricate schedule, with Hannah and school both
+omitted, to fit her children into the house. But instead of this, as the
+days wore on, nerve-racking days of worry and toil, sternly and quite
+unconsciously she fitted the house to her children. And nobody made her
+aware of the fact. All summer long in the mountains, everyone by tacit
+consent had made way for her, had deferred to her grief in the little
+things that make up the everyday life in a home. And to this precedent once
+established Edith now clung unawares.
+
+Her new day gave her small time to think. It began at five in the morning,
+when Roger was awakened by the gleeful cries of the two wee boys who slept
+with their mother in the next room, the room which had been Deborah's. And
+Edith was busy from that time on. First came the washing and dressing and
+breakfast, which was a merry, boisterous meal. Then the baby was taken out
+to his carriage on the porch at the back of the house. And after that, in
+her father's study from which he had fled with his morning cigar, for two
+hours Edith held school for her children, trying her best to be patient and
+clear, with text-books she had purchased from their former schools uptown.
+For two severe hours, shutting the world all out of her head, she tried to
+teach them about it. At eleven, their nerves on edge like her own, she sent
+them outdoors "to play," intrusting the small ones to Betsy and George, who
+took them to Washington Square nearby with strict injunctions to keep them
+away from all other children. No doubt there were "nice" children there,
+but she herself could not be along to distinguish the "nice" from the
+"common"--for until one o'clock she was busy at home, bathing the baby and
+making the beds, and then hurrying to the kitchen to pasteurize the baby's
+milk and keep a vigilant oversight on the cooking of the midday meal. And
+the old cook's growing resentment made it far from easy.
+
+After luncheon, thank heaven, came their naps. And all afternoon, while
+again they went out, Edith would look over their wardrobes, mend and alter
+and patch and contrive how to make last winter's clothes look new. At times
+she would drop her work in her lap and stare wretchedly before her. This
+was what she had never known; this was what made life around her grim and
+hard, relentless, frightening; this was what it was to be poor. How it
+changed the whole city of New York. Behind it, the sinister cause of it
+all, she thought confusedly now and then of the Great Death across the sea,
+of the armies, smoking battle-fields, the shrieks of the dying, the
+villages blazing, the women and children flying away. But never for more
+than a moment. The war was so remote and dim. And soon she would turn back
+again to her own beloved children, whose lives, so full of happiness, so
+rich in promise hitherto, were now so cramped and thwarted. Each day was
+harder than the last. It was becoming unbearable!
+
+No, they must go back to school. But how to manage it? How? How? It would
+cost eight hundred dollars, and this would take nearly all the money she
+would be able to secure by the sale of her few possessions. And then what?
+What of sickness, and the other contingencies which still lay ahead of her?
+How old her father seemed, these days! In his heavy shock of hair the
+flecks of white had doubled in size, were merging one into the other, and
+his tall, stooping, massive frame had lost its look of ruggedness. Suppose,
+suppose.... Her breath came fast. Was his life insured, she wondered.
+
+On such afternoons, in the upstairs room as the dusk crept in and
+deepened, she would bend close to her sewing--planning, planning, planning.
+At last she would hear the children trooping merrily into the house. And
+making a very real effort, which at times was in truth heroic, to smile,
+she would rise and light the gas, would welcome them gaily and join in
+their chatter and bustle about on the countless tasks of washing them,
+getting their suppers, undressing the small ones and hearing their prayers.
+With smiling good-night kisses she would tuck her two babies into their
+cribs. Afterward, just for a moment or two, she would linger under the gas
+jet, her face still smiling, for a last look. A last good-night. Then
+darkness.
+
+Darkness settling over her spirit, together with loneliness and fatigue.
+She would go into Betsy's room and throw herself dressed on her daughter's
+bed, and a dull complete indifference to everything under the moon and the
+stars would creep from her body up into her mind. At times she would try to
+fight it off. To-night at dinner she must not be what she knew she had been
+the night before, a wet blanket upon all the talk. But if they only knew
+how hard it was--what a perfect--hell it was! Her breath coming faster, she
+would dig her nails into the palms of her hands. One night she noticed and
+looked at her hand, and saw the skin was actually cut and a little blood
+was appearing. She had read of women doing this, but she had never done it
+before--not even when her babies were born. She had gripped Bruce's hand
+instead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+Roger found her like that one evening. He heard what he thought was a sob
+from the room, for she had forgotten to close the door. He came into the
+doorway but drew back, and closed the door with barely a sound. Frowning
+and irresolute, he stood for a moment in the hall, then turned and went
+into his room. Soon he heard Deborah enter the house and come slowly up the
+stairs. She too had had a hard day, he recalled, a day all filled with
+turbulence, with problems and with vexing toil, in her enormous family. And
+he felt he could not blame her for not being of more help at home. Still,
+he had been disappointed of late in her manner toward her sister. He had
+hoped she would draw closer to Edith, now that again they were living
+together in their old home where they had been born. But no, it had worked
+just the opposite way. They were getting upon each other's nerves. Why
+couldn't she make overtures, small kindly proffers of help and advice and
+sympathy, the womanly things?
+
+From his room he heard her knock softly at the same door he had closed. And
+he heard her low clear voice:
+
+"Are you there, Edith dear?" He listened a moment intently, but he could
+not hear the reply. Then Deborah said, "Oh, you poor thing. I'm awfully
+sorry. Edith--don't bother to come downstairs--let me bring you up your
+supper." A pause. "I wish you would. I'd love to."
+
+He heard Deborah come by his door and go up the second flight of stairs to
+the room she had taken on the third floor.
+
+"I was wrong," he reflected, "she has been trying--but it doesn't do any
+good. Women simply haven't it in 'em to see each other's point of view.
+Deborah doesn't admire Edith--she can't, she only pities her and puts her
+down as out of date. And Edith feels that, and it gets her riled, and she
+sets herself like an angry old hen against all Deborah's new ideas. Why the
+devil can't they live and let live?"
+
+And he hesitated savagely between a pearl gray _and_ a black cravat. Then
+he heard another step on the stairs. It was much slower than Deborah's, and
+cautious and dogged, one foot lifted carefully after the other. It was
+John, who had finished his kitchen supper and was silently making his way
+up through the house to his room at the top, there to keep out of sight for
+the evening. And it came into Roger's mind that John had been acting in
+just this fashion ever since Edith had been in the house.
+
+"We'll have trouble there, too!" he told himself, as he jerked the black
+satin cravat into place, a tie he thoroughly disliked. Yes, black, by
+George, he felt like it to-night! These women! These evenings! This worry!
+This war! This world gone raving, driveling mad!
+
+And frowning with annoyance, Roger went down to his dinner.
+
+As he waited he grew impatient. He had eaten no lunch, he was hungry; and
+he was very tired, too, for he had had his own hard day. Pshaw! He got up
+angrily. _Somebody_ must be genial here. He went into the dining room and
+poured himself a good stiff drink. Roger had never been much of a drinker.
+Ever since his marriage, cigars had been his only vice. But of late he had
+been having curious little sinking spells. They worried him, and he told
+himself he could not afford to get either too tired or too faint.
+
+Nevertheless, he reflected, it was setting a bad example for George. But
+glancing into his study he saw that the lad was completely absorbed. With
+knees drawn up, his long lank form all hunched and huddled on the lounge,
+hair rumpled, George was reading a book which had a cover of tough gray
+cloth. At the sight of it his grandfather smiled, for he had seen it once
+before. Where George had obtained it, the Lord only knew. Its title was
+"Bulls and Breeding." A thoroughly practical little book, but nothing for
+George's mother to see. As his grandfather entered behind him, the boy
+looked up with a guilty start, and resumed with a short breath of relief.
+
+Young Elizabeth, too, had a furtive air, for instead of preparing her
+history lesson she was deep in the evening paper reading about the war
+abroad. Stout and florid, rather plain, but with a frank, attractive face
+and honest, clear, appealing eyes, this curious creature of thirteen was
+sitting firmly in her chair with her feet planted wide apart, eagerly
+scanning an account of the work of American surgeons in France. And again
+Roger smiled to himself. (He was feeling so much better now.) So Betsy was
+still thinking of becoming a surgeon. He wondered what she would take up
+next. In the past two years in swift succession she had made up her mind to
+be a novelist, an actress and a women's college president. And Roger liked
+this tremendously.
+
+He loved to watch these two in the house. Here again his family was
+widening out before him, with new figures arising to draw his attention
+this way and that. But these were bright distractions. He took a deep,
+amused delight in watching these two youngsters caught between two fires,
+on the one side their mother and upon the other their aunt; both obviously
+drawn toward Deborah, a figure who stood in their regard for all that
+thrilling outside world, that heaving sparkling ocean on which they too
+would soon embark; both sternly repressing their eagerness as an insult to
+their mother, whom they loved and pitied so, regarding her as a brave and
+dear but rapidly ageing creature "well on in her thirties," whom they must
+cherish and preserve. They both had such solemn thoughts as they looked at
+Edith in her chair. But as Roger watched them, with their love and their
+solemnity, their guilt and their perplexity, with quiet enjoyment he would
+wait to see the change he knew would come. And it always did. The sudden
+picking up of a book, the vanishing of an anxious frown, and in an instant
+their young minds had turned happily back into themselves, into their own
+engrossing lives, their plans, their intimate dreams and ambitions, all so
+curiously bound up with memories of small happenings which had struck them
+as funny that day and at which they would suddenly chuckle aloud.
+
+And this was only one stage in their growth. What would be the next, he
+asked, and all the others after that? What kind of world would they live
+in? Please heaven, there would be no wars. Many old things, no doubt, would
+be changed, by the work of Deborah and her kind--but not too many, Roger
+hoped. And these young people, meanwhile, would be bringing up children in
+their turn. So the family would go on, and multiply and scatter wide, never
+to unite again. And he thought he could catch glimpses, very small and far
+away but bright as patches of sunlight upon distant mountain tops, into the
+widening vista of those many lives ahead. A wistful look crept over his
+face.
+
+"In their lives too we shall be there, the dim strong figures of the past."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Deborah came into the room, and at once the whole atmosphere changed. Her
+niece sprang up delightedly.
+
+"Why, Auntie, how lovely you look!" she exclaimed. And Roger eyed Deborah
+in surprise. Though she did not believe in mourning, she had been wearing
+dark gowns of late to avoid hurting Edith's feelings. But to-night she had
+donned bright colors instead; her dress was as near décolleté as anything
+that Deborah wore, and there was a band of dull blue velvet bound about
+her hair.
+
+"Thanks, dearie," she said, smiling. "Shall we go in to dinner now?" she
+added to her father. "Edith said not to wait for her--and I'll have to be
+off rather early this evening."
+
+"What is it to-night?" he inquired.
+
+"A big meeting at Cooper Union."
+
+And at dinner she went on to say that in her five schools the neighborhood
+clubs had combined to hold this meeting, and she herself was to preside. At
+once her young niece was all animation.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could go and hear you!" she sighed.
+
+"Afraid you can't, Betsy," her aunt replied. And at this, with an
+instinctive glance toward the door where her mother would soon come in to
+stop by her mere presence all such conversation, Elizabeth eagerly threw
+out one inquiry after the other, pell mell.
+
+"How on earth do you do it?" she wanted to know. "How do you get a speech
+ready, Aunt Deborah--how much of it do you write out ahead? Aren't you just
+the least bit nervous--now, I mean--this minute? And how will you feel on
+the platform? _What on earth do you do with your feet?_"
+
+As the girl bent forward there with her gaze fixed ardently on her aunt,
+her grandfather thought in half comic dismay, "Lord, now she'll want to be
+a great speaker--like her aunt. And she will tell her mother so!"
+
+"What's the meeting all about?" he inquired. And Deborah began to explain.
+
+In her five schools the poverty was rapidly becoming worse. Each week more
+children stayed away or came to school ragged and unkempt, some without any
+overcoats, small pitiful mites wearing shoes so old as barely to stick on
+their feet. And when the teachers and visitors followed these children into
+their homes they found bare, dirty, chilly rooms where the little folk
+shivered and wailed for food and the mothers looked distracted, gaunt and
+sullen and half crazed. Over three hundred thousand workers were idle in
+the city. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, half the money from uptown
+which had gone in former years into work for the tenements was going over
+to Belgium instead. And the same relentless drain of war was felt by the
+tenement people themselves; for all of them were foreigners, and from their
+relatives abroad, in those wide zones of Europe already blackened and laid
+waste, in endless torrents through the mails came wild appeals for money.
+
+In such homes her children lived. And Deborah had set her mind on vigorous
+measures of relief. Landlords must be made to wait and the city be
+persuaded to give work to the most needy, food and fuel must be secured. As
+she spoke of the task before her, with a flush of animation upon her bright
+expressive face at the thought that in less than an hour she would be
+facing thousands of people, the gloom of the picture she painted was
+dispelled in the spirit she showed.
+
+"These things always work out," she declared, with an impatient shrug of
+her shoulders. And watching her admiringly, young Betsy thought, "How
+strong she is! What a wonderful grown-up woman!" And Roger watching
+thought, "How young."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What things?" It was Edith's voice at the door, and among those at the
+table there was a little stir of alarm. She had entered unnoticed and now
+took her seat. She was looking pale and tired. "What things work out so
+finely?" she asked, and with a glance at Deborah's gown,
+
+"Where are you going?" she added.
+
+"To a meeting," Deborah answered.
+
+"Oh." And Edith began her soup. In the awkward pause that followed, twice
+Deborah started to speak to her sister, but checked herself, for at other
+dinners just like this she had made such dismal failures.
+
+"By the way, Edith," she said, at last, "I've been thinking of all that
+furniture of yours which is lying in storage." Her sister looked up at her,
+startled.
+
+"What about it?" she asked.
+
+"There's so much of it you don't care for," Deborah answered quietly. "Why
+don't you let a part of it go? I mean the few pieces you've always
+disliked."
+
+"For what purpose?"
+
+"Why, it seems such a pity not to have Hannah back in the house. She would
+make things so much easier." Roger felt a glow of relief.
+
+"A capital plan!" he declared at once.
+
+"It would be," Edith corrected him, "if I hadn't already made _other_
+plans." And then in a brisk, breathless tone, "You see I've made up my
+mind," she said, "to sell not only part but _all_ my furniture--very
+soon--and a few other belongings as well--and use the money to put George
+and Elizabeth and little Bob back in the schools where they belong."
+
+"Mother!" gasped Elizabeth, and with a prolonged "Oh-h" of delight she ran
+around to her mother's chair.
+
+"But look here," George blurted worriedly, "I don't like it, mother, darned
+if I do! You're selling everything--just for school!"
+
+"School is rather important, George," was Edith's tart rejoinder. "If you
+don't think so, ask your aunt." "What do you think of it, Auntie?" he
+asked. The cloud which had come on Deborah's face was lifted in an instant.
+
+"I think, George," she answered gently, "that you'd better let your mother
+do what she thinks best for you. It _will_ make things easier here in the
+house," she added, to her sister, "but I wish you could have Hannah, too."
+
+"Oh, I'll manage nicely now," said Edith. And with a slight smile of
+triumph she resumed her dinner.
+
+"The war won't last forever," muttered Roger uneasily. And to himself: "But
+suppose it _should_ last--a year or more." He did not approve of Edith's
+scheme. "It's burning her bridges all at once, for something that isn't
+essential," he thought. But he would not tell her so.
+
+Meanwhile Deborah glanced at the clock.
+
+"Oh! It's nearly eight o'clock! I must hurry or I'll be late," she said.
+"Good-night, all--"
+
+And she left them.
+
+Roger followed her into the hall.
+
+"What do you think of this?" he demanded. Her reply was a tolerant shrug.
+
+"It's her own money, father--"
+
+"All her money!" he rejoined. "Every dollar she has in the world!"
+
+"But I don't just see how it can be helped."
+
+"Can't you talk to her, show her what folly it is?"
+
+"Hardly," said Deborah, smiling. Already she had on her coat and hat and
+was turning to go. And her father scowled with annoyance. She was always
+going, he told himself, leaving him to handle her sister alone. He would
+like to go out himself in the evenings--yes, by George, this very night--it
+would act like a tonic on his mind. Just for a moment, standing there, he
+saw Cooper Union packed to the doors, he heard the ringing speeches, the
+cheers. But no, it was not to be thought of. With this silent war going on
+in his house he knew he must stay neutral. Watchful waiting was his course.
+If he went out with Deborah, Edith would be distinctly hurt, and sitting
+all evening here alone she would draw still deeper into herself. And so it
+would be night after night, as it had been for many weeks. He would be
+cooped up at home while Deborah did the running about.... In half the time
+it takes to tell it, Roger had worked himself into a state where he felt
+like a mighty badly used man.
+
+"I wish you _would_ speak to her," he said. "I wish you could manage to
+find time to be here more in the evenings. Edith worries so much and she's
+trying so hard. A little sympathy now and then--"
+
+"But she doesn't seem to want any from me," said his daughter, a bit
+impatiently. "I know it's hard--of course it is. But what can I do? She
+won't let me help. And besides--there are other families, you
+know--thousands--really suffering--for the lack of all that we have here."
+She smiled and kissed him quickly. "Good-night, dad dear, I've got to run."
+
+And the door closed behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+After dinner that night, in the living room the two older children studied
+their lessons and Edith sat mending a pair of rompers for little Tad.
+Presently Roger came out from his den with the evening paper in his hand
+and sat down close beside her. He did this conscientiously almost every
+evening. With a sigh he opened his paper to read, again there was silence
+in the room, and in this silence Roger's mind roamed far away across the
+sea.
+
+For the front page of his paper was filled with the usual headlines,
+tidings which a year before would have made a man's heart jump into his
+throat, but which were getting commonplace now. Dead and wounded by the
+thousands, famine, bombs and shrapnel, hideous atrocities, submarines and
+floating mines, words once remote but now familiar, always there on the
+front page and penetrating into his soul, becoming a part of Roger Gale, so
+that never again when the war was done would he be the same man he was
+before. For he had forever lost his faith in the sanity and steadiness of
+the great mind of humanity. Roger had thought of mankind as mature, but
+there had come to him of late the same feeling he had had before in the
+bosom of his family. Mankind had suddenly unmasked and shown itself for
+what it was--still only a precocious child, with a terrible precocity. For
+its growth had been one sided. Its strength was growing at a speed
+breathless and astounding. But its vision and its poise, its sense of human
+justice, of kindliness and tolerance and of generous brotherly love, these
+had been neglected and were being left behind. Vaguely he thought of its
+ships of steel, its railroads and its flaming mills, its miracles, its
+prodigies. And the picture rose in his mind of a child, standing there of
+giant's size with dangerous playthings in its hands, and boastfully
+declaring,
+
+"I can thunder over the earth, dive in the ocean, soar on the clouds! I can
+shiver to atoms a mountain, I can drench whole lands with blood! I can look
+up and laugh at God!"
+
+And Roger frowned as he read the news. What strange new century lay ahead?
+What convulsing throes of change? What was in store for his children?
+Tighter set his heavy jaw.
+
+"It shall be good," he told himself with a grim determination. "For them
+there shall be better things. Something great and splendid shall come out
+of it at last. They will look back upon this time as I look on the French
+Revolution."
+
+He tried to peer into that world ahead, dazzling, distant as the sun. But
+then with a sigh he returned to the news, and little by little his mind
+again was gripped and held by the most compelling of all appeals so far
+revealed in humanity's growth, the appeal of war to the mind of a man. He
+frowned as he read, but he read on. Why didn't England send over more men?
+
+The clock struck nine.
+
+"Now, George. Now, Elizabeth," Edith said. With the usual delay and
+reluctance the children brought their work to an end, kissed their mother
+and went up to bed. And Edith continued sewing. Presently she smiled to
+herself. Little Tad had been so droll that day.
+
+On the third page of his paper, Roger's glance was arrested by a full
+column story concerning Deborah's meeting that night. And as in a long
+interview he read here in the public print the same things she had told him
+at supper, he felt a little glow of pride. Yes, this daughter of his was a
+wonderful woman, living a big useful life, taking a leading part in work
+which would certainly brighten the lives of millions of children still
+unborn. Again he felt the tonic of it. Here was a glimmer of hope in the
+world, here was an antidote to war. He finished the column and glanced up.
+
+Edith was still sewing. He thought of her plan to sell all she possessed in
+order to put her children back in their expensive schools uptown.
+
+"Why can't she save her money?" he thought. "God knows there's little
+enough of it left. But I can't tell her that. If I do she'll sell
+everything, hand me the cash and tell me she's sorry to be such a burden.
+She'll sit like a thundercloud in my house."
+
+No, he could say nothing to stop her. And over the top of his paper her
+father shot a look at her of keen exasperation. Why risk everything she had
+to get these needless frills and fads? Why must she cram her life so full
+of petty plans and worries and titty-tatty little jobs? For the Lord's
+sake, leave their clothes alone! And why these careful little rules for
+every minute of their day, for their washing, their dressing, their eating,
+their napping, their play and the very air they breathed! He crumpled his
+paper impatiently. She was always talking of being old-fashioned. Well
+then, why not be that way? Let her live as her grandmother had, up there in
+the mountain farmhouse. _She_ had not been so particular. With one hired
+girl she had thought herself lucky. And not only had she cooked and sewed,
+but she had spun and woven too, had churned and made cheese and pickles and
+jam and quilts and even mattresses. Once in two months she had cut Roger's
+hair, and the rest of the time she had let him alone, except for something
+really worth while--a broken arm, for example, or church. She had stuck to
+the essentials!... But Edith was not old-fashioned, nor was she alive to
+this modern age. In short, she was neither here nor there!
+
+Then from the nursery above, her smallest boy was heard to cry. With a
+little sigh of weariness, quickly she rose and went upstairs, and a few
+moments later to Roger's ears came a low, sweet, soothing lullaby. Years
+ago Edith had asked him to teach her some of his mother's cradle songs. And
+the one which she was singing to-night was a song he had heard when he was
+small, when the mountain storms had shrieked and beat upon the rattling old
+house and he had been frightened and had cried out and his mother had come
+to his bed in the dark. He felt as though she were near him now. And as he
+listened to the song, from the deep well of sentiment which was a part of
+Roger Gale rose memories that changed his mood, and with it his sense of
+proportions.
+
+Here was motherhood of the genuine kind, not orating in Cooper Union in the
+name of every child in New York, but crooning low and tenderly, soothing
+one little child to sleep, one of the five she herself had borne, in agony,
+without complaint. How Edith had slaved and sacrificed, how bravely she had
+rallied after the death of her husband. He remembered her a few hours ago
+on the bed upstairs, spent and in anguish, sobbing, alone. And remorse came
+over him. Deborah's talk at dinner had twisted his thinking, he told
+himself. Well, that was Deborah's way of life. She had her enormous family
+and Edith had her small one, and in this hell of misery which war was
+spreading over the earth each mother was up in arms for her brood. And, by
+George, of the two he didn't know but that he preferred his own flesh and
+blood. All very noble, Miss Deborah, and very dramatic, to open your arms
+to all the children under the moon and get your name in the papers. But
+there was something pretty fine in just sitting at home and singing to one.
+
+"All right, little mother, you go straight ahead. This is war and panic and
+hard times. You're perfectly right to look after your own."
+
+He would show Edith he did not begrudge her this use of her small
+property. And more than that, he would do what he could to take her out of
+her loneliness. How about reading aloud to her? He had been a capital
+reader, during Judith's lifetime, for he had always enjoyed it so. Roger
+rose and went to his shelves and began to look over the volumes there.
+Perhaps a book of travel.... Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."
+
+Meanwhile Edith came into the room, sat down and took up her sewing. As she
+did so he turned and glanced at her, and she smiled brightly back at him.
+Yes, he thought with a genial glow, from this night on he would do his
+part. He came back to his chair with a book in his hand, prepared to start
+on his new course.
+
+"Father," she said quietly. Her eyes were on the work in her lap.
+
+"Yes, my child, what is it?"
+
+"It's about John," she answered. And with a movement of alarm he looked at
+his daughter intently.
+
+"What's the matter with John?" he inquired.
+
+"He has tuberculosis," she said.
+
+"He has no such thing!" her father retorted. "John has Pott's Disease of
+the spine!"
+
+"Yes, I know he has," she replied. "And I'm sorry for him, poor lad. But in
+the last year," she added, "certain complications have come. And now he's
+tubercular as well."
+
+"How do you know? He doesn't cough--his lungs are sound as yours or mine!"
+
+"No, it's--" Edith pursed her lips. "It's different," she said softly.
+
+"Who told you?" he demanded.
+
+"Not Deborah," was the quick response. "She knew it, I'm certain, for I
+find that she's been having Mrs. Neale, the woman who comes in to wash, do
+John's things in a separate tub. I found her doing it yesterday, and she
+told me what Deborah had said."
+
+"It's the first I'd heard of it," Roger put in.
+
+"I know it is," she answered. "For if you'd heard of it before, I don't
+believe you'd have been as ready as Deborah was, apparently, to risk
+infecting the children here." Edith's voice was gentle, slow and
+relentless. There was still a reflection in her eyes of the tenderness
+which had been there as she had soothed her child to sleep. "As time goes
+on, John is bound to get worse. The risk will be greater every week."
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" cried her father. "No such thing! You're just scaring yourself
+over nothing at all!"
+
+"Doctor Lake didn't think I was." Lake was the big child specialist in
+whose care Edith's children had been for years. "I talked to him to-day on
+the telephone, and he said we should get John out of the house."
+
+Roger heartily damned Doctor Lake!
+
+"It's easy to find a good home for the boy," Edith went on quietly, "close
+by, if you like--in some respectable family that will be only too thankful
+to take in a boarder."
+
+"How about the danger to that family's children?" Roger asked malignantly.
+
+"Very well, father, do as you please. Take any risk you want to."
+
+"I'm taking no risk," he retorted. "If there were any risk they would have
+told me--Allan and Deborah would, I mean."
+
+"They wouldn't!" burst from Edith with a vehemence which startled him.
+"They'd take the same risk for my children they would for any street urchin
+in town! All children are the same in their eyes--and if you feel as they
+do--"
+
+"I don't feel as they do!"
+
+"Don't you? Then I'm telling you that Doctor Lake said there was very
+serious risk--every day this boy remains in the house!" Roger rose angrily
+from his chair:
+
+"So you want me to turn him out! To-night!"
+
+"No, I want you to wait a few days--until we can find him a decent home."
+
+"All right, I won't do it!"
+
+"Very well, father--it's your house, not mine."
+
+For a few moments longer she sat at her sewing, while her father walked the
+floor. Then abruptly she rose, her eyes brimming with tears, and left the
+room. And he heard a sob as she went upstairs.
+
+"Now she'll shut herself up with her children," he reflected savagely, "and
+hold the fort till I come to terms!" Rather than risk a hair on their
+heads, Edith would turn the whole world out of doors! He thought of Deborah
+and he groaned. She would have to be told of this; and when she was, what a
+row there would be! For Johnny was one of _her_ family. He glanced at the
+clock. She'd be coming home soon. Should he tell her? Not to-night! Just
+for one evening he'd had enough!
+
+He picked up the book he had meant to read--Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."
+And Roger snorted wrathfully. By George, how _he'd_ like to go to Japan--or
+to darkest Africa! Anywhere!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+But later in the evening, when Allan and Deborah came in, Roger, who in the
+meantime had had a good hour in Japan and was somewhat relaxed and soothed,
+decided at once this was the time to tell her and have done with it. For
+Deborah was flushed with triumph, the meeting had been a huge success.
+Cooper Union had been packed to the walls, with an overflow meeting out on
+the street; thousands of dollars had been pledged and some big politicians
+had promised support; and men and women, rich and poor, had volunteered
+their services. She started to tell him about it, but noticed his troubled
+expression and asked him what was on his mind.
+
+"Oh, nothing tremendous," Roger said. "I hate to be any damper to-night. I
+hadn't meant to tell you to-night--but I think I will now, for you look as
+though you could find a solution for anything."
+
+"Then I must look like an idiot," his daughter said good-humoredly. "What
+is it?" she demanded.
+
+"It's about John." Her countenance changed.
+
+"Oh. Is he worse?"
+
+"Edith thinks he is--and she says it's not safe."
+
+"I see--she wants him out of the house. Tell me what she said to you." As
+he did so she listened intently, and turning to Allan at the end, "What do
+you say to this, Allan?" she asked. "Is there any real risk to the
+children?"
+
+"A little," he responded. "As much as they take every day in the trolley
+going to school."
+
+"They never go in the trolley," Deborah answered dryly. "They always go on
+the top of the 'bus." She was silent for a moment. "Well, there's no use
+discussing it. If Edith feels that way, John must go. The house won't be
+livable till he does."
+
+Roger looked at her in surprise. He felt both relieved and disappointed.
+"John's only one of thousands to her," he told himself aggrievedly. "He
+isn't close to her, she hasn't room, she has a whole mass meeting in her
+head. But I haven't, by George, I like the boy--and I'm the one who will
+have to tell him to pack up and leave the house! Isn't it the very devil,
+how things all come back on me?"
+
+"Look here, father," Deborah said, "suppose you let me manage this." And
+Roger's heavy visage cleared.
+
+"You mean you'll tell him?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, "and he'll understand it perfectly. I think he has been
+expecting it. I have, for a good many weeks," she added, with some
+bitterness. "And I know some people who will be glad enough to take him in.
+I'll see that he's made comfortable. Only--" her face clouded.
+
+"It has meant a lot to him, being here," her father put in gruffly.
+
+"Oh, John's used to getting knocks in this world." Her quiet voice grew
+hard and stern. "I wasn't thinking of John just now. What frightens me at
+times like this is Edith," she said slowly. "No, not just
+Edith--motherhood. I see it in so many mothers these days--in the women
+downtown, in their fight for their children against all other children on
+earth. It's the hardest thing we have to do--to try to make them see and
+feel outside of their own small tenement homes--and help each other--pull
+together. They can't see it's their only chance! And all because of this
+mother love! It's so blind sometimes, like an animal!" She broke off, and
+for a moment she seemed to be looking deep into herself. "And I suppose
+we're all like that, we women are," she muttered, "when we marry and have
+children. If the pinch is ever hard enough--"
+
+"_You_ wouldn't be," said Allan. And a sudden sharp uneasiness came into
+Roger's mind.
+
+"When are you two to be married?" he asked, without stopping to think. And
+at once he regretted his question. With a quick impatient look at him,
+Allan bent over a book on the table.
+
+"I don't know," Deborah answered. "Next spring, I hope." The frown was
+still on her face.
+
+"Don't make it too long," said her father brusquely. He left them and went
+up to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Deborah sat motionless. She wished Allan would go, for she guessed what was
+coming and did not feel equal to it to-night. All at once she felt tired
+and unnerved from her long exciting evening. If only she could let go of
+herself and have a good cry. She locked her hands together and looked up at
+him with impatience. He was still at the table, his back was turned.
+
+"Don't you _know_ I love you?" she was thinking fiercely. "Can't you see
+it--haven't you seen it--growing, growing--day after day? But I don't want
+you here to-night! Why can't you see you must leave me alone? Now! This
+minute!"
+
+He turned and came over in front of her, and stood looking steadily down.
+
+"I wonder," he said slowly, "how well you understand yourself."
+
+"I think I do," she muttered. With a sudden twitching of her lip she looked
+quickly up at him. "Go on, Allan--let's talk it all over now if you must!"
+
+"Not if you feel like that," he said. At his tone of displeasure she caught
+his hand.
+
+"Yes, yes, I want to! Please!" she cried. "It's better--really! Believe me,
+it is--"
+
+He hesitated a moment, his wide generous mouth set hard, and then in a tone
+as sharp as hers he demanded, "Are you sure you'll marry me next spring?
+Are you sure you _hope_ you will next spring? Are you sure this sister of
+yours in the house, on your nerves day and night, with this blind narrow
+motherhood, this motherhood which frightens you--isn't frightening you too
+much?"
+
+"No--a little--but not too much." Her deep sweet voice was trembling.
+"You're the one who frightens me. If you only knew! When you come like
+this--with all you've done for me back of you--"
+
+"Deborah! Don't be a fool!"
+
+"Oh, I know you say you've done nothing, except what you've been glad to
+do! You love me like that! But it's just that love! Giving up all your
+practice little by little, and your reputation uptown--all for the sake of
+me, Allan, me!"
+
+"You're wrong," he replied. "Compared to what I'm getting, I've given up
+nothing! Can't you see? You're just as narrow in your school as Edith is
+right here in her home! You look upon my hospital as a mere annex to your
+schools, when the truth of it is that the work down there is a chance I've
+wanted all my life! Can't you understand," he cried, "that instead of your
+being in debt to me it's I who am in debt to you? You're a suffragist, eh,
+a feminist--whatever you want to call it! All right! So you want to be
+equal with man! Then, for God's sake, why not begin? _Feel_ equal! I'm no
+annex to you, nor you to me! It has happened, thank God, that our work fits
+in--each with the other!"
+
+He stopped and stared, seemed to shake himself; he walked the floor. And
+when he turned back his expression had changed.
+
+"Look here, Deborah," he asked, with an appealing humorous smile, "will you
+tell me what I'm driving at?"
+
+Deborah threw back her head and laughed, and her laughter thrilled with
+relief. "How sure I feel now that I love him," she thought.
+
+"You've proved I owe you nothing!" she cried. "And that men and women of
+our kind can work on splendidly side by side, and never bother our poor
+little heads about anything else--even marriage!"
+
+"We will, though!" he retorted. The next moment she was in his arms. "Now,
+Deborah, listen to reason, child. Why can't you marry me right away?"
+
+"Because," she said, "when I marry you I'm going to have you all to
+myself--for weeks and weeks as we planned before! And afterwards, with a
+wonderful start--and with the war over, work less hard and the world less
+dark and gloomy--we're going to find that at last we can live! But this
+winter it couldn't be like that. This winter we've got to go on with our
+work--and without any more silly worries or talk about whether or not we're
+in love. _For we are_!" Her upturned face was close to his, and for some
+moments nothing was said, "Well?" she asked. "Are you satisfied?"
+
+"No--I want to get married. But it is now a quarter past one. And I'm your
+physician. Go straight to bed."
+
+She stopped him a minute at the front door:
+
+"Are you sure, absolutely, you understand?"
+
+He told her he did. But as he walked home he reflected. How tense she had
+been in the way she had talked. Yes, the long strain was telling. "Why was
+she so anxious to get me out of the house," he asked, "when we were alone
+for the first time in days? And why, if she's really sure of her love, does
+she hate the idea that she's in my debt?"
+
+He walked faster, for the night was cold. And there was a chill, too, in
+this long waiting game.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger heard Deborah come up to bed, and he wondered what they had been
+talking about. Of the topic he himself had broached--each other, love and
+marriage?
+
+"Possibly--for a minute or two--but no more," he grumbled. "For don't
+forget there's work to discuss, there's that mass meeting still on her
+mind. And God knows a woman's mind is never any child's play. But when you
+load a mass meeting on top--"
+
+Here he yawned long and noisily. His head ached, he felt sore and
+weak--"from the evening's entertainment my other daughter gave me." No, he
+was through, he had had enough. They could settle things to suit
+themselves. Let Edith squander her money on frills, the more expensive the
+better. Let her turn poor Johnny out of the house, let her give full play
+to her motherhood. And if that scared Deborah out of marrying, let her stay
+single and die an old maid. He had worried enough for his family. He wanted
+a little peace in his house.
+
+Drowsily he closed his eyes, and a picture came into his mind of the city
+as he had seen it only a few nights before. It had been so cool, so calm
+and still. At dusk he had been in the building of the great tower on
+Madison Square; and when he had finished his business there, on an impulse
+he had gone up to the top, and through a wide low window had stood a few
+moments looking down. A soft light snow was falling; and from high up in
+the storm, through the silent whirling flakes, he had looked far down upon
+lights below, in groups and clusters, dancing lines, between tall phantom
+buildings, blurred and ghostly, faint, unreal. From all that bustle and
+fever of life there had risen to him barely a sound. And the town had
+seemed small and lonely, a little glow in the infinite dark, fulfilling its
+allotted place for its moment in eternity. Suddenly from close over his
+head like a brazen voice out of the sky, hard and deafening and clear, the
+great bell had boomed the hour. Then again had come the silence, and the
+cool, soft, whirling snow.
+
+Like a dream it faded all away, and with a curious smile on his face
+presently Roger fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+And now he felt the approach at last of another season of quiet, one of
+those uneventful times which come in family histories. As he washed and
+dressed for dinner, one night a little later, he thought with satisfaction,
+"How nicely things are smoothing out." His dressing for dinner, as a rule,
+consisted in changing his low wing collar and his large round detachable
+cuffs; but to-night he changed his cravat as well, from a black to a pearl
+gray one. He hoped the whole winter would be pearl gray.
+
+The little storm which Edith had raised over John's presence in the house
+had been allayed. Deborah had talked to John, and had moved him with his
+belongings to a comfortable sunny room in the small but neat apartment of a
+Scotch family nearby. And John had been so sensible. "Oh, I'm fine, thank
+you," he had answered simply, when in the office Roger had asked him about
+his new home. So that incident was closed. Already Edith was disinfecting
+John's old room to her heart's content, for George was to occupy it now.
+She was having the woodwork repainted and a new paper put on the walls. She
+had already purchased a small new rug, and a bed and a bureau and one easy
+chair, and was making a pair of fresh pretty curtains. All right, let her
+do it--if only there could be peace in the house.
+
+With his cravat adjusted and his thick-curling silver hair trim from having
+just been cut by "Louis" over at the Brevoort, Roger went comfortably down
+to his dinner. Edith greeted him with a smile.
+
+"Deborah's dining out," she said.
+
+"Very well," he replied, "so much the better. We'll go right in--I'm
+hungry. And we'll have the evening to ourselves. No big ideas nor problems.
+Eh, daughter?" He slipped his hand in hers, and she gave it a little
+affectionate squeeze. With John safely out of the way, and not only the
+health of her children but their proper schooling assured, Edith was
+herself again, placid, sweet and kindly. And dinner that night was a
+cheerful meal. Later, in the living room, as Roger contentedly lit his
+cigar, Edith gave an appreciative sniff.
+
+"You do smoke such good cigars, father," she said, smiling over her needle.
+And glancing up at her daughter, "Betsy, dear," she added, "go and get your
+grandfather's evening paper."
+
+In quiet perusal of the news he spent the first part of his evening. The
+war did not bother him to-night, for there had come a lull in the fighting,
+as though even war could know its place. And times were better over here.
+As, skipping all news from abroad his eye roved over the pages for what his
+business depended upon, Roger began to find it now. The old familiar
+headliness were reappearing side by side--high finance exposures, graft,
+the antics and didos cut up by the sons and daughters of big millionaires;
+and after them in cheery succession the Yale-Harvard game, a new man for
+the Giants, a new college building for Cornell, a new city plan for
+Seattle, a woman senator in Arizona and in Chicago a "sporting mayor." In
+brief, all over the U.S.A., men and women old and new had risen up, to
+power, fame, notoriety, whatever you chose to call it. Men and women?
+Hardly. "Children" was the better word. But the thought did not trouble
+Roger to-night. He had instead a heartening sense of the youth, the wild
+exuberance, the boundless vigor in his native land. He could feel it rising
+once again. Life was soon to go on as before; people were growing hungry to
+see the names of their countrymen back in the headlines where they
+belonged. And Roger's business was picking up. He was not sure of the
+figure of his deficit last week--he had always been vague on the
+book-keeping side--but he knew it was down considerably.
+
+When Betsy and George had gone to bed, Roger put down his paper.
+
+"Look here, Edith," he proposed, "how'd you like me to read aloud while you
+sew?" She looked up with a smile of pleased surprise.
+
+"Why, father dear, I'd love it." At once, she bent over her needle again,
+so that if there were any awkwardness attending this small change in their
+lives it did not reveal itself in her pretty countenance. "What shall we
+read?" she affably asked.
+
+"I've got a capital book," he replied. "It's about travel in Japan."
+
+"I'd like nothing better," Edith replied. And with a slight glow of pride
+in himself Roger took his book in hand. The experiment was a decided
+success. He read again the next night and the next, while Edith sat at her
+sewing. And so this hour's companionship, from nine to ten in the evening,
+became a regular custom--just one hour and no more, which Roger spent with
+his daughter, intimately and pleasantly. Yes, life was certainly smoothing
+out.
+
+Edith's three older children had been reinstated in school. And although at
+first, when deprived of their aid, she had found it nearly impossible to
+keep her two small boys amused and give them besides the four hours a day
+of fresh air they required, she had soon met this trouble by the same
+simple process as before. Of her few possessions still unsold, she had
+disposed of nearly all, and with a small fund thus secured she had sent for
+Hannah to return. The house was running beautifully.
+
+Christmas, too, was drawing near. And though Roger knew that in Edith's
+heart was a cold dread of this season, she bravely kept it to herself; and
+she set about so determinedly to make a merry holiday, that her father
+admiring her pluck drew closer still to his daughter. He entered into her
+Christmas plans and into all the conspiracies which were whispered about
+the house. Great secrets, anxious consultations, found in him a ready
+listener.
+
+So passed three blessed quiet weeks, and he had high hopes for the winter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+If there were any cloud upon his horizon, it was the thought of Laura. She
+had barely been to the house since Edith had come back to town; and at
+times, especially in the days when things had looked dark for Roger, he had
+caught himself reproaching this giddy-gaddy youngest child, so engrossed in
+her small "ménage" that apparently she could not spare a thought for her
+widowed sister. Laura on her return from abroad had brought as a gift for
+Edith a mourning gown from Paris, a most alluring creation--so much so, in
+fact, that Edith had felt it simply indecent, insulting, and had returned
+it to her sister with a stilted note of thanks. But Roger did not know of
+this. There were so many ways, he thought, in which Laura might have been
+nice to Edith. She had a gorgeous limousine in which she might so easily
+have come and taken her sister off on little trips uptown. But no, she kept
+her car to herself. And from her small apartment, where a maid whom she had
+brought from Rome dressed her several times each day, that limousine rushed
+her noiselessly forth, gay and wild as ever, immaculate and elegant,
+radiant and very rich. To what places did she go? What new friends was she
+making? What was Laura up to?
+
+He did not like her manner, one evening when she came to the house. As he
+helped her off with her cloak, a sleek supple leopard skin which fitted her
+figure like a glove, he asked,
+
+"Where's Hal this evening?" And she answered lightly,
+
+"Oh, don't ask _me_ what he does with himself."
+
+"You mean, I suppose," said Edith, with quiet disapproval, "that he is
+rushed to death this year with all this business from the war."
+
+"Yes, it's business," Laura replied, as she deftly smoothed and patted her
+soft, abundant, reddish hair. "And it's war, too," she added.
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked. He knew what she meant, war with her
+husband. But before Laura could answer him, Edith cut in hastily, for two
+of her children were present. At dinner she turned the talk to the war. But
+even on this topic, Laura's remarks were disturbing. She did not consider
+the war wholly bad--by no means, it had many good points. It was clearing
+away a lot of old rubbish, customs, superstitions and institutions out of
+date. "Musty old relics," she called them. She spoke as though repeating
+what someone else had told her. Laura with her chicken's mind could never
+have thought it all out by herself. When asked what she meant, she was
+smilingly vague, with a glance at Edith's youngsters. But she threw out
+hints about the church and even Christianity, as though it were falling to
+pieces. She spoke of a second Renaissance, "a glorious pagan era" coming.
+And then she exploded a little bomb by inquiring of Edith.
+
+"What do you think the girls over there are going to do for husbands, with
+half the marriageable men either killed or hopelessly damaged? They're not
+going to be nuns all their lives!"
+
+Again her sister cut her off, and the rest of the brief evening was
+decidedly awkward. Yes, she was changing, growing fast. And Roger did not
+like it. Here she was spending money like water, absorbed in her pleasures,
+having no baby, apparently at loose ends with her husband, and through it
+all so cocksure of herself and her outrageous views about war, and smiling
+about them with such an air, and in her whole manner, such a tone of amused
+superiority. She talked about a world for the strong, bits of gabble from
+Nietzsche and that sort of rot; she spoke blithely of a Rome reborn, the
+"Wings of the Eagles" heard again. This part of it she had taken, no doubt,
+from her new Italian friend, her husband's shrapnel partner.
+
+Pshaw! What was Laura up to?
+
+But that was only one evening. It was not repeated, another month went
+quickly by, and Roger had soon shaken it from him, for he had troubles
+enough at home. One daughter at a time, he had thought. And as the dark
+clouds close above him had cleared, the other cloud too had drifted away,
+until it was small, just on the horizon, far away from Roger's house. What
+was Laura up to? He barely ever thought of that now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But one night when he came home, Edith, who sat in the living room reading
+aloud to her smaller boys, gave him a significant look which warned him
+something had happened. And turning to take off his overcoat, in the hall
+he almost stumbled upon a pile of hand luggage, two smart patent leather
+bags, a hat trunk and a sable cloak.
+
+"Hello," he exclaimed. "What's this? Who's here?"
+
+"Laura," Edith answered. "She's up in Deborah's room, I think--they've been
+up there for over an hour." Roger looked indignantly in at his daughter.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Edith replied. "They didn't seem to need me.
+They made it rather plain, in fact. Another quarrel, I presume. She came
+into the house like a whirlwind, asked at once for Deborah and flew up to
+Deborah's room."
+
+"Pshaw!" Roger heavily mounted the stairs. He at least did not feel like
+flying. A whirlwind, eh--a nice evening ahead!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, in her room upstairs Deborah sat motionless, sternly holding her
+feelings down, while in a tone now kindly but more often full of a sharp
+dismay, she threw out question after question to Laura who was walking the
+floor in a quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her
+voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.
+
+"No, this time it's divorce!" she declared, at the end of her first
+outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband's double life.
+"I've stood it long enough! I'm through!"
+
+"You mean you don't care for him," Deborah said. She was fighting for time
+to think it out. "You want a divorce. Very well, Laura dear--but how do you
+think you are going to get it? The laws are rather strict in this state.
+They allow but one cause. Have you any proofs?"
+
+"No, I haven't--but I don't need any proofs! He wants it as badly as I do!
+Wait--I'll give you his very words!" Laura's face grew white with fury.
+"'It's entirely up to you, Sweetie'--the beast!--'You can have any kind of
+divorce you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to
+fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the
+reporters and tell them all about yourself!'"
+
+"_Your husband is to bring suit against you_?" Deborah's voice was loud and
+harsh. "For God's sake, Laura, what do you mean?"
+
+"Mean? I mean that _he has proofs_! He has used a detective, the mean
+little cur, and he's treating me like the dirt under his feet! Just as
+though it were one thing for a man, and another--quite--for a woman! He
+even had the nerve to be mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn
+me!--turn me out on the street!" Deborah winced as though from a blow. "Oh,
+it was funny, funny!" Laura was almost sobbing now.
+
+"Stop, this minute!" Deborah said. "You say that you've been doing--what he
+has?" she demanded.
+
+"Why shouldn't I? What do you know about it? Are you going to turn against
+me, too?"
+
+"I am--pretty nearly--"
+
+"Oh, good God!" Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her walking.
+
+"Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain."
+
+"Explain--to you? How can I? _You_ don't understand--you know nothing about
+it--all you know about is schools! You're simply a nun when it comes to
+this. I see it now--I didn't before--I thought you a modern woman--with
+your mind open to new ideas. But it isn't, it seems, when it comes to a
+pinch--it's shut as tight as Edith's is--"
+
+"Yes, tight!"
+
+"Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you kindly leave me
+alone! I'll have a talk with father!"
+
+"You will _not_ have a talk with father--"
+
+"I most certainly will--and he'll understand! He's a man, at least--and he
+led a man's life before he was married!"
+
+"Laura!"
+
+"_You_ can't see it in him--_but I can_!"
+
+"You'll say not a word to him, not one word! He has had enough this year as
+it is!"
+
+"Has he? Then I'm sorry! If _you_ were any help to me--instead of acting
+like a nun--"
+
+"Will you please stop talking like a fool?"
+
+"I'm not! I'm speaking the truth and you know it! You know no more about
+love like mine than a nun of the middle ages! You needn't tell me about
+Allan Baird. You think you're in love with him, don't you? Well then, I'll
+tell you that you're not--your love is the kind that can wait for
+years--because it's cold, it's cold, it's cold--it's all in your mind and
+your reason! And so I say you're no help to me now! Here--look at yourself
+in the glass over there! You're just plain angry--frightened!"
+
+"Yes--I am--I'm frightened." While she strove to think clearly, to form
+some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly on:
+
+"I know you are! And you can't be fair! You're like nearly all American
+women--married or single, young or old--you're all of you scared to death
+about sex--just as your Puritan mothers were! And you leave it alone--you
+keep it down--you never give it a chance--you're afraid! But I'm not
+afraid--and I'm living my life! And let me tell you I'm not alone! There
+are hundreds and thousands doing the same--right here in New York City
+to-night! It's been so abroad for years and years--in Rome and Berlin, in
+Paris and London--and now, thank God, it has come over here! If our
+husbands can do it, why can't we? And we are--we're starting--it's come
+with the war! You think war is hell and nothing else, don't you--but you're
+wrong! It's not only killing men--it's killing a lot of hypocrisies
+too--it's giving a jolt to marriage! You'll see what the women will do soon
+enough--when there aren't enough men any longer--"
+
+"Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you've done,"
+Deborah interrupted. A simple course of action had just flashed into her
+mind.
+
+"All right, I will. I'm not ashamed. I've given you this 'tirade' to show
+you exactly how I feel--that it's not any question of sin or guilt or any
+musty old rubbish like that! I know I'm right! I know just what I'm doing!"
+
+"Who's the man? That Italian?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Right here in New York."
+
+"Does he mean to stand by you?"
+
+"Of course he does."
+
+"Will he marry you, Laura?"
+
+"Yes, he will--the minute I'm free from my beast of a husband!"
+
+"And your husband will keep his suit quiet, you said, if you agree not to
+fight him."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Deborah rose abruptly.
+
+"Then will you stay right here to-night, and leave this matter to me?" she
+asked.
+
+"What do _you_ mean to do?"
+
+"See your husband."
+
+"What for? When?"
+
+"To-night, if I can. I want to be sure."
+
+Laura looked for the moment nonplussed.
+
+"And what of my wishes?" she inquired.
+
+"_Your_ wishes," said Deborah steadily. "You want a divorce, don't you--so
+do I. And you want it quiet--and so do I. I want it so hard that I want to
+make sure." Deborah's tone was kinder now, and she came over close to her
+sister. "Look here, Laura, if I've been hard, forgive me--please--and let
+me help. I'm not so narrow as you think. I've been through a good deal of
+this before--downtown, I mean, with girls in my school. They come to me, we
+have long talks. Maybe I _am_ a nun--as you say--but I'm one with a
+confessional. Not for sins," she added, as Laura looked up angrily. "Sins
+don't interest me very much. But troubles do. And heaven knows that
+marriage is one," she said with a curious bitterness. "And when it has
+failed and there's no love left--as in your case--I'm for divorce. Only--"
+her wide sensitive lips quivered just a little, "I'm sorry it had to come
+like this. But I love you, dear, and I want to help, I want to see you
+safely through. And while I'm doing it, if we can, I want to keep dad out
+of it--at least until it's settled." She paused a moment. "So if you agree,
+I'll go to your husband. I want to be sure, absolutely, just what we can
+count on. And until I come back, stay here in my room. You don't want to
+talk to father and Edith--"
+
+"Most certainly not!" Laura muttered.
+
+"Good. Then stay here until I return. I'll send you up some supper."
+
+"I don't want any, thank you."
+
+Laura went and threw herself on the bed, while her sister finished
+dressing.
+
+"It's decent of you, Deborah." Her voice was muffled and relaxed. "I wasn't
+fair," she added. "I'm sorry for some of the things I said."
+
+"About me and marriage?" Deborah looked at herself in the glass in a
+peculiar searching way. A slight spasm crossed her features. "I'm not sure
+but that you were right. At times I feel far from certain," she said. Laura
+lifted her head from the pillow, watched her sister a moment, dropped back.
+
+"Don't let this affect _you_, Deborah."
+
+"Oh, don't worry, dearie." And Deborah moved toward the door. "My affair is
+just mine, you see, and this won't make any difference."
+
+But in her heart she knew it would. What an utter loathing she had to-night
+for all that people meant by sex! Suddenly she was quivering, her limbs and
+her whole body hot.
+
+"You say I'm cold," she was thinking. "Cold toward Allan, calm and cool,
+nothing but mind and reason! You say it means little to me, all that! But
+if I had had trouble with Allan, would I have come running home to talk?
+Wouldn't I have hugged it tight? And isn't that love? What do _you_ know of
+me and the life I've led? Do you know how it feels to want to work, to be
+something yourself, without any man? And can't _that_ be a passion? Have
+you had to live with Edith here and see what motherhood can be, what it can
+do to a woman? And now you come with _another_ side, just as narrow as
+hers, devouring everything else in sight! And because I'm a little afraid
+of that, for myself and all I want to do, you say I don't know what love
+is! But I do! And my love's worth more than yours! It's deeper, richer, it
+will last!... Then why do I loathe it _all_ to-night?... But I don't, I
+only loathe _your_ side!... But yours is the very heart of it!... All
+right, then what am I going to do?"
+
+She was going slowly down the stairs. She stopped for a moment, frowning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+On the floor below she met her father, who was coming out of his room. He
+looked at her keenly:
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Laura's here," she answered. "Trouble again with her husband. Better leave
+her alone for the present--she's going to stay in my room for a while."
+
+"Very well," her father grunted, and they went down to dinner. There
+Deborah was silent, and Edith did most of the talking. Edith, quite aware
+of the fact that Laura and all Laura's ways were in disgrace for the
+moment, and that she and her ways with her children shone by the
+comparison, was bright and sweet and tactful. Roger glanced at her more
+than once, with approval and with gratitude for the effort she was making
+to smooth over the situation. Deborah rose before they had finished.
+
+"Where are you off to?" Roger asked.
+
+"Oh, there's something I have to attend to--"
+
+"School again this evening, dear?" inquired Edith cheerfully, but her
+sister was already out of the room. She looked at her father with quiet
+concern. "I'm sorry she has to be out to-night--to-night of all nights,"
+she murmured.
+
+"Humph!" ejaculated her father. This _eternal_ school business of Deborah's
+was beginning to get on his nerves. Yes, just a little on his nerves! Why
+couldn't she give up one evening, just one, and get Laura out of this snarl
+she was in? He heard her at the telephone, and presently she came back to
+them.
+
+"Oh, Edith," she said casually, "don't send any supper up to Laura. She
+says she doesn't want any to-night. And ask Hannah to put a cot in my room.
+Will you?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I'll attend to it."
+
+"Thanks." And again she left them. In silence, when the front door closed,
+Edith looked at her father. This must be rather serious, Roger thought
+excitedly. So Laura was to stay all night, while Deborah gallivanted off to
+those infernal schools of hers! He had little joy in his paper that night.
+The news of the world had such a trick of suddenly receding a million miles
+away from a man the minute he was in trouble. And Roger was in trouble.
+With each slow tick of the clock in the hall he grew more certain and more
+disturbed. An hour passed. The clock struck nine. With a snort he tossed
+his paper aside.
+
+"Well, Edith," he said glumly, "how about some chess this evening?" In
+answer she gave him a quick smile of understanding and sympathy.
+
+"All right, father dear." And she fetched the board. But they had played
+only a short time when Deborah's latchkey was heard in the door. Roger gave
+an angry hitch to his chair. Soon she appeared in the doorway.
+
+"May I talk to you, father?" she asked.
+
+"I suppose so." Roger scowled.
+
+"You'll excuse us, Edith?" she added.
+
+"Oh, assuredly, dear." And Edith rose, looking very much hurt. "Of course,
+if I'm not needed--"
+
+At this her father scowled again. Why couldn't Deborah show her sister a
+little consideration?
+
+"What is it?" he demanded.
+
+"Suppose we go into the study," she said.
+
+He followed her there and shut the door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well?" he asked, from his big leather chair. Deborah had remained
+standing.
+
+"I've got some bad news," she began.
+
+"What is it?" he snapped. "School burnt down?" Savagely he bit off a
+cigar.
+
+"I've just had a talk with Harold," she told him. He shot a glance of
+surprise and dismay.
+
+"Have, eh--what's it all about?"
+
+"It's about a divorce," she answered.
+
+The lighted match dropped from Roger's hand. He snatched it up before it
+was out and lit his cigar, and puffing smoke in a vigilant way again he
+eyed his daughter.
+
+"I've done what I could," she said painfully, "but they seem to have made
+up their minds."
+
+"Then they'll unmake 'em," he replied, and he leaned forward heavily.
+"They'll unmake 'em," he repeated, in a thick unnatural tone. "I'm not
+a'goin' to hear to it!" In a curious manner his voice had changed. It
+sounded like that of a man in the mountains, where he had been born and
+raised. This thought flashed into Deborah's mind and her wide resolute
+mouth set hard. It would be very difficult.
+
+"I'm afraid this won't do, father dear. Whether you give your consent or
+not--"
+
+"Wun't, wun't it! You wait and see if it wun't!" Deborah came close to him.
+
+"Suppose you wait till you understand," she admonished sternly.
+
+"All right, I'm waiting," he replied. She felt herself trembling deep
+inside. She did not want him to understand, any more than she must to
+induce him to keep out of this affair.
+
+"To begin with," she said steadily, "you will soon see yourself, I think,
+that they fairly loathe the sight of each other--that there is no real
+marriage left."
+
+"That's fiddlesticks!" snapped Roger. "Just modern talk and new
+ideas--ideas you're to blame for! Yes, you are--you put 'em in her
+head--you and your gabble about woman's rights!" He was angry now. He was
+glad he was angry. He'd just begun!
+
+"If you want me to leave her alone," his daughter cut in sharply, "just say
+so! I'll leave it all to you!" And she saw him flinch a little. "What would
+be _your_ idea?" she asked.
+
+"My idea? She's to go straight home and make up with him!"
+
+She hesitated. Then she said:
+
+"Suppose there's another woman."
+
+"Then he's a beast," growled Roger.
+
+"And yet you want her to live with him?"
+
+He scowled, he felt baffled, his mind in a whirl. And a wave of
+exasperation suddenly swept over him.
+
+"Well, why shouldn't she?" he cried. "Other wives have done it--millions!
+Made a devilish good success of it, too--made new men of their husbands!
+Let her show him she's ready to forgive! That's only Christian, ain't it?
+Hard? Of course it's hard on her! But can you tell me one hard thing she
+has ever had to do in her life? Hasn't it been pleasure, pleasure from the
+word go? Can't she stand something hard? Don't we all of us have to? I
+do--God knows--with all of you!" And he puffed his cigar in a fury. His
+daughter smiled. She saw her chance.
+
+"Father," she said, in a low clear voice, "You've had so _many_ troubles.
+Why not leave this one to me? You can't help--no matter how hard you
+try--you'll only make it worse and worse. And you've been through so much
+this year--you've earned the right to be quiet. And that's what _they_
+want, both of them--they both want it quiet, without any scandal." Her
+father glared, for he knew about scandal, he handled it in his office each
+day. "Let me manage this--please," she said. And her offer tempted him. He
+struggled for a moment.
+
+"No, I won't!" he burst out in reply. "I want quiet right enough, but not
+at the price of her peace with her God!" This sounded foolish, he felt
+that it did, and he flushed and grew the angrier. "No, I won't," he said
+stubbornly. "She'll go back to him if I take her myself. And what's more,"
+he added, rising, "she's to go straight back to-night!"
+
+"She is not going back to-night, my dear." And Deborah caught her father's
+arm. "Sit down, please--"
+
+"I've heard enough!"
+
+"I'm afraid you haven't," she replied.
+
+"Very well." His smile was caustic. "Give me some more of it," he said.
+
+"Her husband won't have her," said Deborah bluntly. "He told me so
+himself--to-night."
+
+"Did, eh--then _I'll_ talk to him!"
+
+"He thinks," she went on in a desperate tone, "that Laura has been
+leading--'her own little life'--as he put it to me."
+
+"_Eh_?"
+
+"He is bringing suit himself."
+
+"_Oh! He is_!" cried Roger hoarsely. "Then I _will_ talk to this young
+man!" But she put out a restraining hand:
+
+"Father! Don't try to fight this suit!"
+
+"You watch me!" he snarled. Tears showed in her eyes:
+
+"Think! Oh, please! Think what you're doing! Have you ever seen a
+divorce-court--here, in New York? Do you know what it's like? What it _can_
+be like?"
+
+"Yes," Roger panted. He did know, and the picture came vividly into his
+mind--a mass of eager devouring eyes fixed on a girl in a witness chair.
+"To-morrow I see a lawyer!" he said.
+
+"No--you won't do that, my dear," Deborah told him sadly. "Laura's husband
+has got proofs."
+
+Her father looked up slowly and glared into his daughter's face.
+
+"I've seen them myself," she added. "And Laura has admitted it, too."
+
+Still for a moment he stared at her. Then slowly he settled back in his
+chair, his eyes dropped in their sockets, and very carefully, with a hand
+which was trembling visibly, he lifted his cigar to his lips. It had gone
+nearly out, but he drew on it hard until it began to glow again.
+
+"Well," he asked simply, "what shall we do?"
+
+Sharply Deborah turned away. To be quiet, to be matter of fact, to act as
+though nothing had happened at all--she knew this was what he wanted now,
+what he was silently begging her to be for his sake, for the family's sake.
+For he had been raised in New England. And so, when she turned back to him,
+her voice was flat and commonplace.
+
+"Keep her here," she said. "Let him do what he likes. There'll be nothing
+noisy, he promised me that. But keep her here till it's over."
+
+Roger smoked for a moment, and said,
+
+"There's Edith and her children."
+
+"The children needn't know anything--and Edith only part of it."
+
+"The less, the better," he grunted.
+
+"Of course." She looked at him anxiously. This tractable mood of his might
+not last. "Why not go up and see her now--and get it all over--so you can
+sleep."
+
+Over Roger's set heavy visage flitted a smile of grim relish at that.
+Sleep! Deborah was funny. Resolutely he rose from his chair.
+
+"You'll be careful, of course," she admonished him, and he nodded in reply.
+At the door he turned back:
+
+"Where's the other chap?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered. "Surely you don't want to see _him_--." Her
+father snorted his contempt:
+
+"See him? No. Nor she neither. _She's_ not to see him. Understand?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell her that to-night."
+
+"Look here." Roger eyed his daughter a moment.
+
+"You've done well. I've no complaint. But don't try to manage everything."
+
+He went out and slowly climbed the stairs. Outside the bedroom door he
+paused. When had he stood like this before? In a moment he remembered. One
+evening some two years ago, the night before Laura's wedding, when they had
+had that other talk. And so it had come to this, had it. Well, there was no
+use making a scene. Again, with a sigh of weariness, Laura's father knocked
+at her door.
+
+"Come in, Deborah," she said.
+
+"It isn't Deborah, it's I." There was a little silence.
+
+"Very well, father, come in, please." Her voice sounded tired and lifeless.
+He opened the door and found the room dark. "I'm over on the bed," she
+said. "I've had a headache this evening."
+
+He came over to the bedside and he could just see her there, a long shadow
+upon the white. She had not taken off her clothes. He stood a moment
+helplessly.
+
+"Please don't _you_ talk to me!" His daughter fiercely whispered. "I can't
+stand any more to-night!"
+
+"I won't," he answered. "It's too late." Again there was a pause.
+
+"What time is it?" she asked him. But he did not answer.
+
+"Well, Laura," he said presently, "your sister has told me everything. She
+has seen your husband--it's all arranged--and you're to stay here till it's
+over ... You want to stay here, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then it's settled," he went on. "There's only one thing--the other man. I
+don't know who he is and I don't want to know. And I don't want you to know
+him again. You're not to see him. Understand?" For a moment Laura was
+silent.
+
+"I'm going to marry him, father," she said. And standing in the darkened
+room Roger stiffened sharply.
+
+"Well," he answered, after a pause, "that's your affair. You're no longer a
+child. I wish you were," he added.
+
+Suddenly in the darkness Laura's hand came out clutching for his. But he
+had already turned to the door.
+
+"Good-night," he said, and left her.
+
+In the hallway below he met Deborah, and to her questioning look he
+replied, "All right, I guess. Now I'm going to bed." He went into his room
+and closed the door.
+
+As soon as Roger was alone, he knew this was the hardest part--to be here
+by himself in this intimate room, with this worn blue rug, these pictures
+and this old mahogany bed. For he had promised Judith his wife to keep
+close to the children. What would she think of him if she knew?
+
+Judith had been a broad-minded woman, sensible, big-hearted. But she never
+would have stood for this. Once, he recollected, she had helped a girl
+friend to divorce her husband, a drunkard who ran after chorus girls. But
+that had been quite different. There the wife had been innocent and had
+done it for her children. Laura was guilty, she hadn't a child, she was
+already planning to marry again. And then what, he asked himself. "From bad
+to worse, very likely. A woman can't stop when she's started downhill." His
+eye was caught by the picture directly before him on the wall--the one his
+wife had given him--two herdsmen with their cattle high up on a shoulder of
+a sweeping mountain side, tiny blue figures against the dawn. It had been
+like a symbol of their lives, always beginning clean glorious days. What
+was Laura beginning?
+
+"Well," he demanded angrily, as he began to jerk off his clothes, "what can
+I do about it? Try to keep her from re-marrying, eh? And suppose I
+succeeded, how long would it last? She wouldn't stay here and I couldn't
+keep her. She'll be independent now--her looks will be her bank account.
+There'd be some other chap in no time, and he might not even marry her!" He
+tugged ferociously at his boots. "No, let well enough alone!"
+
+He finished undressing, opened the window, turned out the gas and got into
+bed. Wearily he closed his eyes. But after a time he opened them and stared
+long through the window up at the beetling cliff of a building close by,
+with its tier upon tier of lighted apartments, a huge garish hive of homes.
+Yes, the town was crowding down on him to-night, on his house and on his
+family. He realized it had never stopped, and that his three grown
+children, each one of them a part of himself, had been struggling with it
+all the time. Laura--wasn't she part of himself? Hadn't he, too, had his
+little fling, back in his early twenties? "You will live on in our
+children's lives." She was a part of him gone wild. She gave it free rein,
+took chances. God, what a chance she had taken this time! The picture of
+that court he had seen, with the girl in the witness chair and those many
+rows of eyes avidly fixed upon her, came back to his mind so vividly they
+seemed for a moment right here in the room, these eyes of the town boring
+into his house. Angrily he shut out the scene. And alone in the darkness,
+Roger said to his daughter all the ugly furious things he had not said to
+her upstairs--until at last he was weary of it.
+
+"Why am I working myself all up? I've got to take this. It's my medicine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+But as he watched Laura in the house, Roger's first emotions were
+complicated more and more by a feeling of bewilderment. At dinner the next
+evening he noticed with astonishment that she appeared like her natural
+self. "She's acting," he decided. But this explanation he soon dismissed.
+No, it was something deeper. She was actually unashamed, unafraid. That
+first display of feelings, the night of her arrival, had been only the
+scare of an hour. Within a few days she was back on her feet; and her cure
+for her trouble, if trouble she felt, was not less but more pleasure, as
+always. She went out nearly every evening now; and when she had spent what
+money she had, she sold a part of her jewelry to the little old Galician
+Jew in the shop around the corner. Yes, she was her natural self. And she
+was as before to her father. Her attitude said plainly,
+
+"It isn't fair to you, poor dear, to expect you to fully understand how
+right I am in this affair. And considering your point of view, you're
+acting very nicely."
+
+Often as she talked to him a note of good-humored forgiveness crept into
+his daughter's voice. And looking at her grimly out of the corner of his
+eye, he saw that she looked down on him, far, far down from heights above.
+
+"Yes," he thought, "this is modern." Then he grew angry all at once. "No,"
+he added, "this is wrong! You can't fool me, young woman, you know it as
+well as I do myself! You're not going to carry this off with an air--not
+with your father! No, by George!"
+
+And he would grow abrupt and stern. But days would pass and in spite of
+himself into their talks would creep a natural friendly tone. Again he
+found himself friends with her--friends as though nothing whatever had
+happened! Could it be that a woman who had so sinned could go right on?
+Here was Laura, serenely unconscious of guilt, and smiling into her future,
+dreaming still of happiness, quite plainly sure of it, in fact! With a
+curious dismayed relief Roger would scowl at this daughter of his--a
+radiant enigma in his quiet sober house.
+
+But Edith was not at all perplexed. When she learned from Deborah that
+there was soon to be a divorce, she came at once to her father. Her face
+was like a thundercloud.
+
+"A nice example for my children!" she indignantly exclaimed.
+
+"I'm sorry, my dear. But what can I do?"
+
+"You can make her go back to her husband, can't you?"
+
+"No, I can't," he flatly replied.
+
+"Then I'd better try it myself!"
+
+"You'll do no such thing!" he retorted. "I've gone clear to the bottom of
+this--and I say you're to leave her alone!"
+
+"Very well," she answered. And she did leave her sister alone, so severely
+that Laura soon avoided being home for lunch or dinner. She had taken the
+room which George had occupied ever since John had been turned out, and
+there she breakfasted late in bed, until Edith put a stop to it. They
+barely spoke to each other now. Laura still smiled defiance.
+
+Days passed. Christmas came at last, and despite Edith's glum resolution to
+make it a happy time for the children, the happiness soon petered out.
+After the tree in the morning, the day hung heavy on the house. Roger
+buried himself in his study. Laura had motored off into the country with a
+gay party of her friends. Or was this just a ruse, he wondered, and was
+she spending the day with her lover? Well, what if she was? Could he lock
+her in?
+
+About twilight he thought he heard her return, and later from his bedroom
+he heard her voice and Edith's. Both voices sounded angry, but he would not
+interfere.
+
+At the Christmas dinner that evening Laura did not put in an appearance,
+but Edith sat stiff and silent there; and despite the obvious efforts which
+Deborah and Allan made to be genial with the children, the very air in the
+room was charged with the feeling of trouble close ahead. Again Roger
+retreated into his den, and presently Laura came to him.
+
+"Good-night--I'm going out," she said, and she pressed her cheek lightly to
+his own. "What a dear you've been to me, dad," she murmured. And then she
+was gone.
+
+A few minutes later Edith came in. She held a small note in her hand, which
+Roger saw was addressed to himself.
+
+"Well, father, I learned this afternoon what you've been keeping from me,"
+she said. Roger gave her a steady look.
+
+"You did, eh--Laura told you?"
+
+"Yes, she did!" his daughter exclaimed. "And I can't help wondering,
+father--"
+
+"Why did she tell you? Have you been at her again to-day?"
+
+"Again? Not at all," she answered. "I've done as you asked me to, let her
+alone. But to-day--mother's day--I got thinking of _her_."
+
+"Leave your mother out of it, please. What did you say to Laura?"
+
+"I tried to make her go back, of course--"
+
+"And she told you--"
+
+"He wouldn't have her! And then in a perfect tantrum she went on to tell me
+why!" Edith's eyes were cold with disgust. "And I'm wondering why you let
+her stay here--in the same house with my children!"
+
+Roger reached out his hand.
+
+"Give me that note," he commanded. He read it quickly and handed it back.
+The note was from Laura, a hasty good-bye.
+
+"Edith will explain," she wrote, "and you will see I cannot stay any
+longer. It is simply too impossible. I am going to the man I love--and in a
+few days we shall sail for Naples. I know you will not interfere. It will
+make the divorce even simpler and everything easier all round. Please don't
+worry about me. We shall soon be married over there. You have been so dear
+and sensible and I do so love you for it." Then came her name scrawled
+hastily. And at the bottom of the page: "I have paid every bill I can think
+of."
+
+Edith read it in silence, her color slowly mounting.
+
+"All right," said her father, "your children are safe." She gave him a
+quick angry look, burst into tears and ran out of the room.
+
+Roger sat without moving, his heavy face impassive. And so he remained for
+a long time. Well, _Laura_ was gone--no mistake about that--and this time
+she was gone for good. She was going to live in Rome. Try to stop her? No.
+What good would it do? Wings of the Eagles, Rome reborn. That was it, she
+had hit it, struck the keynote of this new age. Rome reborn, all clean,
+old-fashioned Christian living swept away by millions of men at each
+others' throats like so many wolves. And at last quite openly to himself
+Roger admitted that he felt old. Old and beaten, out of date. Moments
+passed, and hours--he took little note of time. Nor did he see on the
+mantle the dark visage of "The Thinker" there, resting on the huge clinched
+fist and brooding down upon him. Lower, imperceptibly, he sank into his
+leather chair.
+
+Quiet had returned to his house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+But the quiet was dark to Roger now. Each night he spent in his study
+alone, for instinctively he felt the need of being by himself for a while,
+of keeping away from his children--out of whose lives he divined that other
+events would soon come forth to use up the last of the strength that was in
+him.
+
+And Roger grew angry with the world. Why couldn't it let a man alone, an
+old man in a silent house alive for him with memories? Repeatedly in such
+hours his mind would go groping backward into the years behind him. What a
+long and winding road, half buried in the jungle, dim, almost impenetrable,
+made up of millions of small events, small worries, plans and dazzling
+dreams, with which his days had all been filled. But the more he recalled
+the more certain he grew that he was right. Life had never been like this:
+the world had never come smashing into his house, his very family, with its
+dirty teeming tenements, its schools, its prisons, electric chairs, its
+feverish rush for money, its luxuries, its scandals. These things had
+existed in the world, but remote and never real, mere things which he had
+read about. War? Did he not remember wars that had come and gone in Europe?
+But they hadn't come into his home like this, first making him poor when he
+needed money for Edith and her children, then plunging Deborah into a
+struggle which might very probably ruin her life, and now taking Laura and
+filling her mind with thoughts of pagan living. Why was every man, woman
+and child, these days, bound up in the whole life of the world? What would
+come of it all? A new day out of this deafening night? Maybe so. But for
+him it would come too late.
+
+"What have I left to live for?"
+
+One night with a sigh he went to his desk, lit a cigar and laid his hand
+upon a pile of letters which had been mounting steadily. It was made up of
+Laura's bills, the ones she had not remembered. Send them after her to Rome
+for that Italian fellow to pay? No, it could not be thought of. Roger
+turned to his dwindling bank account. He was not yet making money, he was
+still losing a little each week. But he would not cut expenses. To the few
+who were left in his employ, to be turned away would mean dire need. And
+angrily he determined that they should not starve to pay Laura's bills.
+"The world for the strong, eh? Not in my office!" In Rome or Berlin or
+Vienna, all right! But not over here!
+
+Grimly, when he had made out the checks, Roger eyed his balance. By spring
+he would be penniless. And he had no one to turn to now, no rich young
+son-in-law who could aid.
+
+He set himself doggedly to the task of forcing up his business, and
+meanwhile in the evenings he tried with Edith to get back upon their former
+footing. To do this was not easy at first, for his bitterness still rankled
+deep: "When you were in trouble I took you in, but when she was in trouble
+you turned her out, as you turned out John before her." In the room again
+vacated, young George had been reinstalled. One night Edith found her
+father there looking in through the open doorway, and the look on his
+massive face was hard.
+
+"Better have the room disinfected again," he muttered when he saw her. He
+turned and went slowly down the stairs. And she was late for dinner that
+night.
+
+But Edith had her children. And as he watched her night by night hearing
+their lessons patiently, reading them fairy stories and holding them
+smilingly in her arms, the old appeal of her motherhood regained its hold
+upon him. One evening when the clock struck nine, putting down his paper he
+suggested gruffly,
+
+"Well, daughter, how about some chess?"
+
+Edith flushed a little:
+
+"Why, yes, dear, I'd be glad to."
+
+She rose and went to get the board. So the games were resumed, and part at
+least of their old affection came to life. But only a part. It could never
+be quite the same again.
+
+And though he saw little of Deborah, slowly, almost unawares to them both,
+she assumed the old place she had had in his home--as the one who had been
+right here in the house through all the years since her mother had died,
+the one who had helped and never asked help, keeping her own troubles to
+herself. He fell back into his habit of going before dinner to his
+daughter's bedroom door to ask whether she would be home that night. At one
+such time, getting no response and thinking Deborah was not there, he
+opened the door part way to make sure. And he saw her at her dresser,
+staring at herself in the glass, rigid as though in a trance. Later in the
+dining room he heard her step upon the stairs. She came in quietly and sat
+down; and as soon as dinner was over, she said her good-nights and left the
+house. But when she came home at midnight, he was waiting up for her. He
+had foraged in the kitchen, and on his study table he had set out some
+supper. While she sat there eating, her father watched her from his chair.
+
+"Things going badly in school?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes," she replied. There was silence.
+
+"What's wrong?"
+
+"To-night we had a line of mothers reaching out into the street. They had
+come for food and coal--but we had to send most of them home empty-handed.
+Some of them cried--and one of them fainted. She's to have a baby soon."
+
+"Can't you get any money uptown?" he asked.
+
+"I have," she answered grimly. "I've been a beggar--heaven knows--on every
+friend I can think of. And I've kept a press agent hard at work trying to
+make the public see that Belgium is right here in New York." She stopped
+and went on with her supper. "But it's a bad time for work like mine," she
+continued presently. "If we're to keep it going we must above all keep it
+cheap. That's the keynote these days, keep everything cheap--at any
+cost--so that men can expensively kill one another." Her voice had a bitter
+ring to it. "You try to talk peace and they bowl you over, with facts on
+the need of preparedness--for the defence of your country. And that doesn't
+appeal to me very much. I want a bigger preparedness--for the defence of
+the whole world--for democracy, and human rights, no matter who the people
+are! I'd like to train every child to that!"
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked.
+
+"To teach him what his life can be!" she replied in a hard quivering tone.
+"A fight? Oh yes! So long as he lives--and even with guns if it must be so!
+But a fight for all the people on earth!--and a world so full of happy
+lives that men will think hard--before ever again letting themselves be led
+by the nose--into war and death--for a place in the sun!" She rose from her
+chair, with a weary smile: "Here I am making a speech again. I've made so
+many lately it's become a habit. I'm tired out, dad, I'm going to bed." Her
+father looked at her anxiously.
+
+"You're seeing things out of proportion," he said. "You've worked so hard
+you're getting stale. You ought to get out of it for a while."
+
+"I can't!" she answered sharply. "You don't know--you don't even guess--how
+it takes every hour--all the demands!"
+
+"Where's Allan these days?"
+
+"Working," was her harsh reply. "Trying to keep his hospital going with
+half its staff. The woman who was backing him is giving her money to
+Belgium instead."
+
+"Do you see much of him?"
+
+"Every day. Let's drop it. Shall we?"
+
+"All right, my dear--"
+
+And they said good-night ...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime, in the house, Edith had tried to scrimp and save, but it
+was very difficult. Her children had so many needs, they were all growing
+up so fast. Each month brought fresh demands on her purse, and the fund
+from the sale of her belongings had been used up long ago. Her sole
+resource was the modest allowance her father gave her for running the
+house, and she had not asked him for more. She had put off trouble from
+month to month. But one evening early in March, when he gave her the
+regular monthly check, she said hesitatingly:
+
+"I'm very sorry, father dear, but I'm afraid we'll need more money this
+month." He glanced up from his paper:
+
+"What's the matter?" She gave him a forced little smile, and her father
+noticed the gray in her hair.
+
+"Oh, nothing in particular. Goodness knows I've tried to keep down
+expenses, but--well, we're a pretty large household, you know--"
+
+"Yes," said Roger kindly, "I know. Are the month's bills in?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Let me see them." She brought him the bills and he looked relieved. "Not
+so many," he ventured.
+
+"No, but they're large."
+
+"Why, look here, Edith," he said abruptly, "these are bills for two
+months--some for three, even four!"
+
+"I know--that's just the trouble. I couldn't meet them at the time."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Laura was here--and I didn't want to bother you--you had enough on your
+mind as it was. I've done the best I could, father dear--I've sold
+everything, you know--but I've about come to the end of my rope." And her
+manner said clearly, "I've done my part. I'm only a woman. I'll have to
+leave the rest to you."
+
+"I see--I see." And Roger knitted his heavy brows. "I presume I can get it
+somehow." This would play the very devil with things!
+
+"Father." Edith's voice was low. "Why don't you let Deborah help you? She
+does very little, it seems to me--compared to the size of her salary."
+
+"She can't do any more than she's doing now," was his decisive answer.
+Edith looked at him, her color high. She hesitated, then burst out:
+
+"I saw her check book the other day, she had left it on the table! She's
+spending thousands--every month!"
+
+"That's not her own money," Roger said.
+
+"No--it's money she gets for her fads--her work for those tenement
+children! She can get money enough for _them!_" He flung out his hand:
+
+"Leave her out of this, please!"
+
+"Very well, father, just as you say." And she sat there hurt and silent
+while again he looked slowly through the bills. He jotted down figures and
+added them up. They came to a bit over nine hundred dollars. Soon Deborah's
+key was heard in the door, and Roger scowled the deeper. She came into the
+room, but he did not look up. He heard her voice:
+
+"What's the matter, Edith?"
+
+"Bills for the house."
+
+"Oh." And Deborah came to her father. "May I see what's the trouble, dear?"
+
+"I'd rather you wouldn't. It's nothing," he growled. He wanted her to keep
+out of this.
+
+"Why shouldn't she see?" Edith tartly inquired. "Deborah is living
+here--and before I came she ran the house. In her place I should certainly
+want to know."
+
+Deborah was already glancing rapidly over the bills.
+
+"Why, Edith," she exclaimed, "most of these bills go back for months. Why
+didn't you pay them when they were due?"
+
+"Simply because I hadn't the money!"
+
+"You've had the regular monthly amount."
+
+"That didn't last long--"
+
+"Why didn't you tell us?"
+
+"Laura was here."
+
+Deborah gave a shrug of impatience, and Roger saw how tired she was, her
+nerves on edge from her long day.
+
+"Never mind about it now," he put in.
+
+"What a pity," Deborah muttered. "If we had been told, we could have cut
+down."
+
+"I don't agree with you!" Edith rejoined. "I have already done that myself!
+I've done nothing else!"
+
+"Have the servants been paid?" her sister asked.
+
+"No, they haven't-"
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"Three months!"
+
+Roger got up and walked the room. Deborah tried to speak quietly:
+
+"I can't quite see where the money has gone."
+
+"Can't you? Then look at my check book." And Edith produced it with a
+glare. Her sister turned over a few of the stubs.
+
+"What's this item?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here. A hundred and twenty-two dollars."
+
+"The dentist," Edith answered. "Not extravagant, is it--for five children?"
+
+"I see," said Deborah. "And this?"
+
+"Bedding," was Edith's sharp response. "A mattress and more blankets. I
+found there weren't half enough in the house."
+
+"You burned John's, didn't you?"
+
+"Naturally!"
+
+All at once both grew ashamed.
+
+"Let's be sensible," Deborah said. "We must do something, Edith--and we
+can't till we're certain where we stand."
+
+"Very well--"
+
+They went on more calmly and took up the items one by one. Deborah finished
+and was silent.
+
+"Well, father, what's to be done?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know," he answered shortly.
+
+"Somehow or other," Deborah said, "we've got to cut our expenses down."
+
+"I'm afraid that's impossible," Edith rejoined. "I've already cut as much
+as I can."
+
+"So did I, in my school," said her sister. "And when I thought I had
+reached the end, I called in an expert. And he showed me ways of saving I
+had never dreamed of."
+
+"What kind of expert would you advise here?" Edith's small lip curled in
+scorn.
+
+"Domestic science, naturally--I have a woman who does nothing else. She
+shows women in their homes just how to make money count the most."
+
+"What women? And what homes? Tenements?"
+
+"Yes. She's one of my teachers."
+
+"Thank you!" said Edith indignantly. "But I don't care to have my children
+brought down to tenement standards!"
+
+"I didn't mean to _have_ them! But I know she could show you a great many
+things you can buy for less!"
+
+"I'm afraid I shouldn't agree with her!"
+
+"Why not, Edith?"
+
+"Because she knows only tenement children--nothing of children bred like
+mine!"
+
+Deborah drew a quick short breath, her brows drew tight and she looked
+away. She bit her lip, controlled herself:
+
+"Very well, I'll try again. This house is plenty large enough so that by a
+little crowding we could make room for somebody else. And I know a teacher
+in one of my schools who'd be only too glad--"
+
+"Take a boarder, you mean?"
+
+"Yes, I do! We've got to do something!"
+
+"No!"
+
+Deborah threw up her hands:
+
+"All right, Edith, I'm through," she said. "Now what do you propose?"
+
+"I can try to do without Hannah again--"
+
+"That will be hard--on all of us. But I guess you'll have to."
+
+"So it seems."
+
+"But unfortunately that won't he enough."
+
+Edith's face grew tenser:
+
+"I'm afraid it will have to be--just now--I've had about all I can stand
+for one night!"
+
+"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. For a moment they confronted each other. And
+Edith's look said to Deborah plainly, "You're spending thousands,
+thousands, on those tenement children! You can get money enough for them,
+but you won't raise a hand to help with mine!" And as plainly Deborah
+answered, "My children are starving, shivering, freezing! What do yours
+know about being poor?" Two mothers, each with a family, and each one
+baffled, brought to bay. There was something so insatiable in each angry
+mother's eyes.
+
+"I think you'd better leave this to me," said Roger very huskily. And both
+his daughters turned with a start, as though in their bitter absorption
+they had forgotten his presence there. Both flushed, and now the glances of
+all three in that room avoided each other. For they felt how sordid it had
+been. Deborah turned to her sister.
+
+"I'm sorry, Edith," she said again, and this time there were tears in her
+eyes.
+
+"So am I," said Edith unsteadily, and in a moment she left the room.
+Deborah stood watching her father.
+
+"I'm ashamed of myself," she said. "Well? Shall we talk it over?"
+
+"No," he replied. "I can manage it somehow, Deborah, and I prefer that you
+leave it to me."
+
+Roger went into his study and sank grimly into his chair. Yes, it had been
+pretty bad; it had been ugly, ominous. He took paper and pencil and set to
+work. How he had come to hate this job of wrestling with figures. Of the
+five thousand dollars borrowed in August he had barely a thousand left. The
+first semi-annual interest was due next week and must be paid. The balance
+would carry them through March and on well into April. By that time he
+hoped to be making money, for business was better every week. But what of
+this nine hundred dollars in debts? Half at least must be paid at once.
+Lower and lower he sank in his chair. But a few moments later, his blunt
+heavy visage cleared, and with a little sigh of relief he put away his
+papers, turned out the lights and went upstairs. The dark house felt
+friendly and comforting now.
+
+In his room he opened the safe in the corner where his collection of
+curious rings had lain unnoticed for many months. He drew out a tray, sat
+down by the light and began to look them over. At first only small
+inanimate objects, gradually as from tray after tray they glittered duskily
+up at him, they began to yield their riches as they had so often done
+before. Spanish, French, Italian, Bohemian, Hungarian, Russian and Arabian,
+rings small and rings enormous, religious rings and magic rings, poison
+rings, some black with age for all his careful polishing--again they
+stole deep into Roger's imagination with suggestions of the many hands that
+had worn them through the centuries, of women kneeling in old churches,
+couples in dark crooked streets, adventures, love, hate, jealousy. Youth
+and fire, dreams and passion....
+
+At last he remembered why he was here. He thought of possible purchasers.
+He knew so many dealers, but he knew, too, that the war had played the
+devil with them as with everyone else. Still, he thought of several who
+would find it hard to resist the temptation. He would see them to-morrow,
+one by one, and get them bidding, haggling. Roger frowned disgustedly.
+
+No help for it, though, and it was a relief. It would bring a truce in his
+house for a time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the truce was brief.
+
+On the afternoon when he sold his collection Roger came home all out of
+sorts. He had been forced to haggle long; it had been a mean inglorious
+day; one of the brightest paths in his life had ended in a pigstie. But at
+least he had bought some peace in his home! Women, women, women! He shut
+the front door with a slam and went up to his room for a little rest, a
+little of what he had paid for! On the stairs he passed young Betsy, and he
+startled the girl by the sudden glare of reproach he bestowed upon her.
+Savagely he told himself he was no "feminist" that night!
+
+The brief talk he had with Edith was far from reassuring. With no Deborah
+there to wound her pride, Edith quickly showed herself friendly to her
+father; but when he advised her to keep her nurse, she at once refused to
+consider it.
+
+"I want you to," he persisted, with an anxious note in his voice. He had
+tried life without Hannah here and he did not care to try it again.
+
+"It is already settled, father, I sent her away this morning."
+
+"Then you get her right back!" he exclaimed. But Edith's face grew
+obstinate.
+
+"I don't care to give Deborah," she replied, "another chance to talk as she
+did."
+
+Roger looked at her gloomily. "You will, though," he was thinking. "You two
+have only just begun. Let any little point arise, which a couple of men
+would settle offhand, and you two will get together and go it! There'll be
+no living in the house!"
+
+With deepening displeasure he watched the struggle between them go on.
+Sometimes it seemed to Roger there was not a topic he could bring up which
+would not in some way bring on a clash. One night in desperation he
+proposed the theatre.
+
+"I'm afraid we can't afford it," said Edith, glancing at Deborah. And she
+had the same answer, again and again, for the requests her children made,
+if they involved but the smallest expense. "No, dear, I'm afraid we can't
+afford that," she would say gently, with a sigh. And under this constant
+pressure, these nightly little thrusts and jabs, Deborah would grow rigid
+with annoyance and impatience.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Edith," she burst out, one night when the children had
+gone to their lessons, "can you think of nothing on earth, except your own
+little family?"
+
+"Here it comes again," thought Roger, scowling into his paper. He heard
+Edith's curt reply:
+
+"No, I can't, not nowadays. Nobody _else_ seems to think of them."
+
+"You mean that I don't!"
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"Yes! I'm thinking of George! Do you want him killed in the trenches--in a
+war with Germany or Japan?"
+
+"Are you utterly mad?" demanded Edith.
+
+"No, I'm awake--my eyes are open! But yours are shut so tight, my dear, you
+can't see what has happened! You know this war has made us poor and your
+own life harder, but that's all. The big thing it has done you know nothing
+about!"
+
+"Suppose you teach me," Edith said, with a prim provoking little smile.
+Deborah turned on her angrily:
+
+"It has shown that all such mothers as you are out of date and have got to
+change! That we're bound together--all over the world--whether we like it
+or whether we don't! And that if we want to keep out of war, we've got to
+do it by coming right out of our own little homes--_and thinking, Edith,
+thinking!_"
+
+"Votes for women," Edith said. Deborah looked at her, rose with a shrug.
+
+"All right, Edith, I give up."
+
+"Thank you. I'm not worth it. You'd better go back to your office now and
+go on with your work of saving the world. And use every hour of your time
+and every dollar you possess. I'll stay here and look after my children."
+
+Deborah had gone into the hall. Roger, buried deep in his paper, heard the
+heavy street door close. He looked up with a feverish sigh--and saw at the
+open door of his study George and Betsy standing, curious, solemn and wide
+eyed. How long had they been listening?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+There came a season of sleet and rain when the smaller children were shut
+indoors and it was hard to keep them amused. They did not look well, and
+Edith was worried. She had always dreaded the spring, and to carry her
+family safely through she had taken them, in former years, to Atlantic City
+for two weeks. That of course was impossible now. Trouble was bound to
+come, she thought. And it was not long in coming. Bobby, who was ten years
+old and went to school with his brother George, caught a wretched cold one
+day. Edith popped him into bed, but despite her many precautions he gave
+his cold to Bruce and Tad.
+
+"Suppose I ask Allan Baird to come," Deborah suggested. "He's wonderful
+with children, you know."
+
+Edith curtly accepted his services. She felt he had been sent for to
+prevent her getting Doctor Lake. But she said nothing. She would wait.
+Through long hard days and longer nights she slaved upstairs. All Deborah's
+proffers of aid she declined. She kept Elizabeth home from school to help
+her with the many meals, the medicines and the endless task of keeping her
+lively patients in bed. She herself played with them by the hour, while the
+ache in her head was a torment. At night she was up at the slightest sound.
+Heavy circles came under her eyes. Within a few days her baby, Bruce, had
+developed pneumonia.
+
+That evening after dinner, while Deborah was sitting with Roger in the
+living room, she heard her sister coming downstairs. She listened acutely,
+and glancing around she saw that Roger was listening, too. Edith passed the
+doorway and went on down the hall, where they heard her voice at the
+telephone. She came back and looked in at the door.
+
+"I've called Doctor Lake," she said. "I've just taken Bruce's temperature.
+It's a hundred and five and two fifths." Deborah glanced up with a start.
+
+"Oh, Edith!" she said softly. Her sister turned and looked at her.
+
+"I ought to have had him before," she said. "When he comes, please bring
+him right up to the room." And she hurried upstairs.
+
+"Pshaw!" breathed Roger anxiously. He had seen Bruce an hour ago; and the
+sight of the tiny boy, so exhausted and so still, had given him a sudden
+scare. Could it be that _this_ would happen? Roger rose and walked the
+floor. Edith was right, he told himself, they should have had Lake long
+before. And they would have, by George, if it had not been for Deborah's
+interference! He glanced at her indignantly. Bringing in Baird to save
+money, eh? Well, it was just about time they stopped saving money on their
+own flesh and blood! What had Bruce to do with tenement babies? But he had
+had tenement treatment, just that! Deborah had had her way at last with
+Edith's children, and one of them might have to pay with its life! Again
+Roger glared at his silent daughter. And now, even in his excited state, he
+noticed how still and rigid she was, how unnatural the look she bent on the
+book held tightly in her hands.
+
+Still Deborah said nothing. She could feel her father's anger. Both he and
+Edith held her to blame. She felt herself in a position where she could not
+move a hand. She was stunned, and could not think clearly. A vivid picture
+was in her mind, vivid as a burning flame which left everything else in
+darkness. It was of Bruce, one adorable baby, fighting for breath. "What
+would I do if he were mine?"
+
+When the doctor arrived she took him upstairs and then came down to her
+father.
+
+"Well?" he demanded.
+
+"I don't know. We'll have to wait." And they both sat silent. At last they
+heard a door open and close, and presently steps coming down the stairs.
+Roger went out into the hall:
+
+"Come right in here, doctor, won't you? I want to hear about this myself."
+
+"Very well, sir." And Lake entered the room, with Edith close behind him.
+He took no notice of anyone else. "Write this down," he said to her. "And
+give it to the nurse when she comes." A heavy man of middle age, with
+curious dark impassive eyes that at times showed an ironic light, Lake was
+a despot in a world of mothers to whom his word was law. He was busy
+to-night, with no time to waste, and his low harsh voice now rattled out
+orders which Edith wrote down in feverish haste--an hourly schedule, night
+and day. He named a long list of things needed at once. "Night nurse will
+be here in an hour," he ended. "Day nurse, to-morrow, eight a.m. Get sleep
+yourself and plenty of it. As it is you're not fit to take care of a cat."
+Abruptly he turned and left the room. Edith followed. The street door
+closed, and in a moment after that his motor was off with a muffled roar.
+Edith came back, picked up her directions and turned to her sister:
+
+"Will you go up and sit with Bruce? I'll telephone the druggist," she said.
+
+Deborah went to the sick room. Bruce's small face, peaked and gray in the
+soft dim light, turned as she entered and came to the bed.
+
+"Well, dear?" she whispered. The small boy's eyes, large and heavy with
+fever, looked straight into hers.
+
+"Sick," said the baby hoarsely. The next instant he tossed up his hands and
+went through a spasm, trying to breathe. It passed, he relaxed a little,
+and again stared solemnly at his aunt. "Sick," he repeated. "Wery sick."
+
+Deborah sat silent. The child had another fight for his breath; and this
+time as he did so, Deborah's body contracted, too. A few moments later
+Edith came in. Deborah returned downstairs, and for over an hour she sat by
+herself. Roger was in his study, Betsy and George had gone to bed. The
+night nurse arrived and was taken upstairs. Still Deborah's mind felt numb
+and cold. Instinctively again and again it kept groping toward one point:
+"If I had a baby as sick as that, what would I do? What would I do?"
+
+When the doorbell rang again, she frowned, rose quickly and went to the
+door. It was Allan.
+
+"Allan--come in here, will you?" she said, and he followed her into the
+living room.
+
+"What is it?" he inquired.
+
+"Bruce is worse."
+
+"Oh--I'm sorry. Why didn't Edith let me know?"
+
+"She had Lake to-night," said Deborah. He knitted his brows in annoyance,
+then smiled.
+
+"Well, I don't mind that," he replied. "I'm rather glad. She'll feel easier
+now. What did he tell her?"
+
+"He seemed to consider it serious--by the number of things he ordered."
+
+"Two nurses, of course--"
+
+"Yes, day and night." Deborah was silent a moment.
+
+"I may be wrong," she continued, "but I still feel sure the child will
+live. But I know it means a long hard fight. The expense of it all will be
+heavy."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Whatever it is, I'll meet it," she said. "Father can't, he has reached the
+end. But even if he could help still, it wouldn't make much difference in
+what I've been deciding. Because when I was with Bruce to-night, I saw as
+clear as I see you now that if I had a child like that--as sick as
+that--I'd sacrifice anything--everything--schools, tenement children,
+thousands! I'd use the money which should have been theirs, and the time
+and the attention! I'd shut them all out, they could starve if they liked!
+I'd be like Edith--exactly! I'd center on this one child of mine!"
+
+Deborah turned her eyes to his, stern and gleaming with her pain. And she
+continued sharply:
+
+"But I don't mean to shut those children out! And so it's clear as day to
+me that I can't ever marry you! That baby to-night was the finishing
+stroke!"
+
+She made a quick restless movement. Baird leaned slowly forward. Her hands
+in her lap were clenched together. He took them both and held them hard.
+
+"No, this isn't clear," he said. "I can feel it in your hands. This is
+nerves. This is the child upstairs. This is Edith in the house. This is
+school, the end of the long winter's strain."
+
+"No, it's what I've decided!"
+
+"But this is the wrong decision," Allan answered steadily.
+
+"It's made!"
+
+"Not yet, it isn't, not to-night. We won't talk of it now, you're in no
+condition." Deborah's wide sensitive lips began to quiver suddenly:
+
+"We _will_ talk of it now, or never at all! I want it settled--done with!
+I've had enough--it's killing me!"
+
+"No," was Allan's firm reply, "in a few days things will change. Edith's
+child will be out of danger, your other troubles will clear away!"
+
+"But what of next winter, and the next? What of Edith's children? Can't you
+see what a load they are on my father? Can't you see he's ageing fast?"
+
+"Suppose he dies," Baird answered. "It will leave them on your hands.
+You'll have _these_ children, won't you, whether you marry or whether you
+don't! And so will I! I'm their guardian!"
+
+"That won't be the same," she cried, "as having children of our own--"
+
+"Look into my eyes."
+
+"I'm looking--" Her own eyes were bright with tears.
+
+"Why are you always so afraid of becoming a mother?" Allan asked. In his
+gruff low voice was a fierce appeal. "It's this obsession in your mind that
+you'll be a mother like Edith. And that's absurd! You never will! You say
+you're afraid of not keeping school the first thing in your life! But you
+always do and you always will! You're putting it ahead of me now!"
+
+"Yes, I can put it ahead of _you_! But I couldn't put it ahead of _my
+child_!" He winced at this and she noticed it. "Because you are strong, and
+the child would be weak! The child would be like Bruce to-night!"
+
+"Are you sure if you marry you must have a child?"
+
+"Yes," she answered huskily, "if I married you I'd want a child. And that
+want in me would grow and grow until it made both of us wretched. I'm that
+kind of a woman. That's why my work has succeeded so far--because I've a
+passion for children! They're not my work, they're my very life!" She bowed
+her head, her mouth set hard. "But so are you," she whispered. "And since
+this is settled, Allan, what do you think? Shall we try to go on--working
+together side by side--seeing each other every day as we have been doing
+all these months? Rather hard on both of us, don't you think? I do, I feel
+that way," she said. Again her features quivered. "The kind of feeling I
+have--for you--would make that rather--difficult!"
+
+His grip tightened on her hands.
+
+"I won't give you up," he said. "Later you will change your mind."
+
+He left the room and went out of the house. Deborah sat rigid. She
+trembled and the tears came. She brushed them angrily away. Struggling to
+control herself, presently she grew quieter. Frowning, with her clear gray
+eyes intently staring before her, she did not see her father come into the
+doorway. He stopped with a jerk at sight of her face.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked. She started.
+
+"Nothing's the matter! How is Bruce?"
+
+"I don't know. Who went out a few minutes ago?"
+
+"Allan Baird," she answered.
+
+"Oh. You explained to him, of course, about Lake--"
+
+"Yes, he understands," she said. "He won't come here after this--"
+
+Roger looked at her sharply, wondering just what she meant. He hesitated.
+No, he would wait.
+
+"Good-night," he said, and went upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+On the morrow Bruce did not grow better. If anything, the child grew worse.
+But by the next morning the crisis had passed. In the house the tension
+relaxed, and Roger suddenly felt so weak that he went to see his own
+physician. They had a long and serious talk. Later he went to his office,
+but he gave little heed to his work. Sitting there at his desk, he stared
+through the window far out over the city. A plan was forming in his mind.
+
+At home that night, at dinner, he kept watching Deborah, who looked tired
+and pale and rather relaxed. And as soon as she was out of the house he
+telephoned Allan to come at once.
+
+"It's something which can't wait," he urged.
+
+"Very well, I'll come right up."
+
+When Baird arrived a little later, Roger opened the door himself, and they
+went back into his study.
+
+"Sit down," he said. "Smoke, Allan?"
+
+"No, thanks." Baird looked doubly tall and lean, his face had a gaunt
+appearance; and as he sat down, his lithe supple right hand slowly closed
+on the arm of his chair.
+
+"Now then," began Roger, "there are two things we want to get clear on. The
+first is about yourself and Deborah. There has been trouble, hasn't there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She has made up her mind not to marry you."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I guessed as much." And Roger paused. "Do you mind my asking questions?
+
+"No--"
+
+"Are you still in love with her, Allan?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"And she with you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Then it's the same old trouble."
+
+"Yes." And he told a part of what she had said. As he talked in clear,
+terse, even tones, Baird's steady eyes had a tortured light, the look of a
+man who has almost reached the end of his endurance. Roger smoked in
+silence.
+
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Wait," said Allan, "a few days more. Then try again. If I fail I'm
+through." Roger shot a quick look at him.
+
+"I don't think you'll fail, my boy--and what's more I think I can help you.
+This is a large house, Allan--there's more in it than you know. My second
+point concerns myself. I'm going to die within a year."
+
+As Baird turned on him suddenly, Roger grimly smiled and said, "We won't go
+into the details, but I've been examined lately and I have quite positive
+knowledge of what I've suspected for some time. So far, I have told no one
+but you. And I'm telling you only because of the bearing it has on
+Deborah." Roger leaned forward heavily. "She's the one of my daughters who
+means the most, now that I'm so near the end. When I die next year that may
+be all--I may simply end--a blank, a grave--I am not sure. But I've made up
+my mind above everything else to see Deborah happy before I go. And I mean
+to do it by setting her free--so free I think it will frighten her."
+
+Roger went on to explain his plan, and they talked together for some time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another week had soon gone by. Bruce still recovered rapidly, and the other
+sick children were up and about. Deborah, in the meantime, had barely been
+in the house at all. But late on Saturday evening Roger found her in her
+room. She was working. He came behind her.
+
+"What is it, dad?"
+
+"Busy, eh?" He hesitated, and laid his hand on her shoulder with a little
+affectionate pressure. "You've kept so busy lately," he said, "I haven't
+had time to see anything of you. How's your work going?"
+
+"Much better, thanks--now that the winter is over."
+
+He questioned her about her schools. And then after a brief pause,
+
+"Well, daughter," he said, "it has been a great fight, and I'm proud of you
+for it. And if I've got anything to say--" his hand was still on her
+shoulder, and he felt her tighten suddenly--"it isn't by way of
+criticism--please be sure of that ahead. In this damnable war my faith in
+men has been badly shaken up. Humanity seems to me still a child--a child
+who needs to go to school. God knows we need men and women like you--and
+I'm proud of all you've accomplished, I'd be the last man to hold you back.
+I only want to help you go on--by seeing to it that you are free--from
+anything which can hinder you." He stopped again for a moment.
+
+"To begin with," he said, "I understand you're not going to marry Allan
+Baird." She stirred slightly:
+
+"Did he tell you so?"
+
+"Yes--I asked him," Roger replied. "I had Allan here a few nights ago, and
+he told me you had decided to give up your happiness for the sake of all
+those children in that big family of yours. You felt you must keep yourself
+free for them. Very well, if that is your decision I propose to clear the
+way." She looked intently up at his face. "You're not free now," he
+continued. "We have Edith and her children here. And I'm growing old--that
+has got to be thought of--I don't want to leave them on your hands. So as
+soon as the baby is well enough, I'm going to move them up to the
+mountains--not only for the summer--they are to stay the whole year
+'round. From this time on they're to make it their home."
+
+"Father! But they can't do that! Think of the winters!" Deborah cried.
+
+"It's already settled," he answered. "I've talked to Edith and she has
+agreed. She has always loved the farm, and it will be good for her
+children. In the meantime I've been talking to George. 'George,' I told
+him, 'I'm going to talk to you, man to man, about a man's job I want you to
+tackle.'"
+
+"The farm? But, dearie! He's only a boy!"
+
+"He's nearly seventeen," said Roger, "and a young moose for his age. And
+old Dave Royce will still be there. It's the work George has been dreaming
+about ever since he was a child. You should have seen how he was thrilled
+by the scheme. I told him we'd spend the summer together up there laying
+all our plans, investing our money carefully to make every dollar count."
+
+"What money?" Deborah sharply asked. But her father was talking steadily
+on:
+
+"We already have a fine lot of cattle. We'll add to it and enlarge the barn
+and put in some new equipment. In short, we'll put it in fine shape, make
+it a first class dairy farm. 'And then, George,' I said to him, 'I'm going
+to turn it over to you. I shall give the farm to your mother, and the rest
+of the money I have I mean to invest in her name down here, so that she'll
+have a small income until you can make your dairy pay.'"
+
+"What money are you speaking of?" Deborah's voice was thick and hard, her
+sensitive lips were parted and she was breathing quickly.
+
+"I've sold the house," he told her. Convulsively she gripped his arms:
+
+"Then tell me where _you_ mean to live!"
+
+"I'm not going to live--I'm going to die--very soon--I have definite
+knowledge."
+
+Without speaking Deborah rose; her face went white. Her father kept tight
+hold of her hands, and he felt them trembling, growing cold.
+
+"You're soon to be free of everyone," he continued painfully. "I know this
+is hurting you, but I see so plain, so plain, my child, just what it is
+I've got to do. I'm trying to clear the way for you to make a simple
+definite choice--a choice which is going to settle your life one way or the
+other. I want to make sure you see what you're doing. Because you mean so
+much to me. We're flesh and blood--eh, my daughter?--and in this family of
+ours we've been the closest ones of all!" She seemed to sway a little.
+
+"_You're not going to die_!" she whispered.
+
+"So it hurts you to lose me," he replied. "It will be hard to be so free.
+Would you rather not have had me at all? I've been quite a load on your
+back, you know. A fearful job you had of it, dragging me up when I was
+down. And since then Edith and Bruce and the rest, what burdens they have
+been at times. What sharp worries, heavy sorrows, days and nights you and I
+have gone through, when we should have been quietly resting--free--to keep
+up our strength for our next day's work. Suppose you had missed them, lived
+alone, would you have worked better? You don't know. But you will know
+soon, you're to give it a trial. For I've cleared the way--so that if you
+throw over Baird to be free you shall get the freedom you feel you need!"
+
+"Father! Please! Is this fair? Is this kind?" She asked in a harsh
+frightened tone. Her eyes were wet with angry tears.
+
+"This isn't a time to be kind, my dear." His voice was quivering like her
+own. "I'm bungling it--I'm bungling it--but you must let me stumble along
+and try to show you what I mean. You will have your work, your crowded
+schools, to which you'll be able to give your life. But I look ahead, I
+who know you--and I don't see you happy, I don't even see you whole. For
+you there will be no family. None of the intimate sorrows and joys that
+have been in this house will come to you. I look back and I see them
+all--for a man who has come so near the end gets a larger vision." He shut
+his eyes, his jaw set tight. "I look into my family back and back, and I
+see how it has been made of many generations. Certain figures stand out in
+my mind--they cover over a hundred years. And I see how much they've meant
+to me. I see that I've been one of them--a link in a long chain of
+lives--all inter-bound and reaching on. In my life they have all been
+here--as I shall be in lives to come.
+
+"And this is what I want for you." He held her close a moment. The tears
+were rolling down her cheeks. "Until now you have been one of us, too. You
+have never once been free. You have been the one in this house to step in
+and take hold and try to decide what's best to be done. I'm not putting you
+up on a pedestal, I don't say you've made no mistakes--but I say you're the
+kind of a woman who craves what's in a family. You're the one of my
+daughters who has loved this house the most!"
+
+"Yes," she said, "I've loved this house--"
+
+"But now for you all this will stop--quite suddenly," he told her. "This
+house of ours will soon be sold. And within a few months I shall be dead,
+and your family will have dropped out of your life."
+
+"Stop! Can't you? Stop! It's brutal! It isn't true about you!" she cried.
+"I won't believe it!" Her voice broke.
+
+"Go and see my physician," he said.
+
+"How long have you known it? Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Because we had troubles enough as it was, other things to think of. But
+there's only one thing now, this freedom you are facing."
+
+"Please! Please!" she cried imploringly. "I don't want to talk of myself
+but of you! This physician--"
+
+"No," he answered with stern pain, "you'll have to hear me out, my child.
+We're talking of you--of you alone when I am gone. How will it be? Are you
+quite sure? You will have your work, that vision of yours, and I know how
+close it has been to you, vivid and warm, almost like a friend. But so was
+my business once like that, when I was as young as you. And the business
+grew and it got cold--impersonal, a mere machine. Thank God I had a family.
+Isn't your work growing too? Are you sure it won't become a machine? And
+won't you lose touch with the children then, unless you have a child of
+your own? Friends won't be enough, you'll find, they're not bound up into
+yourself. The world may reach a stage at last where we shall live on in the
+lives of all--we may all be one big family. But that time is still far
+off--we hold to our own flesh and blood. And so I'm sure it will be with
+you. You see you have been young, my dear, and your spirit has been fresh
+and new. But how are you going to keep it so, without the ties you've
+always had?" He felt the violent clutch of her hand.
+
+"_You won't die_!" she whispered. But he went on relentlessly:
+
+"And what will you do without Allan Baird? For you see you have not even
+worked alone. You have had this man who has loved you there. I've seen how
+much he has helped you--how you have grown and he has grown since you two
+got together. And if you throw him over now, it seems to me you are not
+only losing what has done the most for your work, but you're running away
+from life as well. You've never won by doing that, you've always won by
+meeting life, never evading it, taking it all, living it full, taking
+chances! If you marry Baird, I see you both go on together in your work,
+while in your home you struggle through the troubles, tangles, joys and
+griefs which most of us mortals know so well! I see you in a world of
+children, but with children, too, of your own--to keep your spirit always
+young! Living on in your children's lives!"
+
+Roger stopped abruptly. He groped for something more to say.
+
+"On the one side, all that," he muttered, "and on the other, a lonely life
+which will soon grow old."
+
+There fell a dangerous silence. And sharply without warning, the influence,
+deep and invisible, of many generations of stolid folk in New England made
+itself felt in each of them. Father and daughter grew awkward, both. The
+talk had been too emotional. Each made, as by an instinct, a quick strong
+effort at self-control, and felt about for some way to get back upon their
+old easy footing. Roger turned to his daughter. Her head was still bent,
+her hands clasped tight, but she was frowning down at them now, although
+her face was still wet with tears. She drew a deep unsteady breath.
+
+"Well, Deborah," he said simply, "here I've gone stumbling on like a fool.
+I don't know what I've said or how you have listened."
+
+"I've listened," she said thickly.
+
+"I have tried," he went on in a steadier tone, "to give you some feeling of
+what is ahead--and to speak for your mother as well as myself. And more
+than that--much more than that--for the world has changed since she was
+here. God knows I've tried to be modern." A humorous glint came into his
+eyes, "Downright modern," he declared. "Have I asked you to give up your
+career? Not at all, I've asked you to marry Baird, and go right on with him
+in your work. And if you can't marry Allan Baird, after what he has done
+for you, how in God's name can you modern women ever marry anyone? Now what
+do you say? Will you marry him? Don't laugh at me! I'm serious! Talk!"
+
+But Deborah was laughing--although her father felt her hands still cold
+and trembling in his. Her gray eyes, bright and luminous, were shining up
+into his own.
+
+"What a time you've been having, haven't you, dear!" his daughter cried
+unsteadily. "Fairly lying awake at night and racking your brains for
+everything modern I've ever said--to turn it and twist it and use it
+against me!"
+
+"Well?" he demanded. "How does it twist?"
+
+"It twists hard, thank you," she declared. "You've turned and twisted me
+about till I barely see how I can live at all!"
+
+"You can, though! Marry Allan Baird!"
+
+"I'll think it over--later on."
+
+"What is there left to think about? Can you point to one hole in all I've
+said?"
+
+"Yes, a good many--and one right off."
+
+"Out with it!"
+
+"You're not dying," Deborah told him calmly, "I feel quite certain you'll
+live for years."
+
+"Oh, you do, eh--then see my physician!"
+
+"I will, I'll see him to-morrow. How long did you give yourself? Just a few
+months?"
+
+"No, he said it might be more," admitted Roger grudgingly. "If I had no
+worries to wear me out--"
+
+"Me, you mean."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Well, you've worried quite enough. You're going to leave it to me to
+decide."
+
+"Very well," he agreed. He looked at her. "You have listened--hard?" he
+gruffly asked.
+
+"Yes, dear." Her hands slowly tightened on his. "But don't speak of this
+again. You're to leave it to me. You promise?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And Roger left her.
+
+He went to bed but he could not sleep. With a sudden sag in his spirits he
+felt what a bungler he had been. He was not used to these solemn talks, he
+told himself irately. What a fool to try it! And how had Deborah taken it
+all? He did not mind her laughter, nor that lighter tone of hers. It was
+only her way of ending the talk, an easy way out for both of them. But what
+had she thought underneath? Had his points gone home? He tried to remember
+them. Pshaw! He had been too excited, and he could recall scarcely
+anything. He had not meant to speak of Baird--he had meant to leave him
+out! Yes, how he must have bungled it! Doubtless she was smiling still.
+Even the news about himself she had not taken seriously.
+
+But as he thought about that news, Roger's mood completely changed. The
+talk of the evening grew remote, his family no longer real, mere little
+figures, shadowy, receding swiftly far away.... Much quieter now, he lay a
+long time listening to the life of the house, the occasional sounds from
+the various rooms. From the nursery adjoining came little Bruce's piping
+laugh, and Roger could hear the nurse moving about. Afterwards for a long
+time he could hear only creaks and breathings. Never had the old house
+seemed so like a living creature. For nearly forty years it had held all
+that he had loved and known, all he had been sure of. Outside of it was the
+strange, the new, the uncertain, the vast unknown, stretching away to
+infinity....
+
+Again he heard Bruce's gay little laugh. What did it remind him of? He
+puzzled. Then he had it. Edith had been a baby here. Her cradle had been in
+this very room, close by the bed. And how she had laughed! What gurgles and
+ripples of bursting glee! The first child in his family....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+On the next day, which was Sunday, Deborah made an appointment with her
+father's physician, and had a long talk with him at his house. Upon her
+return she went to her room and stayed there until evening, but when she
+came down to supper her manner was as usual. At the table she joined in the
+talk of Edith and the children, already deep in their preparations for the
+move up to the farm. George could hardly wait to start. That life would be
+a change indeed in Edith's plans for her family, and as they talked about
+it now the tension of hostility which had so long existed between the two
+sisters passed away. Each knew the clash had come to an end, that they
+would live together no more; and as though in remorse they drew close,
+Deborah with her suggestions, Edith in her friendly way of taking and
+discussing each one. Then Deborah went again to her room. Her room was just
+over Roger's, and waking several times in the night he heard his daughter
+walking the floor.
+
+The next day she was up early and off to her school before he came down. It
+was a fine spring morning, Roger had had a good night's sleep, and as he
+walked to his office he was buoyed up by a feeling both of hope for his
+daughter and of solid satisfaction in himself as he remembered all that he
+had said to her. Curiously enough he could recall every word of it now.
+Every point which he had made rose up before him vividly. How clear he had
+been, how simple and true, and yet with what a tremendous effect he had
+piled the points one on the other. "By George," he thought with a little
+glow, "for a fellow who's never been in a pulpit I put up a devilish strong
+appeal." And he added sagely, "Let it work on the girl, give it a chance.
+She'll come out of this all right. This idea some fellows have, that every
+woman is born a fool, isn't fair, it isn't true. Just let a line of
+argument be presented to her strong and clear--straight from the
+shoulder--by some man--"
+
+And again with a tingle of pleasure his mind recurred to his sermon. His
+pleasures had been few of late, so he dwelt on this little glow of pride
+and made the most of it while it was here.
+
+At the office, as he entered his room, he stopped with a slight shock of
+surprise. John, standing on his crutches in front of a large table, had
+been going through the morning's mail, sorting out the routine letters
+Roger did not need to see. To-day he had just finished and was staring at
+the window. The light fell full on his sallow face and showed an amazing
+happiness. At Roger's step he started.
+
+"Well, Johnny, how goes it this morning?"
+
+"Fine, thank you," was the prompt reply. And John hobbled briskly over to
+his typewriter in the corner. Roger sat down at his desk. As he did so he
+glanced again at the cripple and felt a little pang of regret. "What will
+become of him," he asked, "when I close out my business?" He still thought
+of him as a mere boy, for looking at the small crooked form it was
+difficult to remember that John was twenty years of age. The lad had worked
+like a Trojan of late. Even Roger, engrossed as he had been in family
+anxieties, had noticed it in the last few weeks. He would have to make some
+provision for John. Deborah would see to it.... Roger went slowly through
+his mail. One letter was from the real estate firm through whom he was to
+sell the house. The deal had not been closed as yet, there were certain
+points still to be settled. So Roger called John to his desk and dictated a
+reply. When he finished there was a brief pause.
+
+"That's all," said Roger gruffly.
+
+"So you're sellin' the house," John ventured.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The lad limped back to his corner and went to work at his machine. But
+presently he came over again and stood waiting awkwardly.
+
+"What is it, Johnny?" Roger inquired, without looking up.
+
+"Say, Mr. Gale," the boy began, in a carefully casual tone, "would you mind
+talking business a minute or two?"
+
+"No. Fire ahead."
+
+"Well, sir, you've had your own troubles lately, you haven't had much time
+for things here. The last time you went over the books was nearly a couple
+of weeks ago."
+
+John paused and his look was portentous.
+
+"Well," asked Roger, "what about it? Business been picking up any since
+then?"
+
+"Yes, sir!" was the answer. "We didn't lose a cent last week! We made
+money! Fifteen dollars!"
+
+"Good Lord, Johnny, we're getting rich."
+
+"But that's nothing," John continued. "The fact of the matter is, Mr. Gale,
+I have been working lately on a new line I thought of. And now it's got
+agoing so fast it's getting clean away from me!" Again he stopped, and
+swallowed hard.
+
+"Out with it, then," said Roger.
+
+"I got it from the war," said John. "The papers are still half full of war
+news, and that's what's keeping our business down--because we ain't
+adopting ourselves to the new war conditions. So I figured it like this.
+Say there are a million people over here in America who've got either
+friends or relations in the armies over there. Say that all of 'em want to
+get news--not just this stuff about battles, but real live news of what's
+happened to Bill. Has Bill still got his legs and arms? Can he hold down a
+job when he gets home? News which counts for something! See? A big new
+market! Business for us! So I tried to see what I could do!" John
+excitedly shifted his crutches. Roger was watching intently.
+
+"Go on, Johnny."
+
+"Sure, I'll go on! One night I went to a library where they have English
+papers. I went over their files for about a month. I took one Canadian
+regiment--see?--and traced it through, and I got quite a story. Then I used
+some of the money I've saved and bought a whole bunch of papers. I piled
+'em up in the room where I sleep and went through 'em nights. I hired two
+kids to help me. Well, Mr. Gale, the thing worked fine! In less than a week
+I had any amount of little bunches of clippings. See how I mean? Each bunch
+was the story of one regiment for a month. So I knew we could deliver the
+goods!
+
+"Well, this was about ten days ago. And then I went after the market. I
+went to a man I met last year in an advertising office, and for fifty
+dollars we put an 'ad' in the Sunday Times. After that there was nothing to
+do but wait. The next day--nothing doing! I was here at seven-thirty and I
+went through every mail. Not a single answer to my 'ad'--and I thought I
+was busted! But Tuesday morning there were three, with five dollar checks
+inside of 'em! In the afternoon there were two more and the next day
+eleven! By the end of last week we'd had forty-six! Friday I put in another
+'ad' and there've been over seventy more since then! That makes a hundred
+and twenty in all--six hundred dollars! And I'm swamped! I ain't done
+nothing yet--I've just kept 'em all for you to see!"
+
+He went quickly to the table, gathered a pile of letters there and brought
+them over to Roger's desk. Roger glanced over a few of them, dazed. He
+looked around into John's shrewd face, where mingled devotion and triumph
+and business zeal were shining.
+
+"Johnny," he said huskily, "you've adopted my business and no mistake."
+John swallowed again and scowled with joy.
+
+"Let's figure it out!" he proposed.
+
+"We will!"
+
+They were at it all day, laying their plans, "adopting" the work of the
+office to the new conditions. They found they would need a larger force,
+including a French and a German translator. They placed other "ads" in the
+papers. They forgot to have lunch and worked steadily on, till the outer
+rooms were empty and still. At last they were through. Roger wearily put on
+his cuffs, and went and got his coat and hat.
+
+"Say, Mr. Gale," John asked him, "how about this letter--the one you
+dictated this morning to that firm about your house?" Roger turned and
+looked at him.
+
+"Throw it into the basket," he said. "We'll write 'em another to-morrow and
+tell 'em we have changed our minds." He paused for just a moment, and then
+he added brusquely, "If this goes through as I hope it will, I guess you'd
+better come into the firm."
+
+And he left the room abruptly. Behind him there was not a sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home in his study, that evening, he made some more calculations. In a
+few weeks he would have money enough to start Edith and her family in their
+new life on the farm. For the present at least, the house was safe.
+
+"Why, father." Edith came into the room. "I didn't know you had come home.
+What kept you so long at the office?"
+
+"Oh, business, my dear--"
+
+"Have you had any supper?"
+
+"No, and I'd like some," he replied.
+
+"I'll see to it myself," she said. Edith was good at this sort of thing,
+and the supper she brought was delicious. He ate it with keen relish. Then
+he went back to his study and picked up a book, an old favorite. He
+started to read, but presently dozed. The book dropped from his hands and
+he fell asleep.
+
+He awakened with a start, and saw Deborah looking down at him. For a moment
+he stared up, as he came to his senses, and in his daughter's clear gray
+eyes he thought he saw a happiness which set his heart to beating fast.
+
+"Well?" he questioned huskily.
+
+"We're to be married right away."
+
+He stared a moment longer; "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad, my dear. I was afraid
+you--" he stopped short. Deborah bent close to him, and he felt her squeeze
+his arm:
+
+"I've been over and over all you said," she told him, in a low sweet voice.
+"I had a good many ups and downs. But I'm all through now--I'm sure you
+were right." And she pressed her cheek to his. "Oh, dad, dad--it's such a
+relief! And I'm so happy!... Thank you, dear."
+
+"Where is Allan?" he asked presently.
+
+"I'll get him," she said. She left the room, and in a moment Allan's tall
+ungainly form appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Well, Allan, my boy," Roger cried.
+
+"Oh, Roger Gale," said Allan softly. He was wringing Roger's hand.
+
+"So she decided to risk you, eh," Roger said unsteadily. "Well, Baird, you
+look like a devilish risk for a woman like her--who has the whole world on
+her back as it is--"
+
+"I know--I know--and how rash she has been! Only two years and her mind was
+made up!"
+
+"But that's like her--that's our Deborah--always acting like a flash--"
+
+"Stop acting like children!" Deborah cried. "And be sensible and listen to
+me! We're to be married to-morrow morning--"
+
+"Why to-morrow?" Roger asked.
+
+"Because," she said decidedly, "there has been enough fuss over this
+affair. So we'll just be married and have it done. And when Edith and the
+children go up next week to the mountains, we want to move right into this
+house."
+
+"This house?" exclaimed her father.
+
+"I know--it's sold," she answered. "But we're going to get a lease. We'll
+see the new owner and talk him around."
+
+"Then you'll have to talk _your father_ around--"
+
+"_You_ around?" And Deborah stared. "You mean to say you're not going to
+sell?"
+
+"I do," said Roger blithely. He told them the story of John's new scheme.
+"And if things turn out in the office as I hope they will," he ended,
+"we'll clear the mortgage on the house and then make it your wedding
+gift--from the new firm to the new family."
+
+Deborah choked a little:
+
+"Allan! What do you think of us now?"
+
+"I think," he answered, in a drawl, "that we'd better try to persuade the
+new firm to live with the new family."
+
+"We will, and the sooner the better!" she said.
+
+"I'm going up to the mountains," said Roger.
+
+"Yes, but you're coming back in the fall, and when you do you're coming
+here! And you're going to live here years and years!"
+
+"You're forgetting my doctor."
+
+"Not at all. I had a long talk with him Sunday and I know just what I'm
+saying."
+
+"You don't look it, my dear," said Roger, "but of course you may be right.
+If you take the proper care of me here--and John keeps booming things for
+the firm--"
+
+"And George makes a huge success of the farm," Deborah added quickly.
+
+"And Deborah of teaching the world--"
+
+"Oh, Allan, hush up!"
+
+"Look here," he said. "You go upstairs and tell Edith all this. Your father
+and I want to be alone."
+
+And when the two men were left alone, they smoked and said nothing. They
+smiled at each other.
+
+"It's hard to decide," grunted Roger at last. "Which did it--my wonderful
+sermon or your own long waiting game? I'm inclined to think it was the
+game. For any other man but you--with all you've done, without any
+talk--no, sir, there wouldn't have been a chance. For she's modern, Baird,
+she's modern. And I'm going to live just as long as I can. I want to see
+what happens here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next night in his study, how quiet it was. Edith was busy packing
+upstairs, Deborah and Allan were gone. Thoughts drifted slowly across his
+mind. Well, she was married, the last of his daughters, the one whom he
+cared most for, the one who had taken the heaviest risks. And this was the
+greatest risk of all. For although she had put it happily out of her
+thoughts for the moment, Roger knew the old troublesome question was still
+there in Deborah's mind. The tenement children or her own, the big family
+or the small? He felt there would still be struggles ahead. And with a kind
+of a wistfulness he tried to see into the future here.
+
+He gave a sudden start in his chair.
+
+"By George!" he thought. "They forgot the ring!" Scowling, he tried to
+remember. Yes, in the brief simple service that day, in which so much had
+been omitted--music, flowers, wedding gown--even the ring had been left
+out. Why? Not from any principle, he knew that they were not such fools.
+No, they had simply forgotten it, in the haste of getting married at once.
+Well, by thunder, for a girl whose father had been a collector of rings for
+the best part of his natural life, it was pretty shabby to say the least!
+Then he recollected that he, too, had forgotten it. And this quieted him
+immediately.
+
+"I'll get one, though," he promised himself. "And no plain wedding ring
+either. I'll make A. Baird attend to that. No, I'll get her a ring worth
+while."
+
+He sank deep in his chair and took peace to his soul by thinking of the
+ring he would choose. And this carried his thoughts back over the years.
+For there had been so many rings....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+It was a clear beautiful afternoon toward the end of May. And as the train
+puffing up the grade wound along the Connecticut River, Roger sat looking
+out of the window. The orchards were pink and white on the hills. Slowly
+the day wore away. The river narrowed, the hills reared high, and in the
+sloping meadows gray ribs and shoulders of granite appeared. The air had a
+tang of the mountains. Everywhere were signs of spring, of new vigor and
+fresh life. But the voices at each station sounded drowsier than at the
+last, the eyes appeared more stolid, and to Roger it felt like a journey
+far back into old ways of living, old beliefs and old ideals. He had always
+had this feeling, and always he had relished it, this dive into his
+boyhood. But it was different to-day, for this was more than a journey, it
+was a migration, too. Close about him in the car were Edith and her
+children, bound for a new home up there in the very heart and stronghold of
+all old things in America.
+
+Old things dear to Edith's heart. As she sat by the window staring out, he
+watched her shapely little head; he noted the hardening lines on her
+forehead and the gray which had come in her hair. It had been no easy move
+for her, this, she'd shown pluck to take it so quietly. He saw her smile a
+little, then frown and go on with her thinking. What was she thinking
+about, he wondered--all she had left behind in New York, or the rest of her
+life which lay ahead? She had always longed for things simple and old.
+Well, she would have them now with a vengeance, summer and winter, the year
+'round, in the battered frame house on the mountain side, the birthplace of
+her family. A recollection came to him of a summer's dusk two years ago
+and a woman with a lawn mower cutting the grass on the family graves. Would
+Edith ever be like that, a mere custodian of the past? If she did, he
+thought, she would be false to the very traditions she tried to preserve.
+For her forefathers had never been mere guardians of things gone by. Always
+they had been pioneers. That house had not been old to them, but a
+thrilling new adventure. Their old homes they had left behind, far down in
+the valleys to the east. And even those valley homes had been new to the
+rugged men come over the sea. Would Edith ever understand? Would she see
+that for herself the new must emerge from her children, from the ideas,
+desires and plans already teeming in their minds? Would she show keen
+interest, sympathy? Would she be able to keep her hold?
+
+In the seat behind her mother, Betsy was sitting with Bruce in her lap,
+looking over a picture book. Quietly Roger watched the girl.
+
+"What are you going to be?" he asked. "A woman's college president, a
+surgeon or a senator? And what will your mother think of you then?"
+
+They changed cars, and on a train made up of antiquated coaches they wound
+through a side valley, down which rushing and tumbling came the river that
+bore Roger's name. He went into the smoking car, and presently George
+joined him there. George did not yet smoke, (with his elders), but he had
+bought a package of gum and he was chewing absorbedly. Plainly the lad was
+excited over the great existence which he saw opening close ahead. Roger
+glanced at the boy's broad shoulders, noticed the eager lines of his jaw,
+looked down at his enormous hands, unformed as yet, ungainly; but in them
+was a hungriness that caused a glow in Roger's breast. One more of the
+family starting out.
+
+"It's all going to depend on you," Roger gravely counseled. "Your whole
+life will depend on the start you make. Either you're going to settle down,
+like so many of your neighbors up there, or you're going to hustle, plan
+out your day, keep on with your studies and go to college--the State
+Agricultural College, I mean. In short, keep up to date, my boy, and become
+in time a big figure in farming."
+
+"I'm going to do it," George replied. His grandfather glanced again at his
+face, so scowling, so determined. And a gleam of compassion and yearning
+came for a moment in Roger's eyes. His heavy hand lay on George's knee.
+
+"That's right, son," he grunted. "Make the family proud of you. I'll do all
+I can to help you start. My business is picking up, thank God, and I'll be
+able to back you now. I'll stay up here a good part of the summer. We've
+both of us got a lot to learn--and not only from books--we want to remember
+we've plenty to learn from the neighbors, too. Take old Dave Royce, for
+instance, who when all is said and done has worked our farm for twenty odd
+years and never once run me into debt."
+
+"But, Gee!" demurred George. "He's so 'way out of date!"
+
+"I know he is, son, but we've got to go slow." And Roger's look passed
+furtively along the faces in the car. "We don't want to forget," he warned,
+"that this is still New England. Every new idea we have we want to go easy
+with, snake it in."
+
+"I've got an awful lot of 'em," the boy muttered hungrily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the farm, the next morning at daybreak, Roger was awakened by the sound
+of George's voice. It was just beneath his window:
+
+"But cattle are only part of it, Dave," the boy declared, in earnest tones,
+"just part of what we can have up here. Think what we've got--over three
+hundred acres! And we want to make every acre count! We want to get in a
+whole lot more of hogs--Belted Hampshires, if we can afford 'em--and a
+couple of hundred hens. White Leghorns ought to fill the bill. Of course
+that's just a starter. I've got a scheme for some incubators--electric--run
+by the dynamo which we'll put in down by the dam. And we can do wonders
+with bees, too, Dave--I've got a book on 'em I'd like you to read. And
+besides, there's big money in squab these days. Rich women in New York
+hotels eat thousands of 'em every night. And ducks, of course, and turkeys.
+I'd like a white gobbler right at the start, if we knew where we could get
+one cheap." The voice broke off and there was a pause. "We can do an awful
+lot with this place."
+
+Then Dave's deep drawl:
+
+"That's so, George--yes, I guess that's so. Only we don't want to fool
+ourselves. That ain't Noah's Ark over thar--it's a barn. And just for a
+starter, if I was you--" Here Dave deliberated. "Of course it's none of my
+business," he said, "it's for you and your grandfather to decide--and I
+don't propose to interfere in what ain't any of my affair--"
+
+"Yes, yes, Dave, sure! That's all right! But go on! _What_, just for a
+starter?"
+
+"Cows," came the tranquil answer. "I've been hunting around since you wrut
+me last month. And I know of three good milkers--"
+
+"Three? Why, Dave, I wrote we want thirty or forty!"
+
+"Yes--you wrut," Dave answered. "But I've druv all around these parts--and
+there ain't but three that I can find. And I ain't so sure of that third
+one. She looks like she might--" George cut in.
+
+"But you only had a buggy, Dave! Gee! I'm going to have a Ford!"
+
+"That so, George?"
+
+"You bet it's so! And we'll go on a cow hunt all over the State!"
+
+"Well--I dunno but what you're right," Dave responded cautiously. "You
+might get more cows if you had a Ford--an' got so you could run it. Yes, I
+guess it's a pretty good scheme. I believe in being conservative,
+George--but I dunno now but what a Ford--"
+
+Their voices passed from under the window, and Roger relaxed and smiled to
+himself. It was a good beginning, he thought.
+
+They bought a Ford soon afterwards and in the next few weeks of June they
+searched the farms for miles around, slowly adding to their herd. To
+Roger's surprise he found many signs of a new life stirring there--the
+farmers buying "autos" and improved machinery, thinking of new processes;
+and down in the lower valleys they found several big stock farms which were
+decidedly modern affairs. At one such place, the man in charge took a fancy
+to George and asked him to drop over often.
+
+"You bet I'll drop over often!" George replied, as he climbed excitedly
+into his Ford. "I want to see more of those milking machines! We're going
+to have 'em some day ourselves! A dynamo too!"
+
+And at home, down by the ruined mill he again set about rebuilding the dam.
+
+Roger felt himself growing stronger. His sleeps were sound, and his
+appetite had come back to a surprising degree. The mountain air had got
+into his blood and George's warm vigor into his soul. One afternoon,
+watching the herd come home, some thirty huge animals swinging along with a
+slow heavy power in their limbs, he breathed the strong sweet scent of them
+on the mountain breeze. George came running by them and stopped a moment by
+Roger's side, watching closely and eagerly every animal as it passed. And
+Roger glanced at George's face. The herd passed on and George followed
+behind, his collie dog leaping and barking beside him. And Roger looked up
+at a billowy cloud resting on a mountain top and wondered whether after all
+that New York doctor had been right.
+
+He followed the herd into the barn. In two long rows, the great heads of
+the cattle turned hungrily, lowing and sniffing deep, breathing harshly,
+stamping, as the fodder cart came down the lines. What a splendidly
+wholesome work for a lad, growing up with his roots in the soil, in these
+massive simple forces of life. What of Edith's other children? Would they
+be willing to stay here long? Each morning Roger breakfasted with Bruce the
+baby by his side. "What a thing for you, little lad," he thought, "if you
+could live here all your days. But will you? Will you want to stay? Won't
+you, too, get the fever, as I did, for the city?" In the joyous, shining,
+mysterious eyes of the baby he found no reply. He had many long talks with
+Betsy, who was eager to go away to school, and with Bob and little Tad who
+were going to school in the village that fall. And the feeling came to
+Roger that surely he would see these lives, at least for many years ahead.
+They were so familiar and so real, so fresh and filled with hopes and
+dreams. And he felt himself so a part of them all.
+
+But one morning, climbing the steep upper field to a spring George wanted
+to show him, Roger suddenly swayed, turned faint. He caught hold of a
+boulder on the wall and held himself rigid, breathing hard. It passed, and
+he looked at his grandson. But George had noticed nothing. The boy had
+turned and his brown eyes were fixed on a fallow field below. Wistfully
+Roger watched his face. They both stood motionless for a long time.
+
+As the summer drew slowly to a close, Roger spent many quiet hours alone by
+the copse of birches, where the glory of autumn was already stealing in and
+out among the tall slender stems of the trees. And he thought of the silent
+winter there, and of the spring which would come again, and the long
+fragrant summer. And he watched the glow on the mountains above and the
+rolling splendors of the clouds. At dusk he heard the voices of animals,
+birds and insects, murmuring up from all the broad valley, then gradually
+sinking to deep repose, many never to wake again. And the span of his life,
+from the boyhood which he could recall so vividly here among these
+children, seemed brief to him as a summer's day, only a part of a mighty
+whole made up of the innumerable lives, the many generations, of his
+family, his own flesh and blood, come out of a past he could never know,
+and going on without him now, branching, dividing, widening out to what his
+eyes would never see.
+
+Vaguely he pictured them groping their way, just as he himself had done. It
+seemed to Roger that all his days he had been only entering life, as some
+rich bewildering thicket like this copse of birches here, never getting
+very deep, never seeing very clearly, never understanding all. And so it
+had been with his children, and so it was with these children of Edith's,
+and so it would be with those many others--always groping, blundering,
+starting--children, only children all. And yet what lives they were to
+lead, what joys and revelations and disasters would be theirs, in the
+strange remote world they would live in--"my flesh and blood that I never
+shall know."
+
+But the stars were quiet and serene. The meadows and the forests on the
+broad sweep of the mountain side took on still brighter, warmer hues. And
+there was no gloom in these long good-byes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a frosty night in September, he left the farm to go to the city. From
+his seat in the small automobile Roger looked back at the pleasant old
+house with its brightly lighted windows, and then he turned to George by
+his side:
+
+"We're in good shape for the winter, son."
+
+But George did not get his full meaning.
+
+At the little station, there were no other passengers. They walked the
+platform for some time. Then the train with a scream came around the curve.
+A quick grip on George's hand, and Roger climbed into the car. Inside, a
+moment later, he looked out through the window. By a trainman with a
+lantern, George stood watching, smiling up, and he waved his hand as the
+train pulled out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+The next morning on his arrival in town, Roger went to his office. He had
+little cause for uneasiness there, for twice in the summer he had come down
+to keep an eye on the business, while John had taken brief vacations at a
+seaside place nearby. The boy had no color now in his cheeks; as always,
+they were a sallow gray with the skin drawn tight over high cheek bones;
+his vigor was all in his eyes. But here was a new John, nevertheless, a
+successful man of affairs. He had on a spruce new suit of brown, no cheap
+ready-made affair but one carefully fitted to conceal and soften his
+deformity. He was wearing a bright blue tie and a cornflower in his
+buttonhole, and his sandy hair was sleekly brushed. He showed Roger into
+his private room, a small place he had partitioned off, where over his desk
+was a motto in gold: "This is no place for your troubles or mine."
+
+"Lord, but you've got yourself fixed up fine in here," said Roger. John
+smiled broadly. "And you're looking like a new man, Johnny."
+
+"I had a great time at the seashore. Learned to sail a boat alone. What do
+you think of this chair of mine?" And John complacently displayed the
+ingenious contrivance in front of his desk, somewhat like a bicycle seat.
+It was made of steel and leather pads.
+
+"Wonderful," said Roger. "Where'd you ever pick it up?"
+
+"I had it made," was the grave reply. "When a fellow has got up in life
+enough to have a stenographer, it's high time he was sitting down."
+
+"Let's see you do it." John sat down. "Now how is business?" Roger asked.
+
+"Great. Since the little slump we had in August it has taken a new
+start--and not only war business, at that--the old people are sending in
+orders again. I tell you what it is, Mr. Gale, this country is right on the
+edge of a boom!"
+
+And the junior member of the firm tilted triumphantly back in his chair.
+
+With the solid comfort which comes to a man when he returns to find his
+affairs all going well, Roger worked on until five o'clock, and then he
+started for his home.
+
+Deborah had not yet come in, and a deep silence reigned in the house. He
+looked through the rooms downstairs, and with content he noticed how little
+had been altered. His beloved study had not been touched. On the third
+floor, in the large back room, he found John comfortably installed. There
+were gay prints upon the walls, fresh curtains at the windows, a mandolin
+lying on a chair. And Roger, glancing down at the keen glad face of his
+partner, told himself that the doctor who had said this lad would die was a
+fool.
+
+"These doctors fool themselves often," he thought.
+
+Deborah and Allan had the front room on the floor below. Roger went in, and
+for a moment he stood looking about him. How restful and how radiant was
+this large old-fashioned chamber, so softly lighted, waiting. Through a
+passageway lined with cupboards he went into his room at the back. Deborah
+had repapered it, but with a pattern so similar that Roger did not notice
+the change. He only felt a vague freshness here, as though even this old
+chamber, too, were making a new start in life. And he felt as though he
+were to live here for years. Slowly he unpacked his trunk and took a bath
+and dressed at his leisure. Then he heard Deborah's voice at the door.
+
+"Come in, come in!" he answered.
+
+"Why, father! Dearie!" Deborah cried "Oh, how well you're looking, dad!"
+And she kissed him happily. "Oh, but I'm glad to have you back--"
+
+"That's good," he said, and he squeezed her hand "Here, come to the light,
+let me look at you." He saw her cheeks a little flushed, the gladness in
+her steady eyes. "Happy? Everything just right?" His daughter nodded,
+smiling, and he gave a whimsical frown. "No ups and down at all? That's
+bad."
+
+"Oh, yes, plenty--but all so small."
+
+"Good fellow to live with."
+
+"Very."
+
+"And your work?
+
+"It's going splendidly. I'll tell you about it this evening, after you give
+me the news from the farm."
+
+They chatted on for a short while, but he saw she was barely listening.
+
+"Can't you guess what it means," she asked him softly, "to a woman of my
+age--after she has been so afraid she was too old, that she'd married too
+late--to know at last--to be sure at last--that she's to have a baby, dad?"
+He drew back a little, and a lump rose in his throat.
+
+"By George!" he huskily exclaimed. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" And he held her
+close in his arms for some time, till both of them grew sensible.
+
+Soon after she had gone to her room, he heard Allan coming upstairs. He
+heard her low sweet cry of welcome, a silence, then their voices. He heard
+them laughing together and later Deborah humming a song. And still thinking
+of what she had told him, he felt himself so close to it all. And again the
+feeling came to him that surely he would live here for years.
+
+Allan came in and they had a talk.
+
+"Deborah says she has told you the news."
+
+"Yes. Everything's all right, I suppose--her condition, I mean," said
+Roger.
+
+"Couldn't be better."
+
+"Just as I thought."
+
+"Those six weeks we had up in Maine--"
+
+"Yes, you both show it. Working hard?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"And Deborah?" Roger asked.
+
+"You'll have to help me hold her in."
+
+They talked a few moments longer and went down to the living room. John was
+there with Deborah. All four went in to dinner. And through the
+conversation, from time to time Roger noticed the looks that went back and
+forth between husband and wife; and again he caught Deborah smiling as
+though oblivious of them all. After dinner she went with him into his den.
+
+"Well! Do you like the house?" she inquired.
+
+"Better than ever," he replied.
+
+"I wonder if you'll mind it. There'll be people coming to dinner, you
+know--"
+
+"That won't bother me any," he said.
+
+"And committee meetings now and then. But you're safe in here, it's a good
+thick door."
+
+"Let 'em talk," he retorted, "as hard as they please. You're married
+now--they can't scare me a bit. Only at ten o'clock, by George, you've got
+to knock off and go to bed."
+
+"Oh, I'll take care of myself," she said.
+
+"If you don't, Allan will. We've had a talk."
+
+"Scheming already."
+
+"Yes. When will it be?"
+
+"In April, I think."
+
+"You'll quit work in your schools?"
+
+"A month before."
+
+"And in the meantime, not too hard."
+
+"No, and not too easy. I'm so sure now that I can do both." And Deborah
+kissed him gently. "I'm so happy, dearie--and oh, so very glad you're
+here!"
+
+There followed for Roger, after that, many quiet evenings at home,
+untroubled days in his office. Seldom did he notice the progress of his
+ailment. His attention was upon his house, as this woman who mothered
+thousands of children worked on for her great family, putting all in order,
+making ready for the crisis ahead when she would become the mother of one.
+
+Now even more than ever before, her work came crowding into his home. The
+house was old, but the house was new. For from schools and libraries, cafés
+and tenements and streets, the mighty formless hunger which had once so
+thrilled her father poured into the house itself and soon became a part of
+it. He felt the presence of the school. He heard the daily gossip of that
+bewildering system of which his daughter was a part: a world in itself,
+with its politics, its many jarring factions, its jealousies, dissensions,
+its varied personalities, ambitions and conspiracies; but in spite of these
+confusions its more progressive elements downing all distrusts and fears
+and drawing steadily closer to life, fearlessly rousing everywhere the
+hunger in people to live and learn and to take from this amazing world all
+the riches that it holds: the school with its great challenge steadily
+increasing its demands in the name of its children, demands which went deep
+down into conditions in the tenements and ramified through politics to the
+City Hall, to Albany, and even away to Washington--while day by day and
+week by week, from cities, towns and villages came the vast prophetic story
+of the free public schools of the land.
+
+And meanwhile, in the tenements, still groping and testing, feeling her
+way, keeping close watch on her great brood, their wakening desires, their
+widening curiosities, Deborah was bringing them, children, mothers and
+fathers too, together through the one big hope of brighter and more ample
+lives for everybody's children. Step by step this hope was spread out into
+the surrounding swamps and jungles of blind driven lives, to find
+surprising treasures there deep buried under dirt and din, locked in the
+common heart of mankind--old songs and fables, hopes and dreams and visions
+of immortal light, handed down from father to son, nurtured, guarded,
+breathed upon and clothed anew by countless generations, innumerable
+millions of simple men and women blindly struggling toward the sun. Over
+the door of one of the schools, were these words carved in the stone:
+
+"Humanity is still a child. Our parents are all people who have lived upon
+the earth--our children, all who are to come. And the dawn at last is
+breaking. The great day has just begun."
+
+This spirit of triumphal life poured deep into Roger's house. It was as
+though his daughter, in these last months which she had left for undivided
+service, were strengthening her faith in it all and pledging her
+devotion--as communing with herself she felt the crisis drawing near.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+There came an interruption. One night when Deborah was out and Roger sat in
+his study alone, the maid came in highly flustered and said,
+
+"Mr. Gale! It's Miss Laura to see you!"
+
+He turned with a startled jerk of his head and his face slowly reddened.
+But when he saw the maid's eager expression and saw that she was expecting
+a scene, with a frown of displeasure he rose from his chair.
+
+"Very well," he said, and he went to his daughter. He found her in the
+living room. No repentant Magdalene, but quite unabashed and at her ease,
+she came to her father quickly.
+
+"Oh, dad, I'm so glad to see you, dear!" And she gave him a swift impetuous
+kiss, her rich lips for an instant pressing warmly to his cheek.
+
+"Laura!" he said thickly. "Come into my study, will you? I'm alone this
+evening."
+
+"I'm so glad you are!" she replied. She followed him in and he closed the
+door. He glanced at her confusedly. In her warmth, her elegance, an
+indefinable change in the tone and accent of her high magnetic voice, and
+in her ardent smiling eyes, she seemed to him more the foreigner now. And
+Roger's thoughts were in a whirl. What had happened? Had she married again?
+
+"Is Edith here still?" she was asking.
+
+"No, she's up in the mountains. She's living there," he answered.
+
+"Edith? In the mountains?" demanded Laura, in surprise. And she asked
+innumerable questions. He replied to each one of them carefully, slowly,
+meanwhile getting control of himself.
+
+"And Deborah married--married at last! How has it worked? Is she happy,
+dad?"
+
+"Very," he said.
+
+"And is she still keeping up her schools?"
+
+"Yes, for the present. She'll have to stop soon." Laura leaned forward,
+curious:
+
+"Tell me, dad--a baby?"
+
+"Yes." She stared a moment.
+
+"Deborah!" she softly exclaimed; and in a moment, "I wonder."
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked, but Laura evaded his question. She
+plied him with her inquiries for a few minutes longer, then turned to him
+with a challenging smile:
+
+"Well, father, don't you think you had better ask me now about myself?" He
+looked away a moment, but turned resolutely back:
+
+"I suppose so. When did you land?"
+
+"This morning, dear, from Italy--with my husband," she replied. And Roger
+started slightly. "I want you to meet him soon," she said.
+
+"Very well," he answered. At his disturbed, almost guilty expression Laura
+laughed a little and rose and came over and hugged him tight.
+
+"Oh, but, father dearest--it's working out so splendidly! I want you to
+know him and see for yourself! We've come to live in New York for a
+while--he has more to do here about war supplies."
+
+"More shrapnel, eh, machine guns. More wholesale death," her father
+growled. But Laura smiled good-naturedly.
+
+"Yes, love, from America. Aren't you all ashamed of yourselves--scrambling
+so, to get rich quick--out of this war you disapprove of."
+
+"_You_ look a bit rich," her father retorted.
+
+"Rather--for the moment," was her cheerful answer.
+
+"And you still like living in Italy?"
+
+"Tremendously! Rome is wonderful now!"
+
+"Reborn, eh. Wings of the Eagles."
+
+"Yes, and we're doing rather well."
+
+"I haven't noticed it," Roger said. "Why don't you send a few of your
+troops to help those plucky Frenchmen?"
+
+"Because," she replied, "we have a feeling that this is a war where we had
+much better help ourselves."
+
+"High ideals," he snorted.
+
+"Rome reborn," she remarked, unabashed. And her father scowled at her
+whimsically.
+
+"You're a heathen. I give you up," he declared. Laura had risen, smiling.
+
+"Oh, no, don't give me up," she said. "For you see," she added softly, "I'm
+a heathen with a great deal of love in her heart for thee, my dearest dad.
+May I bring him down, my husband?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I'll telephone to Deborah to-morrow and arrange it."
+
+When she had gone he returned to his chair and sat for a long time in a
+daze. He was still disturbed and bewildered. What a daughter of his! And
+what did it mean? Could she really go on being happy like this? Sinning?
+Yes, she was sinning! Laura had broken her marriage vows, she had "run off
+with another fellah." Those were the plain ugly facts. And now, divorced
+and re-married, she was careering gayly on! And her views of the war were
+plain heathenish! And yet there was something about her--yes, he thought,
+he loved her still! What for? For being so happy! And yet she was wrong to
+be happy, all wrong! His thoughts went 'round in circles.
+
+And his confusion and dismay grew even deeper the next night when Laura
+brought her new husband to dine. For in place of the dark polished
+scoundrel whom Roger had expected, here was a spruce and affable youth with
+thick light hair and ruddy cheeks, a brisk pleasant manner of talking and a
+decidedly forcible way of putting the case of his country at war. They kept
+the conversation to that. For despite Deborah's friendly air, she showed
+plainly that she wanted to keep the talk impersonal. And Laura, rather
+amused at this, replied by treating Deborah and Allan and her father, too,
+with a bantering forbearance for their old-fashioned, narrow views and
+Deborah's religion of brotherhood, democracy. All that to Laura was passé.
+
+From time to time Roger glanced at her face, into her clear and luminous
+eyes so warm with the joy of living with this new man, her second. How his
+family had split apart. He wrote Edith the news of her sister, and he
+received but a brief reply. Nor did Deborah speak of it often. She seemed
+to want to forget Laura's life as the crisis in her own drew near.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+Deborah had not yet stopped work. Again and again she put it off. For in
+her busy office so many demands both old and new kept pressing in upon her,
+such unexpected questions and vexing little problems kept cropping up as
+Deborah tried to arrange her work for the colleague who was to take her
+place in the spring, that day after day she lingered there--until one
+afternoon in March her husband went to her office, gave her an hour to
+finish up, and then brought her home with him. She had a fit of the blues
+that night. Allan was called out on a case, and a little while later Roger
+found his daughter alone in the living room, a book unopened in her lap,
+her gray eyes glistening with tears. She smiled when she caught sight of
+him.
+
+"It's so silly!" she muttered unsteadily. "Just my condition, I suppose. I
+feel as though I had done with school for the remainder of my days!...
+Better leave me now, dearie," she added. "I'm not very proud of myself
+to-night--but I'll be all right in the morning."
+
+The next day she was herself again, and went quietly on with her
+preparations for the coming of her child. But still the ceaseless interests
+of those hordes of other children followed her into the house. Not only her
+successor but principals and teachers came for counsel or assistance. And
+later, when reluctantly she refused to see such visitors, still the
+telephone kept ringing and letters poured in by every mail. For in her
+larger family there were weddings, births and deaths, and the endless
+savage struggle for life; and there were many climaxes of dreams and
+aspirations, of loves and bitter jealousies. And out of all this straining
+and this fever of humanity, came messages to Deborah: last appeals for aid
+and advice, and gifts for the child who was to be born; tiny garments
+quaintly made by women and girls from Italy, from Russia and from Poland;
+baby blankets, wraps and toys and curious charms and amulets. There were so
+many of these gifts.
+
+"There's enough for forty babies," Deborah told her father. "What on earth
+am I to do, to avoid hurting anyone's feelings? And isn't it rather awful,
+the way these inequalities will crop up in spite of you? I know of eight
+tenement babies born down there in this one week. How much fuss and
+feathers is made over them, and their coming into the world, poor mites?"
+Roger smiled at his daughter.
+
+"You remind me of Jekyll and Hyde," he said.
+
+"Father! What a horrible thought! What have Jekyll and Hyde to do with me?"
+
+"Nothing, my dear," he answered. "Only it's queer and a little uncanny,
+something I've never seen before, this double mother life of yours."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was only a few days later when coming home one evening he found that
+Deborah's doctor had put her to bed and installed a nurse. There followed a
+week of keen suspense when Roger stayed home from the office. She liked to
+have him with her, and sitting at her bedside he saw how changed his
+daughter was, how far in these few hours she had drawn into herself. He had
+suspected for some time that all was not well with Deborah, and Allan
+confirmed his suspicions. There was to be grave danger both for the mother
+and the child. It would come out all right, of course, he strove to
+reassure himself. Nothing else could happen now, with her life so
+splendidly settled at last. That Fate could be so pitiless--no, it was
+unthinkable!
+
+"This is what comes of your modern woman!" Roger exclaimed to Allan one
+night. "This is the price she's paying for those nerve-racking years of
+work!"
+
+The crisis came toward the end of the week. And while for one entire night
+and through the day that followed and far into the next night the doctors
+and nurses fought for life in the room upstairs, Roger waited, left to
+himself, sitting in his study or restlessly moving through the house. And
+still that thought was with him--the price! It was kept in his mind by the
+anxious demands which her big family made for news. The telephone kept
+ringing. Women in motors from uptown and humbler visitors young and old
+kept coming to make inquiries. More gifts were brought and flowers. And
+Roger saw these people, and as he answered their questions he fairly
+scowled in their faces--unconsciously, for his mind was not clear.
+Reporters came. Barely an hour passed without bringing a man or a woman
+from some one of the papers. He gave them only brief replies. Why couldn't
+they leave his house alone? He saw her name in headlines: "Deborah Gale at
+Point of Death." And he turned angrily away. Vividly, on the second night,
+there came to him a picture of Deborah's birth so long ago in this same
+house. How safe it had been, how different, how secluded and shut in. No
+world had clamored _then_ for news. And so vivid did this picture grow,
+that when at last there came to his ears the shrill clear cry of a new
+life, it was some time before he could be sure whether this were not still
+his dream of that other night so long ago.
+
+But now a nurse had led him upstairs, and he stood by a cradle looking down
+at a small wrinkled face almost wholly concealed by a soft woolly blanket.
+And presently Allan behind him said,
+
+"It's a boy, and he's to be named after you." Roger looked up.
+
+"How's the mother?" he asked.
+
+"Almost out of danger," was the reply. Then Roger glanced at Allan's face
+and saw how drawn and gray it was. He drew a long breath and turned back to
+the child. Allan had gone and so had the nurse, and he was alone by the
+cradle. Relief and peace and happiness stole into his spirit. He felt the
+deep remoteness of this strange new little creature from all the clamoring
+world without--which he himself was soon to leave. The thought grew
+clearer, clearer, as with a curious steady smile Roger stood there looking
+down.
+
+"Well, little brother, you're here, thank God. And nobody knows how close
+we'll be--for a little while," he thought. "For we're almost out of the
+world, you and I."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Days passed, Deborah's strength increased, and soon they let Roger come
+into the room. She, too, was remote from the world for a time. That great
+family outside was anxious no longer, it left her alone. But soon it would
+demand her. Never again, he told himself, would she be so close, so
+intimate, as here in her bed with this child of hers to whom she had given
+her father's name. "These hours are my real good-byes."
+
+Two long quiet weeks of this happiness, and then in a twinkling it was
+gone. The child fell sick, within a few hours its small existence hung by a
+thread--and to Roger's startled eyes a new Deborah was revealed! Tense and
+silent on her bed, her sensitive lips compressed with pain, her birthmark
+showing a jagged line of fiery red upon her brow as her ears kept straining
+to catch every sound from the nursery adjoining, through hours of stern
+anguish she became the kind of mother that she had once so
+dreaded--shutting out everything else in the world: people, schools, all
+other children, rich or poor, well, sick or dying! Here was the crisis of
+Deborah's life!
+
+One night as she lay listening, with her hand gripping Roger's tight,
+frowning abruptly she said to him, in a harsh, unnatural voice:
+
+"They don't care any longer, none of them care! _I'm_ safe and they've
+stopped worrying, for they know they'll soon have me back at work! The
+work," she added fiercely, "that made my body what it is, not fit to bear a
+baby!" She threw a quick and tortured look toward the door of the other
+room. "My work for those others, all those years, will be to blame if this
+one dies! And if it doesn't live I'm through! I won't go on! I couldn't!
+I'd be too bitter after this--toward all of them--_those children_!"
+
+These last two words were whispers so bitter they made Roger cold.
+
+"But this child is going to live," he responded hoarsely. Its mother stared
+up with a quivering frown. The next moment her limbs contracted as from an
+electric shock. There had come a faint wail from the other room.
+
+And this went on for three days and nights. Again Roger lived as in a
+dream. He saw haggard faces from time to time of doctors, nurses, servants.
+He saw Allan now and then, his tall ungainly figure stooped, his features
+gaunt, his strong wide jaw set like a vise, but his eyes kind and steady
+still, his low voice reassuring. And Roger noticed John at times hobbling
+quickly down a hall and stopping on his crutches before a closed door,
+listening. Then these figures would recede, and it was as though he were
+alone in the dark.
+
+At last the nightmare ended. One afternoon as he sat in his study, Allan
+came in slowly and dropped exhausted into a chair. He turned to Roger with
+a smile.
+
+"Safe now, I think," he said quietly.
+
+Roger went to Deborah and found her asleep, her face at peace. He went to
+his room and fell himself into a long dreamless slumber.
+
+In the days which followed, again he sat at her bedside and together they
+watched the child in her arms. So feeble still the small creature appeared
+that they both spoke in whispers. But as little by little its strength
+returned, Deborah too became herself. And though still jealously watchful
+of its every movement, she had time for other thinking. She had talks with
+her husband, not only about their baby but about his work and hers. Slowly
+her old interest in all they had had in common returned, and to the
+messages from outside she gave again a kindlier ear.
+
+"Allan tells me," she said one day, when she was alone with her father,
+"that I can have no more children. And I'm glad of that. But at least I
+have one," she added, "and he has already made me feel like a different
+woman than before. I feel sometimes as though I'd come a million miles
+along in life. And yet again it feels so close, all that I left back there
+in school. Because I'm so much closer now--to every mother and every child.
+At last I'm one of the family."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+Of that greater family, one member had been in the house all through the
+month which had just gone by. But he had been so quiet, so carefully
+unobtrusive, that he had been scarcely noticed. Very early each morning,
+day after day, John had gone outside for his breakfast and thence to the
+office where he himself had handled the business as well as he could, only
+coming to Roger at night now and then with some matter he could not settle
+alone, but always stoutly declaring that he needed no other assistance.
+
+"Don't come, Mr. Gale," he had urged. "You look worn out. You'll be sick
+yourself if you ain't careful. And anyhow, if you hang around you'll be
+here whenever she wants you."
+
+Early in Deborah's illness, John had offered to give up his room for the
+use of one of the nurses.
+
+"That's mighty thoughtful of you, Johnny," Allan had responded. "But we've
+got plenty of room as it is. Just you stick around. We want you here."
+
+"All right, Doc. If there's any little thing, you know--answering the
+'phone at night or anything else that I can do--"
+
+"Thank you, so; I'll let you know. But in the meantime go to bed."
+
+From that day on, John had taken not only his breakfast but his supper,
+too, outside, and no one had noticed his absence. Coming in late, he had
+hobbled silently up to his room, stopping to listen at Deborah's door. He
+had kept so completely out of the way, it was not till the baby was three
+weeks old, and past its second crisis, that Deborah thought to ask for
+John. When he came to her bed, she smiled up at him with the baby in her
+arms.
+
+"I thought we'd see him together," she said. John stood on his crutches
+staring down. And as Deborah watched him, all at once her look grew intent.
+"Johnny," she said softly, "go over there, will you, and turn up the light,
+so we can see him better."
+
+And when this was done, though she still talked smilingly of the child,
+again and again she glanced up at John's face, at the strange self-absorbed
+expression, stern and sad and wistful, there. When he had gone the tears
+came in her eyes. And Deborah sent for her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day, at the office, John came into Roger's room. Roger had been at
+work several days and they had already cleared up their affairs.
+
+"Here's something," said John gruffly, "that I wish you'd put away
+somewhere."
+
+And he handed to his partner a small blue leather album, filled with the
+newspaper clippings dealing with Deborah's illness. On the front page was
+one with her picture and a long record of her service to the children of
+New York.
+
+"She wouldn't want to see it now," John continued awkwardly. "But I thought
+maybe later on the boy would like to have it. What do you think?" he
+inquired. Roger gave him a kindly glance.
+
+"I think he will. It's a fine thing to keep." And he handed it back. "But I
+guess you'd better put it away, and give it to her later yourself."
+
+John shifted his weight on his crutches, so quickly that Roger looked up in
+alarm:
+
+"Look here! You're not well!" He saw now that the face of the cripple was
+white and the sweat was glistening on his brow. John gave a harsh little
+nervous laugh.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing much, partner," he replied. "That's another thing I
+wanted to tell you. I've had some queer pains lately--new ones!" He caught
+his breath.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, you young fool?"
+
+"You had your own troubles, didn't you?" John spoke with difficulty. "But
+I'll be all right, I guess! All I need is a few days off!"
+
+Roger had pressed a button, and his stenographer came in.
+
+"Call a taxi," he said sharply. "And, John, you go right over there and lie
+down. I'm going to take you home at once!"
+
+"I've got a better scheme," said John, setting his determined jaws. The
+sweat was pouring down his cheeks. "It may be a week--but there's just a
+chance it--may be a little worse than that! So I've got a room in a
+hospital! See? Be better all round!" He swayed forward.
+
+"Johnny!" Roger caught him just in time, and the boy lay senseless in his
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home, a few hours later, Allan came with another physician down from
+John's small bedroom. He saw his colleague to the door and then came in to
+Roger.
+
+"I'm afraid Johnny has come to the end."
+
+For a moment Roger stared at him.
+
+"Has, eh," he answered huskily. "You're absolutely sure he has? There's
+nothing--nothing on earth we can do?"
+
+"Nothing more than we're doing now."
+
+"He has fooled you fellows before, you know--"
+
+"Not this time."
+
+"How long will it be?"
+
+"Days or hours--I don't know."
+
+"He mustn't suffer!"
+
+"I'll see to that." Roger rose and walked the floor.
+
+"It was the last month did it, of course--"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I blame myself for that."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Allan gently. "You've done a good deal for Johnny Geer."
+
+"He has done a good deal for this family! Can Deborah see him?"
+
+"I wish she could."
+
+"Better stretch a point for her, hadn't you? She's been a kind of a mother
+to John."
+
+"I know. But she can't leave her bed."
+
+"Then you won't tell her?"
+
+"I think she knows. She talked to me about him last night."
+
+"That's it, a mother!" Roger cried. "She was watching! We were blind!" He
+came back to his chair and dropped into it.
+
+"Does John know this himself?" he asked.
+
+"He suspects it, I think," said Allan.
+
+"Then go and tell him, will you, that he's going to get well. And after
+you've done it I'll see him myself. I've got something in mind I want to
+think out."
+
+After Allan had left the room, Roger sat thinking about John. He thought of
+John's birth and his drunken mother, the accident and his struggle for
+life, through babyhood and childhood, through ignorance and filth and pain,
+through din and clamor and hunger, fear; of the long fierce fight which
+John had made not to be "put away" in some big institution, of his battle
+to keep up his head, to be somebody, make a career for himself. He thought
+of John's becoming one of Deborah's big family, only one of thousands, but
+it seemed now to Roger that John had stood out from them all, as the figure
+best embodying that great fierce hunger for a full life, and as the link
+connecting, the one who slowly year by year had emerged from her greater
+family and come into her small one. And last of all he thought of John as
+his own companion, his only one, in the immense adventure on which he was
+so soon to embark.
+
+A few moments later he stood by John's bed.
+
+"Pretty hard, Johnny?" he gently asked.
+
+"Oh, not so bad as it might be, I guess--"
+
+"You'll soon feel better, they tell me, boy." John shut his eyes.
+
+"Yes," he muttered.
+
+"Can you stand my talking, just a minute?"
+
+"Sure I can," John whispered. "I'm not suffering any now. He's given me
+something to put me to sleep. What is it you want to talk about? Business?"
+
+"Not exactly, partner. It's about the family. You've got so you're almost
+one of us. I guess you know us pretty well."
+
+"I guess I do. It's meant a lot to me, Mr. Gale--"
+
+"But I'll tell you what you don't know, John," Roger went on slowly. "I had
+a son in the family once, and he died when he was three months old. That
+was a long time ago--and I never had another, you see--to take his
+place--till you came along." There fell a breathless silence. "And I've
+been thinking lately," Roger added steadily. "I haven't long to live, you
+know. And I've been wondering whether--you'd like to come into the
+family--take my name. Do you understand?"
+
+John said nothing. His eyes were still closed. But presently, groping over
+the bed, he found Roger's hand and clutched it tight. After this, from time
+to time his throat contracted sharply. Tears welled from under his eyelids.
+Then gradually, as the merciful drug which Allan had given did its work,
+his clutch relaxed and he began breathing deep and hard. But still for some
+time longer Roger sat quietly by his side.
+
+The next night he was there again. Death had come to the huddled form on
+the bed, but there had been no relaxing. With the head thrown rigidly far
+back and all the features tense and hard, it was a fighting figure still,
+a figure of stern protest against the world's injustice. But Roger was not
+thinking of this, but of the discovery he had made, that in their talk of
+the night before John had understood him--completely. For upon a piece of
+paper which Allan had given the lad that day, these words had been
+painfully inscribed:
+
+"This is my last will and testament. I am in my right mind--I know what I
+am doing--though nobody else does--nobody is here. To my partner Roger Gale
+I leave my share in our business. And to my teacher Deborah Baird I leave
+my crutches for her school."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+After John had gone away the house was very quiet. Only from the room
+upstairs there could be heard occasionally the faint clear cry of Deborah's
+child. And once again to Roger came a season of repose. He was far from
+unhappy. His disease, although progressing fast, gave him barely any pain;
+it rather made its presence felt by the manner in which it affected his
+mind. His inner life grew uneven. At times his thoughts were as in a fog,
+again they were amazingly clear and vistas opened far ahead. He could not
+control his thinking.
+
+This bothered him at the office, in the work he still had to do. For some
+months he had been considering an offer from one of his rivals, a modern
+concern which wished to buy out his business together with that of three
+other firms and consolidate them all into one corporation. And Roger was
+selling, and it was hard; for the whole idea of bargaining was more
+distasteful than ever now. He had to keep reminding himself of Edith and
+her children.
+
+At last it was over, his books were closed, and there was nothing left to
+be done. Nor did he care to linger. These rooms had meant but little to
+him; they had been but a place of transition from the old office far
+downtown, so full of memories of his youth, to the big corporation looming
+ahead, the huge impersonal clipping mill into which his business was to
+merge. And it came to his mind that New York was like that--no settled calm
+abiding place cherishing its memories, but only a town of transition, a
+great turbulent city of change, restlessly shaking off its past, tearing
+down and building anew, building higher, higher, higher, rearing to the
+very stars, and shouting, "Can you see me now?" What was the goal of this
+mad career? What dazzling city would be here? For a time he stared out of
+his window as into a promised land. Slowly at last he rose from his desk.
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. He looked at those long rows of girls
+gleaning in items large and small the public reputations of all kinds of
+men and women, new kinds in a new nation seething with activities, sweeping
+on like some wide river swollen at flood season to a new America, a world
+which Roger would not know. And yet it would be his world still, for in it
+he would play a part.
+
+"In their lives, too, we shall be there--the dim strong figures of the
+past."
+
+From his desk he gathered a few belongings. Then he looked into John's
+small room, with the big gold motto over the desk: "This is no place for
+your troubles or mine." On the desk lay that small album, John's parting
+gift to Deborah's boy. Roger picked it up and walked out of the office. He
+had never liked good-byes.
+
+In the elevator he noticed that his shoes needed shining, and when he
+reached the street below he stopped at the stand on the corner. The stocky
+Greek with bushy black hair, who had run the stand for many years, gave him
+a cheery greeting; for Roger had stopped there frequently--not that he
+cared about his shoes, but he had always liked to watch the crowds of
+people passing.
+
+"No hurry, boss?"
+
+"None," said Roger.
+
+"Then I give a fine shine! Polish, too?"
+
+"Yes, polish, too." And Roger settled back to watch.
+
+"And put in new shoe strings," he added, with a whimsical smile.
+
+Men and women, girls and boys by thousands passed him, pushing, hurrying,
+shuffling by. Girls tittering and nudging and darting quick side glances.
+Bobbing heads and figures, vigorous steps and dancing eyes. Life bubbling
+over everywhere, in laughter, in sharp angry tones, in glad expectant
+chatter. Deborah's big family. Across the street was a movie between two
+lurid posters, and there was a dance hall overhead. The windows were all
+open, and faintly above the roar of the street he could hear the piano,
+drum, fiddle and horn. The thoroughfare each moment grew more tumultuous to
+his ears, with trolley cars and taxis, motor busses, trucks and drays. A
+small red motor dashed uptown with piles of evening papers; a great black
+motor hearse rushed by. In a taxi which had stopped in a jam, a man was
+kissing a girl in his arms, and both of them were laughing. The smart
+little toque of blue satin she wore was crushed to one side. How red were
+her lips as she threw back her head....
+
+"Silk or cotton, boss? Which you like?" Roger glanced at the shoe strings
+and pondered.
+
+"Silk," he grunted in reply. Idly for a moment he watched this busy little
+man. From whence had he come in far away Greece? What existence had he
+here, and what kind of life would he still have through those many years to
+come? A feeling half of sadness crept into Roger's heavy eyes as he looked
+at the man, at his smiling face and then at other faces in the multitudes
+sweeping past. The moment he tried to single them out, how doubly chaotic
+it became. What an ocean of warm desires, passions, vivid hopes and
+worries. Vaguely he could feel them pass. Often in the midst of his life,
+his active and self-centered life, Roger had looked at these crowds on the
+street and had thought these faces commonplace. But now at the end it was
+not so.
+
+A woman with a baby carriage stopped directly in front of him and stood
+there anxiously watching for a chance to cross the street. And Roger
+thought of Deborah. Heavily he climbed down from his seat, paid the man and
+bade him good-night, and went home to see Deborah's baby.
+
+For a long time he sat by the cradle. Presently Deborah joined him, and
+soon they were laughing heartily at the astonishing jerks and kicks and
+grimaces of the tiny boy. He was having his bath and he hated it. But safe
+at last on his mother's lap, wrapped to his ears in a big soft towel, he
+grew very gay and contented and looked waggishly about.
+
+There followed long lazy days of spring, as April drifted into May. Early
+in the morning Roger could hear through his window the cries of the vendors
+of flowers and fruits. And he listened drowsily. He rose late and spent
+most of the day in the house; but occasionally he went out for a stroll.
+And one balmy evening when groups of youths came trooping by, singing in
+close harmony, Roger called a taxi and went far down through the tenement
+streets to a favorite haunt of his, a little Syrian pawnshop, where after
+long delving he purchased a ring to put in the new collection that he had
+been making lately. He had nearly a dozen now.
+
+Days passed. The house was still so quiet, Deborah was still upstairs. At
+last, one night upon leaving his study, he stopped uncertainly in the hall.
+He took more time than was his wont in closing up the house for the night,
+in trying all the windows, in turning out the various lights. Room after
+room he left in the dark. Then he went slowly up the stairs, his hand
+gratefully feeling those guiding points grown so familiar to his touch
+through many thousand evenings. His hand lingered on the banister and he
+stopped again to listen there.
+
+He did not come downstairs again.
+
+He was able to sleep but little at night. Turning restlessly on his bed, he
+would glance out of the window up at the beetling wall close by, tier on
+tier of apartments from which faint voices dropped out of the dark.
+Gradually as the night wore on, these voices would all die away into long
+mysterious silences--for to him at least such silences had grown to be
+very mysterious. Alone in the hours that followed, even these modern
+neighbors and this strange new eager town pressing down upon his house
+seemed no longer strange to him nor so appallingly immense, seemed even
+familiar and small to him, as the eyes of his mind looked out ahead.
+
+From his bed he could see on the opposite wall the picture Judith had given
+him, always so fresh and cool and dim with its deep restful tones of blue,
+of the herdsmen and the cattle on the dark mountain rim at dawn. And
+vaguely he wondered whether it was because he saw more clearly, or whether
+his mind in this curious haze could no longer see so well, that as he
+looked before him he felt no fear nor any more uncertainty. All his doubts
+had lifted, he was so sure of Judith now. As though she were coming to meet
+him, her image grew more vivid, with memories emerging out of all the years
+gone by. What memories, what vivid scenes! What intimate conversations they
+had, her voice so natural, close in his ear, as together they planned for
+their children.... Wistfully he would search the years for what he should
+soon tell his wife--until the drowsiness returned, and then again came
+visions.
+
+But by day it was not so, for the life of the house would rouse him and at
+intervals hold his attention.
+
+One evening a slight rustle, a faint fragrance in the room, made Roger
+suddenly open his eyes. And he saw Laura by his bed, her slender figure
+clad in blue silk, something white at her full bosom. He noticed her
+shapely shoulders, her glossy hair and moist red lips. She was smiling down
+at him.
+
+"See what I've brought you, dear," she said. And she turned to a chair
+where, one on the other, tray after tray, was piled his whole collection of
+rings. At sight of them his eyes grew fixed; he could feel his pulse beat
+faster.
+
+"How did you ever find them?" he asked his daughter huskily.
+
+"Oh, I had a long hunt all by myself. But I found them at last and I've
+brought them home. Shall we look them over a little while?"
+
+"Yes," he said. She turned up the light, and came and sat down at the
+bedside with a tray of rings in her lap. One by one she held them up to his
+gaze, still smiling and talking softly on in that rich melodious voice of
+hers, of which he heard but snatches. How good it felt to be so gay. No
+solemn thoughts nor questionings, just these dusky glittering beauties
+here, deep soft gleams of color, each with its suggestion of memories for
+Roger, a procession of adventures reaching back into his life. He smiled
+and lay in silence watching, until at last she bent over him, kissed him
+softly, breathed a good-night and went out of the room. Roger followed her
+with his glance. He knew he would never see her again. How graceful of her
+to go like that.
+
+He lay there thinking about her. In her large blue limousine he saw his gay
+young daughter speeding up the Avenue, the purple gleaming pavement
+reflecting studded lines of lights. And he thought he could see her smiling
+still. He recalled scattered fragments of her life--the first luxurious
+little ménage, and the second. How many more would there be? She was only
+in her twenties still. Uneasily he tried to see into the years ahead for
+her, and he thought he saw a lonely old age, childless, loveless, cynical,
+hard. But this fear soon fell from his mind. No, whatever happened, she
+would do it gracefully, an artist always, to the end. He sighed and gave up
+the effort. For he could not think of Laura as old, nor could he think of
+her any more as being a part of his family.
+
+Edith came to him several times, and there was something in her face which
+gave him sharp forebodings. Making a great effort he tried to talk to her
+clearly.
+
+"It's hard to keep up with your children," he said. "It means keeping up
+with everything new. And you stay in your rut and then it's too late.
+Before you know it you are old."
+
+But his words subsided in mutterings, and Roger wearily closed his eyes.
+For a glance up into Edith's face had shown him only pity there and no heed
+to his warning. He saw that she looked upon him as old and still upon
+herself as young, though he noticed the threads of gray in her hair....
+Then he realized she had gone and that his chamber had grown dark. He must
+have been dreaming. Of what, he asked. He tried to remember. And suddenly
+out of the darkness, so harsh and clear it startled him, a picture rose in
+Roger's mind of a stark lonely figure, a woman in a graveyard cutting the
+grass on family graves. Where had he seen it? He could not recall. What had
+it to do with Edith? Was she not living in New York?... What had so
+startled him just now? Some thought, some vivid picture, some nightmare he
+could not recall.
+
+His last talks were with Deborah. All through those days and the long
+nights, too, he kept fancying she was in the room, and it brought deep balm
+to his restless soul. He asked her to tell him about the schools, and
+Deborah talked to him quietly. She was going back to her work in the fall.
+She felt very humble about it--she told him she felt older now and she saw
+that her work was barely begun. But she was even happier than before. Her
+hand lay in his, and it tightened there. He opened his eyes and looked up
+into hers.
+
+"All so strange," he muttered, "life." There was a sharp contracting of her
+wide and sensitive mouth.
+
+"Yes, dear, strange!" she whispered.
+
+"But I'm so glad you're going on." He frowned as he tried to be simple and
+clear, and make her feel he understood what she had set herself to do. "All
+people," he said slowly, "never counted so much as now. And never so
+hungry--all--as now--for all of life--like children--children who should go
+to school. Your work will grow--I can see ahead. Never a time when every
+man and woman and child could grow so much--and hand it on--and hand it
+on--as you will do to your small son."
+
+He felt her hand on his forehead, and for some moments nothing was said.
+Vaguely in glimpses Roger saw his small grandson growing up; and he
+pictured other children here, not her own but of her greater family, as the
+two merged into one. He felt that she would not grow old. Children, lives
+of children; work, dreams and aspirations. How bright it seemed as he
+stared ahead. Then he heard the cry of her baby.
+
+"Shall I nurse him here?" he heard her ask. He pressed her hand in answer.
+And when again he opened his eyes she was by his side with the child at her
+breast. Its large round eyes, so pure and clear, gazed into his own for a
+long, long time.
+
+"Now he's so sleepy," she whispered. "Would you like him beside you a
+moment?"
+
+"Please."
+
+He felt the faint scent of the tiny boy, and still those eyes looked into
+his. He forgot his daughter standing there; and as he watched, a sweet
+fresh sense of the mystery of this life so new stole deep into his spirit.
+All at once the baby fell asleep.
+
+"Good-night, little brother," he whispered. "God grant the world be very
+kind." He could feel the mother lift it up, and he heard the door close
+softly.
+
+Smiling he, too, fell asleep. And after that there were only dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+And his dreams were of children. Their faces passed before him. Now they
+were young again in the house. They were eating their suppers, three small
+girls, chattering like magpies. From her end of the table their mother
+smiled quietly across at him. "Come children," she was saying, "that will
+do for a little while." But Roger said, "Oh, let them talk."... Then he saw
+new-comers. Bruce came in with Edith, and George and young Elizabeth, and
+Allan came with Deborah who had a baby in her arms, and Laura stood beside
+them. Here were his three daughters, grown, but still in some uncanny way
+they looked to him like children still; and behind them he detected figures
+long forgotten, of boys and girls whom he had known far back in his own
+childhood. John, too, had come into the house. Strangely now the walls were
+gone, had lifted, and a clamorous throng, laughing, shouting, pummeling,
+hedged him in on every hand--Deborah's big family!
+
+Soon the uproar wearied him, and Roger tried to shut them out, to bring
+back again the walls to his house. And sometimes he succeeded, and he was
+left for a while in peace with Judith and his three small girls. But
+despite his efforts to keep them there, new faces kept intruding. Swiftly
+his small family grew, split into other families, and these were merged
+with other figures pressing in from every side. Again he felt the presence
+of countless families all around, dividing, reuniting, with ceaseless
+changes and fresh life--a never ending multitude. Here they were singing
+and dancing, and Laura gaily waved to him. At another place were only men,
+and they were struggling savagely to clutch things from each other's
+hands. A sea of scowling visages, angry shouts, fists clinched in air. And
+he thought he saw Bruce for an instant. Behind them lay wide valleys
+obscured by heavy clouds of smoke, and he could hear the roar of guns. But
+they vanished suddenly, and he saw women mourning now, and Edith with her
+children turned to him her anxious eyes. He tried to reach and help her,
+but already she had gone. And behind her came huge bending forms, men
+heaving at great burdens, jaws set in scowls of fierce revolt. And John was
+there on his crutches, and near him was a figure bound into a chair of
+steel, with terror in the straining limbs, while in desperation Deborah
+tried to wrench him free. Abruptly Roger turned away.
+
+And in a twinkling all was gone, the tumult and the clamor, and he was in a
+silent place high up on a mountain side. It was dusk. A herd of cattle
+passed, and George came close behind them. And around him Roger saw,
+emerging from the semi-dark, faces turning like his own to the summits of
+the mountains and the billowy splendors there. It grew so dark he could see
+no more. There fell a deep silence, not a sound but the occasional chirp of
+a bird or the faint whirr of an insect. Even the glow on the peaks was
+gone. Darkness, only darkness.
+
+"Surely this is death," he thought. After that he was alone. And presently
+from far away he heard the booming of a bell, deep and slow, sepulchral, as
+it measured off his life. Another silence followed, and this time it was
+more profound; and with a breathless awe he knew that all the people who
+had ever lived on earth were before him in the void to which he himself was
+drifting: people of all nations, of countless generations reaching back and
+back and back to the beginnings of mankind: the mightiest family of all,
+that had stumbled up through the ages, had slaved and starved and dreamed
+and died, had blindly hated, blindly killed, had raised up gods and idols
+and yearned for everlasting life, had laughed and played and danced along,
+had loved and mated, given birth, had endlessly renewed itself and handed
+on its heritage, had striven hungrily to learn, had groped its way in
+darkness, and after all its struggles had come now barely to the dawn. And
+then a voice within him cried,
+
+"What is humanity but a child? In the name of the dead I salute the
+unborn!"
+
+Slowly a glow appeared in his dream, and once again the scene had changed.
+The light was coming from long rows of houses rising tall and steep out of
+a teeming city street. And from these lighted houses children now came
+pouring forth. They filled the street from wall to wall with a torrent of
+warm vivid hues, they joined in mad tempestuous games, they shouted and
+they danced with glee, they whirled each other 'round and 'round. The very
+air seemed quivering. Then was heard the crash of a band, and he saw them
+marching into school. In and in and in they pressed, till the school seemed
+fairly bursting. Out they came by another way, and went off marching down
+the street with the big flag waving at their head. He followed and saw the
+street divide into narrower streets and bye-ways, into roads and country
+lanes. And all were filled with children. In endless multitudes they
+came--marching, marching, spreading, spreading, like wide bobbing fields of
+flowers rolling out across the land, toward a great round flashing sun
+above a distant rim of hills.
+
+The sun rose strangely dazzling. It filled the heavens with blinding light.
+He felt himself drawn up and up--while from somewhere far behind he heard
+the cry of Deborah's child. A clear sweet thrill of happiness came. And
+after that--we do not know.
+
+For he had left his family.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Family, by Ernest Poole
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of His Family, by Ernest Poole
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: His Family
+
+Author: Ernest Poole
+
+Release Date: December 20, 2004 [EBook #14396]
+[Date last updated: April 8, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS FAMILY ***
+
+
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+Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
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+</pre>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>HIS FAMILY</h1>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><b>CHAPTER XXXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><b>CHAPTER XXXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV"><b>CHAPTER XXXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XL"><b>CHAPTER XL</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI"><b>CHAPTER XLI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII"><b>CHAPTER XLII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII"><b>CHAPTER XLIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV"><b>CHAPTER XLIV</b></a></p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+<h5>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h5>
+<h5>NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS</h5>
+<h5>ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO</h5>
+<h5>MACMILLAN &amp; CO., LIMITED</h5>
+<h5>LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA</h5>
+<h5>MELBOURNE</h5>
+<h5>THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO</h5>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>HIS FAMILY</h1>
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>ERNEST POOLE</h2>
+<h3>AUTHOR OF "THE HARBOR"</h3>
+<h5>New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1917</h5>
+<h5><i>All rights reserved</i></h5>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917</h5>
+<h5>BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY</h5>
+<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h5>
+<h5>Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917.</h5>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="TO_MA" id="TO_MA"></a>TO M.A.</h2>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>HIS FAMILY</h1>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<p>He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of <i>old</i> New
+York&mdash;he had heard of that from old, old men when he himself
+had still been young and had smiled at their garrulity. He was
+thinking of a <i>young</i> New York, the mighty throbbing city to
+which he had come long ago as a lad from the New Hampshire
+mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting drivers,
+hurrying crowds, the crack of whips and the clatter of wheels; an
+uproarious, thrilling town of enterprise, adventure, youth; a city
+of pulsing energies, the center of a boundless land; a port of
+commerce with all the world, of stately ships with snowy sails; a
+fascinating pleasure town, with throngs of eager travellers
+hurrying from the ferry boats and rolling off in hansom cabs to the
+huge hotels on Madison Square. A city where American faces were
+still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner and a kindlier
+town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar scramble.
+A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling
+trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and
+groups of youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark.
+A place of music and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on
+those dazzling evenings when as a boy he had ushered there for the
+sake of hearing the music, how the rich joy of being alive, of
+being young, of being loved, had shone out of women's eyes.
+Shimmering satins, dainty gloves and little jewelled slippers,
+shapely arms and shoulders, vivacious movements, nods and smiles,
+swift glances, ripples, bursts <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span>of laughter, an exciting hum of
+voices. Then silence, sudden darkness&mdash;and music, and the
+curtain. The great wide curtain slowly rising....</p>
+<p>But all that had passed away.</p>
+<p>Roger Gale was a rugged heavy man not quite sixty years of age.
+His broad, massive features were already deeply furrowed, and there
+were two big flecks of white in his close-curling, grayish hair. He
+lived in a narrow red brick house down on the lower west side of
+the town, in a neighborhood swiftly changing. His wife was dead. He
+had no sons, but three grown daughters, of whom the oldest, Edith,
+had been married many years. Laura and Deborah lived at home, but
+they were both out this evening. It was Friday, Edith's evening,
+and as was her habit she had come from her apartment uptown to dine
+with her father and play chess. In the living room, a cheerful
+place, with its lamp light and its shadows, its old-fashioned
+high-back chairs, its sofa, its book cases, its low marble mantel
+with the gilt mirror overhead, they sat at a small oval table in
+front of a quiet fire of coals. And through the smoke of his cigar
+Roger watched his daughter.</p>
+<p>Edith had four children, and was soon to have another. A small
+demure woman of thirty-five, with light soft hair and clear blue
+eyes and limbs softly rounded, the contour of her features was full
+with approaching maternity, but there was a decided firmness in the
+lines about her little mouth. As he watched her now, her father's
+eyes, deep set and gray and with signs of long years of suffering
+in them, displayed a grave whimsical wistfulness. For by the way
+she was playing the game he saw how old she thought him. Her play
+was slow and absent-minded, and there came long periods when she
+did not make a move. Then she would recall herself and look up with
+a little affectionate smile that showed she looked upon him as too
+heavy with his age to have noticed her small lapses.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id=
+"Page_3"></a>[3]</span>He was grimly amused at her attitude, for he
+did not feel old at all. With that whimsical hint of a smile which
+had grown to be a part of him, he tried various moves on the board
+to see how far he could go without interrupting her reveries. He
+checkmated her, re-lit his cigar and waited until she should notice
+it. And when she did not notice, gravely he moved back his queen
+and let the game continue. How many hundreds of games, he thought,
+Edith must have played with him in the long years when his spirit
+was dead, for her now to take such chances. Nearly every Friday
+evening for nearly sixteen years.</p>
+<p>Before that, Judith his wife had been here. It was then that the
+city had been young, for to Roger it had always seemed as though he
+were just beginning life. Into its joys and sorrows too he had
+groped his way as most of us do, and had never penetrated deep. But
+he had meant to, later on. When in his busy city days distractions
+had arisen, always he had promised himself that sooner or later he
+would return to this interest or passion, for the world still lay
+before him with its enthralling interests, its beauties and its
+pleasures, its tasks and all its puzzles, intricate and baffling,
+all some day to be explored.</p>
+<p>This deep zest in Roger Gale had been bred in his boyhood on a
+farm up in the New Hampshire mountains. There his family had lived
+for many generations. And from the old house, the huge shadowy barn
+and the crude little sawmill down the road; from animals, grown
+people and still more from other boys, from the meadows and the
+mountain above with its cliffs and caves and forests of pine, young
+Roger had discovered, even in those early years, that life was
+fresh, abundant, new, with countless glad beginnings.</p>
+<p>At seventeen he had come to New York. There had followed hard
+struggles in lean years, but his rugged health had buoyed him up.
+And there had been genial friendships and dreams and explorations,
+a search for romance, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id=
+"Page_4"></a>[4]</span>the strange glory of love, a few furtive
+ventures that left him dismayed. But though love had seemed sordid
+at such times it had brought him crude exultations. And if his
+existence had grown more obscure, it had been somber only in
+patches, the main picture dazzling still. And still he had been
+just making starts.</p>
+<p>He had ventured into the business world, clerking now at this,
+now at that, and always looking about him for some big opportunity.
+It had come and he had seized it, despite the warnings of his
+friends. What a wild adventure it had been a bureau of news
+clippings, a business new and unheard of but he had been sure that
+here was growth, he had worked at it day and night, and the
+business widening fast had revealed long ramifications which went
+winding and stretching away into every phase of American life. And
+this life was like a forest, boundless and impenetrable,
+up-springing, intertwining. How much could <i>he</i> ever know of
+it all?</p>
+<p>Then had come his marriage. Judith's family had lived long in
+New York, but some had died and others had scattered until only she
+was left. This house had been hers, but she had been poor, so she
+had leased it to some friends. It was through them he had met her
+here, and within a few weeks he had fallen in love. He had felt
+profound disgust for the few wild oats he had sown, and in his
+swift reaction he had overworshipped the girl, her beauty and her
+purity, until in a delicate way of her own she had hinted that he
+was going too far, that she, too, was human and a passionate lover
+of living, in spite of her low quiet voice and her demure and sober
+eyes.</p>
+<p>And what beginnings for Roger now, what a piling up of intimate
+joys, surprises, shocks of happiness. There had come
+disappointments, too, sudden severe little checks from his wife
+which had brought him occasional questionings. This love had not
+been quite <i>all</i> he had dreamed, this woman not so ardent. He
+had glimpsed couples here and <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span>there that set him to imagining
+more consuming passions. Here again he had not explored very deep.
+But he had dismissed regrets like these with only a slight
+reluctance. For if they had settled down a bit with the coming of
+their children, their love had grown rich in sympathies and silent
+understandings, in humorous enjoyment of their funny little
+daughters' chattering like magpies in the genial old house. And
+they had looked happily far ahead. What a woman she had been for
+plans. It had not been all smooth sailing. There had come reverses
+in business, and at home one baby, a boy, had died. But on they had
+gone and the years had swept by until he had reached his forties.
+Absorbed in his growing business and in his thriving family, it had
+seemed to Roger still as though he were just starting out.</p>
+<p>But one day, quite suddenly, the house had become a strange
+place to him with a strange remote figure in it, his wife. For he
+had learned that she must die. There had followed terrible weeks.
+Then Judith had faced their disaster. Little by little she had won
+back the old intimacy with her husband; and through the slow but
+inexorable progress of her ailment, again they had come together in
+long talks and plans for their children. At this same chessboard,
+in this room, repeatedly she would stop the game and smiling she
+would look into the future. At one such time she had said to
+him,</p>
+<p>"I wonder if it won't be the same with the children as it has
+been with us. No matter how long each one of them lives, won't
+their lives feel to them unfinished like ours, only just beginning?
+I wonder how far they will go. And then their children will grow up
+and it will be the same with them. Unfinished lives. Oh, dearie,
+what children all of us are."</p>
+<p>He had put his arm around her then and had held her very tight.
+And feeling the violent trembling of her husband's fierce revolt,
+slowly bending back her <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id=
+"Page_6"></a>[6]</span>head and looking up into his eyes she had
+continued steadily:</p>
+<p>"And when you come after me, my dear, oh, how hungry I shall be
+for all you will tell me. For you will live on in our children's
+lives."</p>
+<p>And she had asked him to promise her that.</p>
+<p>But he had not kept his promise. For after Judith's dying he had
+felt himself terribly alone, with eternity around him, his wife
+slipping far away. And the universe had grown stark and hard,
+impersonal, relentless, cold. A storm of doubts had attacked his
+faith. And though he had resisted long, for his faith in God had
+been rooted deep in the mountains of New England, in the end it had
+been wrenched away, and with it he had lost all hope that either
+for Judith or himself was there any existence beyond the grave. So
+death had come to Roger's soul. He had been deaf and blind to his
+children. Nights by the thousand spent alone. Like a gray level
+road in his memory now was the story of his family.</p>
+<p>When had his spirit begun to awaken? He could not tell, it had
+been so slow. His second daughter, Deborah, who had stayed at home
+with her father when Laura had gone away to school, had done little
+things continually to rouse his interest in life. Edith's winsome
+babies had attracted him when they came to the house. Laura had
+returned from school, a joyous creature, tall and slender, with
+snapping black eyes, and had soon made her presence felt. One day
+in the early afternoon, as he entered the house there had burst on
+his ears a perfect gale of laughter; and peering through the
+porti&egrave;res he had seen the dining-room full of young girls, a
+crew as wild as Laura herself. Hastily he had retreated upstairs.
+But he had enjoyed such glimpses. He had liked to see her fresh
+pretty gowns and to have her come in and kiss him good-night.</p>
+<p>Then had come a sharp heavy jolt. His business had suffered from
+long neglect, and suddenly for two anxious <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>weeks he had
+found himself facing bankruptcy. Edith's husband, a lawyer, had
+come to his aid and together they had pulled out of the hole. But
+he had been forced to mortgage the house. And this had brought to a
+climax all the feelings of guiltiness which had so long been
+stirring within him over his failure to live up to the promise he
+had made his wife.</p>
+<p>And so Roger had looked at his children.</p>
+<p>And at first to his profound surprise he had had it forced upon
+him that these were three grown women, each equipped with her own
+peculiar feminine traits and desires, the swift accumulations of
+lives which had expanded in a city that had reared to the skies in
+the many years of his long sleep. But very slowly, month by month,
+he had gained a second impression which seemed to him deeper and
+more real. To the eye they were grown women all, but inwardly they
+were children still, each groping for her happiness and each held
+back as he had been, either by checks within herself or by the gay
+distractions of the absorbing city. He saw each of his daughters,
+parts of himself. And he remembered what Judith had said: "You will
+live on in our children's lives." And he began to get glimmerings
+of a new immortality, made up of generations, an endless succession
+of other lives extending into the future.</p>
+<p>Some of all this he remembered now, in scattered fragments here
+and there. Then from somewhere far away a great bell began booming
+the hour, and it roused him from his revery. He had often heard the
+bell of late. A calm deep-toned intruder, it had first struck in
+upon his attention something over two years ago. Vaguely he had
+wondered about it. Soon he had found it was on the top of a tower a
+little to the north, one of the highest pinnacles of this
+tumultuous modern town. But the bell was not tumultuous. And as he
+listened it seemed to say, "There is still time, but you have not
+long."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id=
+"Page_8"></a>[8]</span>Edith, sitting opposite him, looked up at
+the sound with a stir of relief. Ten o'clock. It was time to go
+home.</p>
+<p>"I wonder what's keeping Bruce," she said. Bruce was still in
+his office downtown. As a rule on Friday evenings he came with his
+wife to supper here, but this week he had some new business on
+hand. Edith was vague about it. As she tried to explain she knitted
+her brows and said that Bruce was working too hard. And her father
+grunted assent.</p>
+<p>"Bruce ought to knock off every summer," he said, "for a good
+solid month, or better two. Can't you bring him up to the mountains
+this year?" He referred to the old New Hampshire home which he had
+kept as a summer place. But Edith smiled at the idea.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I could bring him," she replied, "and in a week he'd be
+perfectly crazy to get back to his office again." She compressed
+her lips. "I know what he needs&mdash;and we'll do it some day, in
+spite of him."</p>
+<p>"A suburb, eh," her father said, and his face took on a look of
+dislike. They had often talked of suburbs.</p>
+<p>"Yes," his daughter answered, "I've picked out the very house."
+He threw at her a glance of impatience. He knew what had started
+her on this line. Edith's friend, Madge Deering, was living out in
+Morristown. All very well, he reflected, but her case was not at
+all the same. He had known Madge pretty well. Although the death of
+her husband had left her a widow at twenty-nine, with four small
+daughters to bring up, she had gone on determinedly. Naturally
+smart and able, Madge was always running to town, keeping up with
+all her friends and with every new fad and movement there, although
+she made fun of most of them. Twice she had taken her girls abroad.
+But Edith was quite different. In a suburb she would draw into her
+house and never grow another inch. And Bruce, poor devil, would
+commute and take work home from the office. But Roger couldn't tell
+her that.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id=
+"Page_9"></a>[9]</span>I'd be sorry to see you do it," he said.
+"I'd miss you up in the mountains."</p>
+<p>"Oh, we'd come up in the summer," she answered. "I wouldn't miss
+the mountains for worlds!"</p>
+<p>Then they talked of summer plans. And soon again Edith's smooth
+pretty brows were wrinkling absorbedly. It was hard in her planning
+not to be sure whether her new baby would come in May or early
+June. It was only the first of April now. While she talked her
+father watched her. He liked her quiet fearlessness in facing the
+ordeal ahead. Into the bewildering city he felt her searching
+anxiously to find good things for her small brood, to make every
+dollar count, to keep their little bodies strong, to guard their
+hungry little souls from many things she thought were bad. Of all
+his daughters, he told himself, she was the one most like his
+wife.</p>
+<p>While she was talking Bruce came in. Of medium height and a wiry
+build, his quick kindly smile of greeting did not conceal the fine
+tight lines about his mouth and between his eyes. His small trim
+moustache was black, but his hair already showed streaks of gray
+although he was not quite thirty-eight, and as he lit a cigarette
+his right hand twitched perceptibly.</p>
+<p>Bruce Cunningham had married just after he left law school. He
+had worked in a law office which took receiverships by the score,
+and through managing bankrupt concerns by slow degrees he had made
+himself a financial surgeon. He had set up an office of his own and
+was doing splendidly. But he worked under fearful tension. Bruce
+had to deal with bankrupts who had barely closed their eyes for
+weeks, men half out of their minds from the strain, the struggle to
+keep up their heads in those angry waters of finance which Roger
+vaguely pictured as a giant whirlpool. Though honest enough in his
+own affairs, Bruce showed a genial relish for all the tricks of the
+savage world which was as the breath to his nostrils. And at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id=
+"Page_10"></a>[10]</span>times he appeared so wise and keen he made
+Roger feel like a child. But again it was Bruce who seemed the
+child. He seemed to be so na&iuml;ve at times, and Edith had him so
+under her thumb. Roger liked to hear Bruce's stories of business,
+when Edith would let her husband talk. But this she would not often
+do, for she said Bruce needed rest at night. She reproved him now
+for staying so late, she wrung from him the fact that he'd had no
+supper.</p>
+<p>"Well, Bruce," she exclaimed impatiently, "now isn't that just
+like you? You're going straight home&mdash;that's where you're
+going&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"To be fed up and put to bed," her husband grumbled
+good-naturedly. And while she made ready to bundle him off he
+turned to his father-in-law.</p>
+<p>"What do you think's my latest?" he asked, and he gave a low
+chuckle which Roger liked. "Last week I was a brewer, to-day I'm an
+engineer," he said. "Can you beat it? A building contractor. Me."
+And as he smoked his cigarette, in laconic phrases he explained how
+a huge steel construction concern had gone to the wall, through
+building skyscrapers "on spec" and outstripping even the growth of
+New York. "They got into court last week," he said, "and the judge
+handed me the receivership. The judge and I have been chums for
+years. He has hay fever&mdash;so do I."</p>
+<p>"Come, Bruce, I'm ready," said his wife.</p>
+<p>"I've been in their office all day," he went on. "Their general
+manager was stark mad. He hadn't been out of the office since last
+Sunday night, he said. You had to ask him a question and
+wait&mdash;while he looked at you and held onto his chair. He broke
+down and blubbered&mdash;the poor damn fool&mdash;he'll be in
+Matteawan in a week&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"You'll be there yourself if you don't come home," broke in
+Edith's voice impatiently.</p>
+<p>"And out of that poor devil, and out of the mess his books are
+in, I've been learning engineering!"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id=
+"Page_11"></a>[11]</span>He had followed his wife out on the steps.
+He turned back with a quick appealing smile:</p>
+<p>"Well, good-night&mdash;see you soon&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Good-night, my boy," said Roger. "Good luck to the
+engineering."</p>
+<p>"Oh, father dear," cried Edith, from the taxi down below.
+"Remember supper Sunday night&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I won't forget," said Roger.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>He watched them start off up the street. The night was soft,
+refreshing, and the place was quiet and personal. The house was one
+of a dozen others, some of red brick and some of brown stone, that
+stood in an uneven row on a street but a few rods in length, one
+side of a little triangular park enclosed by a low iron fence,
+inside of which were a few gnarled trees and three or four park
+benches. On one of these benches his eye was caught by the figure
+of an old woman there, and he stood a moment watching her, some
+memory stirring in his mind.</p>
+<p>Occasionally somebody passed. Otherwise it was silent here. But
+even in the silence could be felt the throes of change; the very
+atmosphere seemed charged with drastic things impending. Already
+the opposite house line had been broken near the center by a high
+apartment building, and another still higher rose like a cliff just
+back of the house in which Roger lived. Still others, and many
+factory lofts, reared shadowy bulks on every hand. From the top of
+one an enormous sign, a corset pictured forth in lights, flashed
+out at regular intervals; and from farther off, high up in the
+misty haze of the night, could be seen the gleaming pinnacle where
+hour by hour that great bell slowly boomed the time away. Yes, here
+the old was passing. Already the tiny parklet was like the dark
+bottom of a pit, with the hard sparkling modern town towering on
+every side, slowly pressing, pressing in and glaring down with
+yellow eyes.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id=
+"Page_12"></a>[12]</span>But Roger noticed none of these things. He
+watched the old woman on the bench and groped for the memory she
+had stirred. Ah, now at last he had it. An April night long, long
+ago, when he had sat where she was now, while here in the house his
+wife's first baby, Edith, had begun her life....</p>
+<p>Slowly he turned and went inside.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>CHAPTER
+II</h2>
+<p>Roger's hearing was extremely acute. Though the room where he
+was sitting, his study, was at the back of the house, he heard
+Deborah's key at the street door and he heard the door softly open
+and close.</p>
+<p>"Are you there, dearie?" Her voice from the hallway was low; and
+his answer, "Yes, child," was in the same tone, as though she were
+with him in the room. This keen sense of hearing had long been a
+peculiar bond between them. To her father, Deborah's voice was the
+most distinctive part of her, for often as he listened the memory
+came of her voice as a girl, unpleasant, hurried and stammering.
+But she had overcome all that. "No grown woman," she had declared,
+when she was eighteen, "has any excuse for a voice like mine." That
+was eleven years ago; and the voice she had acquired since, with
+its sweet magnetic quality, its clear and easy articulation, was to
+him an expression of Deborah's growth. As she took off her coat and
+hat in the hall she said, in the same low tone as before,</p>
+<p>"Edith has been here, I suppose&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I'm so sorry I missed her. I tried to get home early, but it
+has been a busy night."</p>
+<p>Her voice sounded tired, comfortably so, and she looked that way
+as she came in. Though only a little taller than Edith, she was of
+a sturdier build and more decided features. Her mouth was large
+with a humorous droop and her face rather broad with high
+cheekbones. As she put her soft black hair up over her high
+forehead, her father noticed her birthmark, a faint curving line of
+red <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id=
+"Page_14"></a>[14]</span>running up from between her eyes.
+Imperceptible as a rule, it showed when she was tired. In the big
+school in the tenements where she had taught for many years, she
+gave herself hard without stint to her work, but she had such a
+good time through it all. She had a way, too, he reflected, of
+always putting things in their place. As now she came in and kissed
+him and sank back on his leather lounge with a tranquil breath of
+relief, she seemed to be dropping school out of her life.</p>
+<p>Roger picked up his paper and continued his reading. Presently
+they would have a talk, but first he knew that she wanted to lie
+quite still for a little while. Vaguely he pictured her work that
+night, her class-room packed to bursting with small Jews and
+Italians, and Deborah at the blackboard with a long pointer in her
+hand. The fact that for the last two years she had been the
+principal of her school had made little impression upon him.</p>
+<p>And meanwhile, as she lay back with eyes closed, her mind still
+taut from the evening called up no simple class-room but far
+different places&mdash;a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall where she
+had just been speaking, some schools which she had visited out in
+Indiana, a block of tenements far downtown and the private office
+of the mayor. For her school had long curious arms these days.</p>
+<p>"Was Bruce here too this evening?" she asked her father
+presently. Roger finished what he was reading, then looked over to
+the lounge, which was in a shadowy corner.</p>
+<p>"Yes, he came in late." And he went on to tell her of Bruce's
+"engineering." At once she was interested. Rising on one elbow she
+questioned him good-humoredly, for Deborah was fond of Bruce.</p>
+<p>"Has he bought that automobile he wanted?"</p>
+<p>"No," replied her father. "Edith said they couldn't afford
+it."</p>
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id=
+"Page_15"></a>[15]</span>This time it's the dentist's bills. Young
+Betsy's teeth aren't straightened yet&mdash;and as soon as she's
+been beautified they're going to put the clamps on George."</p>
+<p>"Poor Georgie," Deborah murmured. At the look of pain and
+disapproval on her father's heavy face, she smiled quietly to
+herself. George, who was Edith's oldest and the worry of her days,
+was Roger's favorite grandson. "Has he been bringing home any more
+sick dogs?"</p>
+<p>"No, this time it was a rat&mdash;a white one," Roger answered.
+A glint of dry relish appeared in his eyes. "George brought it home
+the other night. He had on a pair of ragged old pants."</p>
+<p>"What on earth&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"He had traded his own breeches for the rat," said Roger
+placidly.</p>
+<p>"No! Oh, father! Really!" And she sank back laughing on the
+lounge.</p>
+<p>"His school report," said Roger, "was quite as bad as ever."</p>
+<p>"Of course it was," said Deborah. And she spoke so sharply that
+her father glanced at her in surprise. She was up again on one
+elbow, and there was an eager expression on her bright attractive
+face. "Do you know what we're going to do some day? We're going to
+put the rat in the school," Deborah said impatiently. "We're going
+to take a boy like George and study him till we think we know just
+what interests him most. And if in his case it's animals, we'll
+have a regular zoo in school. And for other boys we'll have other
+things they really want to know about. And we'll keep them until
+five o'clock&mdash;when their mothers will have to drag them away."
+Her father looked bewildered.</p>
+<p>"But arithmetic, my dear."</p>
+<p>"You'll find they'll have learned their arithmetic without
+knowing it," Deborah answered.</p>
+<p>"Sounds a bit wild," murmured Roger. Again to his <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>mind came
+the picture of hordes of little Italians and Jews. "My dear, if I
+had <i>your children</i> to teach, I don't think I'd add a zoo," he
+said. And with a breath of discomfort he turned back to his
+reading. He knew that he ought to question her, to show an interest
+in her work. But he had a deep aversion for those millions of
+foreign tenement people, always shoving, shoving upward through the
+filth of their surroundings. They had already spoiled his
+neighborhood, they had flowed up like an ocean tide. And so he read
+his paper, frowning guiltily down at the page. He glanced up in a
+little while and saw Deborah smiling across at him, reading his
+dislike of such talk. The smile which he sent back at her was half
+apologetic, half an appeal for mercy. And Deborah seemed to
+understand. She went into the living room, and there at the piano
+she was soon playing softly. Listening from his study, again the
+feeling came to him of her fresh and abundant vitality. He mused a
+little enviously on how it must feel to be strong like that, never
+really tired.</p>
+<p>And while her father thought in this wise, Deborah at the piano,
+leaning back with eyes half closed, could feel her tortured nerves
+relax, could feel her pulse stop throbbing so and the dull aching
+at her temples little by little pass away. She played like this so
+many nights. Soon she would be ready for sleep.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>After she had gone to bed, Roger rose heavily from his chair. By
+long habit he went about the house trying the windows and turning
+out lights. Last he came to the front door. There were double outer
+doors with a ponderous system of locks and bolts and a heavy chain.
+Mechanically he fastened them all; and putting out the light in the
+hall, in the darkness he went up the stairs. He could so easily
+feel his way. He put his hand lightly, first on the foot of the
+banister, then on a curve in it halfway up, again on the sharper
+curve at the top and last on the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>knob of his bedroom door. And
+it was as though these guiding objects came out to meet him like
+old friends.</p>
+<p>In his bedroom, while he slowly undressed, his glance was caught
+by the picture upon the wall opposite his bed, a little landscape
+poster done in restful tones of blue, of two herdsmen and their
+cattle far up on a mountainside in the hour just before the dawn,
+tiny clear-cut silhouettes against the awakening eastern sky. So
+immense and still, this birth of the day&mdash;the picture always
+gave him the feeling of life everlasting. Judith his wife had
+placed it there.</p>
+<p>From his bed through the window close beside him he looked up at
+the cliff-like wall of the new apartment building, with tier upon
+tier of windows from which murmurous voices dropped out of the
+dark: now soft, now suddenly angry, loud; now droning, sullen,
+bitter, hard; now gay with little screams of mirth; now low and
+amorous, drowsy sounds. Tier upon tier of modern homes, all
+overhanging Roger's house as though presently to crush it down.</p>
+<p>But Roger was not thinking of that. He was thinking of his
+children&mdash;of Edith's approaching confinement and all her
+anxious hunting about to find what was best for her family, of
+Bruce and the way he was driving himself in the unnatural world
+downtown where men were at each other's throats, of Deborah and
+that school of hers in the heart of a vast foul region of tenement
+buildings swarming with strange, dirty little urchins. And last he
+thought of Laura, his youngest daughter, wild as a hawk, gadding
+about the Lord knew where. She even danced in restaurants! Through
+his children he felt flowing into his house the seething life of
+this new town. And drowsily he told himself he must make a real
+effort, and make it soon, to know his family better. For in spite
+of the storm of long ago which had swept away his faith in God, the
+feeling had come to him of late that somewhere, in some manner, he
+was to meet his wife again. He rarely tried to think <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>this out,
+for as soon as he did it became a mere wish, a hungry longing,
+nothing more. So he had learned to let it lie, deep down inside of
+him. Sometimes he vividly saw her face. After all, who could tell?
+And she would want to hear of her children. Yes, he must know them
+better. Some day soon he must begin.</p>
+<p>Suddenly he remembered that Laura had not yet come home. With a
+sigh of discomfort he got out of bed and went downstairs, re-lit
+the gas in the hallway, unfastened the locks and the chain at the
+door. He came back and was soon asleep. He must have dozed for an
+hour or two. He was roused by hearing the front door close and a
+big motor thundering. And then like a flash of light in the dark
+came Laura's rippling laughter.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>CHAPTER
+III</h2>
+<p>On the next evening, Saturday, while Roger ate his dinner, Laura
+came to sit with him. She herself was dining out. That she should
+have dressed so early in order to keep him company had caused her
+father some surprise, and a faint suspicion entered his mind that
+she had overdrawn at the bank, as she had the last time she sat
+with him like this. Her manner certainly was a bit strange.</p>
+<p>But Roger put the thought aside. Whatever she wanted, Laura was
+worth it. In a tingling fashion he felt what a glorious time she
+was having, what a gorgeous town she knew. It was difficult to
+realize she was his own daughter, this dashing stranger sitting
+here, playing idly with a knife and caressing him with her voice
+and her eyes. The blue evening gown she was wearing to-night
+(doubtless not yet paid for) made her figure even more supple and
+lithe, set off her splendid bosom, her slender neck, her creamy
+skin. Her hair, worn low over her temples, was brown with just a
+tinge of red. Her eyes were black, with gleaming lights; her lips
+were warm and rich, alive. He did not approve of her lips. Once
+when she had kissed him Roger had started slightly back. For his
+daughter's lips were rouged, and they had reminded him of his
+youth. He had asked her sister to speak to her. But Deborah had
+told him she did not care to speak to people in that
+way&mdash;"especially women&mdash;especially sisters," she had
+said, with a quiet smile. All very well, he reflected, but somebody
+ought to take Laura in hand.</p>
+<p>She had been his favorite as a child, his pet, his tiny
+daughter. He remembered her on his lap like a kitten. How she had
+liked to cuddle there. And she had liked to <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>bite his
+hand, a curious habit in a child. "I hurt daddy!" He could still
+recollect the gay little laugh with which she said that, looking up
+brightly into his face.</p>
+<p>And here she was already grown, and like a light in the sober
+old house, fascinating while she disturbed him. He liked to hear
+her high pitched voice, gossiping in Deborah's room or in her own
+dainty chamber chatting with the adoring maid who was dressing her
+to go out. He loved her joyous thrilling laugh. And he would have
+missed her from the house as he would have missed Fifth Avenue if
+it had been dropped from the city. For the picture Roger had formed
+of this daughter was more of a symbol than of a girl, a symbol of
+the ardent town, spending, wasting, dancing mad. It was Laura who
+had kept him living right up to his income.</p>
+<p>"Where are you dining to-night?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"With the Raymonds." He wondered who they were. "Oh, Sarah," she
+added to the maid. "Call up Mrs. Raymond's apartment and ask what
+time is dinner to-night."</p>
+<p>"Are you going to dance later on?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I guess so," she replied. "On the Astor Roof, I think they
+said&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Her father went on with his dinner. These hotel dances, he had
+heard, ran well into Sunday morning. How Judith would have
+disapproved. He hesitated uneasily.</p>
+<p>"I don't especially care for this dancing into Sunday," he said.
+For a moment he did not look up from his plate. When he did he saw
+Laura regarding him.</p>
+<p>"Oh, do you mind? I'm sorry. I won't, after this," she answered.
+And Roger colored angrily, for the glint of amusement in Laura's
+mischievous black eyes revealed quite unmistakably that she
+regarded both her father and his feeling for the Sabbath as very
+dear and quaint and old. Old? Of course he seemed old to
+<i>her</i>, Roger thought indignantly. For what was Laura but a
+child? Did she ever think of anything except having a good time?
+Had <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id=
+"Page_21"></a>[21]</span>she ever stopped to think out her own
+morals, let alone anyone else's? Was she any judge of what was
+old&mdash;or of <i>who</i> was old? And he determined then and
+there to show her he was in his prime. Impatiently he strove to
+remember the names of her friends and ask her about them, to show a
+keen lively interest in this giddy gaddy life she led. And when
+that was rather a failure he tried his daughter next on books,
+books of the most modern kind. Stoutly he lied and said he was
+reading a certain Russian novel of which he had heard Deborah
+speak. But this valiant falsehood made no impression whatever, for
+Laura had never heard of the book.</p>
+<p>"I get so little time for reading," she murmured. And meanwhile
+she was thinking, "As soon as he finishes talking, poor dear, I'll
+break the news."</p>
+<p>Then Roger had an audacious thought. He would take her to a
+play, by George! Mustering his courage he led up to it by speaking
+of a play Deborah had seen, a full-fledged modern drama all
+centered upon the right of a woman "to lead her own life." And as
+he outlined the story, he saw he had caught his daughter's
+attention. With her pretty chin resting on one hand, watching him
+and listening, she appeared much older, and she seemed suddenly
+close to him.</p>
+<p>"How would you like to go with me and see it some evening?" he
+inquired.</p>
+<p>"See what, my love?" she asked him, her thoughts plainly far
+away; and he looked at her in astonishment:</p>
+<p>"That play I've just been speaking of!"</p>
+<p>"Why, daddy, I'd love to!" she exclaimed.</p>
+<p>"When?" he asked. And he fixed a night. He was proud of himself.
+Eagerly he began to talk of opening nights at Wallack's. Roger and
+Judith, when they were young, had been great first nighters there.
+And now it was Laura who drew him out, and as he talked on she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id=
+"Page_22"></a>[22]</span>seemed to him to be smilingly trying to
+picture it all.... "Now I'd better tell him," she thought.</p>
+<p>"Do you remember Harold Sloane?" she asked a little
+strangely.</p>
+<p>"No," replied her father, a bit annoyed at the interruption.</p>
+<p>"Why&mdash;you've met him two or three times&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Have I?" The queer note in her voice made him look up. Laura
+had risen from her chair.</p>
+<p>"I want you to know him&mdash;very soon." There was a moment's
+silence. "I'm going to marry him, dad," she said. And Roger looked
+at her blankly. He felt his limbs beginning to tremble. "I've been
+waiting to tell you when we were alone," she added in an awkward
+tone. And still staring up at her he felt a rush of tenderness and
+a pang of deep remorse. Laura in love and settled for life! And
+what did he know of the affair? What had he ever done for her? Too
+late! He had begun too late! And this rush of emotion was so
+overpowering that while he still looked at her blindly she was the
+first to recover her poise. She came around the table and kissed
+him softly on the cheek. And now more than ever Roger felt how old
+his daughter thought him.</p>
+<p>"Who is he?" he asked hoarsely. And she answered smiling,</p>
+<p>"A perfectly nice young man named Sloane."</p>
+<p>"Don't, Laura&mdash;tell me! What does he do?"</p>
+<p>"He's in a broker's office&mdash;junior member of the firm, Oh,
+you needn't worry, dear, he can even afford to marry
+<i>me</i>."</p>
+<p>They heard a ring at the front door.</p>
+<p>"There he is now, I think," she said. "Will you see him? Would
+you mind?"</p>
+<p>"See him? No!" her father cried.</p>
+<p>"But just to shake hands," she insisted. "You needn't talk or
+say a word. We've only a moment, anyway." And she went swiftly out
+of the room.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id=
+"Page_23"></a>[23]</span>Roger rose in a panic and strode up and
+down. Before he could recover himself she was back with her man, or
+rather her boy&mdash;for the fellow, to her father's eyes, looked
+ridiculously young. Straight as an arrow, slender, his dress suit
+irreproachable, the chap nevertheless was more than a dandy. He
+looked hard, as though he trained, and his smooth and ruddy face
+had a look of shrewd self-reliance. So much of him Roger fathomed
+in the indignant cornered glance with which he welcomed him into
+the room.</p>
+<p>"Why, good evening, Mr. Gale&mdash;glad to see you again, sir!"
+Young Sloane nervously held out his hand. Roger took it and
+muttered something. For several moments, his mind in a whirl, he
+heard their talk and laughter and his own voice joining in. Laura
+seemed enjoying herself, her eyes brimming with amusement over both
+her victims. But at last she had compassion, kissed her father
+gaily and took her suitor out of the room.</p>
+<p>Soon Roger heard them leave the house. He went into his study,
+savagely bit off a cigar and gripped his evening paper as though he
+meant to choke it. The maid came in with coffee. "Coffee? No!" he
+snapped at her. A few moments later he came to his senses and found
+himself smoking fast and hard. He heartily damned this fellow
+Sloane for breaking into the family and asking poor Laura to risk
+her whole life&mdash;just for his own selfish pleasure, his whim!
+Yes, "whim" was the very word for it! Laura's attitude, too! Did
+she look at it seriously? Not at all! Quite plainly she saw her
+career as one long Highland fling and dance, with this Harry boy as
+her partner! Who had he danced with in his past? The fellow's past
+must be gone into, and at once, without delay!</p>
+<p>Here indeed was a jolt for Roger Gale, a pretty shabby trick of
+fate. This was not what he had planned, this was a little way life
+had of jabbing a man with surprises. For months he had been slowly
+and comfortably feeling <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id=
+"Page_24"></a>[24]</span>his way into the lives of his children,
+patiently, conscientiously. But now without a word of warning in
+popped this young whipper-snapper, turning the whole house upside
+down! Another young person to be known, another life to be dug
+into, and with pick and shovel too! The job was far from pleasant.
+Would Deborah help him? Not at all. She believed in letting people
+alone&mdash;a devilish easy philosophy! Still, he wanted to tell
+her at once, if only to stir her up a bit. He did not propose to
+bear this alone! But Deborah was out to-night. Why must she always
+be out, he asked, in that infernal zoo school? But no, it was not
+school to-night. She was dining out in some caf&eacute; with a tall
+lank doctor friend of hers. Probably she was to marry him!</p>
+<p>"I'll have that news for breakfast!" Roger smote his paper
+savagely. Why couldn't Laura have waited a little? Restlessly he
+walked the room. Then he went into the hall, took his hat and a
+heavy stick which he used for his night rambles, and walked off
+through the neighborhood. It was the first Saturday evening of
+Spring, and on those quiet downtown streets he met couples
+strolling by. A tall thin lad and a buxom girl went into a cheap
+apartment building laughing gaily to themselves, and Roger thought
+of Laura. A group of young Italians passed, humming "Trovatore,"
+and it put him in mind of the time when he had ushered at the
+opera. Would Laura's young man be willing to usher? More like him
+to <i>tango</i> down the aisle!</p>
+<p>He reached Washington Square feeling tired but even more
+restless than before. He climbed to the top of a motor 'bus, and on
+the lurching ride uptown he darkly reflected that times had
+changed. He thought of the Avenue he had known, with its long lines
+of hansom cabs, its dashing broughams and coup&eacute;s with
+jingling harness, livened footmen, everything sprucely up-to-date.
+How the horses had added to the town. But they were gone,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id=
+"Page_25"></a>[25]</span>and in their place were these great cats,
+these purring motors, sliding softly by the 'bus. Roger had swift
+glimpses down into lighted limousines. In one a big rich looking
+chap with a beard had a dressy young woman in his arms. Lord, how
+he was hugging her! Laura would have a motor like that, kisses like
+that, a life like that! She was the kind to go it hard! Ahead as
+far as he could see was a dark rolling torrent of cars, lights
+gleaming by the thousand. A hubbub of gay voices, cries and little
+shrieks of laughter mingled with the blare of horns. He looked at
+huge shop windows softly lighted with displays of bedrooms richly
+furnished, of gorgeous women's apparel, silks and lacy filmy
+stuffs. And to Roger, in his mood of anxious premonition, these
+bedroom scenes said plainly,</p>
+<p>"O come, all ye faithful wives! Come let us adore him, and deck
+ourselves to please his eye, to catch his eye, to hold his eye! For
+marriage is a game these days!"</p>
+<p>Yes, Laura would be a spender, a spender and a speeder too! How
+much money had he, that chap? And damn him, what had he in his
+past? How Roger hated the very thought of poking into another man's
+life! Poking where nobody wanted him! He felt desperately alone.
+To-night they were dancing, he recalled, not at a party in
+somebody's home, but in some flashy public place where girls of her
+kind and fancy women gaily mixed together! How mixed the whole city
+was getting, he thought, how mad and strange, gone out of its mind,
+this city of his children's lives crowding in upon him!</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>CHAPTER
+IV</h2>
+<p>He breakfasted with Deborah late on Sunday morning. He had come
+down at the usual hour despite his long tramp of the previous
+night, for he wanted to tell her the news and talk it all out
+before Laura came down&mdash;because Deborah, he hadn't a doubt,
+with her woman's curiosity had probed deep into Laura's affairs in
+the many long talks they had had in her room. He had often heard
+them there. And so, as he waited and waited and still his daughter
+did not come, Roger grew distinctly annoyed; and when at last she
+did appear, his greeting was perfunctory:</p>
+<p>"What kept you out so late last night?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I was having a very good time," said Deborah contentedly.
+She poured herself some coffee. "I've always wanted," she went on,
+"to see Laura really puzzled&mdash;downright flabbergasted. And I
+saw her just like that last night."</p>
+<p>Roger looked up with a jerk of his head:</p>
+<p>"You and Laura&mdash;together last night?"</p>
+<p>"Exactly&mdash;on the Astor Roof." At her father's glare of
+astonishment a look of quiet relish came over her mobile features.
+Her wide lips twitched a little. "Well, why not?" she asked him.
+"I'm quite a dancer down at school. And last night with Allan
+Baird&mdash;we were dining together, you know&mdash;he proposed we
+go somewhere and dance. He's a perfectly awful dancer, and so I
+held out as long as I could. But he insisted and I gave in, though
+I much prefer the theater."</p>
+<p>"Well!" breathed Roger softly. "So you hoof it with the rest!"
+His expression was startled and intent. Would <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>he ever get
+to know these girls? "Well," he added with a sigh, "I suppose you
+know what you're about."</p>
+<p>"Oh no, I don't," she answered. "I never know what I'm about. If
+you always do, you miss so much&mdash;you get into a solemn habit
+of trying nothing till you're sure. But to return to Laura. As we
+came gaily down the room we ran right into her, you see. That's how
+Allan dances. And when we collided, I smiled at her sweetly and
+said, 'Why, hello, dearie&mdash;you here too?" And Deborah sipped
+her coffee. "I have never believed that the lower jaw of a
+well-bred girl could actually drop open. But Laura's did. With a
+good strong light, Allan told me, he could have examined her
+tonsils for her. Rather a disgusting thought. You see until she saw
+me there, poor Laura had me so thoroughly placed&mdash;my
+school-marm job, my tastes and habits, everything, all cut and
+dried. She has never once come to my school, and in every talk
+we've ever had there has always been some perfectly good and
+absorbing reason why we should talk about Laura alone."</p>
+<p>"There is now," said her father. He was in no mood for
+tomfoolery. His daughter saw it and smiled a little.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" she inquired. And then he let her have it!</p>
+<p>"Laura wants to get married," he snapped.</p>
+<p>Deborah caught her breath at that, and an eager excited
+expression swept over her attractive face. She had leaned forward
+suddenly.</p>
+<p>"Father! No! Which one?" she asked. "Tell me! Is it Harold
+Sloane?"</p>
+<p>"It is."</p>
+<p>"Oh, dad." She sank back in her chair. "Oh, dad," she
+repeated.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter with Sloane?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing, nothing&mdash;it's all right&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"It is, eh? How do you know it is?" His anxious eyes were still
+upon hers, and he saw she was thinking fast and <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>hard and
+shutting him completely out. And it irritated him. "What do you
+know of this fellow Sloane?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing&mdash;nothing&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Nothing! Humph! Then why do you sit here and say it's all
+right? Don't talk like a fool!" he exclaimed. He waited, but she
+said no more, and Roger's exasperation increased. "He has money
+enough apparently&mdash;and they'll spend it like March hares!"</p>
+<p>Deborah looked up at him:</p>
+<p>"What did Laura tell you, dear?"</p>
+<p>"Not very much. I'm only her father. She had a dinner and dance
+on her mind."</p>
+<p>But Deborah pressed her questions and he gave her brief
+replies.</p>
+<p>"Well, what shall we do about it?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;until we know something more." Roger regarded her
+fiercely.</p>
+<p>"Why don't you go up and talk to her, then?"</p>
+<p>"She's asleep yet&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Never mind if she is! If she's going to marry a chap like that
+and ruin her life it's high time she was up for her breakfast!"</p>
+<p>While he scanned his Sunday paper he heard Deborah in the
+pantry. She emerged with a breakfast tray and he saw her start up
+to Laura's room. She was there for over an hour. And when she
+returned to his study, he saw her eyes were shining. How women's
+eyes will shine at such times, he told himself in annoyance.</p>
+<p>"Well?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Better leave her alone to-day," she advised. "Harold is coming
+some night soon."</p>
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+<p>"To have a talk with you."</p>
+<p>Her father smote his paper. "What did she tell you about him?"
+he asked.</p>
+<p>"Not much more than she told you. His parents are <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id=
+"Page_29"></a>[29]</span>dead&mdash;but he has a rich widowed aunt
+in Bridgeport who adores him. They mean to be married the end of
+May. She wants a church wedding, bridesmaids, ushers&mdash;the
+wedding reception here, of course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Oh, Lord," breathed Roger dismally.</p>
+<p>"We won't bother you much, father dear&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"You <i>will</i> bother me much," he retorted. "I propose to be
+bothered&mdash;bothered a lot! I'm going to look up this fellow
+Sloane&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But let's leave him alone for to-day." She bent over her father
+compassionately. "What a night you must have had, poor dear." Roger
+looked up in grim reproach.</p>
+<p>"You like all this," he grunted. "You, a grown woman, a teacher
+too."</p>
+<p>"I wonder if I do," she said. "I guess I'm a queer person, dad,
+a curious family mixture&mdash;of Laura and Edith and mother and
+you, with a good deal of myself thrown in. But it feels rather good
+to be mixed, don't you think? Let's stay mixed as long as we
+can&mdash;and keep together the family."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>That afternoon, to distract him, Deborah took her father to a
+concert in Carnegie Hall. She had often urged him to go of late,
+but despite his liking for music Roger had refused before, simply
+because it was a change. But why balk at going anywhere now, when
+Laura was up to such antics at home?</p>
+<p>"Do you mind climbing up to the gallery?" Deborah asked as they
+entered the hall.</p>
+<p>"Not at all," he curtly answered. He did mind it very much!</p>
+<p>"Then we'll go to the very top," she said. "It's a long climb
+but I want you to see it. It's so different up there."</p>
+<p>"I don't doubt it," he replied. And as they made the slow
+ascent, pettishly he wondered why Deborah must <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>always be
+so eager for queer places. Galleries, zoo schools, tenement
+slums&mdash;why not take a two dollar seat in life?</p>
+<p>Deborah seated him far down in the front of the great gallery,
+over at the extreme right, and from here they could look back and
+up at a huge dim arena of faces.</p>
+<p>"Now watch them close," she whispered. "See what the music does
+to them."</p>
+<p>As the symphony began below the faces all grew motionless. And
+as the music cast its spell, the anxious ruffled feelings which had
+been with Roger all that day little by little were dispelled, and
+soon his imagination began to work upon this scene. He saw many
+familiar American types. He felt he knew what they had been doing
+on Sundays only a few years before. After church they had eaten
+large Sunday dinners. Then some had napped and some had walked and
+some had gone to Sunday school. At night they had had cold suppers,
+and afterwards some had gone back to church; while others, as in
+Roger's house in the days when Judith was alive, had gathered
+around the piano for hymns. Young men callers, friends of their
+daughters, had joined in the family singing. Yes, some of these
+people had been like that. To them, a few short years ago, a
+concert on the Sabbath would have seemed a sacrilege. He could
+almost hear from somewhere the echo of "Abide With Me."</p>
+<p>But over this memory of a song rose now the surging music of
+Tschaikovsky's "Pathetique." And the yearnings and fierce hungers
+in this tumultuous music swept all the hymns from Roger's mind.
+Once more he watched the gallery, and this time he became aware
+that more than half were foreigners. Out of the mass from every
+side individual faces emerged, swarthy, weird, and staring hungrily
+into space. And to Roger the whole shadowy place, the very air,
+grew pregnant, charged with all these inner lives bound together in
+this mood, this mystery that had swept over them all, immense and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id=
+"Page_31"></a>[31]</span>formless, baffling, this furious demanding
+and this blind wistful groping which he himself had known so well,
+ever since his wife had died and he had lost his faith in God. What
+was the meaning of it all if life were nothing but a start, and
+there were nothing but the grave?</p>
+<p>"You will live on in our children's lives."</p>
+<p>He glanced around at Deborah. Was <i>she</i> so certain, so
+serene? "What do I know of her?" he asked. "Little or nothing," he
+sadly replied. And he tried to piece together from things she had
+told him her life as it had passed him by. Had there been no
+questionings, no sharp disillusionments? There must have been. He
+recalled irritabilities, small acts and exclamations of impatience,
+boredom, "blues." And as he watched her he grew sure that his
+daughter's existence had been like his own. Despite its different
+setting, its other aims and visions, it had been a mere beginning,
+a feeling for a foothold, a search for light and happiness. And
+Deborah seemed to him still a child. "How far will <i>you</i> go?"
+he wondered.</p>
+<p>Although he was still watching her even after the music had
+ceased, she did not notice him for a time. Then she turned to him
+slowly with a smile.</p>
+<p>"Well? What did you see?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"I wasn't looking," he replied.</p>
+<p>"Why, dearie," she retorted. "Where's that imagination of
+yours?"</p>
+<p>"It was with you," he answered. "Tell me what you were
+thinking."</p>
+<p>And still under the spell of the music, Deborah said to her
+father,</p>
+<p>"I was thinking of hungry people&mdash;millions of them, now,
+this minute&mdash;not only here but in so many
+places&mdash;concerts, movies, libraries. Hungry, oh, for
+everything&mdash;life, its beauty, all it means. And I was thinking
+this is youth&mdash;no matter how old they happen to be&mdash;and
+that to feed it we have schools. I was thinking how <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>little
+we've done as yet, and of all that we're so sure to do in the many,
+many years ahead. Do you see what I mean?" she squeezed his
+hand.</p>
+<p>"Welcome back to school," she said, "back into the hungry army
+of youth!... Sh-h-h!"</p>
+<p>Again the music had begun. And sitting by her side he wondered
+whether it was because she knew that Laura's affair had made him
+feel old that Deborah had brought him here.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>They went to Edith's for supper.</p>
+<p>The Cunninghams' apartment was on the west side, well uptown. It
+was not the neighborhood which Edith would have chosen, for nearly
+all the nice people she knew lived east of the park. But rents were
+somewhat lower here and there was at least an abundance of fresh
+air for her family. Edith had found that her days were full of
+these perplexing decisions. It was all very simple to resolve that
+her children be old-fashioned, normal, wholesome, nice. But then
+she looked into the city&mdash;into schools and kindergartens,
+clothes and friends and children's parties, books and plays. And
+through them all to her dismay she felt conflicting currents,
+clashes between old and new. She felt New York. And anxiously she
+asked herself, "What is old-fashioned? What is normal? What is
+wholesome? What is nice?" Cautiously she made her way, testing and
+comparing, trying small experiments. Often sharply she would draw
+in her horns. She had struck something "common!" And she knew all
+this was nothing compared to the puzzles that lay ahead. For from
+her friend, Madge Deering, whose girls were well along in their
+'teens, she heard of deeper problems. The girls were so
+inquisitive. Dauntlessly Madge was facing each month the most
+disturbing questions. Thank Heaven, Edith had only one daughter.
+Sons were not quite so baffling.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id=
+"Page_33"></a>[33]</span>So she had groped her way along.</p>
+<p>When her father and Deborah arrived, placidly she asked them
+what they had been doing. And when she heard that they had been at
+a concert on the Sabbath, though this was far from old-fashioned
+and something she would not have done herself, it did not bother
+her half so much as the fact that Hannah, the Irish nurse, had
+slapped little Tad that afternoon. She had never known Hannah to do
+it before. Could it be that the girl was tired or sick? Perhaps she
+needed a few days off. "I must have a talk with her," Edith
+thought, "as soon as father and Deborah go."</p>
+<p>Roger always liked to come here. Say what you would about
+Edith's habit of keeping too closely to her home, the children to
+whom she had devoted herself were a fine, clean, happy lot. Here
+were new lives in his family, glorious fresh beginnings. He sat on
+the floor with her three boys, watching the patient efforts of
+George to harness his perturbed white rat to Tad's small fire
+engine. George was a lank sprawling lad of fourteen, all legs and
+arms and elbows, with rumpled hair and freckled face, a quick
+bright smile and nice brown eyes&mdash;frank, simple,
+understandable eyes. All but one of Edith's children were boys, and
+boys were a blessed relief to a man who had three grown-up
+daughters.</p>
+<p>And while Roger watched them, with a gentle glow of anticipation
+he waited for what should follow, when as had been already arranged
+Deborah should break to her sister the news of Laura's engagement.
+And he was not disappointed. The change in Edith was something
+tremendous. Until now so quietly self-absorbed, at the news that
+Laura was to be married instantly she was all alert. Sitting there
+in the midst of her children and facing a time of agony only a few
+weeks ahead which would add one more to her family, Edith's pretty
+florid face grew flushed and radiant as she exclaimed,</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id=
+"Page_34"></a>[34]</span>What a perfectly wonderful thing for
+Laura! Now if only she can have a child!"</p>
+<p>Her questions followed thick and fast, and with them her
+thoughts of what should be done. Bruce must look up this suitor at
+once. Bruce demurred stoutly but without avail. She eagerly
+questioned her sister as to Laura's plans for the wedding, but
+plainly she considered that Deborah was no woman to give her the
+full information she wanted. She must see Laura herself at once.
+For though she had thoroughly disapproved of the gay helter-skelter
+existence of her youngest sister, still Laura was now to be
+married, and this made all the difference.</p>
+<p>Just before Roger and Deborah left, Edith drew her father aside,
+and with a curious concern and pity in her voice, she said,</p>
+<p>"I'm so sorry I shan't be able to help you with the wedding,
+dear, and make it the sweet old-fashioned kind that mother would
+have wanted. Of course there's Deborah, she'll be there. But her
+head is so full of new ideas. I'm afraid she may find the house
+rather a burden after Laura has gone away." Edith gave a worried
+little sigh. "I'll be so glad," she added, "when we get that place
+in Morristown. We'll want you out there often, and for good long
+visits too. You may even find you'll care to try staying there with
+us for a while."</p>
+<p>Roger scowled and thanked her. She had given him a shock of
+alarm.</p>
+<p>"So she thinks that Deborah will find the housekeeping too
+hard," he reflected anxiously. And as he walked home with his
+daughter, he kept glancing at her face, which for all its look of
+quiet had so much tensity beneath. She had packed her life so full
+of school. What if she wanted to give up their home? "She'll try,
+of course, she'll try her best&mdash;but she'll find it too much of
+an added strain." And again he felt that sickening dread.
+Deb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id=
+"Page_35"></a>[35]</span>orah said nothing. He felt as though they
+had drifted apart.</p>
+<p>And at night in his bed, as Roger stared up at the beetling
+cliff of apartment windows just outside, drearily he asked himself
+how it would feel to live like that.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>CHAPTER
+V</h2>
+<p>One afternoon a few days later Roger was riding in the park. He
+rode "William," a large lazy cob who as he advanced in age had so
+subtly and insidiously slackened his pace from a trot to a jog that
+Roger barely noticed how slowly he was riding. As he rode along he
+liked to watch the broad winding bridle path with its bobbing
+procession of riders that kept appearing before him under the tall
+spreading trees. Though he knew scarcely anyone by name, he was a
+familiar figure here and he recognized scores of faces. To many men
+he nodded at passing, and to not a few alluring young dames, ardent
+creatures with bright eyes who gave him smiles of greeting, Roger
+gravely raised his hat. One was "The Silver Lady" in a Broadway
+musical show, but he thought she was "one of the Newport crowd." He
+liked to make shrewd guesses like that. There were so many kinds of
+people here. There were stout anxious ladies riding for figures and
+lean morose gentlemen riding for health. There were joyous
+care-free girls, chatting and laughing merrily. There were some
+gallant foreigners, and there were riding masters, and Roger could
+not tell them apart. There were mad boys from the Squadron who rode
+at a furious canter, and there were groups of children, eager and
+flushed, excited and gay, with stolid grooms behind them. The path
+in several places ran close beside the main road of the park, and
+with the coming of the dusk this road took on deep purple hues and
+glistened with reflections from countless yellow motor eyes. And
+from the polished limousines, sumptuous young women smiled out upon
+the riders.</p>
+<p>At least so Roger saw this life. And after those bleak
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id=
+"Page_37"></a>[37]</span>lonely years confronted by eternity, it
+was good to come here and forget, to feel himself for the moment a
+part of the thoughtless gaiety, the ease and luxury of the town.
+Here he was just on the edge of it all. Often as a couple passed he
+would wonder what they were doing that night. In the riding school
+where he kept his horse, it was a lazy pleasure to have the English
+"valet" there pull off his boots and breeches&mdash;though if
+anyone had told him so, Roger would have denied it with indignation
+and surprise. For was he not an American?</p>
+<p>It had been a wonderful tonic, a great idea of Laura's, this
+forcing him up here to ride. In one of her affectionate moods, just
+after a sick spell he had been through, his gay capricious daughter
+had insisted that he have his horse brought down from the
+mountains. She had promised to ride with him herself, and she had
+done so&mdash;for a week. Since then he had often met her here with
+one of her many smart young men. What a smile of greeting would
+flash on her face&mdash;when Laura happened to notice him.</p>
+<p>He was thinking of Laura now, and there was an anxious gleam in
+his eyes. For young Sloane was coming to dinner to-night. What was
+he going to say to the fellow? Bruce had learned that Sloane played
+polo, owned and drove a racing car and was well liked in his
+several clubs. But what about women and his past? Edith had urged
+her father to go through the lad's life with a fine tooth comb, and
+if he should find anything there to kick up no end of a row for the
+honor of the family. All of which was nothing but words, reflected
+Roger pettishly. It all came to this, that he had a most ticklish
+evening ahead! On the path as a rider greeted him, his reply was a
+dismal frown.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Laura's suitor arrived at six o'clock. In his study Roger heard
+the bell, listened a moment with beating heart, then raised himself
+heavily from his chair and went into the hallway.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id=
+"Page_38"></a>[38]</span>Ah, yes! It's you!" he exclaimed, with a
+nervous cordiality. "Come in, my boy, come right in! Here, let me
+help you with your coat. I don't know just where Laura is. Ahem!"
+He violently cleared his throat. "Suppose while we're waiting we
+have a smoke." He kept it up back into his den. There the suitor
+refused a cigar and carefully lit a cigarette. Roger noticed again
+how young the chap was, and marriage seemed so ridiculous! All this
+feverish trouble was for something so unreal!</p>
+<p>"Well, sir," the candidate blurted forth, "I guess I'd better
+come right to the point. Mr. Gale, I want to marry your
+daughter."</p>
+<p>"Laura?"</p>
+<p>"Yes." Roger cursed himself. Why had he asked, "Laura?" Of
+course it was Laura! Would this cub be wanting Deborah?</p>
+<p>"Well, my boy," he said thickly. "I&mdash;I wish I knew you
+better."</p>
+<p>"So do I, sir. Suppose we begin." The youth took a quick pull at
+his cigarette. He waited, stirred nervously in his seat. "You'll
+have some questions to ask, I suppose&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, there are questions." Roger had risen mechanically and was
+slowly walking the room. He threw out short gruff phrases. "I'm not
+interested in your past&mdash;I don't care about digging into a
+man&mdash;I never have and I never will&mdash;except as it might
+affect my daughter. That's the main question, I suppose. Can you
+make her happy?"</p>
+<p>"I think so," said Sloane, decidedly. Roger gave him a glance of
+displeasure.</p>
+<p>"That's a large order, young man," he rejoined.</p>
+<p>"Then let's take it in sections," the youngster replied.
+Confound his boyish assurance! "To begin with," he was saying, "I
+rather think I have money enough. We'd better go into that, hadn't
+we?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger indifferently. "We might as well <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>go into
+it." Of course the chap had money enough. He was a money maker. You
+could hear it in his voice; you could see it in his jaw, in his
+small aggressive blonde moustache. Now he was telling briefly of
+his rich aunt in Bridgeport, of the generous start she had given
+him, his work downtown, his income.</p>
+<p>"Twenty-two thousand this year," he said. "We can live on that
+all right, I guess."</p>
+<p>"You won't starve," was the dry response. Roger walked for a
+moment in silence, then turned abruptly on young Sloane.</p>
+<p>"Look here, young man, I don't want to dig," he continued very
+huskily. "But I know little or nothing of what may be behind you. I
+don't care to ask you about it now&mdash;unless it can make
+trouble."</p>
+<p>"It can't make trouble." At this answer, low but sharp, Roger
+wheeled and shot a glance into those clear and twinkling eyes. And
+his own eyes gleamed with pain. Laura had been such a little thing
+in the days when she had been his pet, the days when he had known
+her well. What could he do about it? This was only the usual thing.
+But he felt suddenly sick of life.</p>
+<p>"How soon do you want to get married?" he demanded harshly.</p>
+<p>"Next month, if we can."</p>
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+<p>"Abroad," said Sloane. Roger caught at this topic as at a straw.
+Soon they were talking of the trip, and the tension slackened
+rapidly. He had never been abroad himself but had always dreamed of
+going there. With maps and books of travel Judith and he had
+planned it out. In imagination they had lived in London and Paris,
+Munich and Rome, always in queer old lodgings looking on quaint
+crooked streets. He had dreamed of long delicious rambles, glimpses
+into queer old shops, vast, silent, dark cathedrals. For Laura how
+different it would be. This <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40"
+id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>boy of hers knew Europe as a group of
+gorgeous new hotels.</p>
+<p>The moment Laura joined them, her father's eye was caught and
+held by the ring upon her finger. Roger knew rings, they were his
+hobby, and this huge yellow solitaire in its new and brilliant
+setting at once awakened his dislike. It just fitted the life they
+were to lead! What life? As he listened to his daughter he kept
+wondering if she were so sure. Had she felt no uneasiness? She must
+have, he decided, for all her gay excitement. One Laura in that
+smiling face; another Laura deep inside, doubting and uncertain,
+reaching for her happiness, now elated, now dismayed, exclaiming,
+"Now at last I'm starting!" Oh, what an ignorant child she was. He
+wanted to cry out to her, "You'll <i>always</i> be just starting!
+You'll never be sure, you'll never be happy, you'll always be just
+beginning to be! And the happier you are, the more you will feel it
+is only a start!... And then-"</p>
+<p>More and more his spirit withdrew from these two heedless
+children. Later on, when Deborah came, he barely noticed her
+meeting with Sloane. And through dinner, while they talked of plans
+for the wedding, the trip abroad, still Roger took no part at all.
+He felt dull and heavy. Deborah too, he noticed, after her first
+efforts to be welcoming and friendly, had gradually grown silent.
+He saw her watching Laura with a mingled look of affection and of
+whimsical dismay. Soon after dinner she left them, and Roger smoked
+with the boy for a while and learned that he was twenty-nine. Both
+had grown uneasy and rather dull with each other. It was a relief
+when again Laura joined them, dressed to go out. She and her lover
+left the house.</p>
+<p>Roger sat motionless for some time. His cigar grew cold
+unheeded. One of the sorrows of his life had been that his only son
+had died. Bruce had been almost like a son. But this young man of
+Laura's? No.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id=
+"Page_41"></a>[41]</span>Later he went for his evening walk. And as
+though drawn by invisible chains he strayed far down into the
+ghetto. Soon he was elbowing his way through a maze of uproarious
+tenement streets as one who had been there many times. But he
+noticed little around him. He went on, as he had always gone,
+seeing and hearing this seething life only as a background to his
+own adventure. He reached his destination. Pushing his way through
+a swarm of urchins playing in front of a pawnshop, he entered and
+was a long time inside, and when he came out again at last the
+whole expression of his face had undergone a striking change. As
+one who had found the solace he needed for the moment, his pace
+unconsciously quickened and he looked about him with brighter
+eyes.</p>
+<p>Around the corner from his home, he went into a small jewelry
+shop, a remnant of the town of the past. There were no customers in
+the place, and the old Galician jeweler sat at the back playing
+solitaire. At sight of Roger he arose; and presently in a small
+back room, beneath the glare of a powerful lamp, the two were
+studying the ring which Roger had found in the ghetto that night.
+It was plain, just a thin worn band of gold with an emerald by no
+means large; but the setting was old and curious, and personal,
+distinctive. Somebody over in Europe had worked on it long and
+lovingly. Now as the Galician gently rubbed and polished and turned
+the ring this way and that, the light revealed crude tiny figures,
+a man and a woman under a tree. And was that a vine or a serpent?
+They studied it long and absorbedly.</p>
+<p>At home, up in his bedroom, Roger opened a safe which stood in
+one corner, took out a large shallow tray and sat down with it by
+his lamp. A strange array of rings was there, small and delicate,
+huge, bizarre; great signet rings and poison rings, love tokens,
+charms and amulets, rings which had been worn by wives, by
+mistresses, by favorite slaves and by young girls in convents;
+rings with the Ma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id=
+"Page_42"></a>[42]</span>donna and rings with many other saints
+graven on large heavy stones; rings French and Russian, Polish,
+Italian, Spanish, Syrian. Some were many centuries old. In nine
+shallow metal trays they filled the safe in Roger's room. Although
+its money value was small, the Gale collection was well known to a
+scattered public of connoisseurs, and Roger took pride in showing
+it. But what had always appealed to him most was the romance, the
+mystery, stored up in these old talismans that had lived so many
+ages, travelled through so many lands, decked so many fingers.
+Roger had found every one of them in the pawnshops of New York.
+What new recruits to America had brought them here and pawned them?
+From what old cities had they come? What passions of love and
+jealousy, of hatred, faith, devotion were in this glittering array?
+Roger's own love affair had been deep, but quiet and even and
+happy. All the wild adventures, the might-have-beens in his sex
+life, were gathered in these dusky trays with their richly colored
+glints of light.</p>
+<p>Of his daughters, Laura had been the one most interested in his
+rings, and so he thought of Laura now as he placed in the tray the
+new ring he had bought, the one he would have liked for her. But a
+vague uneasiness filled his mind, for he knew she had the same
+craving as he for what gleamed out of these somber trays. The old
+Galician jeweler had long been quite a friend of hers, she had
+often dropped in at his shop to ask him curious questions about his
+women patrons. And it was just this side of him that Roger did not
+care for. So many of those women were from a dubious glittering
+world, and the old Galician took a weird vicarious joy in many of
+the gay careers into which he sent his beloved rings, his brooches,
+earrings, necklaces, his clasps and diamond garters. And Laura
+loved to make him talk.... Yes, she was her father's child, a part
+of himself. He, too, had had his yearnings, his burning
+curiosities, his youthful ventures into the town.<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span> "You will
+live on in our children's lives." With her inheritance what would
+she do? Would she stop halfway as he had done, or would she throw
+all caution aside and let the flames within her rise?</p>
+<p>He heard a step in the doorway, and Deborah stood there
+smiling.</p>
+<p>"A new one?" she inquired. He nodded, and she bent over the
+tray. "Poor father," Deborah murmured. "I saw you eyeing Laura's
+engagement ring at dinner to-night. It wasn't like this one, was
+it?" He scowled:</p>
+<p>"I don't like what I see ahead of her. Nor do you," he said. "Be
+honest." She looked at him perplexedly.</p>
+<p>"We can't stop it, can we? And even if we could," she said, "I'm
+not quite sure I'd want to. It's her love affair, not yours or
+mine&mdash;grown out of a life she made for herself&mdash;curious,
+eager, thrilled by it all&mdash;and in the center of her soul the
+deep glad growing certainty, 'I'm going to be a beautiful
+woman&mdash;I myself, I, Laura Gale!' Oh, you don't know&mdash;nor
+do I. And so she felt her way along&mdash;eagerly, hungrily, making
+mistakes&mdash;and you and I left her to do it alone. I'm afraid we
+both rather neglected her, dad," Deborah ended sadly. "And all we
+can do now, I think, is to give her the kind of wedding she
+wants."</p>
+<p>Roger started to speak but hesitated.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" she inquired.</p>
+<p>"Queer," he answered gruffly, "how a man can neglect his
+children&mdash;as I have done, as I do still&mdash;when the one
+thing he wants most in life is to see each one of 'em happy."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>CHAPTER
+VI</h2>
+<p>Roger soon grew accustomed to seeing young Sloane about the
+house. They could talk together more easily, and he began to call
+him Harold. Harold asked him with Laura to lunch at the Ritz to
+meet the aunt from Bridgeport, a lady excessively stout and
+profound. But that ended the formalities. It had all been so much
+easier than Roger had expected. So, in its calm sober fashion, the
+old house took into its life this new member, these new plans, and
+the old seemed stronger for the new&mdash;for Laura and Edith and
+Deborah drew together closer than they had been in many years. But
+only because they felt themselves on the eve of a still deeper and
+more lasting separation, as the family of Roger Gale divided and
+went different ways. At times he noticed it sadly. Laura, who had
+scarcely ever been home for dinner, now spent many evenings here.
+She needed her home for her wedding, he thought. Each daughter
+needed it now and then. But as the years wore slowly on, the
+seasons when they needed it grew steadily wider and wider
+apart....</p>
+<p>Early in May, when Roger came home from his office one night he
+found Edith's children in the house. From the hallway he could hear
+their gay excited voices, and going into the dining room he found
+them at their supper. Deborah was with them, and at once her father
+noticed how much younger she appeared&mdash;as she always did with
+these children who all idolized her so. She rose and followed him
+into the hall, and her quiet voice had a note of compassion.</p>
+<p>"Edith's baby is coming," she said.</p>
+<p>"Good Lord. Is anything wrong?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id=
+"Page_45"></a>[45]</span>No, no, it's all right&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But I thought the child wasn't due for three weeks."</p>
+<p>"I know, and poor Edith is fearfully worried. It has upset all
+her plans. I'd go up and see her if I were you. Your supper is
+ready; and if you like you can have it with the children."</p>
+<p>There followed a happy boisterous meal, with much expectant
+chatter about the long summer so soon to begin at the farm up in
+the mountains. George, whose hair was down over his eyes, rumpled
+it back absorbedly as he told of a letter he had received from his
+friend Dave Royce, Roger's farmer, with whom George corresponded.
+One of the cows was to have a calf, and George was anxious to get
+there in time.</p>
+<p>"I've never seen a real new calf, new absolutely," he explained.
+"And I want a look at this one the very minute that he's born. Gee,
+I hope we can get there in time&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Gee! So do I!" cried Bobby aged nine. And then Tad, the chubby
+three-year-old who had been intently watching his brothers, slowly
+took the spoon from his mouth and in his grave sweet baby voice
+said very softly, "Gee." At her end of the table, Elizabeth, blonde
+and short and rather plump, frowned and colored slightly. For she
+was eleven and she knew there was something dark and shameful about
+the way calves appear in barns. And so, with a quick conscious
+cough, she sweetly interrupted:</p>
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Deborah! Won't you please tell us
+about&mdash;about&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"About&mdash;about," jeered the ironical George. "About what,
+you little ninny?" Poor Elizabeth blushed desperately. She was
+neither quick nor resourceful.</p>
+<p>"Now, George," said his aunt warningly.</p>
+<p>"Wasn't I talking?" the boy rejoined. "And didn't Betsy butt
+right in&mdash;without even a thing to butt in about?
+About&mdash;about," he jeered again.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id=
+"Page_46"></a>[46]</span>About Paris!" cried his sister, successful
+at last in her frantic search for a proper topic of conversation.
+"Aunt Deborah's trip to Paris!"</p>
+<p>"How many times has she told it already?" her brother replied
+with withering scorn. "And anyhow, I was talking of cows!"</p>
+<p>"Very well," said his aunt, "we'll talk about cows, some cows I
+saw on a lovely old farm in a little village over in France."</p>
+<p>"There!" cried his young sister. "Did she ever tell of
+<i>that</i> part of her trip?" And she made a little face at her
+brother.</p>
+<p>"I don't care," he answered doggedly. "She has told about Paris
+lots of times&mdash;and that was what <i>you</i> wanted. Yes, you
+did. You said, 'About Paris.' Didn't she, Bob?"</p>
+<p>"You bet she did," young Bob agreed.</p>
+<p>"Now, children, children, what does it matter?"</p>
+<p>"All right, go ahead with your barn in France," said George with
+patient tolerance. "Did they have any Holsteins?"</p>
+<p>Soon the questions were popping from every side, while little
+Tad beamed from one to the other. To Tad it was all so wonderful,
+to be having supper away from home, to be here, to go to bed
+upstairs, to take part perhaps in a pillow fight.... And glancing
+at the glowing face and the parted lips of his small grandson Roger
+felt a current of warm new life pour into his soul.</p>
+<p>Early in the evening he went up to Edith's apartment. He found
+his daughter in her room, looking flushed and very tense. He took
+her arm and they walked for a time. A trained nurse was soaping the
+windows. Roger asked the reason for this and was told that in case
+the baby did not come till morning the doctor wanted to pull up the
+shades in order to work by daylight. "And neighbors in New York are
+such cats! You've no idea!" said Edith. She looked out at the
+numberless windows crowding close <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>about her home, and she
+fairly bristled with scorn. "Oh, how I loathe apartments!"</p>
+<p>"They seem to have come to stay, my dear. In a few years more
+New York will be a city without a house," he said. "Only a palace
+here and there." The thought flashed in his mind, "But I shall be
+gone."</p>
+<p>"Then we'll move out to the country!" she cried. Still walking
+the floor with her father, she talked of the perplexities which in
+her feverish state of mind had loomed suddenly enormous. She had
+planned everything so nicely for the baby to come the first of
+June, but now her plans were all upset. She did not want the
+children here, it would make too much confusion. They had much
+better go up to the mountains, even though George and Elizabeth
+lost their last few weeks at school. But who could she find to take
+them? Bruce was simply rushed to death with his new receivership.
+Laura was getting her trousseau. Deborah, said Edith, had time for
+nothing on earth but school.</p>
+<p>"Suppose I take them," Roger ventured. But she only smiled at
+this. "My dear," he urged, "your nurse will be with me, and when we
+arrive there's the farmer's wife." But Edith impatiently shook her
+head. Her warm bright eyes seemed to picture it all, hour by hour,
+day and night, her children there without her.</p>
+<p>"You poor dear," she told him, "you haven't the slightest idea
+what it means. The summer train is not on yet, and you have to
+change three times on the way&mdash;with all the
+children&mdash;luggage, too. And there are their naps, and all
+their meals. You don't arrive till late at night. No," she decided
+firmly, "Bruce will simply have to go." She drew a breath of
+discomfort. "You go and talk to him," she said.</p>
+<p>"I will, my dear." Roger looked at his daughter in deep concern.
+Awkwardly his heavy hand touched her small plump shoulder, and he
+felt the constant quivering <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48"
+id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>there. "Now, now," he muttered,
+uneasily, "it's going to be all right, you know&mdash;" And at that
+she gave him a rapid glance out of those warm hunted eyes, as
+though to ask, "What do you know of this?" And Roger flinched and
+turned to the door.</p>
+<p>Bruce was working at his desk, with an old briar pipe in his
+teeth. He looked up with a quick nervous smile which showed his
+dread of the coming ordeal, but his voice had a carefully casual
+tone.</p>
+<p>"Does she want me now?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"No," said Roger. And he told of her plan for the children. "I
+volunteered myself," he added, "but she wouldn't hear to it."</p>
+<p>"Oh, my God, man, you wouldn't do," said Bruce, in droll
+disparagement. "You with forty-nine bottles of pasteurized milk?
+Suppose you smashed one? Where'd you be? Moving our family isn't a
+job; it's a science, and I've got my degree." He rose and his face
+softened. "Poor girl, she mustn't worry like that. I'll run in and
+tell her I'll do it myself&mdash;just to get it off her mind."</p>
+<p>He went to his wife. And when he came back his dark features
+appeared a little more drawn.</p>
+<p>"Poor devil," thought Roger, "he's scared to death&mdash;just as
+I used to be myself."</p>
+<p>"Pretty tough on a woman, isn't it?" Bruce muttered, smiling
+constrainedly.</p>
+<p>"Did Baird say everything's going well?" Baird was Edith's
+physician.</p>
+<p>"Yes. He was here this afternoon, and he said he'd be back this
+evening." Bruce stopped with a queer little scowl of suspense. "I
+told her I'd see to the trip with the kiddies, and it seemed to
+relieve her a lot." His eye went to a pile of documents that lay on
+the desk before him. "It'll play the very devil with business,
+taking three days off just now. But I guess I can manage it
+somehow&mdash;"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id=
+"Page_49"></a>[49]</span>A muscle began to twitch on his face. He
+re-lit his pipe with elaborate care and looked over at Roger
+confidingly:</p>
+<p>"Do you know what's the matter with kids these days? It's the
+twentieth century," he said. "It's a disease. It starts in their
+teeth. No modern girl can get married unless she has had her teeth
+straightened for years. Our dentist's bill, this year alone, was
+over eight hundred dollars. But that isn't all. It gets into their
+young intestines, God bless 'em, and makes you pasteurize all they
+eat. It gets into their nerves and tears 'em up, and your only
+chance to save 'em is school&mdash;not a common school but a
+'simple' school, tuition four hundred dollars a year. And you hire
+a dancing teacher besides&mdash;I mean a rhythm teacher&mdash;and
+let 'em shake it out of their feet. And after that you buy 'em
+clothes&mdash;not fluffy clothes, but 'simple' clothes, the kind
+which always cost the most. And then you build a simple home, in a
+simple place like Morristown. The whole idea is simplicity. If you
+can't make enough to buy it, you're lost. If you can make enough,
+just barely enough, you get so excited you lose your head&mdash;and
+do what I did Monday."</p>
+<p>The two men smiled at each other. Roger was very fond of
+Bruce.</p>
+<p>"What did you do Monday?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I bought that car I told you about."</p>
+<p>"Splendid! Best thing in the world for you! Tell me all about
+it!"</p>
+<p>And while Bruce rapidly grew engrossed in telling of the car's
+fine points, Roger pictured his son-in-law upon hot summer evenings
+(for Bruce spent his summers in town) forgetting his business for a
+time and speeding out into the country. Then he thought of Edith
+and the tyranny of her motherhood, always draining her husband's
+purse and keeping Edith so wrapt up in her children and their daily
+needs that she had lost all interest in anything outside her home.
+What was there wrong about it? He <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>knew that Edith prided
+herself on being like her mother. But Judith had always found time
+for her friends. He himself had been more as Edith was now. How
+quickly after Judith died he had dropped all friends, all
+interests. "That's it," he ruefully told himself, "Edith takes
+after her father." And the same curious feeling which he had had
+with Laura, came back to him with her sister. This daughter, too,
+was a part of himself. His deep instinctive craving to keep to
+himself and his family was living on in Edith, was already
+dominating her home. What a queer mysterious business it was, this
+tie between a man and his child.</p>
+<p>He was thinking of this when Baird arrived. Allan Baird was not
+only the doctor who had brought Edith's children into the world, he
+was besides an intimate friend, he had been Bruce's room-mate at
+college. As he came strolling into the room with his easy greeting
+of "Well, folks&mdash;" his low gruff voice, his muscular frame,
+over six feet two, and the kindly calm assurance in his lean strong
+visage, gave to Bruce and Roger the feeling of safety they needed.
+For this kind of work was his life. He had specialized on women,
+and after over fifteen years of toilsome uphill labor he had become
+at thirty-seven one of the big gynecologists. He was taking his
+success with the quiet relish of a man who had had to work for it
+hard. And yet he had not been spoiled by success. He worked even
+harder than before&mdash;so hard, in fact, that Deborah, with whom
+through Bruce and Edith he had long ago struck up an easy bantering
+friendship, had sturdily set herself the task of prying open his
+eyes a bit. She had taken him to her school at night and to queer
+little foreign caf&eacute;s. And Baird, with a humor of his own,
+had retaliated by dragging her to the Astor Roof and to musical
+plays.</p>
+<p>"If my eyes are to be opened," he had doggedly declared, "I
+propose to have some diamonds in the scenery, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>and a
+little cheery ragtime, too. You've got a good heart, Deborah Gale,
+but your head is full of tenements."</p>
+<p>To-night to divert Bruce's thoughts from his wife, Baird started
+him talking of his work. In six weeks Bruce had crammed his mind
+with the details of skyscraper building, and his talk was
+bewildering now, bristling with technical terms, permeated through
+and through with the feeling of strain and fierce competition. As
+Roger listened he had again that sharp and oppressive sensation of
+a savage modern town unrelentingly pressing, pressing in.
+Restlessly he glanced at Baird who sat listening quietly. And Roger
+thought of the likeness between their two professions. For Bruce,
+too, was a surgeon. His patients were the husbands in their
+distracting offices. Baird's were the wives and mothers in their
+equally distracting homes. Which were more tense, the husbands or
+wives? And, good Lord, what was it all about, this feverish strain
+of getting and spending? What were they spending? Their very life's
+blood. And what were they getting? Happiness? What did most of them
+know of real happiness? How little they knew, how blind they were,
+and yet how they laughed and chattered along, how engrossed in
+their little games. What children, oh, what children!</p>
+<p>"And am I any better than the rest? Do I know what I'm
+after&mdash;what I'm about?"</p>
+<p>He left them soon, for he felt very tired. He went to his
+daughter to say good-night. And in her room the talk he had heard
+became to him suddenly remote, that restless world of small
+account. For in Edith, in the one brief hour since her father had
+seen her last, there had come a great transformation, into her face
+an eager light. She was slipping down into a weird small world
+which for a brief but fearful season was to be utterly her own,
+with agony and bloody sweat, and joy and a deep mystery. Clumsily
+he took her hand. It was moist and he felt it clutch his own. He
+heard her breathing rapidly.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id=
+"Page_52"></a>[52]</span>Good-night," he said in a husky tone.
+"I'll be so glad, my dear, so glad."</p>
+<p>For answer she gave him a hurried smile, a glance from her
+bright restless eyes. Then he went heavily from the room.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>At home he found Deborah sitting alone, with a pile of school
+papers in her lap. As he entered she slowly turned her head.</p>
+<p>"How is Edith?" she asked him. Roger told of his visit uptown,
+and spoke of Edith's anxiety over getting the children up to the
+farm.</p>
+<p>"I'll take them myself," said Deborah.</p>
+<p>"But how can you get away from school?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I think I can manage it. We'll leave on Friday morning and
+I can be back by Sunday night. I'll love it," Deborah answered.</p>
+<p>"It'll be a great relief to her," said Roger, lighting a cigar.
+Deborah resumed her work, and there was silence for a time.</p>
+<p>"I let George sit up with me till an hour after his bedtime,"
+she told her father presently. "We started talking about white
+rats&mdash;you see it's still white rats with George&mdash;and that
+started us wondering about God. George wonders if God really knows
+about rats. 'Has he ever stuck his face right down and had a good
+close look at one? Has God ever watched a rat stand up and brush
+his whiskers with both paws? Has he ever really laughed at rats?
+And that's another thing, Aunt Deborah&mdash;does God ever laugh at
+all? Does he know how to take a joke? If he don't, we might as well
+quit right now!'"</p>
+<p>Roger laughed with relish, and his daughter smiled at him:</p>
+<p>"Then the talk turned from rats and God to a big dam out in the
+Rockies. George has been reading about it, he's thinking of being
+an engineer. And there was so much <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>he wanted to know that he was
+soon upon the verge of discovering my ignorance&mdash;when all of a
+sudden a dreamy look, oh, a very dreamy look, came into his
+eyes&mdash;and he asked me this." And over her bright expressive
+face came a scowl of boyish intensity: "Suppose I <i>was</i> an
+engineer&mdash;and I was working on a dam, or may be a bridge, in
+the Rockies. And say it was pretty far down south&mdash;say around
+the Grand Canyon. I should think they'd need a dam down there, or
+anyhow a bridge,' said George. And he eyed me in a cautious way
+which said as plain as the nose on your face, 'Good Lord, she's
+only a woman, and she won't understand.' But I showed him I was
+serious, and he asked me huskily, 'Suppose it was winter, Aunt
+Deborah, and the Giants were in Texas. Do you think I could get a
+few days off?' And then before he could tell me the Giants were a
+baseball nine, I said I was sure he could manage it. You should
+have seen his face light up. And he added very fervently, 'Gee, it
+must be wonderful to be an engineer out there!'"</p>
+<p>Roger chuckled delightedly and Deborah went on with her work.
+"How good she is with young uns," he thought. "What a knack she has
+of drawing 'em out. What a pity she hasn't some of her own."</p>
+<p>He slept until late the next morning, and awoke to find Deborah
+by his bed.</p>
+<p>"It's another boy," she told him. Roger sat up excitedly. "Bruce
+has just telephoned the news. The children and I have breakfasted,
+and they're going out with their nurse. Suppose you and I go up and
+see Bruce and settle this trip to the mountains."</p>
+<p>About an hour later, arriving at Edith's apartment, they found
+Bruce downstairs with Allan Baird who was just taking his
+departure. Bruce's dark eyes shone with relief, but his hand was
+hot and nervous. Allan, on the contrary, held out to Edith's father
+a hand as steady and relaxed as was the bantering tone of his
+voice.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id=
+"Page_54"></a>[54]</span>Bruce," he said, "has for once in his life
+decided to do something sensible. He's going to drop his wretched
+job and take a week off with his children."</p>
+<p>"And worry every minute he's gone," Deborah retorted, "and come
+back and work day and night to catch up. But he isn't going to do
+it. I've decided to take the children myself."</p>
+<p>"You have?" cried Bruce delightedly.</p>
+<p>"You'll do no such thing," said Allan, indignant.</p>
+<p>"Oh, you go to thunder," Bruce put in. "Haven't you any
+delicacy? Can't you see this is no business of yours?"</p>
+<p>"It isn't, eh," Allan sternly rejoined. And of Deborah he
+demanded, "Didn't you say you'd go with me to 'Pinafore' this
+Saturday night?"</p>
+<p>"Ah," sneered Bruce. "So that's your game. And for one little
+night of your pleasure you'd do me out of a week of my life!"</p>
+<p>"Like that," said Baird, with a snap of his fingers.</p>
+<p>"I'm going, though," said Deborah.</p>
+<p>"Quite right, little woman," Bruce admonished her earnestly.
+"Don't let him rob you of your happiness."</p>
+<p>"Come here," growled Baird to Deborah. She followed him into the
+living room, and Roger went upstairs with Bruce.</p>
+<p>"If he ever hopes to marry that girl," said Bruce, with an
+anxious backward glance, "he's got to learn to treat her with a
+little consideration."</p>
+<p>"Quit your quarreling," Roger said. "What's a week in the
+mountains to you? Hasn't your wife just risked her life?"</p>
+<p>"Sure she has," said Bruce feelingly. "And I propose to stick by
+her, too."</p>
+<p>"Can I see her?"</p>
+<p>"No, you can't&mdash;another of Baird's fool notions."</p>
+<p>"Then where's the baby?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id=
+"Page_55"></a>[55]</span>Right in here."</p>
+<p>Silently in front of the cradle Bruce and Roger stood looking
+down with the content which comes to men on such occasions when
+there is no woman by their side expecting them to say things.</p>
+<p>"I made it a rule in my family," Roger spoke up presently, "to
+have my first look at each child alone."</p>
+<p>"Same here," said Bruce. And they continued their silent
+communion. A few moments later, as they were leaving, Deborah came
+into the room and went softly to the cradle. Downstairs they found
+that Allan had gone, and when Deborah rejoined them she said she
+was going to stick to her plan. It was soon arranged that she and
+the youngsters should start on their journey the following day.</p>
+<p>Back at home she threw herself into the packing and was busy
+till late that night. At daybreak she was up again, for they were
+to make an early start. Bruce came with his new automobile, the
+children were all bundled in, together with Deborah and their
+nurse, and a half hour later at the train Bruce and Roger left
+them&mdash;Deborah flushed and happy, surrounded by luggage, wraps,
+small boys, an ice box, toys and picture books. The small red hat
+upon her head had already been jerked in a scrimmage, far down over
+one of her ears.</p>
+<p>"Don't worry about us, Bruce," she said. "We're going to have
+the time of our lives!" Bruce fairly beamed his gratitude.</p>
+<p>"If she don't marry," he declared, as he watched the train move
+slowly out, "there'll be a great mother wasted."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span>CHAPTER
+VII</h2>
+<p>In the weeks which followed, Roger found the peace of his home
+so interrupted and disturbed by wedding preparations that often
+retreating into his den he earnestly told himself he was through,
+that a man with three grown daughters was a fool to show any
+sympathy with the utter folly of their lives. Yield an inch and
+they took a mile! It began one night when Deborah said,</p>
+<p>"Now, dearie, I think you had better make up your mind to give
+Laura just the kind of wedding she likes."</p>
+<p>And Roger weakly agreed to this, but as time wore on he
+discovered that the kind of wedding Laura liked was a thing that
+made his blood run cold. There seemed to be no end whatever to the
+young bride's blithe demands. The trousseau part of it he didn't
+mind. To the gowns and hats and gloves and shoes and trunks and
+jaunty travelling bags which came pouring into the house, he made
+no objection. All that, he considered, was fair play. But what got
+on Roger's nerves was this frantic fuss and change! The faded hall
+carpet had to come up, his favorite lounge was whisked away, the
+piano was re-tuned while he was trying to take a nap, rugs were
+beaten, crates and barrels filled the halls, and one whole bedroom
+stripped and bare was transformed into a shop where the wedding
+presents were displayed. In the shuffle his box of cigars
+disappeared. In short, there was the devil to pay!</p>
+<p>And Deborah, was as bad as the bride. At times it appeared to
+Roger as though her fingers fairly itched to jab and tug at his
+poor old house, which wore an air of <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>mute reproach. She revealed a
+part of her nature that he viewed with dark amazement. Every hour
+she could spare from school, she was changing something or other at
+home&mdash;with an eager glitter in her eyes. Doing it all for
+Laura, she said. Fiddlesticks and rubbish! She did it because she
+liked it!</p>
+<p>In gloomy wrath one afternoon he went up to see Edith and quiet
+down. She was well on the way to recovery, but instead of receiving
+solace here he only found fresh troubles. For sitting up in her
+old-fashioned bed, with an old-fashioned cap of lace upon her
+shapely little head, Edith made her father feel she had washed her
+hands of the whole affair.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry," she said in an injured tone, "that Laura doesn't
+care enough about her oldest sister to put off the wedding two or
+three weeks so I could be there. It seems rather undignified, I
+think, for a girl to hurry her wedding so. I should have loved to
+make it the dear simple kind of wedding which mother would have
+wanted. But so long as she doesn't care for that&mdash;and in fact
+has only found ten minutes&mdash;once&mdash;to run in and see the
+baby&mdash;"</p>
+<p>In dismay her father found himself defending the very daughter
+of whom he had come to complain. It was not such a short
+engagement, he said, he had learned they had been engaged some time
+before they told him.</p>
+<p>"Do you approve of that?" she rejoined. "When I was engaged, I
+made Bruce go to you before I even let him&mdash;" here Edith broke
+off primly. "Of course that was some time ago. An engagement, Laura
+tells me, is 'a mere experiment' nowadays. They 'experiment' till
+they feel quite sure&mdash;then notify their parents and get
+married in a week."</p>
+<p>"She is rushing it, I admit," Roger soothingly replied. "But she
+has her mind set on Paris in June."</p>
+<p>"Paris in June," said Edith, "sums up in three words<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> Laura's
+whole conception of marriage. You really ought to talk to her,
+father. It's your duty, it seems to me."</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+<p>"I'd rather not tell you." Edith's glance went sternly to the
+cradle by her bed. "Laura pities me," she said, "for having had
+five children."</p>
+<p>"Oh, now, my dear girl!"</p>
+<p>"She does, though&mdash;she said as much. When she dropped in
+the other day and I tried to be sympathetic and give her a little
+sound advice, she said I had had the wedding I liked and the kind
+of married life I liked, and she was going to have hers. And she
+made it quite plain that her kind is to include no children. It's
+to be simply an effort to find by 'experiment' whether or not she
+loves Hal Sloane. If she doesn't&mdash;" Edith gave a slight but
+emphatic wave of dismissal.</p>
+<p>"Do you mean to say Laura told you that?" her father asked with
+an angry frown.</p>
+<p>"I mean she made me feel it&mdash;as plainly as I'm telling it!
+What I can't understand," his daughter went on, "is Deborah's
+attitude in the affair."</p>
+<p>"What's the matter with Deborah?" inquired Roger dismally.</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing's the matter with Deborah. She's quite
+self-sufficient. She at least can play with modern ideas and keep
+her head while she's doing it. But when poor Laura&mdash;a mere
+child with the mind of a chicken&mdash;catches vaguely at such
+ideas, applies them to her own little self and risks her whole
+future happiness, it seems to me perfectly criminal for Deborah not
+to interfere! Not even a word of warning!"</p>
+<p>"Deborah believes," said her father, "in everyone's leading his
+own life."</p>
+<p>"That's rot," was Edith's curt reply. "Do I lead my own life?
+Does Bruce? Do you?"</p>
+<p>"No," growled Roger feelingly.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id=
+"Page_59"></a>[59]</span>Do my children?" Edith demanded. "I know
+Deborah would like them to. That's her latest and most modern fad,
+to run a school where every child shall sit with a rat in its lap
+or a goat, and do just what he pleases&mdash;follow his natural
+bent, she says. I hope she won't come up to the mountains and
+practice on my children. I should hate to break with Deborah,"
+Edith ended thoughtfully.</p>
+<p>Roger rose and walked the room. The comforting idea entered his
+mind that when the wedding was over he would take out his
+collection of rings and carefully polish every one. But even this
+hope did not stay with him long.</p>
+<p>"With Laura at home," he heard Edith continue, "you at least had
+a daughter to run your house. If Deborah tries to move you
+out&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"She won't!" cried Roger in alarm.</p>
+<p>"If she does," persisted Edith, "or if she begins any talk of
+the kind&mdash;you come to me and <i>I'll</i> talk to her!"</p>
+<p>Her father walked in silence, his head down, frowning at the
+floor.</p>
+<p>"It seems funny," Edith continued, "that women like me who give
+children their lives, and men like Bruce who are building New
+York&mdash;actually doing it all the time&mdash;have so little to
+say in these modern ideas. I suppose it's because we're a little
+too real."</p>
+<p>"To come back to the wedding," Roger suggested.</p>
+<p>"To come back to the wedding, father dear," his daughter said
+compassionately. "I'm afraid it's going to be a 'mere form' which
+will make you rather wretched. When you get so you can't endure it,
+come in and see me and the baby."</p>
+<p>As he started for home, her words of warning recurred to his
+mind. Yes, here was the thing that disturbed him most, the ghost
+lurking under all this confusion, the part which had to do with
+himself. It was bad enough to know that his daughter, his own flesh
+and blood, was about to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id=
+"Page_60"></a>[60]</span>settle her fate at one throw. But to be
+moved out of his house bag and baggage! Roger strode wrathfully up
+the street.</p>
+<p>"It's your duty to talk to her," Edith had said. And he
+meditated darkly on this: "Maybe I will and maybe I won't. I know
+my duties without being told. How does Edith know what her mother
+liked? We had our own likings, her mother and I, and our own ideas,
+long after she was tucked into bed. And yet she's always harping on
+'what mother would have wanted.' What I should like to
+know&mdash;right now&mdash;is what Judith would want if she were
+here!"</p>
+<p>With a pang of utter loneliness amid these vexing problems,
+Roger felt it crowding in, this city of his children's lives. As he
+strode on down Broadway, an old hag selling papers thrust one in
+his face and he caught a glimpse of a headline. Some bigwig woman
+re-divorced. How about Laura's "experiment"? A mob of street
+urchins nearly upset him. How about Deborah? How about children?
+How about schools, education, the country? How about God? Was
+anyone thinking? Had anyone time? What a racket it made,
+slam-banging along. The taxis and motor trucks thundered and
+brayed, dark masses of people swept endlessly by, as though their
+very souls depended on their dinners or their jobs, their movies,
+roaring farces, thrills, their harum scarum dances, clothes. A
+plump little fool of a woman, her skirt so tight she could barely
+walk, tripped by on high-heeled slippers. That was it, he told
+himself, the whole city was high-heeled! No solid footing anywhere!
+And, good Lord, how they chattered!</p>
+<p>He turned into a less noisy street. What would Judith want if
+she were here? It became disturbingly clear to him that she would
+undoubtedly wish him to have a talk with Laura now, find out if
+she'd really made up her mind not to have any children, and if so
+to tell her plainly that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61"
+id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>she was not only going against her God
+but risking her own happiness. For though Judith had been liberal
+about any number of smaller things, she had been decidedly clear on
+this. Yes, he must talk to Laura.</p>
+<p>"And she'll tell me," he reflected, "that Edith put me up to
+it!"</p>
+<p>If only his oldest daughter would leave the other girls alone!
+Here she was planning a row with Deborah over whether poor young
+George should be allowed to play with rats! It was all so silly!...
+Yes, his three children were drifting apart, each one of them going
+her separate way. And he rather took comfort in the thought, for at
+least it would stop their wrangling. But again he pulled himself up
+with a jerk. No, certainly Judith would not have liked this. If
+she'd ever stood for anything, it was for keeping the family
+together. It had been the heart and center of their last talks
+before she died.</p>
+<p>His face relaxed as he walked on, but in his eyes was a deeper
+pain. If only Judith could be here. Before he reached home he had
+made up his mind to talk with Laura that very night. He drew out
+his latchkey, opened his door, shut it firmly and strode into his
+house. In the hall they were putting down the new carpet.
+Cautiously picking his way upstairs, he inquired for Laura and was
+told she was dressing for dinner. He knocked at her door.</p>
+<p>"Yes?" came her voice.</p>
+<p>"It's I," he said, "your father."</p>
+<p>"Oh, hello, dad," came the answer gaily, in that high sweet
+voice of hers. "I'm frightfully rushed. It's a dinner dance
+to-night for the bridesmaids and the ushers." Roger felt a glow of
+relief. "Come in a moment, won't you?"</p>
+<p>What a resplendent young creature she was, seated at her
+dresser. Behind her the maid with needle and thread was swiftly
+mending a little tear in the fluffy <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>blue tulle she was wearing.
+The shaded light just over her head brought a shimmer of red in her
+sleek brown hair. What lips she had, what a bosom. She drew a deep
+breath and smiled at him.</p>
+<p>"What are you doing to-morrow night?" her father asked her.</p>
+<p>"Oh, dad, my love, we have every evening filled and crammed
+right up to the wedding," she replied. "No&mdash;the last evening
+I'll be here. Hal's giving his ushers a dinner that night."</p>
+<p>"Good. I want to talk to you, my dear." He felt his voice
+solemn, a great mistake. He saw the quick glance from her luminous
+eyes.</p>
+<p>"All right, father&mdash;whenever you like."</p>
+<p>Much embarrassed Roger left the room.</p>
+<p>The few days which remained were a crowding confusion of
+dressmakers, gowns and chattering friends and gifts arriving at all
+hours. As a part of his resolve to do what he could for his
+daughter, Roger stayed home from his office that week. But all he
+could do was to unpack boxes, take out presents and keep the cards,
+and say, "Yes, my dear, it's very nice. Where shall I put this
+one?" As the array of presents grew, from time to time
+unconsciously he glanced at the engagement ring upon Laura's
+finger. And all the presents seemed like that. They would suit her
+apartment beautifully. He'd be glad when they were out of the
+house.</p>
+<p>The only gift that appealed to his fancy was a brooch, neither
+rich nor new, a genuine bit of old jewelry. But rather to his
+annoyance he learned that it had been sent to Laura by the old
+Galician Jew in the shop around the corner. It recalled to his mind
+the curious friendship which had existed for so long between the
+old man and his daughter. And as she turned the brooch to the light
+Roger thought he saw in her eyes anticipations which made him
+uneasy. Yes, she was a child of his. "June in
+Paris&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id=
+"Page_63"></a>[63]</span> other Junes&mdash;"experiments"&mdash;no
+children. Again he felt he must have that talk. But, good Lord, how
+he dreaded it.</p>
+<p>The house was almost ready now, dismantled and made new and
+strange. It was the night before the wedding. Laura was taking her
+supper in bed. What was he going to say to her? He ate his dinner
+silently. At last he rose with grim resolution.</p>
+<p>"I think I'll go up and see her," he said. Deborah quickly
+glanced at him.</p>
+<p>"What for?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I just want to talk to her&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Don't stay long," she admonished him. "I've a masseuse coming
+at nine o'clock to get the child in condition to rest. Her nerves
+are rather tense, you know."</p>
+<p>"How about mine?" he said to himself as he started upstairs.
+"Never mind, I've got to tackle it."</p>
+<p>Laura saw what he meant to say the moment that he entered the
+room, and the tightening of her features made it all the harder for
+Roger to think clearly, to remember the grave, kind, fatherly
+things which he had intended to tell her.</p>
+<p>"I don't want to talk of the wedding, child, but of what's
+coming after that&mdash;between you and this man&mdash;all your life." He
+stopped short, with his heart in his mouth, for although he did not
+look at her he had a quick sensation as though he had struck her in
+the face.</p>
+<p>"Isn't this rather late to speak about that? Just now? When I'm
+nervous enough as it is?"</p>
+<p>"I know, I know." He spoke hurriedly, humbly. "I should have
+talked to you long ago, I should have known you better, child. I've
+been slack and selfish. But it's better late than never."</p>
+<p>"But you needn't!" the girl exclaimed. "You needn't tell me
+anything! I know more than you think&mdash;I know enough!" Roger
+looked at her, then at the wall. She <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span>went on in a voice rather
+breathless: "I know what I'm doing&mdash;exactly&mdash;just what
+I'm getting into. It's not as it was when you were young&mdash;it's
+different&mdash;we talk of these things. Harold and I have talked
+it all out." In the brief and dangerous pause which followed Roger
+kept looking at the wall.</p>
+<p>"Have you talked&mdash;about having children?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," came the answer sharply, and then he felt the hot clutch
+of her hand. "Hadn't you better go now, dad?" He hesitated.</p>
+<p>"No," he said. His voice was low. "Do you mean to have children,
+Laura?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+<p>"I think you do know. Do you mean to have children?" Her big
+black eyes, dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.</p>
+<p>"Well then, no, I don't!" she replied. He made a desperate
+effort to think what he could say to her. Good God, how he was
+bungling! Where were all his arguments?</p>
+<p>"How about your religion?" he blurted out.</p>
+<p>"I haven't any&mdash;which makes me do that&mdash;I've a right
+to be happy!"</p>
+<p>"You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed. In accent and in
+quality it was like a voice from the heart of New England where he
+had been born and bred. "I mean you won't be happy&mdash;not unless
+you have a child! It's what you need&mdash;it'll fill your life!
+It'll settle you&mdash;deepen you&mdash;tone you down!"</p>
+<p>"Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost
+hysterical. "I'm no Puritan&mdash;I want to live! I tell you we are
+different now! We're not all like Edith&mdash;and we're not like
+our mothers! We want to live! And we have a right to! Why don't you
+go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? It's my last night, my very
+last! I don't want to talk to you&mdash;I don't even know what I'm
+saying! And you come and try to frighten me!" Her <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>voice
+caught and broke into sobs. "You know nothing about me! You never
+did! Leave me alone, can't you&mdash;leave me alone!"</p>
+<p>"Father?" He heard Deborah's voice, abrupt and stern, outside
+the door.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He went in blind fashion out of
+the room and down to his study. He lit a cigar and smoked
+wretchedly there. When presently Deborah appeared he saw that her
+face was set and hard; but as she caught the baffled look, the
+angry tortured light in his eyes, her own expression softened.</p>
+<p>"Poor father," she said, in a pitying way. "If Edith had only
+let you alone."</p>
+<p>"I certainly didn't do much good."</p>
+<p>"Of course you didn't&mdash;you did harm&mdash;oh, so much more
+harm than you know." Into the quiet voice of his daughter crept a
+note of keen regret. "I wanted to make her last days in this house
+a time she could look back on, so that she'd want to come home for
+help if ever she's in trouble. She has so little&mdash;don't you
+see?&mdash;of what a woman needs these days. She has grown up so
+badly. Oh, if you'd only let her alone. It was such a bad, bad time
+to choose." She went to her father and kissed him. "Well, it's over
+now," she said, "and we'll make the best we can of it. I'll tell
+her you're sorry and quiet her down. And to-morrow we'll try to
+forget it has happened."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>For Roger the morrow went by in a whirl. The wedding, a large
+church affair, was to take place at twelve o'clock. He arose early,
+put on his Prince Albert, went down and ate his breakfast alone.
+The waitress was flustered, the coffee was burnt. He finished and
+anxiously wandered about. The maids were bustling in and out, with
+Deborah giving orders pellmell. The caterers came trooping in. The
+bridesmaids were arriving and hurrying up to Roger's room. That
+place was soon a chaos of voices, giggles, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span>peals of
+laughter. Laura's trunks were brought downstairs, and Roger tagged
+them for the ship, one for the cabin and three for the hold, and
+saw them into the wagon. Then he strode distractedly everywhere,
+till at last he was hustled by Deborah into a taxi waiting
+outside.</p>
+<p>"It's all going so smoothly," Deborah said, and a faint sardonic
+glimmer came into her father's hunted eyes. Deborah was funny!</p>
+<p>Soon he found himself in the church. He heard whispers, eager
+voices, heard one usher say to another, "God, what a terrible head
+I've got!" And Roger glared at him for that. Plainly these
+youngsters, all mere boys, had been up with the groom a good part
+of the night.... But here was Laura, pale and tense. She smiled at
+him and squeezed his hand. There was silence, then the organ, and
+now he was taking her up the aisle. Strange faces stared. His jaw
+set hard. At last they reached the altar. An usher quickly touched
+his arm and he stepped back where he belonged. He listened but
+understood nothing. Just words, words and motions.</p>
+<p>"If any man can show just cause why they may not be lawfully
+joined together, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold
+his peace."</p>
+<p>"No," thought Roger, "I won't speak."</p>
+<p>Just then he caught sight of Deborah's face, and at the look in
+her steady gray eyes all at once he could feel the hot tears in his
+own.</p>
+<p>At the wedding breakfast he was gay to a boisterous degree. He
+talked to strange women and brought them food, took punch with men
+he had never laid eyes on, went off on a feverish hunt for cigars,
+came back distractedly, joked with young girls and even started
+some of them dancing. The whole affair was over in no time. The
+bride and the groom came rushing downstairs; and as they escaped
+from the shower of rice, Roger ran after them down the steps. He
+gripped Sloane's hand.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id=
+"Page_67"></a>[67]</span>Remember, boy, it's her whole life!"
+entreated Roger hoarsely.</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir! I'll look out! No fear!"</p>
+<p>"Good-bye, daddy!"</p>
+<p>"God bless you, dear!"</p>
+<p>They were speeding away. And with the best man, who looked weary
+and spent, Roger went slowly back up the steps. It was an effort
+now to talk. Thank Heaven these people soon were gone. Last of all
+went the ponderous aunt of the groom. How the taxi groaned as he
+helped her inside and started her off to Bridgeport. Back in his
+study he found his cigars and smoked one dismally with Bruce. Bruce
+was a decent sort of chap. He knew when to be silent.</p>
+<p>"Well," he spoke finally, rising, "I guess I'll have to get back
+to the office." He smiled a little and put his hand on Roger's
+weary shoulder. "We're glad it's over&mdash;eh?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Bruce," said Roger heavily, "you've got a girl of your own
+growing up. Don't let her grow to feel you're old. Live on with
+her. She'll need you." His massive blunt face darkened. "The
+world's so damnably new," he muttered, "so choked up with fool
+ideas." Bruce still smiled affectionately.</p>
+<p>"Go up and see Edith," he said, "and forget 'em. She never lets
+one into the flat. She said you were to be sure to come and tell
+her about the wedding."</p>
+<p>"All right, I'll go," said Roger. He hunted about for his hat
+and coat. What a devilish mess they had made of the house. A half
+hour later he was with Edith; but there, despite his efforts to
+answer all her questions, he grew heavier and heavier, till at last
+he barely spoke. He sat watching Edith's baby.</p>
+<p>"Did you talk to Laura?" he heard her ask.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he replied. "It did no good." He knew that Edith was
+waiting for more, but he kept doggedly silent.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id=
+"Page_68"></a>[68]</span>Well, dear," she said presently, "at least
+you did what you could for her."</p>
+<p>"I've never done what I could," he rejoined. "Not with any one
+of you." He glanced at her with a twinge of pain. "I don't know as
+it would have helped much if I had. This town is running away with
+itself. I want a rest now, Edith, I want things quiet for a while."
+He felt her anxious, pitying look.</p>
+<p>"Where's Deborah?" she asked him. "Gone back to school
+already?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know where she is," he replied. And then he rose
+forlornly. "I guess I'll be going back home," he said.</p>
+<p>On his way, as his thoughts slowly cleared, the old uneasiness
+rose in his mind. Would Deborah want to keep the house? Suppose she
+suggested moving to some titty-tatty little flat. No, he would not
+stand in her way. But, Lord, what an end to make of his life.</p>
+<p>His home was almost dark inside, but he noticed rather to his
+surprise that the rooms had already been put in order. He sank down
+on the living room sofa and lay motionless for a while. How tired
+he was. From time to time he drearily sighed. Yes, Deborah would
+find him old and life here dull and lonely. Where was she to-night,
+he wondered. Couldn't she quit her zoo school for one single
+afternoon? At last, when the room had grown pitch dark, he heard
+the maid lighting the gas in the hall. Roger loudly cleared his
+throat, and at the sound the startled girl ejaculated, "Oh, my
+Gawd!"</p>
+<p>"It's I," said Roger sternly. "Did Miss Deborah say when she'd
+be back?"</p>
+<p>"She didn't go out, sir. She's up in her room."</p>
+<p>Roger went up and found her there. All afternoon with both the
+maids she had been setting the house to rights, and now she ached
+in every limb. She was lying on her bed, and she looked as though
+she had been crying.</p>
+<p>"Where have you been?" she inquired.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id=
+"Page_69"></a>[69]</span>At Edith's," her father answered. She
+reached up and took his hand, and held it slowly tighter.</p>
+<p>"You aren't going to find it too lonely here, with Laura gone?"
+she asked him. And the wistfulness in her deep sweet voice made
+something thrill in Roger.</p>
+<p>"Why should I?" he retorted. Deborah gave a queer little
+laugh.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'm just silly, that's all," she said. "I've been having a
+fit of blues. I've been feeling so old this afternoon&mdash;a
+regular old woman. I wanted you, dearie, and I was afraid that
+you&mdash;" she broke off.</p>
+<p>"Look here," said Roger sharply. "Do you really want to keep
+this house?"</p>
+<p>"Keep this house? Why, father!"</p>
+<p>"You think you can stand it here alone, just the two of us?" he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>"I can," cried Deborah happily. Her father walked to the window.
+There as he looked blindly out, his eyes were assaulted by the
+lights of all those titty-tatty flats. And a look of vicious
+triumph appeared for a moment on his face.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he said quietly, turning back. "Then we're both
+suited." He went to the door. "I'll go and wash up for supper," he
+said.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>CHAPTER
+VIII</h2>
+<p>It was a relief to him to find how smoothly he and Deborah
+dropped back into their old relations. It was good to get home
+those evenings; for in this new stage of its existence, with its
+family of two, the house appeared to have filled itself with a deep
+reposeful feeling. Laura had gone out of its life. He glanced into
+her room one night, and it looked like a guest room now. The sight
+of it brought him a pang of regret. But the big ship which was
+bearing her swiftly away to "Paris in June" seemed bearing off
+Roger's uneasiness too. He could smile at his former fears, for
+Laura was safely married and wildly in love with her husband. Time,
+he thought, would take care of the rest. Occasionally he missed her
+here&mdash;her voice, high-pitched but musical, chatting and
+laughing at the 'phone, her bustle of dressing to go out, glimpses
+of her extravagances, of her smart suits and evening gowns, of all
+the joyous color and dash that she had given to his home. But these
+regrets soon died away. The old house shed them easily, as though
+glad to enter this long rest.</p>
+<p>For the story of his family, from Roger's point of view at
+least, was a long uneven narrative, with prolonged periods of peace
+and again with events piling one on the other. And now there came
+one of those peaceful times, and Roger liked the quiet. The old
+routine was re-established&mdash;his dinner, his paper, his cigar
+and then his book for the evening, some good old-fashioned novel or
+some pleasant book of travel which he and Judith had read aloud
+when they were planning out their lives. They had meant to go
+abroad so often when the children had grown up. And <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>he liked to
+read about it still. Life was so quiet over the sea, things were so
+old and mellow there. He resumed, too, his horseback rides, and on
+the way home he would stop in for a visit with Edith and her baby.
+The wee boy grew funnier every day, with his sudden kicks and
+sneezes, his waving fists and mighty yawns. And Roger felt drawn to
+his daughter here, for in these grateful seasons of rest that
+followed the birth of each of her children, Edith loved to lie very
+still and make new plans for her small brood.</p>
+<p>Only once she spoke of Laura, and then it was to suggest to him
+that he gather together all the bills his daughter had doubtless
+left behind.</p>
+<p>"If you don't settle them," Edith said, "they'll go to her
+husband. And you wouldn't like that, would you?"</p>
+<p>Roger said he would see to it, and one evening after dinner he
+started in on Laura's bills. It was rather an appalling time. He
+looked into his bank account and found that Laura's wedding would
+take about all his surplus. But this did not dismay him much, for
+money matters never did. It simply meant more work in the
+office.</p>
+<p>The next day he rose early and was in his office by nine
+o'clock. He had not been so prompt in months, and many of his
+employees came in late that morning. But nobody seemed very much
+perturbed, for Roger was an easy employer. Still, he sternly told
+himself, he had been letting things get altogether too slack. He
+had been neglecting his business again. The work had become so cut
+and dried, there was nothing creative left to do. It had not been
+so in years gone by. Those years had fairly bristled with ideas and
+hopes and schemes. But even those old memories were no longer here
+to hearten him. They had all been swept away when Bruce had made
+him move out of his office in a dark creaky edifice down close
+under Brooklyn Bridge, and come up to this new building, this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id=
+"Page_72"></a>[72]</span>steel-ribbed caravansary for all kinds of
+business ventures, this place of varnished woodwork, floods of
+daylight, concrete floors, this building fireproof throughout. That
+expressed it exactly, Roger thought. Nothing could take fire here,
+not even a man's imagination, even though he did not feel old. Now
+and then in the elevator, as some youngster with eager eyes pushed
+nervously against him, Roger would frown and wonder, "What are you
+so excited about?"</p>
+<p>But again the business was running down, and this time he must
+jerk it back before it got beyond him. He set himself doggedly to
+the task, calling in his assistants one by one, going through the
+work in those outer rooms, where at tables long rows of busy young
+girls, with colored pencils, scissors and paste, were demolishing
+enormous piles of newspapers and magazines. And vaguely, little by
+little, he came to a realization of how while he had slumbered the
+life of the country had swept on. For as he studied the lists and
+the letters of his patrons, Roger felt confusedly that a new
+America was here.</p>
+<p>Clippings, clippings, clippings. Business men and business
+firms, gigantic corporations, kept sending here for clippings, news
+of themselves or their rivals, keeping keen watch on each other's
+affairs for signs of strength or weakness. How savage was the fight
+these days. Here was news of mines and mills and factories all over
+the land, clippings sent each morning by special messengers
+downtown to reach the brokers' offices before the market opened.
+One broker wrote, "Please quote your terms for the following. From
+nine to two o'clock each day our messenger will call at your office
+every hour for clippings giving information of the companies named
+below."</p>
+<p>The long list appended carried Roger's fancy out all over the
+continent. And then came this injunction: "Remember that our
+messenger must leave your office every hour. In information of this
+kind every minute counts."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id=
+"Page_73"></a>[73]</span>Clippings, clippings, clippings. As Roger
+turned over his morning mail, in spite of himself he grew absorbed.
+What a change in the world of literature. What a host of names of
+scribblers, not authors but just writers, not only men but women
+too, novelists and dramatists, poets and muckrakers all jumbled in
+together, each one of them straining for a place. And the actors
+and the actresses, the musicians and the lecturers, each with his
+press agent and avid for publicity, "fame!" And here were society
+women, from New York and other cities, all eager for press notices
+of social affairs they had given or managed, charity work they had
+conducted, suffrage speeches they had made. Half the women in the
+land were fairly talking their heads off, it seemed. Some had been
+on his lists for years. They married and wanted to hear what was
+said in the papers about their weddings, they quarreled and got
+divorces and still sent here for clippings, they died and still
+their relatives wrote in for the funeral notices. And even death
+was commercialized. A maker of monuments wanted news "of all people
+of large means, dead or dangerously ill, in the State of
+Pennsylvania." Here were demands from charity bodies, hospitals and
+colleges, from clergymen with an anxious eye on the Monday morning
+papers. And here was an anarchist millionaire! And here was an
+insane asylum wanting to see itself in print!</p>
+<p>With a grim smile on his heavy visage, Roger stared out of his
+window. Slowly the smile faded, a wistful look came on his
+face.</p>
+<p>"Who'll take my business when I'm gone?"</p>
+<p>If his small son had only lived, with what new zest and vigor it
+might have been made to grow and expand. If only his son had been
+here by his side....</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>CHAPTER
+IX</h2>
+<p>DEBORAH needed rest, he thought, for the bright attractive face
+of his daughter was looking rather pale of late, and the birthmark
+on her forehead showed a faint thin line of red. One night at
+dinner, watching her, he wondered what was on her mind. She had
+come in late, and though several times she had made an effort to
+keep up the conversation, her cheeks were almost colorless and more
+than once in her deepset eyes came a flash of pain that startled
+him.</p>
+<p>"Look here. What's the matter with you?" he asked. Deborah
+looked up quickly.</p>
+<p>"I'd rather not talk about it, dad&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Very well," he answered. And with a slight hesitation, "But I
+think I know the trouble," he said. "And perhaps some other
+time&mdash;when you do feel like talking&mdash;" He stopped, for on
+her wide sensitive lips he saw a twitch of amusement.</p>
+<p>"What do you think is the trouble?" she asked. And Roger looked
+at her squarely.</p>
+<p>"Loneliness," he answered.</p>
+<p>"Why?" she asked him.</p>
+<p>"Well, there's Edith's baby&mdash;and Laura getting
+married&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I see&mdash;and so I'm lonely for a family of my own. But
+you're forgetting my school," she said.</p>
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know," he retorted. "But that's not at all the
+same. Interesting work, no doubt, but&mdash;well, it isn't
+personal."</p>
+<p>"Oh, isn't it?" she answered, and she drew a quivering breath.
+Rising from the table she went into the living <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span>room, and
+there a few moments later he found her walking up and down. "I
+think I will tell you now," she said. "I'm afraid of being alone
+to-night, of keeping this matter to myself." He looked at her
+apprehensively.</p>
+<p>"Very well, my dear," he said.</p>
+<p>"This is the trouble," she began. "Down in my school we've a
+family of about three thousand children. A few I get to know so
+well I try to follow them when they leave. And one of these, an
+Italian boy&mdash;his name is Joe Bolini&mdash;was one of the best
+I ever had, and one of the most appealing. But Joe took to drinking
+and got in with a gang of boys who blackmailed small shopkeepers.
+He used to come to me at times in occasional moods of repentance.
+He was a splendid physical type and he'd been a leader in our
+athletics, so I took him back into the school to manage our teams
+in basket-ball. He left the gang and stopped drinking, and we had
+long talks together about his great ambition. He wanted to enter
+the Fire Department as soon as he was twenty-one. And I promised to
+use my influence." She stopped, still frowning slightly.</p>
+<p>"What happened?" Roger asked her.</p>
+<p>"His girl took up with another man, and Joe has hot Italian
+blood. He got drunk one night and&mdash;shot them both." There was
+another silence. "I did what I could," she said harshly, "but he
+had a bad record behind him, and the young assistant district
+attorney had his own record to think of, too. So Joe got a death
+sentence. We appealed the case but it did no good. He was sent up
+the river and is in the death house now&mdash;and he sent for me to
+come to-day. His letter hinted he was scared, he wrote that his
+priest was no good to him. So I went up this afternoon. Joe goes to
+the chair to-morrow at six."</p>
+<p>Deborah went to the sofa and sat down inertly. Roger remained
+motionless, and a dull chill crept over him.</p>
+<p>"So you see my work is personal," he heard her mutter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id=
+"Page_76"></a>[76]</span>presently. All at once she seemed so far
+away, such a stranger to him in this life of hers.</p>
+<p>"By George, it's horrible!" he said. "I'm sorry you went to see
+the boy!"</p>
+<p>"I'm glad," was his daughter's quick retort. "I've been getting
+much too sure of myself&mdash;of my school, I mean, and what it can
+do. I needed this to bring me back to the kind of world we live
+in!"</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" he roughly asked.</p>
+<p>"I mean there are schools and prisons! And gallows and electric
+chairs! And I'm for schools! They've tried their jails and gallows
+for whole black hideous centuries! What good have they done? If
+they'd given Joe back to the school and me, I'd have had him a
+fireman in a year! I know, because I studied him hard! He'd have
+<i>grown</i> fighting fires, he would have <i>saved</i> lives!"</p>
+<p>Again she stopped, with a catch of her breath. In suspense he
+watched her angry struggle to regain control of herself. She sat
+bolt upright, rigid; her birthmark showed a fiery red. In a few
+moments he saw her relax.</p>
+<p>"But of course," she added wearily, "it's much more complex than
+that. A school is nothing nowadays&mdash;just by itself alone, I
+mean&mdash;it's only a part of a city's life&mdash;which for most
+tenement children is either very dull and hard, or cheap and false
+and overexciting. And behind all that lie the reasons for that. And
+there are so many reasons." She stared straight past her father as
+though at something far away. Then she seemed to recall herself:
+"But I'm talking too much of my family."</p>
+<p>Roger carefully lit a cigar:</p>
+<p>"I don't think you are, my dear. I'd like to hear more about
+it." She smiled:</p>
+<p>"To keep my mind off Joe, you mean."</p>
+<p>"And mine, too," he answered.</p>
+<p>They had a long talk that evening about her hope of making her
+school what Roger visaged confusedly as a <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>kind of
+mammoth home, the center of a neighborhood, of one prodigious
+family. At times when the clock on the mantle struck the hour loud
+and clear, there would fall a sudden silence, as both thought of
+what was to happen at dawn. But quickly Roger would question again
+and Deborah would talk steadily on. It was after midnight when she
+stopped.</p>
+<p>"You've been good to me to-night, dearie," she said. "Let's go
+to bed now, shall we?"</p>
+<p>"Very well," he answered. He looked at his daughter anxiously.
+She no longer seemed to him mature. He could feel what heavy
+discouragements, what problems she was facing in the dark
+mysterious tenement world which she had chosen to make her own. And
+compared to these she seemed a mere girl, a child groping its way,
+just making a start. And so he added wistfully, "I wish I could be
+of more help to you." She looked up at him for a moment.</p>
+<p>"Do you know why you are such a help?" she said. "It's because
+you have never grown old&mdash;because you've never allowed
+yourself to grow absolutely certain about anything in life." A
+smile half sad and half perplexed came on her father's heavy
+face.</p>
+<p>"You consider that a strong point?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I do," she replied, "compared to being a bundle of creeds and
+prejudices."</p>
+<p>"Oh, I've got prejudices enough."</p>
+<p>"Yes," she said. "And so have I. But we're not even sure of
+<i>them</i>, these days."</p>
+<p>"The world has a habit of crowding in," her father muttered
+vaguely.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Roger did not sleep that night. He could not keep his thoughts
+away from what was going to happen at dawn. Yes, the city was
+crowding in upon this quiet house of his. Dimly he could recollect,
+in the genial years of long ago, <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>just glancing casually now
+and then at some small and unobtrusive notice in his evening paper:
+"Execution at Sing Sing." It had been so remote to him. But here it
+was smashing into his house, through the life his own daughter was
+leading day and night among the poor! Each time he thought of that
+lad in a cell, again a chill crept over him! But savagely he shook
+it off, and by a strong effort of his will he turned his thoughts
+to the things she had told him about her school. Yes, in her main
+idea she was right. He had no use for wild reforms, but here was
+something solid, a good education for every child. More than once,
+while she had talked, something very deep in Roger had leaped up in
+swift response.</p>
+<p>For Deborah, too, was a part of himself. He, too, had had his
+feeling for humanity in the large. For years he had run a boys'
+club at a little mission school in which his wife had been
+interested, and on Christmas Eve he had formed the habit of
+gathering up a dozen small urchins right off the street and taking
+them 'round and fitting them out with good warm winter clothing,
+after which he had gone home to help Judith trim the Christmas tree
+and fill their children's stockings. And later, when she had gone
+to bed, invariably he had taken "The Christmas Carol" from its
+shelf and had settled down with a glow of almost luxurious
+brotherhood. There was sentiment in Roger Gale, and as he read of
+"Tiny Tim" his deepset eyes would glisten with tears.</p>
+<p>And now here was Deborah fulfilling a part of him in herself.
+"You will live on in our children's lives." But this was going much
+too far! She was letting herself be swallowed up completely by this
+work of hers! It was all very well for the past ten years, but she
+was getting on in age! High time to marry and settle down!</p>
+<p>Again angrily he shook off the thought of that boy Joe alone in
+a cell, eyes fixed in animal terror upon the steel door which would
+open so soon.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id=
+"Page_79"></a>[79]</span>The day was slowly breaking. It was the
+early part of June. How fresh and lovely it must be up there in the
+big mountains with Edith's happy little lads. Here it was raw and
+garish, weird. Some sparrows began quarreling just outside his
+window. Roger rose and walked the room. Restlessly he went into the
+hall. The old house appeared so strange in this light&mdash;as
+though stripped bare&mdash;there was something gone. Softly he came
+to Deborah's door. It was open wide, for the night had been warm,
+and she lay awake upon her bed with her gaze fixed on the ceiling.
+She turned her head and saw him there. He came in and sat down by
+her window. For a long time neither made a sound. Then the great
+clock on the distant tower, which had been silent through the
+night, resumed its deep and measured boom. It struck six times.
+There was silence again. More and more taut grew his muscles, and
+suddenly it felt to him as though Deborah's fierce agony were
+pounding into his very soul. The slow, slow minutes throbbed away.
+At last he rose and left her. There was a cold sweat on his
+brow.</p>
+<p>"I'll go down and make her some coffee," he thought.</p>
+<p>Down in the kitchen it was a relief to bang about hunting for
+the utensils. On picnics up in the mountains his coffee had been
+famous. He made some now and boiled some eggs, and they breakfasted
+in Deborah's room. She seemed almost herself again. Later, while he
+was dressing, he saw her in the doorway. She was looking at her
+father with bright and grateful, affectionate eyes.</p>
+<p>"Will you come to school with me to-day? I'd like you to see
+it," Deborah said.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he answered gruffly.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>CHAPTER
+X</h2>
+<p>Out of the subway they emerged into a noisy tenement street.
+Roger had known such streets as this, but only in the night-time,
+as picturesque and adventurous ways in an underground world he had
+explored in search of strange old glittering rings. It was
+different now. Gone were the Rembrandt shadows, the leaping flare
+of torches, the dark surging masses of weird uncouth humanity. Here
+in garish daylight were poverty and ugliness, here were heaps of
+refuse and heavy smells and clamor. It disgusted and repelled him,
+and he was tempted to turn back. But glancing at Deborah by his
+side he thought of the night she had been through. No, he decided,
+he would go on and see what she was up to here.</p>
+<p>They turned into a narrower street between tall dirty tenements,
+and in a twinkling all was changed. For the street, as far as he
+could see, was gay with flaunting colors, torrents of bobbing hats
+and ribbons, frocks and blouses, shirts and breeches, vivid reds
+and yellows and blues. It was deafening with joyous cries, a shrill
+incessant chatter, chatter, piercing yells and shrieks of laughter.
+Children, swarms of children, children of all sizes passed him,
+clean and dirty, smiling, scowling, hurrying, running, pummeling,
+grabbing, whirling each other 'round and 'round&mdash;till the very
+air seemed quivering with wild spirits and new life!</p>
+<p>He heard Deborah laughing. Five hilarious small boys had hold of
+her hands and were marching in triumph waving their caps. "Heigh
+there&mdash;heigh there! Heigh&mdash;heigh&mdash;heigh!"</p>
+<p>The school was close in front of them. An enormous <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span>building of
+brick and tile wedged into a disordered mass of tenements, shops
+and factories, it had been built around a court shut out from the
+street by a high steel fence. They squeezed into the gateway,
+through which a shouting punching mob of urchins were now pushing
+in; and soon from a balcony above Roger looked down into the court,
+where out of a wild chaos order was appearing. Boys to the right
+and girls to the left were forming in long sinuous lines, and three
+thousand faces were turned toward the building. In front appeared
+the Stars and Stripes. Then suddenly he heard a crash from
+underneath the balcony, and looking down he saw a band made up of
+some thirty or forty boys. Their leader, a dark Italian lad, made a
+flourish, a pass with his baton, and the band broke into a blaring
+storm, an uproarious, booming march. The mob below fell into step,
+and line after line in single file the children marched into their
+school.</p>
+<p>"Look up! Look all around you!" He heard Deborah's eager voice
+in his ear. And as he looked up from the court below he gave a low
+cry of amazement. In hundreds of windows all around, of sweatshops,
+tenements, factories, on tier upon tier of fire escapes and even
+upon the roofs above, silent watchers had appeared. For this one
+moment in the day the whole congested neighborhood had stopped its
+feverish labor and become an amphitheater with all eyes upon the
+school. And the thought flashed into Roger's mind: "Deborah's big
+family!"</p>
+<p>He had a strange confusing time. In her office, in a daze, he
+sat and heard his daughter with her two assistant principals, her
+clerk and her stenographer, plunge into the routine work of the
+day. What kind of school teacher was this? She seemed more like the
+manager of some buzzing factory. Messages kept coming constantly
+from class-rooms, children came for punishment, and on each small
+human problem she was passing judgment quickly. Meanwhile a score
+of mothers, most of them Italians with <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>colored
+shawls upon their heads, had straggled in and taken seats, and one
+by one they came to her desk. For these women who had been children
+in peasant huts in Italy now had children of their own in the great
+city of New York, and they found it very baffling. How to keep them
+in at night? How to make them go to the priest? How to feed and
+clothe them? How to live in these tenement homes, in this wild din
+and chaos? They wanted help and they wanted advice. Deborah spoke
+in Italian, but turning to her father she would translate from time
+to time.</p>
+<p>A tired scowling woman said, "My boy won't obey me. His father
+is dead. When I slap him he only jumps away. I lock him in and he
+steals the key, he keeps it in his pocket. He steals the money that
+I earn. He says I'm from the country." And a flabby anxious woman
+said, "My girl runs out to dance halls. Sometimes she comes back at
+two in the morning. She is fifteen and she ought to get married.
+But what can I do? A nice steady man who never dances comes
+sometimes to see her&mdash;but she makes faces and calls him a
+fatty, she dances before him and pushes him out and slams the door.
+What can I do?"</p>
+<p>"Please come and see our janitor and make him fix our kitchen
+sink!" an angry little woman cried. "When I try to wash the dishes
+the water spouts all over me!" And then a plump rosy mother said in
+a soft coaxing voice, "I have eight little children, all nice and
+clean. When you tell them to do anything they always do it quickly.
+They smile at you, they are like saints. So could the kind
+beautiful teacher fix it up with a newspaper to send them to the
+country&mdash;this summer when it is so hot? The newspaper could
+send a man and he could take our pictures."</p>
+<p>"Most of us girls used to be in this school," said a bright
+looking Jewess of eighteen. "And you taught us how we should live
+nice. But how can we live nice when our shop <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>is so
+rotten? Our boss is trying to kiss the girls, he is trying to hug
+them on the stairs. And what he pays us is a joke, and we must work
+till nine o'clock. So will you help us, teacher, and give us a room
+for our meetings here? We want to have a union."</p>
+<p>A truant officer brought in two ragged, frightened little chaps.
+Found on the street during school hours, they had to give an
+account of themselves. Sullenly one of them gave an address far up
+in the Bronx, ten miles away. They had not been home for a week, he
+said. Was he lying? What was to be done? Somewhere in the city
+their homes must be discovered. And the talk of the truant officer
+made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out through the
+police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He thought
+of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy
+complexity of it all.</p>
+<p>And this was part and parcel of his daughter's daily work in
+school! Still dazed, disturbed but curious, he sat and watched and
+listened, while the bewildering demands of Deborah's big family
+kept crowding in upon her. He went to a few of the class-rooms and
+found that reading and writing, arithmetic and spelling were being
+taught in ways which he had never dreamed of. He found a
+kindergarten class, a carpenter shop and a printing shop, a sewing
+class and a cooking class in a large model kitchen. He watched the
+nurse in her hospital room, he went into the dental clinic where a
+squad of fifty urchins were having their teeth examined, and out
+upon a small side roof he found a score of small invalids in
+steamer chairs, all fast asleep. It was a strange astounding
+school! He heard Deborah speak of a mothers' club and a
+neighborhood association; and he learned of other ventures here,
+the school doctor, the nurse and the visitor endlessly making
+experiments, delving into the neighborhood for ways to meet its
+problems. And by the way Deborah talked <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>to them he
+felt she had gone before, that years ago by day and night she had
+been over the ground alone. And she'd done all this while she lived
+in his house!</p>
+<p>Scattered memories out of the past, mere fragments she had told
+him, here flashed back into his mind: humorous little incidents of
+daily battles she had waged in rotten old tenement buildings with
+rags and filth and garbage, with vermin, darkness and disease.
+Mingled with these had been accounts of dances, weddings and
+christenings and of curious funeral rites. And struggling with such
+dim memories of Deborah in her twenties, called forth in his mind
+by the picture of the woman of thirty here, Roger grew still more
+confused. What was to be the end of it? She was still but a pioneer
+in a jungle, endlessly groping and trying new things.</p>
+<p>"How many children are there in the public schools?" he
+asked.</p>
+<p>"About eight hundred thousand," Deborah said.</p>
+<p>"Good Lord!" he groaned, and he felt within him a glow of
+indignation rise against these immigrant women for breeding so
+inconsiderately. With the mad city growing so fast, and the people
+of the tenements breeding, breeding, breeding, and packing the
+schools to bursting, what could any teacher be but a mere cog in a
+machine, ponderous, impersonal, blind, grinding out future New
+Yorkers?</p>
+<p>He reached home limp and battered from the storm of new
+impressions coming on top of his sleepless night. He had thought of
+a school as a simple place, filled with little children,
+mischievous at times perhaps and some with dirty faces, but still
+with minds and spirits clean, unsoiled as yet by contact with the
+grim spirit of the town. He had thought of childhood as something
+intimate and pure, inside his home, his family. Instead of that, in
+Deborah's school he had been disturbed and thrilled by the presence
+all around him of something <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85"
+id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>wild, barbaric, dark, compounded of the
+city streets, of surging crowds, of rushing feet, of turmoil,
+filth, disease and death, of poverty and vice and crime. But Roger
+could still hear that band. And behind its blaring crash and din he
+had felt the vital throbbing of a tremendous joyousness, of gaiety,
+fresh hopes and dreams, of leaping young emotions like deep buried
+bubbling springs bursting up resistlessly to renew the fevered life
+of the town! Deborah's big family! Everybody's children!</p>
+<p>"You will live on in our children's lives." The vision hidden in
+those words now opened wide before his eyes.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>CHAPTER
+XI</h2>
+<p>She told him the next morning her night school closed for the
+summer that week.</p>
+<p>"I think I should like to see it," her father said determinedly.
+She gave him an affectionate smile:</p>
+<p>"Oh, dearie. Haven't you had enough?"</p>
+<p>"I guess I can stand it if you can," was his gruff rejoinder,
+"though if I ran a school like yours I think by night I'd have
+schooled enough. Do most principals run night schools too?"</p>
+<p>"A good many of them do."</p>
+<p>"Isn't it taxing your strength?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Don't you have to tax your strength," his daughter replied good
+humoredly, "to really accomplish anything? Don't you have to risk
+yourself in order to really live these days? Suppose you come down
+to-morrow night. We won't go to the school, for I doubt if the
+clubs and classes would interest you very much. I'll take you
+through the neighborhood."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>They went down the following evening. The night was warm and
+humid, and through the narrow tenement streets there poured a
+teeming mass of life. People by the thousands passed, bareheaded,
+men in shirt sleeves, their faces glistening with sweat. Animal
+odors filled the air. The torches on the pushcarts threw flaring
+lights and shadows, the peddlers shouted hoarsely, the tradesmen in
+the booths and stalls joined in with cries, shrill peals of mirth.
+The mass swept onward, talking, talking, and its voice was a
+guttural roar. Small boys and girls with piercing yells kept
+darting under elbows, old women dozed on door<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>steps,
+babies screamed on every side. Mothers leaned out of windows, and
+by their faces you could see that they were screaming angrily for
+children to come up to bed. But you could not hear their cries.
+Here around a hurdy gurdy gravely danced some little girls. A tense
+young Jew, dark faced and thin, was shouting from a wagon that all
+men and women must be free and own the factories and mills. A mob
+of small boys, clustered 'round a "camp fire" they had made on the
+street, were leaping wildly through the flames. It was a mammoth
+cauldron here, seething, bubbling over with a million foreign
+lives. Deborah's big family.</p>
+<p>She turned into a doorway, went down a long dark passage and
+came into a court-yard enclosed by greasy tenement walls that
+reared to a spot of dark blue sky where a few quiet stars were
+twinkling down. With a feeling of repugnance Roger followed his
+daughter into a tall rear building and up a rickety flight of
+stairs. On the fourth landing she knocked at a door, and presently
+it was opened by a stout young Irish woman with flushed haggard
+features and disheveled hair.</p>
+<p>"Oh. Good evening, Mrs. Berry."</p>
+<p>"Good evening. Come in," was the curt reply. They entered a
+small stifling room where were a stove, two kitchen chairs and
+three frowzled beds in corners. On one of the beds lay a baby
+asleep, on another two small restless boys sat up and watched the
+visitors. A sick man lay upon the third. And a cripple boy, a
+boarder here, stood on his crutches watching them. Roger was struck
+at once by his face. Over the broad cheek bones the sallow skin was
+tightly drawn, but there was a determined set to the jaws that
+matched the boy's shrewd grayish eyes, and his face lit up in a
+wonderful smile.</p>
+<p>"Hello, Miss Deborah," he said. His voice had a cheery
+quality.</p>
+<p>"Hello, Johnny. How are you?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id=
+"Page_88"></a>[88]</span>Fine, thank you."</p>
+<p>"That's good. I've brought my father with me."</p>
+<p>"Howdado, sir, glad to meet you."</p>
+<p>"It's some time since you've been to see me, John," Deborah
+continued.</p>
+<p>"I know it is," he answered. And then with a quick jerk of his
+head, "He's been pretty bad," he said. Roger looked at the man on
+the bed. With his thin waxen features drawn, the man was gasping
+for each breath.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?" Roger whispered.</p>
+<p>"Lungs," said the young woman harshly. "You needn't bother to
+speak so low. He can't hear you anyhow. He's dying. He's been dying
+weeks."</p>
+<p>"Why didn't you let me know of this?" Deborah asked gently.</p>
+<p>"Because I knew what you'd want to do&mdash;take him off to a
+hospital! And I ain't going to have it! I promised him he could die
+at home!"</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. There was a moment's silence, and
+the baby whimpered in its sleep. One child had gone to his father's
+bed and was frowning at his agony as though it were a tiresome
+sight.</p>
+<p>"Are any of them coughing?" Deborah inquired.</p>
+<p>"No," said the woman sharply.</p>
+<p>"Yes, they are, two of 'em," John cheerfully corrected her.</p>
+<p>"You shut up!" she said to him, and she turned back to Deborah.
+"It's my home, I guess, and my family, too. So what do you think
+that <i>you</i> can do?" Deborah looked at her steadily.</p>
+<p>"Yes, it's your family," she agreed. "And it's none of my
+business, I know&mdash;except that John is one of my boys&mdash;and
+if things are to go on like this I can't let him board here any
+more. If he had let me know before I'd have taken him from you
+sooner. You'll miss the four dollars a week he pays."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id=
+"Page_89"></a>[89]</span>The woman swallowed fiercely. The flush on
+her face had deepened. She scowled to keep back the tears.</p>
+<p>"We can all die for all I care! I've about got to the end of my
+rope!"</p>
+<p>"I see you have." Deborah's voice was low. "You've made a hard
+plucky fight, Mrs. Berry. Are there any empty rooms left in this
+building?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, two upstairs. What do you want to know for?"</p>
+<p>"I'm going to rent them for you. I'll arrange it to-night with
+the janitor, on condition that you promise to move your children
+to-morrow upstairs and keep them there until this is over. Will
+you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"That's sensible. And I'll have one of the visiting nurses here
+within an hour."</p>
+<p>"Thanks."</p>
+<p>"And later on we'll have a talk."</p>
+<p>"All right&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Good-night, Mrs. Berry."</p>
+<p>"Good-night, Miss Gale, I'm much obliged.... Say, wait a minute!
+Will you?" The wife had followed them out on the landing and she
+was clutching Deborah's arm. "Why can't the nurse give him
+something," she whispered, "to put him to sleep for good and all?
+It ain't right to let a man suffer like that! I can't stand it!
+I'm&mdash;I'm&mdash;" she broke off with a sob. Deborah put one arm
+around her and held her steadily for a moment.</p>
+<p>"The nurse will see that he sleeps," she said. "Now, John," she
+added, presently, when the woman had gone into the room, "I want
+you to get your things together. I'll have the janitor move them
+upstairs. You sleep there to-night, and to-morrow morning come to
+see me at the school."</p>
+<p>"All right, Miss Deborah, much obliged. I'll be all right.
+Good-night, sir&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Good-night, my boy," said Roger, and suddenly he <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>cleared his
+throat. He followed his daughter down the stairs. A few minutes she
+talked with the janitor, then joined her father in the court.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry I took you up there," she said. "I didn't know the
+man was sick."</p>
+<p>"Who are they?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Poor people," she said. And Roger flinched.</p>
+<p>"Who is this boy?"</p>
+<p>"A neighbor of theirs. His mother, who was a widow, died about
+two years ago. He was left alone and scared to death lest he should
+be 'put away' in some big institution. He got Mrs. Berry to take
+him in, and to earn his board he began selling papers instead of
+coming to our school. So our school visitor looked him up. Since
+then I have been paying his board from a fund I have from friends
+uptown, and so he has finished his schooling. He's to graduate next
+week. He means to be a stenographer."</p>
+<p>"How old is he?"</p>
+<p>"Seventeen," she replied.</p>
+<p>"How was he crippled? Born that way?"</p>
+<p>"No. When he was a baby his mother dropped him one Saturday
+night when she was drunk. He has never been able to sit down. He
+can lie down or he can stand. He's always in pain, it never stops.
+I learned that from the doctor I took him to see. But whenever you
+ask him how he feels you get the same answer always: 'Fine, thank
+you.' He's a fighter, is John."</p>
+<p>"He looks it. I'd like to help that boy&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"All right&mdash;you can help him," Deborah said. "You'll find
+him quite a tonic."</p>
+<p>"A what?"</p>
+<p>"A tonic," she repeated. And with a sudden tightening of her
+wide and sensitive mouth, Deborah added slowly, "Because, though
+I've known many hungry boys, Johnny Geer is the hungriest of them
+all&mdash;hungry to get on in life, to grow and learn and get good
+things, get friends, love, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91"
+id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>happiness, everything!" As she spoke of
+this child in her family, over her strong quiet face there swept a
+fierce, intent expression which struck Roger rather cold. What a
+fight she was making, this daughter of his, against what
+overwhelming odds. But all he said to her was this:</p>
+<p>"Now let's look at something more cheerful, my dear."</p>
+<p>"Very well," she answered with a smile. "We'll go and see
+Isadore Freedom."</p>
+<p>"Who's he?"</p>
+<p>"Isadore Freedom," said Deborah, "is the beginning of something
+tremendous. He came from Russian Poland&mdash;and the first
+American word he learned over there was 'freedom.' So in New York
+he changed his name to that&mdash;very solemnly, by due process of
+law. It cost him seven dollars. He had nine dollars at the time.
+Isadore is a flame, a kind of a torch in the wilderness."</p>
+<p>"How does the flame earn his living?"</p>
+<p>"At first in a sweatshop," she replied. "But he came to my
+school five nights a week, and at ten o'clock when school was out
+he went to a little basement caf&eacute;, where he sat at a corner
+table, drank one glass of Russian tea and studied till they closed
+at one. Then he went to his room, he told me, and used to read
+himself to sleep. He slept as a rule four hours. He said he felt he
+needed it. Now he's a librarian earning fifteen dollars a week, and
+having all the money he needs he has put the thought of it out of
+his life and is living for education&mdash;education in freedom.
+For Isadore has studied his name until he thinks he knows what it
+means."</p>
+<p>They found him in a small public library on an ill-smelling
+ghetto street. The place had been packed with people, but the clock
+had just struck ten and the readers were leaving reluctantly, many
+with books under their arms. At sight of Deborah and her father,
+Isadore leaped up from his desk and came quickly to meet them with
+outstretched hands.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id=
+"Page_92"></a>[92]</span>Oh, this is splendid! Good evening!" he
+cried. Hardly more than a boy, perhaps twenty-one, he was short of
+frame but large of limb. He had wide stooping shoulders and reddish
+hollows in his dark cheeks. Yet there was a springiness in his
+step, vigor and warmth in the grip of his hand, in the very curl of
+his thick black hair, in his voice, in his enormous smile.</p>
+<p>"Come," he said to Roger, when the greetings were over. "You
+shall see my library, sir. But I want that you shall not see it
+alone. While you look you must close for me your eyes and see other
+libraries, many, many, all over the world. You must see them in big
+cities and in very little towns to-night. You must see people,
+millions there, hungry, hungry people. Now I shall show you their
+food and their drink." As he spoke he was leading them proudly
+around. In the stacks along the walls he pointed out fiction,
+poetry, history, books of all the sciences.</p>
+<p>"They read all, all!" cried Isadore. "Look at this Darwin on my
+desk. In a year so many have read this book it is a case for the
+board of health. And look at this shelf of economics. I place it
+next to astronomy. And I say to these people, 'Yes, read about jobs
+and your hours and wages. Yes, you must strike, you must have
+better lives. But you must read also about the stars&mdash;and
+about the big spaces&mdash;silent&mdash;not one single little sound
+for many, many million years. To be free you must grow as big as
+that&mdash;inside of your head, inside of your soul. It is not
+enough to be free of a czar, a kaiser or a sweatshop boss. What
+will you do when they are gone? My fine people, how will you run
+the world? You are deaf and blind, you must be free to open your
+own ears and eyes, to look into the books and see what is
+there&mdash;great thoughts and feelings, great ideas! And when you
+have seen, then you must think&mdash;you must think it all out
+every time! That is freedom!'" He stopped abruptly. Again on his
+dark features came a huge and winning <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>smile, and
+with an apologetic shrug, "But I talk too much of my books," he
+said. "Come. Shall we go to my caf&eacute;?"</p>
+<p>On a neighboring street, a few minutes later, down a flight of
+steep wooden stairs they descended into a little caf&eacute;,
+shaped like a tunnel, the ceiling low, the bare walls soiled by
+rubbing elbows, dirty hands, the air blue and hot with smoke. Young
+men and girls packed in at small tables bent over tall glasses of
+Russian tea, and gesturing with their cigarettes declaimed and
+argued excitedly. Quick joyous cries of greeting met Isadore from
+every side.</p>
+<p>"You see?" he said gaily. "This is my club. Here we are like a
+family." He ordered tea of a waiter who seemed more like a bosom
+friend. And leaning eagerly forward, he began to speak in glowing
+terms of the men and girls from sweatshops who spent their nights
+in these feasts of the soul, talking, listening, grappling, "for
+the power to think with minds as clear as the sun when it rises,"
+he ardently cried. "There is not a night in this city, not one,
+when hundreds do not talk like this until the breaking of the day!
+And then they sleep! A little joke! For at six o'clock they must
+rise to their work! And that is a force," he added, "not only for
+those people but a force for you and me. Do you see? When you feel
+tired, when all your hopes are sinking low, you think of those
+people and you say, 'I will go to their places.' And you go. You
+listen and you watch their faces, and such fire makes you burn! You
+go home, you are happy, you have a new life!</p>
+<p>"And perhaps at last you will have a religion," he continued, in
+fervent tones. "You see, with us Jews&mdash;and with Christians,
+too&mdash;the old religion, it is gone. And in its place there is
+nothing strong. And so the young people go all to pieces. They
+dance and they drink. If you go to those dance halls you say, 'They
+are crazy!' For dancing alone is not enough. And you say, 'These
+people must have a religion.' You ask, 'Where can I find a
+new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id=
+"Page_94"></a>[94]</span> God?' And you reply, 'There is no God.'
+And then you must be very sad. You know how it is? You feel too
+free. And you feel scared and lonely. You look up at the stars.
+There are millions. You are only a speck of dust&mdash;on one.</p>
+<p>"But then you come to my library. And you see those hungry
+people&mdash;more hungry than men have ever been. And you see those
+books upon the shelves. And you know when they come together at
+last, when that power to think as clear as the sun comes into the
+souls of those people so hungry, then we shall have a new god for
+the world. For there is no end to what they shall do," Isadore
+ended huskily.</p>
+<p>Roger felt a lump in his throat. He glanced into his daughter's
+eyes and saw a suspicious brightness there. Isadore looked at her
+happily.</p>
+<p>"You see?" he said to Roger. "When she came here to-night she
+was tired, half sick. But now she is all filled with life!"</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Later, on the street outside when Isadore had left them, Deborah
+turned to her father:</p>
+<p>"Before we go home, there's one place more."</p>
+<p>And they went to a building not far away, a new structure twelve
+floors high which rose out of the neighboring tenements. It had
+been built, she told him, by a socialist daily paper. A dull night
+watchman half asleep took them in the elevator up to the top floor
+of the building, where in a bustling, clanking loft the paper was
+just going to press. Deborah seemed to know one of the foremen. He
+smiled and nodded and led the way through the noise and bustle to a
+large glass door at one end. This she opened and stepped out upon a
+fire escape so broad it was more like a balcony. And with the noise
+of the presses subdued, from their high perch they looked silently
+down.</p>
+<p>All around them for miles, it seemed, stretched dark
+un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id=
+"Page_95"></a>[95]</span>even fields of roofs, with the narrow East
+River winding its way through the midst of them to the harbor
+below, silvery, dim and cool and serene, opening to the distant
+sea. From the bridges rearing high over the river, lights by
+thousands sparkled down. But directly below the spot where they
+stood was only a dull hazy glow, rising out of dark tenement
+streets where dimly they could just make out numberless moving
+shadowy forms, restless crowds too hot to sleep. The roofs were
+covered everywhere with men and women and children&mdash;families,
+families, families, all merged together in the dark. And from them
+rose into the night a ceaseless murmur of voices, laughing and
+joking, quarreling, loving and hating, demanding, complaining, and
+fighting and slaving and scheming for bread and the means of stark
+existence. But among these struggling multitudes confusedly did
+Roger feel the brighter presence here and there of more aspiring
+figures, small groups in glaring, stilling rooms down there beneath
+the murky dark, young people fiercely arguing, groping blindly for
+new gods. And all these voices, to his ears, merged into one deep
+thrilling hum, these lights into one quivering glow, that went up
+toward the silent stars.</p>
+<p>And there came to him a feeling which he had often had before in
+many different places&mdash;that he himself was a part of all this,
+the great, blind, wistful soul of mankind, which had been here
+before he was born and would be here when he was dead&mdash;still
+groping, yearning, struggling upward, on and on&mdash;to something
+distant as the sun. And still would he be a part of it all, through
+the eager lives of his children. He turned and looked at Deborah
+and caught the light that was in her eyes.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>CHAPTER
+XII</h2>
+<p>Roger awoke the next morning feeling sore and weary, and later
+in his office it was hard to keep his mind on his work. He thought
+of young Isadore Freedom. He was glad he had met that boy, and so
+he felt toward Deborah's whole terrific family. Confused and
+deafening as it was, there was something inspiring in it all. But
+God save him from many such evenings! For half his life Roger had
+been a collector, not only of rings but of people, too, of curious
+personalities. These human bits, these memories, he had picked up
+as he lived along and had taken them with him and made them his
+own, had trimmed and polished every one until its rough unpleasant
+edges were all nicely smoothed away and it glittered and shone like
+the gem that it was. For Roger was an idealist. And so he would
+have liked to do here. What a gem could be made of Isadore with a
+little careful polishing.</p>
+<p>But Deborah's way was different. She stayed in life, lived in it
+close, with its sharp edges bristling. In this there was something
+splendid, but there was something tragic, too. It was all very well
+for that young Jew to burn himself up with his talk about freedom,
+his feverish searching for new gods. "In five years," Roger told
+himself, "Mr. Isadore Freedom will either tone down or go stark
+mad."</p>
+<p>But quite probably he would tone down, for he was only a
+youngster, these were Isadore's wild oats. But this was no longer
+Deborah's youth, she had been at this job ten years. And she hadn't
+gone mad, she had kept herself sane, she had many sides her father
+knew. He knew her in the mountains, or bustling about at home
+getting <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id=
+"Page_97"></a>[97]</span>ready for Laura's wedding, or packing
+Edith's children off for their summer up at the farm. But did that
+make it any easier? No. To let yourself go was easy, but to keep
+hold of yourself was hard. It meant wear and tear on a woman, this
+constant straining effort to keep her balance and see life
+whole.</p>
+<p>"Well, it will break her down, that's all, and I don't propose
+to allow it," he thought. "She's got to rest this summer and go
+easier next fall."</p>
+<p>But how could he accomplish it? As he thought about her school,
+with its long and generous arms reaching upon every side out into
+the tenements, the prospect was bewildering. He searched for
+something definite. What could he do to prove to his daughter his
+real interest in her work? Presently he remembered Johnny Geer, the
+cripple boy whom he had liked, and at once he began to feel himself
+back again upon known ground. Instead of millions here was one, one
+plucky lad who needed help. All right, by George, he should have
+it! And Roger told his daughter he would be glad to pay the expense
+of sending John away for the summer, and that in the autumn perhaps
+he would take the lad into his office.</p>
+<p>"That's good of you, dearie," Deborah said. It was her only
+comment, but from the look she gave him Roger felt he was getting
+on.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>One evening not long afterwards, as they sat together at dinner,
+she rose unsteadily to her feet and said in a breathless voice,</p>
+<p>"It's rather close in here, isn't it? I think I'll go outside
+for a while." Roger jumped up.</p>
+<p>"Look here, my child, you're faint!" he cried.</p>
+<p>"No, no, it's nothing! Just the heat!" She swayed and reeled,
+pitched suddenly forward. "Father! Quick!" And Roger caught her in
+his arms. He called to the maid, and with her help he carried
+Deborah up to her bed. There <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>she shuddered violently and
+beads of sweat broke out on her brow. Her breath came hard through
+chattering teeth.</p>
+<p>"It's so silly!" she said fiercely.</p>
+<p>But as moments passed the chill grew worse. Her whole body
+seemed to be shaking, and as Roger was rubbing one of her arms she
+said something to him sharply, in a voice so thick he could not
+understand.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I can't feel anything."</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+<p>"In my arm where you're rubbing&mdash;I can't feel your
+hand."</p>
+<p>"You'd better have a doctor!"</p>
+<p>"Telephone Allan&mdash;Allan Baird. He knows about this," she
+muttered. And Roger ran down to the telephone. He was thoroughly
+frightened.</p>
+<p>"All right, Mr. Gale," came Baird's gruff bass, steady and slow,
+"I think I know what the trouble is&mdash;and I wouldn't worry if I
+were you. I'll be there in about ten minutes." And it was hardly
+more than that when he came into Deborah's room. A moment he looked
+down at her.</p>
+<p>"Again?" he said. She glanced up at him and nodded, and smiled
+quickly through set teeth. Baird carefully examined her and then
+turned to Roger: "Now I guess you'd better go out. You stay," he
+added to Sarah, the maid. "I may need you here awhile."</p>
+<p>About an hour later he came down to Roger's study.</p>
+<p>"She's safe enough now, I guess," he said. "I've telephoned for
+a nurse for her, and she'll have to stay in bed a few days."</p>
+<p>"What's the trouble?"</p>
+<p>"Acute indigestion."</p>
+<p>"You don't say!" exclaimed Roger brightly, with a <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>rush of
+deep relief. Baird gave him a dry quizzical smile.</p>
+<p>"People have died of that," he remarked, "in less than an hour.
+We caught your daughter just in time. May I stay a few
+moments?"</p>
+<p>"Glad to have you! Smoke a cigar!"</p>
+<p>"Thanks&mdash;I will." As Baird reached out for the proffered
+cigar, Roger suddenly noticed his hand. Long and muscular, finely
+shaped, it seemed to speak of strength and skill and an immense
+vitality. Baird settled himself in his chair. "I want to talk about
+her," he said. "This little attack is only a symptom&mdash;it comes
+from nerves. She's just about ready for a smash. She's had slighter
+attacks of this kind before."</p>
+<p>"I never knew it," Roger said.</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;I don't suppose you did. Your daughter has a habit of
+keeping things like this to herself. She came to me and I warned
+her, but she wanted to finish out her year. Do you know anything
+about her school work?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I was with her there this week."</p>
+<p>"What did she show you?" Baird inquired. Roger tried to tell
+him. "No, that's not what I'm after," he said. "That's just one of
+her usual evenings." For a moment he smoked in silence. "I'm
+hunting now for something else, for some unusual nervous shock
+which she appears to me to have had."</p>
+<p>"She has!" And Roger told him of her visit up to Sing Sing.
+Baird's lean muscular right hand slowly tightened on his chair.</p>
+<p>"That's a tough family of hers," he remarked.</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger determinedly, "and she's got to give it
+up."</p>
+<p>"You mean she ought to. But she won't."</p>
+<p>"She's got to be made to," Roger growled. "This summer at
+least." Baird shook his head.</p>
+<p>"You forget her fresh air work," he replied. "She has
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id=
+"Page_100"></a>[100]</span>three thousand children on her mind. The
+city will be like a furnace, of course, and the children must be
+sent to camps. If you don't see the necessity, go and talk to her,
+and then you will."</p>
+<p>"But you can forbid it, can't you?"</p>
+<p>"No. Can you?"</p>
+<p>"I can try," snapped Roger.</p>
+<p>"Let's try what's possible," said Baird. "Let's try to keep her
+in bed three days."</p>
+<p>"Sounds modest," Roger grunted. And a glimmer of amusement came
+into Baird's impassive eyes.</p>
+<p>"Try it," he drawled. "By to-morrow night she'll ask for her
+stenographer. She'll make you think she is out of the woods. But
+she won't be, please remember that. A few years more," he added,
+"and she'll have used up her vitality. She'll be an old woman at
+thirty-five."</p>
+<p>"It's got to be stopped!" cried Roger.</p>
+<p>"But how?" came the low sharp retort. "You've got to know her
+trouble first. And her trouble is deep, it's motherhood&mdash;on a
+scale which has never been tried before&mdash;for thousands of
+children, all of whom are living in a kind of hell. I know your
+daughter pretty well. Don't make the mistake of mixing her up with
+the old-fashioned teacher. It isn't what those children learn, it's
+how they live that interests her, and how they are all growing up.
+I say she's a mother&mdash;in spirit&mdash;but her body has never
+borne a child. And that makes it worse&mdash;because it makes her
+more intense. It isn't natural, you see."</p>
+<p>A little later he rose to go.</p>
+<p>"By the way," he said, at the door, "there's something I meant
+to tell her upstairs&mdash;about a poor devil she has on her mind.
+A chap named Berry&mdash;dying&mdash;lungs. She asked me to go and
+see him."</p>
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+<p>"I found it was only a matter of days." The tragic pity in
+Baird's quiet voice was so deep as barely to be heard.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id=
+"Page_101"></a>[101]</span>So I shot him full of morphine. He won't
+wake up. Please tell her that."</p>
+<p>Tall, ungainly, motionless, he loomed there in the doorway. With
+a little shrug and a smile he turned and went slowly out of the
+house.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span>CHAPTER
+XIII</h2>
+<p>Deborah's recovery was rapid and determined. The next night she
+was sitting up and making light of her illness. On the third day
+she dismissed her nurse, and when her father came home from his
+office he found gathered about her bed not only her stenographer
+but both her assistant principals. He frowned severely and went to
+his room, and a few minutes later he heard them leave. Presently
+she called to him, and he came to her bedside. She was lying back
+on the pillow with rather a guilty expression.</p>
+<p>"Up to your old antics, eh?" he remarked.</p>
+<p>"Exactly. It couldn't be helped, you see. It's the last week of
+our school year, and there are so many little things that have to
+be attended to. It's simply now or never."</p>
+<p>"Humph!" was Roger's comment. "It's now or never with you," he
+thought. He went down to his dinner, and when he came back he found
+her exhausted. In the dim soft light of her room her face looked
+flushed and feverish, and vaguely he felt she was in a mood where
+she might listen to reason. He felt her hot dry hand on his. Her
+eyes were closed, she was smiling.</p>
+<p>"Tell me the news from the mountains," she said. And he gave her
+the gossip of the farm in a letter he had had from George. It told
+of a picnic supper, the first one of the season. They had had it in
+the usual place, down by the dam on the river, "with a
+bonfire&mdash;a perfect peach&mdash;down by the big yellow
+rock&mdash;the one you call the Elephant." As Roger read the letter
+he could feel his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id=
+"Page_103"></a>[103]</span>daughter listening, vividly picturing to
+herself the great dark boulders by the creek, the shadowy firs, the
+stars above and the cool fresh tang of the mountain night.</p>
+<p>"After this little sickness of yours&mdash;and that harum scarum
+wedding," he said, "I feel we're both entitled to a good long rest
+in mountain air."</p>
+<p>"We'll have it, too," she murmured.</p>
+<p>"With Edith's little youngsters. They're all the medicine you
+need." He paused for a moment, hesitating. But it was now or never.
+"The only trouble with you," he said, "is that you've let yourself
+be caught by the same disease which has its grip upon this whole
+infernal town. You're like everyone else, you're tackling about
+forty times what you can do. You're actually trying not only to
+teach but to bring 'em all up as your own, three thousand tenement
+children. And this is where it gets you."</p>
+<p>Again he halted, frowning. What next?</p>
+<p>"Go on, dear, please," said Deborah, in demure and even tones.
+"This is very interesting."</p>
+<p>"Now then," he continued, "in this matter of your school. I
+wouldn't ask you to give it up, I've already seen too much of it.
+But so long as you've got it nicely started, why not give somebody
+else a chance? One of those assistants of yours, for
+example&mdash;capable young women, both. You could stand right
+behind 'em with help and advice&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Not yet," was Deborah's soft reply. She had turned her head on
+her pillow and was looking at him affectionately. "Why not?" he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>"Because it's not nicely started at all. There's nothing
+brilliant about me, dear&mdash;I'm a plodder, feeling my way along.
+And what I have done in the last ten years is just coming to a
+stage at last where I can really see a chance to make it count for
+something. When I feel I've done that, say in five years
+more&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id=
+"Page_104"></a>[104]</span>Those five years," said her father, "may
+cost you a very heavy price." As Deborah faced his troubled regard,
+her own grew quickly serious.</p>
+<p>"I'd be willing to pay the price," she replied.</p>
+<p>"But why?" he asked with impatience. "Why pay when you don't
+have to? Why not by taking one year off get strength for twenty
+years' work later on? You'd be a different woman!"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I think I should be. I'd never be the same again. You
+don't quite understand, you see. This work of mine with
+children&mdash;well, it's like Edith's having a baby. You have to
+do it while you're young."</p>
+<p>"That works both ways," her father growled.</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" He hesitated:</p>
+<p>"Don't you want any children of your own?"</p>
+<p>Again she turned her eyes toward his, then closed them and lay
+perfectly still. "Now I've done it," he thought anxiously. She
+reached over and took his hand.</p>
+<p>"Let's talk of our summer's vacation," she said.</p>
+<p>A little while later she fell asleep.</p>
+<p>Downstairs he soon grew restless and after a time he went out
+for a walk. But he felt tired and oppressed, and as he had often
+done of late he entered a little "movie" nearby, where gradually
+the pictures, continually flashing out of the dark, drove the
+worries from his mind. For a half an hour they held his gaze. Then
+he fell into a doze. He was roused by a roar of laughter, and
+straightening up in his seat with a jerk he looked angrily around.
+Something broadly comic had been flashed upon the screen; and men
+and women and children, Italians, Jews and Irish, jammed in close
+about him, a dirty and perspiring mass, had burst into a terrific
+guffaw. Now they were suddenly tense again and watching the screen
+in absorbed suspense, while the crude passions within themselves
+were played upon in the glamorous dark. And Roger scanned their
+faces&mdash;one moment smiling, all together, as though
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id=
+"Page_105"></a>[105]</span>some god had pulled a string; then
+mawkish, sentimental, soft; then suddenly scowling, twitching, with
+long rows of animal eyes. But eager&mdash;eager all the time!
+Hungry people&mdash;yes, indeed! Hungry for all the good things in
+the town, and for as many bad things, too! On one who tried to feed
+this mob there was no end to their demands! What was one woman's
+life to them? Deborah's big family!</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Edith came to the house one afternoon, and she was in Deborah's
+room when her father returned from his office. Her convalescence
+over at last, she was leaving for the mountains.</p>
+<p>"Do learn your lesson, Deborah dear," she urged upon her sister.
+"Let Sarah pack your trunk at once and come up with me on Saturday
+night."</p>
+<p>"I can't get off for two weeks yet."</p>
+<p>"Why can't you?" Edith demanded. And when Deborah spoke of fresh
+air camps and baby farms and other work, Edith's impatience only
+grew. "You'll have to leave it to somebody else! You're simply in
+no condition!" she cried.</p>
+<p>"Impossible," said Deborah. Edith gave a quick sigh of
+exasperation.</p>
+<p>"Isn't it enough," she asked, "to have worked your nerves to a
+frazzle already? Why can't you be sensible? You've got to think of
+yourself a little!"</p>
+<p>"You'd like me to marry, wouldn't you, dear?" her sister put in
+wearily.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I should, while there is still time! Just now you look far
+from it! It's exactly as Allan was saying! If you keep on as you're
+going you'll be an old woman at thirty-five!"</p>
+<p>"Thank you!" said Deborah sharply. Two spots of color leaped in
+her checks. "You'd better leave me, Edith! I'll come up to the
+mountains as soon as I can!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106"
+id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> And I'll try not to look any more
+like a hag than I have to! Good-night!"</p>
+<p>Roger followed Edith out of the room.</p>
+<p>"That last shot of mine struck home," she declared to him in
+triumph.</p>
+<p>"I wouldn't have done it," her father said. "I gave you that
+remark of Baird's in strict confidence, Edith&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Now father," was her good-humored retort, "suppose you leave
+this matter to me. I know just what I'm doing."</p>
+<p>"Well," he reflected uneasily, after she had left him, "here's
+more trouble in the family. If Edith isn't careful she'll make a
+fine mess of this whole affair."</p>
+<p>After dinner he went up to Deborah's room, but through the open
+doorway he caught a glimpse of his daughter which made him
+instinctively draw back. Sitting bolt upright in her bed, sternly
+she was eyeing herself in a small mirror in her hand. Her father
+chuckled noiselessly. A moment later, when he went in, the glass
+had disappeared from view. Soon afterwards Baird himself arrived,
+and as they heard him coming upstairs Roger saw his daughter frown,
+but she continued talking.</p>
+<p>"Hello, Allan," she said with indifference. "I'm feeling much
+better this evening."</p>
+<p>"Are you? Good," he answered, and he started to pull up an easy
+chair. "I was hoping I could stay awhile&mdash;I've been having one
+of those long mean days&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I'd a little rather you wouldn't," Deborah put in softly. Allan
+turned to her in surprise. "I didn't sleep last night," she
+murmured, "and I feel so drowsy." There was a little silence. "And
+I really don't think there's any need of your dropping in
+to-morrow," she added. "I'm so much better&mdash;honestly."</p>
+<p>Baird looked at her a moment.</p>
+<p>"Right&mdash;O," he answered slowly. "I'll call up to-morrow
+night."</p>
+<p>Roger followed him downstairs.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id=
+"Page_107"></a>[107]</span>Come into my den and smoke a cigar!" he
+proposed in hearty ringing tones. Allan thanked him and came in,
+but the puzzled expression was still on his face, and through the
+first moments of their talk he was very absent-minded. Roger's
+feeling of guilt increased, and he cursed himself for a meddlesome
+fool.</p>
+<p>"Look here, Baird," he blurted out, "there's something I think
+you ought to know." Allan slightly turned his head, and Roger
+reddened a little. "The worst thing about living in a house chock
+full of meddling women is that you get to be one yourself," he
+growled. "And the fact is&mdash;" he cleared his throat&mdash;"I've
+put my foot in it, Baird," he said. "I was fool enough the other
+day to quote you to Edith."</p>
+<p>"To what effect?"</p>
+<p>"That if Deborah keeps on like this she'll be an old woman at
+thirty-five."</p>
+<p>Allan sat up in his chair:</p>
+<p>"Was Edith here this afternoon?"</p>
+<p>"She was," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"Say no more."</p>
+<p>Baird had a wide, likable, generous mouth which wrinkled easily
+into a smile. He leaned back now and enjoyed himself. He puffed a
+little cloud of smoke, looked over at Roger and chuckled aloud. And
+Roger chuckled with relief. "What a decent chap he is," he
+thought.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry, of course," he said to Baird. "I thought of trying
+to explain&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Don't," said Allan. "Leave it alone. It won't do Deborah any
+harm&mdash;may even do her a little good. After all, I'm her
+physician&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Are you?" Roger asked with a twinkle. "I thought upstairs you
+were dismissed."</p>
+<p>"Oh no, I'm not," was the calm reply. And the two men went on
+smoking. Roger's liking for Baird was growing fast. They had had
+several little talks during Deb<span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>orah's illness, and Roger
+was learning more of the man. Raised on a big cattle ranch that his
+father had owned in New Mexico, riding broncos on the plains had
+given him his abounding health of body, nerve and spirit, his
+steadiness and sanity in all this feverish city life.</p>
+<p>"Are you riding these days?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"No," said Roger, "the park is too hot&mdash;and they don't
+sprinkle the path as they should. I've had my cob sent up to the
+mountains. By the way," he added cordially, "you must come up there
+and ride with me."</p>
+<p>"Thanks, I'd like to," Allan said, and with a little inner smile
+he added dryly to himself, "He's getting ready to meddle again."
+But whatever amusement Baird had in this thought was concealed
+behind his sober gray eyes. Soon after that he took his leave.</p>
+<p>"Now then," Roger reflected, with a little glow of expectancy,
+"if Edith will only leave me alone, she may find I'm smarter then
+she thinks!"</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>One evening in the following week, after Edith had left town,
+Roger had Bruce to dine at his club, a pleasant old building on
+Madison Square, where comfortably all by themselves they could
+discuss Baird's chances.</p>
+<p>"A. Baird and I have been chums," said Bruce, "ever since we
+were in college. Take it from me I know his brand. And he isn't the
+kind to be pushed."</p>
+<p>"Who wants to push him?" Roger demanded, with a sudden guilty
+twinge.</p>
+<p>"Edith does," Bruce answered. "And I tell you that won't do with
+A. Baird. He has his mind set on Deborah sure. He's been setting it
+harder and harder for months&mdash;and he knows it&mdash;and so
+does she. But they're both the kind of people who don't like
+interference, they've got to get to it by themselves. Edith must
+keep out of the way. She mustn't take it on herself to ask him up
+to the moun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id=
+"Page_109"></a>[109]</span>tains." Roger gave a little start. "If
+she does, there'll be trouble with Deborah."</p>
+<p>Roger smoked for a moment in silence and then sagely nodded his
+head.</p>
+<p>"That's so," he murmured thoughtfully. "Yes, my boy, I guess
+you're right."</p>
+<p>Bruce lifted his mint julep:</p>
+<p>"God, but it's hot in here to-night. How about taking a spin up
+the river?"</p>
+<p>"Delighted," replied his father-in-law.</p>
+<p>And a half hour later in Bruce's new car, which was the pride
+and joy of his life, they were far up the river. On a long level
+stretch of road Bruce "let her out to show what she could do." And
+Roger with his heart in his mouth and his eye upon the speedometer,
+saw it creep to sixty-three.</p>
+<p>"Almost as good as a horse," remarked Bruce, when the car had
+slowed a little.</p>
+<p>"Almost," said Roger, "but not quite. It's&mdash;well, it's
+dissipation."</p>
+<p>"And a horse?"</p>
+<p>"Is life," was the grave reply. "You'll have a crash some day,
+my boy, if you go on at your present speed. It gets me worried
+sometimes. You see you're a family man."</p>
+<p>"I am and I'm glad of it. Edith and the kiddies suit me right
+down to the ground. I'm crazy about 'em&mdash;you know that. But a
+chap with a job like mine," Bruce continued pleadingly, as he drove
+his car rushing around a curve, "needs a little dissipation, too. I
+can't tell you what it means to me, when I'm kept late at the
+office, to have this car for the run up home. Lower Broadway's
+empty then, and I know the cops. I swing around through Washington
+Square, and the Avenue looks clear for miles, nothing but two long
+rows of lights to the big hump at Murray Hill. It's the time
+between crowds&mdash;say about ten. And I know the cops."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id=
+"Page_110"></a>[110]</span>That's all right," said Roger. "No one
+was more delighted than I when you got this car. You deserve it.
+It's the <i>work</i> that I was speaking of. You've got it going at
+such a speed&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Only way on earth to get on&mdash;to get what I want for my
+family&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know," muttered Roger vaguely. Bruce began talking
+of his work for the steel construction concern downtown.</p>
+<p>"Take it from me," he declared at the end, "this town has only
+just begun!"</p>
+<p>"Has, eh," Roger grunted. "Aren't the buildings high
+enough?"</p>
+<p>"My God, I wish they were twenty times higher," Bruce rejoined
+good-humoredly. "But they won't be&mdash;we've stopped going up.
+We've done pretty well in the air, and now we're going underground.
+And when we get through, this old rock of Manhattan will be such a
+network of tunnels there'll be a hole waiting at every corner to
+take you wherever you want to go. Speed? We don't even know what it
+means!"</p>
+<p>And again Bruce "let her out" a bit. It was <i>quite</i> a bit.
+Roger grabbed his hat with one hand and the side of the car with
+the other.</p>
+<p>"They'll look back on a mile a minute," said Bruce, "as we look
+back on stage coach days! And in the rush hour there'll be a rush
+that'll make you think of pneumatic tubes! Not a sound nor a
+quiver&mdash;<i>just pure speed!</i> Shooting people home at night
+at a couple of hundred miles an hour! The city will be as big as
+that! And there won't be any accidents and there won't be any
+smoke. Instead of coal they'll use the sun! And, my God, man, the
+boulevards&mdash;and parks and places for the kids! The way they'll
+use the River&mdash;and the ocean and the Sound! The Catskills will
+be Central Park! Sounds funny, don't it&mdash;but it's true. I've
+studied it out from A to Z. This town is <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>choking
+itself to death simply because we're so damn slow! We don't know
+how to spread ourselves! All this city needs is speed!"</p>
+<p>"Bruce," said Roger anxiously, "just go a bit easy on that gas.
+The fact is, it was a great mistake for me to eat those crabs
+to-night."</p>
+<p>Bruce slowed down compassionately, and soon they turned and
+started home. And as they drew near the glow of the town, other
+streets and boulevards poured more motors into the line, until at
+last they were rushing along amid a perfect bedlam made up of honks
+and shrieks of horns. The air grew hot and acrid, and looking back
+through the bluish haze of smoke and dust behind him Roger could
+see hundreds of huge angry motor eyes. Crowding and jamming closer,
+pell mell, at a pace which barely slackened, they sped on, a wild
+uproarious crew, and swept into the city.</p>
+<p>Roger barely slept that night. He felt the city clamoring down
+into his very soul. "Speed!" he muttered viciously.
+"Speed&mdash;speed! We need more speed!" The words beat in like a
+savage refrain. At last with a sigh of impatience he got up in his
+nightshirt and walked about. It was good to feel his way in the
+dark in this cool silent house which he knew so well. Soon his
+nerves felt quieter. He went back to his bed and lay there inert.
+How good it would be to get up to the farm.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>The next Saturday evening, with Deborah, he started for the
+mountains. And Bruce came down to see them off.</p>
+<p>"Remember, son," said Roger, as the two walked on the platform.
+"Come up this year for a month, my boy. You need it." The train was
+about to start.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'll be all right," was the answer. "My friend the Judge,
+who has hay fever, tells me he has found a cure."</p>
+<p>"Damn his cure! You come to us!"</p>
+<p>"Hold on a minute, live and learn. The Judge is quite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id=
+"Page_112"></a>[112]</span>excited about it. You drink little bugs,
+he says, a billion after every meal. They come in tall blue
+bottles. We're going to dine together next week and drink 'em till
+we're all lit up. Oh, we're going to have a hell of a time.
+<i>His</i> wife left town on Tuesday."</p>
+<p>"Bruce," said Roger sternly, as the train began to move, "leave
+bugs alone and come up and breathe! And quit smoking so many
+cigarettes!" He stepped on the car.</p>
+<p>"Remember, son, a solid month!" Bruce nodded as the train moved
+out.</p>
+<p>"Good luck&mdash;good-bye&mdash;fine summer&mdash;my love to the
+wife and the kiddies&mdash;" and Bruce's dark, tense, smiling face
+was left behind. Roger went back into the smoker.</p>
+<p>"Now for the mountains," he thought. "Thank God!"</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>CHAPTER
+XIV</h2>
+<p>A few hours later Roger awakened. His lower berth was still
+pitch dark. The train had stopped, and he had been roused by a
+voice outside his window. Rough and slow and nasal, the leisurely
+drawl of a mountaineer, it came like balm to Roger's ears. He
+raised the curtain and looked out. A train hand with a lantern was
+listening to a dairy man, a tall young giant in top boots. High
+overhead loomed a shadowy mountain and over its rim came the glow
+of the dawn. With a violent lurch the train moved on. And Roger,
+lying back on his pillow, looked up at the misty mountain sides all
+mottled in the strange blue light with patches of firs and birches
+and pines. In the narrow valley up which the train was thundering,
+were small herds of grazing cattle, a lonely farmhouse here and
+there. From one a light was twinkling. And the city with its heat
+and noise, its nervous throb, its bedlam nights, all dropped like a
+fever from his soul.</p>
+<p>Now, close by the railroad track, through a shallow rocky gorge
+a small river roared and foamed. Its cool breath came up to his
+nostrils and gratefully he breathed it in. For this was the Gale
+River, named after one of his forefathers, and in his mind's eye he
+followed the stream back up its course to the little station where
+he and Deborah were to get off. There the narrowing river bed
+turned and wound up through a cleft in the hills to the homestead
+several miles away. On the dark forest road beside it he pictured
+George, his grandson, at this moment driving down to meet them in a
+mountain wagon with one of the two hired men, a lantern swinging
+under the wheels. What an adventure for young George.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id=
+"Page_114"></a>[114]</span>Presently he heard Deborah stirring in
+the berth next to his own.</p>
+<p>At the station George was there, and from a thermos bottle which
+Edith had filled the night before he poured coffee piping hot,
+which steamed in the keen, frosty air.</p>
+<p>"Oh, how good!" cried Deborah. "How thoughtful of your mother,
+George. How is she, dear?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, she's all right, Aunt Deborah." His blunt freckled features
+flushed from his drive, George stood beaming on them both. He
+appeared, if anything, tougher and scrawnier than before.
+"Everything's all right," he said. "There ain't a sick animal on
+the whole farm."</p>
+<p>As Roger sipped his coffee he was having a look at the horses.
+One of them was William, his cob.</p>
+<p>"Do you see it?" inquired his grandson.</p>
+<p>"What?"</p>
+<p>"The boil," George answered proudly, "on William's rump. There
+it is&mdash;on the nigh side. Gee, but you ought to have seen it
+last week. It was a whale of a boil," said George, "but we
+poulticed him, me and Dave did&mdash;and now the swelling's nearly
+gone. You can ride him to-morrow if you like."</p>
+<p>Luxuriously Roger lit a cigar and climbed to the front seat with
+George. Up the steep and crooked road the stout horses tugged their
+way, and the wagon creaked, and the Gale River, here only a brook,
+came gurgling, dashing to meet them&mdash;down from the mountains,
+from the farm, from Roger's youth to welcome him home. And the sun
+was flashing through the pines. As they drew near the farmhouse
+through a grove of sugar maples, he heard shrill cries of, "There
+they come!" And he glimpsed the flying figures of George's
+brothers, Bob and Tad. George whipped up the horses, the wagon
+gained upon the boys and reached the house but a few rods behind
+the little runners. Edith was waiting by the door, fresh and
+smiling, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id=
+"Page_115"></a>[115]</span>blooming with health. How well this
+suited her, Roger thought. Amid a gay chorus of greetings he
+climbed down heavily out of the wagon, looked about him and drew a
+deep breath. The long lazy days on the farm had begun.</p>
+<p>From the mountain side the farm looked down on a wide sweeping
+valley of woods and fields. The old house straggled along the road,
+with addition after addition built on through generations by many
+men and women. Here lay the history, unread, of the family of Roger
+Gale. Inside there were steps up and down from one part to another,
+queer crooks in narrow passageways. The lower end was attached to
+the woodshed, and the woodshed to the barn. Above the house a
+pasture dotted with gray boulders extended up to a wood of firs,
+and out of this wood the small river which bore the name of the
+family came rushing down the field in a gully, went under the road,
+swept around to the right and along the edge of a birch copse just
+below the house. The little stream grew quieter there and widened
+into a mill pond. At the lower end was a broken dam and beside it a
+dismantled mill. Here was peace for Roger's soul. The next day at
+dawn he awakened, and through the window close by his bed he saw no
+tall confining walls; his eye was carried as on wings out over a
+billowy blanket of mist, soft and white and cool and still,
+reaching over the valley. From underneath to his sensitive ears
+came the numberless voices of the awakening sleepers there, cheeps
+and tremulous warbles from the birch copse just below, cocks
+crowing in the valley, and ducks and geese, dogs, sheep and cattle
+faintly heard from distant farms. Just so it had been when he was a
+boy. How unchanged and yet how new were these fresh hungry cries of
+life. From the other end of the house he heard Edith's tiny son
+lustily demanding his breakfast, as other wee boys before him had
+done for over a hundred years, as other babies still unborn would
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id=
+"Page_116"></a>[116]</span>do in the many years to come. Soon the
+cry of the child was hushed. Quiet fell upon the house. And Roger
+sank again into deep happy slumber.</p>
+<p>Here was nothing new and disturbing. Edith's children? Yes, they
+were new, but they were not disturbing. Their growth each summer
+was a joy, a renewal of life in the battered old house. Here was no
+huge tenement family crowding in with dirty faces, clamorous
+demands for aid, but only five delightful youngsters, clean and
+fresh, of his own blood. He loved the small excitements, the plans
+and plots and discoveries, the many adventures that filled their
+days. He spent hours with their mother, listening while she talked
+of them. Edith did so love this place and she ran the house so
+beautifully. It was so cool and fragrant, so clean and so
+old-fashioned.</p>
+<p>Deborah, too, came under the spell. She grew as lazy as a cat
+and day by day renewed her strength from the hills and from Edith's
+little brood. Roger had feared trouble there, for he knew how Edith
+disapproved of her sister's new ideas. But although much with the
+children, Deborah apparently had no new ideas at all. She seemed to
+be only listening. One balmy day at sunset, Roger saw her lying on
+the grass with George sprawled by her side. Her head upon one arm,
+she appeared to be watching the cattle in the sloping pasture
+above. Slowly, as though each one of them was drawn by mysterious
+unseen chains, they were drifting down toward the barn where it was
+almost milking time. George was talking earnestly. She threw a
+glance at him from time to time, and Roger could see how intent
+were her eyes. Yes, Deborah knew how to study a boy.</p>
+<p>Only once during the summer did she talk about her work. On a
+walk with her father one day she took him into a small forlorn
+building, a mere cabin of one room. The white paint had long been
+worn away, the windows were all broken, half the old shingles had
+dropped from <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id=
+"Page_117"></a>[117]</span>the roof and on the flagpole was no
+flag. It was the district schoolhouse where for nearly half his
+life Deborah's grandfather had taught a score of pupils. Inside
+were a blackboard, a rusty stove, a teacher's desk and a dozen
+forms, grown mouldy and worm-eaten now. A torn and faded picture of
+Lincoln was upon one wall, half hidden by a spider's web and by a
+few old dangling rags which once had been red, white and blue.
+Below, still clinging to the wall, was an old scrap of paper, on
+which in a large rugged hand there had been written long ago a
+speech, but it had been worn away until but three words were
+legible&mdash;"conceived and dedicated&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Tell me about your school," she said. "All you can remember."
+Seated at her grandfather's desk she asked Roger many questions.
+And his recollections, at first dim and hazy, began to clear a
+little.</p>
+<p>"By George!" he exclaimed. "Here are my initials!"</p>
+<p>He stooped over one of the benches.</p>
+<p>"Oh, dearie! Where?" He pointed them out, and then while he sat
+on the rude old bench for some time more she questioned him.</p>
+<p>"But your school was not all here," she said musingly at last,
+"it was up on the farm, besides, where you learned to plough and
+sow and reap and take care of the animals in the barn, and mend
+things that were broken, and&mdash;oh, turn your hand to anything.
+But millions of children nowadays are growing up in cities, you
+see."</p>
+<p>Half frowning and half smiling she began to talk of her work in
+town. "What is there about her," Roger asked, "that reminds me so
+of my mother?" His mind strayed back into the past while the low
+quiet voice of his daughter went on, and a wistful expression crept
+over his face. What would she do with the family name? What life
+would she lead in those many years?... "What a mother she would
+make." The words rose from within him, but in a voice which was not
+his own. It was Deb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id=
+"Page_118"></a>[118]</span>orah's grandmother speaking, so clearly
+and distinctly that he gave a start almost of alarm.</p>
+<p>"And if you don't believe they'll do it," Deborah was saying,
+"you don't know what's in children. Only we've got to help bring it
+out." What had she been talking about? He remembered the words "a
+new nation"&mdash;no more. "We've got to grope around in the dark
+and hunt for new ways and learn as we go. And when you've once got
+into the work and really felt the thrill of it all&mdash;well, then
+it seems rather foolish and small to bother about your own little
+life."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Roger spent much of his time alone. He took long rides on
+William along crooked, hilly roads. As the afternoon drew to its
+end, the shadows would creep up the mountain sides to their summits
+where glowed the last rays of the sun, painting the slate and
+granite crags in lovely pink and purple hues. And sometimes mighty
+banks of clouds would rear themselves high overhead, gigantic
+mountains of the air with billowy, misty caverns, cliffs and jagged
+peaks, all shifting there before his eyes. And he would think of
+Judith his wife. And the old haunting certainty, that her soul had
+died with her body, was gone. There came to him the feeling that he
+and his wife would meet again. Why did this hope come back to him?
+Was it all from the glory of the sun? Or was it from the presence,
+silent and invisible, of those many other mortals, folk of his own
+flesh and blood, who at their deaths had gone to their graves to
+put on immortality? Or was this deepening faith in Roger simply a
+sign of his growing old age?</p>
+<p>He frowned at the thought and shook it off, and again stared up
+at the light on the hills. "You will live on in our children's
+lives." Was there no other immortality?</p>
+<p>He often thought of his boyhood here. On a ride one day he
+stopped for a drink at a spring in a grove of maples surrounding a
+desolate farmhouse not more than a mile <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>away
+from his own. And through the trees as he turned to go he saw the
+stark figure of a woman, poorly clad and gaunt and gray. She stood
+motionless watching him with a look of sullen bitterness. She was
+the last of "the Elkinses," a mountain family run to seed. As he
+rode away he saw in the field a boy with a pitchfork in his hands,
+a meager ragged little chap. He was staring into the valley at a
+wriggling, blue smoke serpent made by the night express to New
+York. And something leaped in Roger, for he had once felt just like
+that! But the woman's harsh voice cut in on his dream, as she
+shouted to her son below, "Hey! Why the hell you standin' thar?"
+And the boy with a jump of alarm turned back quickly to his work.
+At home a few days later, George with a mysterious air took his
+grandfather into the barn, and after a pledge of secrecy he said in
+swift and thrilling tones, "You know young Bill Elkins? Yes, you
+do&mdash;the boy up on the Elkins place who lives alone with his
+mother. Well, look here!" George swallowed hard. "Bill has cleared
+out&mdash;he's run away! I was up at five this morning and he came
+hiking down the road! He had a bundle on his back and he told me he
+was off for good! And was he scared? You bet he was scared! And I
+told him so and it made him mad! 'Aw, you're scared!' I said. 'I
+ain't neither!' he said. He could barely talk, but the kid had his
+nerve! 'Where you going?' I asked. 'To New York,' he said. 'Aw,
+what do you know of New York?' I said. And then, by golly, he
+busted right down. 'Gee!' he said, 'Gee! Can't you lemme alone?'
+And then he beat it down the road! You could hear the kid breathe,
+he was hustling so! He's way off now, he's caught the train! He
+wants to be a cabin boy on a big ocean liner!" For a moment there
+was silence. "Well?" the boy demanded, "What do you think of his
+chances?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know," said Roger huskily. He felt a tightening at his
+throat. Abruptly he turned to his grandson.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id=
+"Page_120"></a>[120]</span>George," he asked, "what do <i>you</i>
+want to be?" The boy flushed under his freckles.</p>
+<p>"I don't know as I know. I'm thinking," he answered very
+slowly.</p>
+<p>"Talk it over with your mother, son."</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," came the prompt reply. "But he won't," reflected
+Roger.</p>
+<p>"Or if you ever feel you want to, have a good long talk with
+me."</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," was the answer. Roger stood there waiting, then
+turned and walked slowly out of the barn. How these children grew
+up inside of themselves. Had boys always grown like that? Well,
+perhaps, but how strange it was. Always new lives, lives of their
+own, the old families scattering over the land. So the great life
+of the nation swept on. He kept noticing here deserted farms, and
+one afternoon in the deepening dusk he rode by a graveyard high up
+on a bare hillside. A horse and buggy were outside, and within he
+spied a lean young woman neatly dressed in a plain dark suit. With
+a lawn mower brought from home she was cutting the grass on her
+family lot. And she seemed to fit into the landscape. New England
+had grown very old.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Late one night toward the end of July, there came a loud honk
+from down the hill, then another and another. And as George in his
+pajamas came rushing from his bedroom shouting radiantly, "Gee!
+It's dad!"&mdash;they heard the car thundering outside. Bruce had
+left New York at dawn and had made the run in a single day, three
+hundred and eleven miles. He was gray with dust all over and he was
+worn and hollow eyed, but his dark visage wore a look of solid
+satisfaction.</p>
+<p>"I needed the trip to shake me down," he pleaded, when Edith
+scolded him well for this terrific manner of starting his vacation.
+"I had to have it to cut me off <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span>from the job I left behind
+me. Now watch me settle down on this farm."</p>
+<p>But it appeared he could not settle down. For the first few
+days, in his motor, he was busy exploring the mountains. "We'll
+make 'em look foolish. Eh, son?" he said. And with George, who
+mutely adored him, he ran all about them in a day. Genially he gave
+everyone rides. When he'd finished with the family, he took Dave
+Royce the farmer and his wife and children, and even both the hired
+men, for Bruce was an hospitable soul. But more than anyone else he
+took George. They spent hours working on the car, and at times when
+they came into the house begreased and blackened from their work,
+Edith reproved them like bad boys&mdash;but Deborah smiled
+contentedly.</p>
+<p>But at the end of another week Bruce grew plainly restless, and
+despite his wife's remonstrances made ready to return to town. When
+she spoke of his hay fever he bragged to her complacently of his
+newly discovered cure.</p>
+<p>"Oh, bother your little blue bugs!" she cried.</p>
+<p>"The bugs aren't blue," he explained to her, in a mild and
+patient voice that drove Edith nearly wild. "They're so little they
+have no color at all. Poor friendly little devils&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Bruce!" his wife exploded.</p>
+<p>"They've been almighty good to me. You ought to have heard my
+friend the Judge, the last night I was with him. He patted his
+bottle and said to me, 'Bruce, my boy, with all these simple
+animals right here as our companions why be a damn fool and run off
+to the cows?' And there's a good deal in what he says. You ought to
+be mighty thankful, too, that my summer pleasures are so mild. If
+you could see what some chaps do&mdash;"</p>
+<p>And Bruce started back for the city. George rode with him the
+first few miles, then left him and came trudging home. His spirits
+were exceedingly low.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id=
+"Page_122"></a>[122]</span>As August drew toward a close, Deborah,
+too, showed signs of unrest. With ever growing frequency Roger felt
+her eagerness to return to her work in New York.</p>
+<p>"You're as bad as Bruce," he growled at her. "You don't have to
+be back," he argued. "School doesn't begin for nearly three
+weeks."</p>
+<p>"There's the suffrage campaign," she answered. He gave her a
+look of exasperation.</p>
+<p>"Now what the devil has suffrage to do with your schools?" he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>"When the women get the vote, we'll spend more money on the
+children."</p>
+<p>"Suppose the money isn't there," was Roger's grim rejoinder.</p>
+<p>"Then we'll act like old-fashioned wives, I suppose," his
+daughter answered cheerfully, "and keep nagging till it is there.
+We'll keep up such a nagging," she added, in sweet even tones,
+"that you'll get the money by hook or crook, to save yourselves
+from going insane."</p>
+<p>After this he caught her reading in the New York papers the list
+of campaign meetings each night, meetings in hot stifling halls or
+out upon deafening corners. And as she read there came over her
+face a look like that of a man who has given up tobacco and
+suddenly sniffs it among his friends. She went down the last night
+of August.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Roger stayed on for another two weeks, on into the best time of
+the year. For now came the nights of the first snapping frosts when
+the dome of the heavens was steely blue, and clear sparkling
+mornings, the woods aflame with scarlet and gold. And across the
+small field below the house, at sunset Roger would go down to the
+copse of birches there and find it filled with glints of light that
+took his glance far in among the slender, creamy stems of the
+trees, all slowly swaying to and fro, the leafage rich with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id=
+"Page_123"></a>[123]</span>autumn hues, warm orange, yellow and
+pale green. Lovely and silent and serene. So it had been when he
+was a boy and so it would be when he was dead. Countless trees had
+been cut down but others had risen in their stead. Now and then he
+could hear a bird warbling.</p>
+<p>Long ago this spot had been his mother's favorite refuge from
+her busy day in the house. She had almost always come alone, but
+sometimes Roger stealing down would watch her sitting motionless
+and staring in among the trees. Years later in his reading he had
+come upon the phrase, "sacred grove," and at once he had thought of
+the birches. And sitting here where she had been, he felt again
+that boundless faith in life resplendent, conquering death, and
+serenely sweeping him on&mdash;into what he did not fear. For this
+had been his mother's faith. Sometimes in the deepening dusk he
+could almost see her sitting here.</p>
+<p>"This faith in you has come from me. This is my memory living on
+in you, my son, though you do not know. How many times have I held
+you back, how many times have I urged you on, roused you up or
+soothed you, made you hope or fear or dream, through memories of
+long ago. For you were once a part of me. I moulded you, my little
+son. And as I have been to you, so you will be to your children. In
+their lives, too, we shall be there&mdash;silent and invisible, the
+dim strong figures of the past. For this is the power of families,
+this is the mystery of birth."</p>
+<p>Suddenly he started. What was it that had thrilled him so? Only
+a tall dark fir in the birches. But looming in there like a shadowy
+phantom it had recalled a memory of a dusk far back in his boyhood,
+when seeing a shadow just like this he had thought it a ghost in
+very truth and had run for the house like a rabbit! How terribly
+real that fright had been! The recollection suddenly became so
+vivid in his mind, that as though a veil had been lifted he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id=
+"Page_124"></a>[124]</span>felt the living presence here, close by
+his side, of a small barefoot mountain lad, clothed in sober
+homespun gray, but filled with warm desires, dreams and
+curiosities, exploring upon every hand, now marching boldly
+forward, now stealing up so cautiously, now galloping away like
+mad! "I was once a child." To most of us these are mere words. To
+few is it ever given to attain so much as even a glimpse into the
+warm and quivering soul of that little stranger of long ago. We do
+not know how we were made.</p>
+<p>"I moulded you, my little son. And as I have been to you, so you
+will be to your children. In their lives, too, we shall be
+there."</p>
+<p>Darker, darker grew the copse and the chill of the night
+descended. But to Roger's eyes there was no gloom. For he had seen
+a vision.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>CHAPTER
+XV</h2>
+<p>On his return to the city, Roger found that Deborah's school had
+apparently swept all other interests out of her mind. Baird hardly
+ever came to the house, and she herself was seldom there except for
+a hasty dinner at night. The house had to run itself more or less;
+and though Annie the cook was doing her best, things did not run so
+smoothly. Roger missed little comforts, attentions, and he missed
+Deborah most of all. When he came down to his breakfast she had
+already left the house, and often she did not return until long
+after he was in bed. She felt the difference herself, and though
+she did not put it in words her manner at times seemed to beg his
+forbearance. But there were many evenings when her father found it
+difficult to hold to the resolve he had made, to go slowly with his
+daughter until he could be more sure of his ground. She was growing
+so intense again. From the school authorities she had secured a
+still wider range and freedom for her new experiment, and she was
+working day and night to put her ideas into effect.</p>
+<p>"It's only too easy," she remarked, "to launch an idea in this
+town. The town will put it in headlines at once, and with it a
+picture of yourself in your best bib and tucker, looking as though
+you loved the whole world. And you can make a wonderful splurge,
+until they go on to the next new thing. The real trouble comes in
+working it out."</p>
+<p>And this she had set out to do. Many nights in the autumn Roger
+went down to the school, to try to get some clear idea of this
+vision of hers for children, which in a <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>vague
+way he could feel was so much larger than his own, for he had seen
+its driving force in the grip it had upon her life. At first he
+could make nothing of it at all; everywhere chaos met his eyes. But
+he found something formless, huge, that made to him a strong
+appeal.</p>
+<p>The big building fairly hummed at night with numberless
+activities. Fathers, mothers and children came pouring in together
+and went skurrying off to their places. They learned to speak
+English, to read and write; grown men and women scowled and toiled
+over their arithmetic. They worked at trades in the various shops;
+they hammered and sawed and set up type; they cooked and sewed and
+gossiped. "The Young Galician Socialist Girls" debated on the
+question: "Resolved that woman suffrage has worked in Colorado."
+"The Caruso Pleasure Club" gave a dance to "The Garibaldi
+Whirlwinds." An orchestra rehearsed like mad. They searched their
+memories for the songs and all the folk tales they had heard in
+peasant huts in Italy, in hamlets along rocky coasts, in the dark
+old ghettos of crowded towns in Poland and in Russia. And some of
+these songs were sung in school, and some of these tales were
+dramatized here. Children and parents all took part. And speakers
+emerged from the neighborhood. It was at times appalling, the
+number of young Italians and Jews who had ideas to give forth to
+their friends on socialism, poverty, marriage and religion, and all
+the other questions that rose among these immigrants jammed into
+this tenement hive. But when there were too many of these
+self-appointed guides, the neighborhood shut down on them.</p>
+<p>"We don't want," declared one indignant old woman, "that every
+young loafer should shout in our face!"</p>
+<p>Roger was slowly attracted into this enormous family life, and
+yielding to an impulse he took charge of a boys' club which met on
+Thursday evenings there. He knew well this job of fathering a small
+jovial group of lads; he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127"
+id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>had done it before, many years ago,
+in the mission school, to please his wife; he felt himself back on
+familiar ground. And from this point of vantage, with something
+definite he could do, he watched with an interest more clear the
+school form steadily closer ties with the tenements that hedged it
+'round, gathering its big family. And this family by slow degrees
+began to make itself a part of the daily life of Roger's house.
+Committees held their meetings here, teachers dropped in
+frequently, and Roger invited the boys in his club to come up and
+see him whenever they liked.</p>
+<p>His most frequent visitor was Johnny Geer, the cripple. He was
+working in Roger's office now and the two had soon become close
+friends. John kept himself so neat and clean, he displayed such a
+keen interest in all the details of office work, and he showed such
+a beaming appreciation of anything that was done for him.</p>
+<p>"That boy is getting a hold on me lately almost like a boy of my
+own," Roger said one evening when Allan Baird was at the house.
+"He's the pluckiest young un I ever met. I've put him to work in my
+private office, where he can use the sofa to rest, and I've made
+him my own stenographer&mdash;partly because he's so quick at
+dictation and partly to try to make him slow down. He has the mind
+of a race horse. He runs at night to libraries until I should think
+he'd go insane. And his body can't stand it, he's breaking
+down&mdash;though whenever I ask him how he feels, he always says,
+'Fine, thank you.'" Here Roger turned to Allan. "I wish you'd take
+the boy," he said, "to the finest specialist in town, and see what
+can be done for his spine. I'll pay any price."</p>
+<p>"There won't be any price," said Allan, "but I'll see to it at
+once."</p>
+<p>He had John examined the same week.</p>
+<p>"Well?" asked Roger when next they met.</p>
+<p>"Well," said Baird, "it isn't good news."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id=
+"Page_128"></a>[128]</span>You mean he's hopeless?" Allan
+nodded:</p>
+<p>"It's Pott's disease, and it's gone too far. John is eighteen.
+He may live to be thirty."</p>
+<p>"But I tell you, Baird, I'll do anything!"</p>
+<p>"There's almost nothing you can do. If he had been taken when he
+was a baby, he might have been cured and given a chance. But the
+same mother who dropped him then, when she was full of liquor, just
+went to the druggist on her block, and after listening to his
+advice she bought some patent medicine, a steel jacket and some
+crutches, and thought she'd done her duty."</p>
+<p>"But there must be something we can do!" retorted Roger
+angrily.</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Baird, "we can make him a little more comfortable.
+And meanwhile we can help Deborah here to get hold of other boys
+like John and give 'em a chance before it's too late&mdash;keep
+them from being crippled for life because their mothers were too
+blind and ignorant to act in time." Baird's voice had a ring of
+bitterness.</p>
+<p>"Most of 'em love their children," Roger said uneasily. Baird
+turned on him a steady look.</p>
+<p>"Love isn't enough," he retorted. "The time is coming very soon
+when we'll have the right to guard the child not only when it's a
+baby but even before it has been born."</p>
+<p>Roger drew closer to John after this. Often behind the beaming
+smile he would feel the pain and loneliness, and the angry grit
+which was fighting it down. And so he would ask John home to supper
+on nights when nobody else was there. One day late in the afternoon
+they were walking home together along the west side of Madison
+Square. The big open space was studded with lights sparkling up at
+the frosty stars, in a city, a world, a universe that seemed filled
+with the zest and the vigor of life. Out of these lights a mighty
+tower loomed high up into the sky. And stopping on his crutches, a
+grim small crooked figure in all this rushing turmoil, John set his
+jaws, and with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id=
+"Page_129"></a>[129]</span>his shrewd and twinkling eyes fixed on
+the top of the tower, he said,</p>
+<p>"I meant to tell you, Mr. Gale. You was asking me once what I
+wanted to be. And I want to be an architect."</p>
+<p>"Do, eh," grunted Roger. He, too, looked up at that thing in the
+stars, and there was a tightening at his throat. "All right," he
+added, presently, "why not start in and be one?"</p>
+<p>"How?" asked John alertly.</p>
+<p>"Well, my boy," said Roger, "I'd hate to lose you in the
+office&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir, and I'd hate to go." Just then the big clock in the
+tower began to boom the hour, and a chill struck into Roger.</p>
+<p>"You'd have to," he said gruffly. "You haven't any time to lose!
+I mean," he hastily added, "that for a job as big as that you'd
+need a lot of training. But if it's what you want to be, go right
+ahead. I'll back you. My son-in-law is a builder at present. I'll
+talk to him and get his advice. We may be able to arrange to have
+you go right into his office, begin at the bottom and work straight
+up." In silence for a moment John hobbled on by Roger's side.</p>
+<p>"I'd hate to leave your place," he said.</p>
+<p>"I know," was Roger's brusque reply, "and I'd hate to lose you.
+We'll have to think it over."</p>
+<p>A few days later he talked with Bruce, who said he'd be glad to
+take the boy. And at dinner that night with Deborah, Roger asked
+abruptly,</p>
+<p>"Why not let Johnny come here for a while and use one of our
+empty bedrooms?"</p>
+<p>With a quick flush of pleased surprise, Deborah gave her father
+a look that embarrassed him tremendously.</p>
+<p>"Well, why not?" he snapped at her. "Sensible, isn't it?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id=
+"Page_130"></a>[130]</span>Perfectly."</p>
+<p>And sensible it turned out to be. When John first heard about
+it, he was apparently quite overcome, and there followed a brief
+awkward pause while he rapidly blinked the joy from his eyes. But
+then he said, "Fine, thank you. That's mighty good of you, Mr.
+Gale," in as matter of fact a tone as you please. And he entered
+the household in much the same way, for John had a sense of the
+fitness of things. He had always kept himself neat and clean, but
+he became immaculate now. He dined with Roger the first night, but
+early the next morning he went down to the kitchen and breakfasted
+there; and from this time on, unless he were especially urged to
+come up to the dining room, John took all his meals downstairs. The
+maids were Irish&mdash;so was John. They were good
+Catholics&mdash;so was John. They loved the movies&mdash;so did
+John. In short, it worked out wonderfully. In less than a month
+John had made himself an unobtrusive and natural part of the life
+of Roger's sober old house. It had had to stretch just a little, no
+more.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span>CHAPTER
+XVI</h2>
+<p>But that winter there was more in the house than Deborah's big
+family. Though at times Roger felt it surging in with its crude,
+immense vitality, there were other times when it was not so, and
+the lives of his other two daughters attracted his attention, for
+both were back again in town.</p>
+<p>Laura and her husband had returned from abroad in October, and
+in a small but expensive apartment in a huge new building facing on
+Park Avenue they had gaily started the career of their own little
+family, or "m&eacute;nage," as Laura called it. This word had stuck
+in Roger's mind, for he had a suspicion that a "m&eacute;nage" was
+no place for babies. Grimly, when he went there first to be shown
+the new home by its mistress, he looked about him for a room which
+might be made a nursery. But no such room was in evidence. "We
+decided to have no guest room," he heard Laura say to Deborah. And
+glancing at his daughter then, sleek and smiling and demure, in her
+tea-gown fresh from Paris, Roger darkly told himself that a child
+would be an unwelcome guest. The whole place was as compact and
+sparkling as a jewel box. The bed chamber was luxurious, with a
+gorgeous bath adjoining and a dressing-room for Harold.</p>
+<p>"And look at this love of a closet!" said Laura to Deborah
+eagerly. "Isn't it simply enormous?" As Deborah looked, her father
+did, too, and his eye was met by an array of shimmering apparel
+which made him draw back almost with a start.</p>
+<p>They found Harold in the pantry. Their Jap, it appeared, was a
+marvellous cook and did the catering as <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span>well, so
+that Laura rarely troubled herself to order so much as a single
+meal. But her husband had for many years been famous for his
+cocktails, and although the Jap did everything else Hal had kept
+this in his own hands.</p>
+<p>"I thought this much of the house-keeping ought to remain in the
+family," he said.</p>
+<p>Roger did not like this joke. But later, when he had imbibed the
+delicious concoction Harold had made, and had eaten the dinner
+created by that Japanese artist of theirs, his irritation
+subsided.</p>
+<p>"They barely know we're here," he thought. "They're both in love
+up to their ears."</p>
+<p>Despite their genial attempts to be hospitable and friendly,
+time and again he saw their glances meet in an intimate gleaming
+manner which made him rather uncomfortable. But where was the harm,
+he asked himself. They were married all right, weren't they? Still
+somehow&mdash;somehow&mdash;no, by George, he didn't like it, he
+didn't approve! The whole affair was decidedly mixing. Roger went
+away vaguely uneasy, and he felt that Deborah was even more
+disturbed than himself.</p>
+<p>"Those two," she remarked to her father, "are so fearfully wrapt
+up in each other it makes me afraid. Oh, it's all right, I suppose,
+and I wouldn't for worlds try to interfere. But I can't help
+feeling somehow that no two people with such an abundance of youth
+and money and happiness have the right to be so
+amazingly&mdash;selfish!"</p>
+<p>"They ought to have children," Roger said.</p>
+<p>"But look at Edith," his daughter rejoined. "She hasn't a single
+interest that I can find outside her home. It seems to have
+swallowed her, body and soul." A frowning look of perplexity swept
+over Deborah's mobile face, and with a whimsical sigh she
+exclaimed, "Oh, this queer business of families!"</p>
+<p>In December there came a little crash. Late one evening Laura
+came bursting in upon them in a perfect tantrum, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span>every
+nerve in her lithe body tense, her full lips visibly quivering, her
+voice unsteady, and her big black eyes aflame with rage. She was
+jealous of her husband and "that nasty little cat!" Roger learned
+no more about it, for Deborah motioned him out of the room. He
+heard their two voices talk on and on, until Laura's slowly quieted
+down. Soon afterwards she left the house, and Deborah came in to
+him.</p>
+<p>"She's gone home, eh?" asked Roger.</p>
+<p>"Yes, she has, poor silly child&mdash;she said at first she had
+come here to stay."</p>
+<p>"By George," he said. "As bad as that?"</p>
+<p>"Of course it isn't as bad as that!" Deborah cried impatiently.
+"She just built and built on silly suspicions and let herself get
+all worked up! I don't see what they're coming to!" For a few
+moments nothing was said. "It's so unnatural!" she exclaimed. "Men
+and women weren't <i>made</i> to live like that!" Roger scowled
+into his paper.</p>
+<p>"Better leave 'em alone," he admonished her. "You can't
+help&mdash;they're not your kind. Don't you mix into this
+affair."</p>
+<p>But Deborah did. She remembered that her sister had once shown
+quite a talent for amateur theatricals; and to give Laura something
+to do, Deborah persuaded her to take a dramatic club in her school.
+And Laura, rather to Roger's surprise, became an enthusiast down
+there. She worked like a slave at rehearsals, and upon the costumes
+she spent money with a lavish hand. Moreover, instead of being
+annoyed, as Edith was, at Deborah's prominence in the press, Laura
+gloried in it, as though this "radical" sister of hers were a
+distinct social asset among her giddy friends uptown. For even
+Laura's friends, her father learned with astonishment, had acquired
+quite an appetite for men and women with ideas&mdash;the more
+"radical," the better. But the way Laura used this word at times
+made Roger's blood run cold. She was vivid in her approval of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id=
+"Page_134"></a>[134]</span>her sister's whole idea, as a scheme of
+wholesale motherhood which would give "a perfectly glorious jolt"
+to the old-fashioned home with its overworked mothers who let their
+children absorb their days.</p>
+<p>"As though having children and bringing them up," she
+disdainfully declared, "were something every woman must do, whether
+she happens to like it or not, at the cost of any real growth of
+her own!"</p>
+<p>And smilingly she hinted at impending radical changes in the
+whole relation of marriage, of which she was hearing in detail at a
+series of lectures to young wives, delivered on Thursday mornings
+in a hotel ball-room.</p>
+<p>What the devil was getting into the town? Roger frowned his deep
+dislike. Here was Laura with her chicken's mind blithely taking her
+sister's thoughts and turning them topsy-turvy, to make for herself
+a view of life which fitted like a white kid glove her small and
+elegant "m&eacute;nage." And although her father had only inklings
+of it all, he had quite enough to make him irate at this uncanny
+interplay of influences in his family. Why couldn't the girls leave
+each other alone?</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Early in the winter, Edith, too, had entered in. It had taken
+Edith just one glance into the bride's apartment to grasp Laura's
+whole scheme of existence.</p>
+<p>"Selfish, indulgent and abnormal," was the way she described it.
+She and Bruce were dining with Roger that night. "I wash my hands
+of the whole affair," continued Edith curtly. "So long as she
+doesn't want my help, as she has plainly made me feel, I certainly
+shan't stand in her way."</p>
+<p>"You're absolutely right," said her father.</p>
+<p>"Stick to it," said Bruce approvingly.</p>
+<p>But Edith did not stick to it. In her case too, as the weeks
+wore on, those subtle family ties took hold and made her feel the
+least she could do was "to keep up <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span>appearances." So she and
+Bruce dined with the bride and groom, and in turn had them to
+dinner. And these dinners, as Bruce confided to Roger, were
+occasions no man could forget.</p>
+<p>"They come only about once a month," he said in a tone of
+pathos, "but it seems as though barely a week had gone by when
+Edith says to me again, 'We're dining with Laura and Hal to-night.'
+Well, and we dine. Young Sloane is not a bad sort of a
+chap&mdash;works hard downtown and worships his wife. The way he
+lives&mdash;well, it isn't mine&mdash;and mine isn't his&mdash;and
+we both let it go at that. But the women can't, they haven't it in
+'em. Each sits with her way of life in her lap. You can't see it
+over the tablecloth, but, my God, how you feel it! The worst of it
+is," he ended, "that after one of these terrible meals each woman
+is more set than before in her own way of living. Not that I don't
+like Edith's way," her husband added hastily.</p>
+<p>Edith also disapproved of the fast increasing publicity which
+Deborah was getting.</p>
+<p>"I may be very old-fashioned," she remarked to her father, "but
+I can't get used to this idea that a woman's place is in headlines.
+And I think it's rather hard on you&mdash;the use she's making of
+your house."</p>
+<p>One Friday night when she came to play chess, she found her
+father in the midst of a boisterous special meeting of his club of
+Italian boys. It had been postponed from the evening before. And
+though Roger, overcome with dismay at having forgotten Edith's
+night, apologized profusely, the time-honored weekly game took
+place no more from that day on.</p>
+<p>"Edith's pretty sore," said Bruce, who dropped in soon
+afterwards. "She says Deborah has made your house into an annex to
+her school."</p>
+<p>Roger smoked in silence. His whole family was about his
+ears.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id=
+"Page_136"></a>[136]</span>My boy," he muttered earnestly, "you and
+I must stick together."</p>
+<p>"We sure must," agreed his son-in-law. "And what's more, if
+we're to keep the peace, we've got to try to put some punch into
+Deborah's so-called love affair. She ought to get married and
+settle down."</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger, dubiously. "Only let's keep it to
+ourselves."</p>
+<p>"No chance of that," was the cheerful reply. "You can't keep
+Edith out of it. It would only make trouble in <i>my</i> family."
+Roger gave him a pitying look and said,</p>
+<p>"Then, for the Lord's sake, let her in!"</p>
+<p>So they took Edith into their councils, and she gave them an
+indulgent smile.</p>
+<p>"Suppose you leave this to me," she commanded. "Don't you think
+I've been using my eyes? There's no earthly use in stepping in now,
+for Deborah has lost her head. She sees herself a great new woman
+with a career. But wait till the present flare-up subsides, till
+the newspapers all drop her and she is thoroughly tired out. Until
+then, remember, we keep our hands off."</p>
+<p>"Do you think you can?" asked Roger, with a little glimmer of
+hope.</p>
+<p>"I?" she retorted. "Most certainly! I mean to leave her alone
+absolutely&mdash;until she comes to me herself. When she does,
+we'll know it's time to begin."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"I'm afraid Edith is hurt about something," said Deborah to her
+father, about a month after this little talk. "She hasn't been near
+us for over three weeks."</p>
+<p>"Let her be!" said Roger, in alarm. "I mean," he hastily added,
+"why can't you let Edith come when she likes? There's nothing the
+matter. It's simply her children&mdash;they take up her time."</p>
+<p>"No," said Deborah calmly, "it's I. She as good as told me so
+last month. She thinks I've become a perfect <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id=
+"Page_137"></a>[137]</span>fanatic&mdash;without a spare moment or
+thought for my family."</p>
+<p>"Oh, my family!" Roger groaned. "I tell you, Deborah, you're
+wrong! Edith's children are probably sick in bed!"</p>
+<p>"Then I'll go and see," she answered.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"Something has happened to Deborah," Edith informed him
+blithely, over the telephone the next night.</p>
+<p>"Has, eh," grunted Roger.</p>
+<p>"Yes, she was here to see me to-day. And something has
+happened&mdash;she's changing fast. I felt it in all kinds of ways.
+She was just as dear as she could be&mdash;and lonely, as though
+she were feeling her age. I really think we can do something
+now."</p>
+<p>"All right, let's do something," Roger growled.</p>
+<p>And Edith began to do something. Her hostility to her sister had
+completely disappeared. In its place was a friendly affection, an
+evident desire to please. She even drew Laura into the secret, and
+there was a gathering of the clan. There were consultations in
+Roger's den. "Deborah is to get married." The feeling of it crept
+through the house. Nothing was said to her, of course, but Deborah
+was made to feel that her two sisters had drawn close. And their
+influence upon her choice was more deep and subtle than she knew.
+For although Roger's family had split so wide apart, between his
+three daughters there were still mysterious bonds reaching far back
+into nursery days. And Deborah in deciding whether to marry Allan
+Baird was affected more than she was aware by the married lives of
+her sisters. All she had seen in Laura's m&eacute;nage, all that
+she had ever observed in Edith's growing family, kept rising from
+time to time in her thoughts, as she vaguely tried to picture
+herself a wife and the mother of children.</p>
+<p>So the family, with those subtle bonds from the past, began to
+press steadily closer and closer around this one unmarried
+daughter, and help her to make up her mind.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span>CHAPTER
+XVII</h2>
+<p>But she did not appear to care to be helped. Nor did
+Allan&mdash;he rarely came to the house, and he went to Edith's not
+at all. He was even absent from her Christmas tree for the
+children, a jolly little festivity which neither he nor Deborah had
+missed in years.</p>
+<p>"What has got into him?" Roger asked. And shortly after
+Christmas he called the fellow up on the 'phone. "Drop in for
+dinner to-night," he urged. And he added distinctly, "I'm
+alone."</p>
+<p>"Are you? I'll be glad to."</p>
+<p>"Thank you, Baird, I want your advice." And as he hung up the
+receiver he said, "Now then!" to himself, in a tone of firm
+decision. But later, as the day wore on, he cursed himself for what
+he had done. "Don't it beat the devil," he thought, "how I'm always
+putting my foot in it?" And when Baird came into the room that
+night he loomed, to Roger's anxious eye, if anything taller than
+before. But his manner was so easy, his gruff voice so natural, and
+he seemed to take this little party of two so quietly as a matter
+of course, that Roger was soon reassured, and at table he and Allan
+got on even better than before. Baird talked of his life as a
+student, in Vienna, Bonn and Edinburgh, and of his first struggles
+in New York. His talk was full of human bits, some tragic, more
+amusing. And Roger's liking for the man increased with every story
+told.</p>
+<p>"I asked you here," he bluntly began, when they had gone to the
+study to smoke, "to talk to you about Deborah." Baird gave him a
+friendly look.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id=
+"Page_139"></a>[139]</span>All right. Let's talk about her."</p>
+<p>"It strikes me you were right last year," said Roger, speaking
+slowly. "She's already showing the strain of her work. She don't
+look to me as strong as she was."</p>
+<p>"She looks to me stronger," Allan replied. "You know, people
+fool doctors now and then&mdash;and she seems to have taken a fresh
+start. I feel she may go on for years." Roger was silent a moment,
+chagrined and disappointed.</p>
+<p>"Have you had a good chance to watch her?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Yes, and I'm watching her still," said Baird. "I see her down
+there at the school. She tells me you've been there yourself."</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger, determinedly, "and I mean to keep on going.
+I'm trying not to lose hold of her," he added with harsh emphasis.
+Baird turned and frankly smiled at him.</p>
+<p>"Then you have probably seen," he replied, "that to keep any
+hold at all on her, you must make up your mind as I have done that,
+strength or no strength, this job of hers is going to be a life
+career. When a woman who has held a job without a break for eleven
+years can feel such a flame of enthusiasm, you can be pretty sure,
+I think, it is the deepest part of her. At least I feel that way,"
+he said. "And I believe the only way to keep near her&mdash;for the
+present, anyhow&mdash;is to help her in her work."</p>
+<p>When Baird had gone, Roger found himself angry.</p>
+<p>"I'm not in the habit, young man," he thought, "of throwing my
+daughter at gentlemen's heads. If you feel as calm and contented as
+that you can go to the devil! Far be it from me to lift a hand! In
+fact, as I come to think of it, you would probably make her a
+mighty poor husband!" He worked himself into quite a rage. But an
+hour later, when he had subsided, "Hold on," he thought. "Am I
+right about this? Is the man as contented as he talks? No, sir, not
+for a minute he isn't! But what can he do? If he tried making love
+to Deborah he'd simply be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140"
+id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>killing his chances. Not the
+slightest doubt in the world. She can't think of anything but her
+career. Yes, sir, when all's said and done, to marry a modern woman
+is no child's play, it means thought and care. And A. Baird has
+made up his mind to it. He has made up his mind to marry her by
+playing a long waiting game. He's just slowly and quietly nosing
+his way into her school, because it's her life. And a mighty shrewd
+way of going about it. You don't need any help from me, my friend;
+all you need is to be let alone."</p>
+<p>In talks at home with Deborah, and in what he himself observed
+at school, Roger began to get inklings of "A. Baird's long waiting
+game." He found that several months before Allan had offered to
+start a free clinic for mothers and children in connection with the
+school, and that he alone had put it through, with only the most
+reluctant aid and gratitude from Deborah&mdash;as though she
+dreaded something. Baird took countless hours from his busy uptown
+practice; he hurt himself more than once, in fact, by neglecting
+rich patients to do this work. Where a sick or pregnant mother was
+too poor to carry out his advice, he followed her into her tenement
+home, sent one of his nurses to visit her, and even gave money when
+it was needed to ease the strain of her poverty until she should be
+well and strong. Soon scores of the mothers of Deborah's children
+were singing the praises of Doctor Baird.</p>
+<p>Then he began coming to the house.</p>
+<p>"I was right," thought Roger complacently.</p>
+<p>He laid in a stock of fine cigars and some good port and claret,
+too; and on evenings when Baird came to dine, Roger by a genial
+glow and occasional jocular ironies would endeavor to drag the talk
+away from clinics, adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the
+new education. But no joke was so good that Deborah could not
+promptly match it with some amusing little thing which one of her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id=
+"Page_141"></a>[141]</span>children had said or done. For she had a
+mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood. It was deep, it
+was uncanny, this queer community motherhood.</p>
+<p>"This poor devil," Roger thought, with a pitying glance at
+Baird, "might just as well be marrying a widow with three thousand
+brats."</p>
+<p>But Baird did not seem in the least dismayed. On the contrary,
+his assurance appeared to be deepening every week, and with it
+Deborah's air of alarm. For his clinic, as it swiftly grew, he
+secured financial backing from his rich women patients uptown, many
+of them childless and only too ready to respond to the appeals he
+made to them. And one Saturday evening at the house, while dining
+with Roger and Deborah, he told of an offer he had had from a
+wealthy banker's widow to build a maternity hospital. He talked
+hungrily of all it could do in co-operation with the school. He
+said nothing of the obvious fact that it would require his whole
+time, but Roger thought of that at once, and by the expression on
+Deborah's face he saw she was thinking, too.</p>
+<p>He felt they wanted to be alone, so presently he left them. From
+his study he could hear their voices growing steadily more intense.
+Was it all about work? He could not tell. "They've got working and
+living so mixed up, a man can't possibly tell 'em apart."</p>
+<p>Then his daughter was called to the telephone, and Allan came in
+to bid Roger good-night. And his eyes showed an impatience he did
+not seem to care to hide.</p>
+<p>"Well?" inquired Roger. "Did you get Deborah's consent?"</p>
+<p>"To what?" asked Allan sharply.</p>
+<p>"To your acceptance," Roger answered, "of the widow's mite."
+Baird grinned.</p>
+<p>"She couldn't help herself," he said.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id=
+"Page_142"></a>[142]</span>But she didn't seem to like it,
+eh&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"No," said Baird, "she didn't." Roger had a dark suspicion.</p>
+<p>"By the way," he asked in a casual tone, "what's this
+philanthropic widow like?"</p>
+<p>"She's sixty-nine," Baird answered.</p>
+<p>"Oh," said Roger. He smoked for a time, and sagely added, "My
+daughter's a queer woman, Baird&mdash;she's modern, very modern.
+But she's still a woman, you understand&mdash;and so she's
+jealous&mdash;of her job." But A. Baird was in no joking mood.</p>
+<p>"She's narrow," he said sternly. "That's what's the matter with
+Deborah. She's so centered on her job she can't see anyone else's.
+She thinks I'm doing all this work solely in order to help her
+school&mdash;when if she'd use some imagination and try to put
+herself in my shoes, she'd see the chance it's giving
+<i>me</i>!"</p>
+<p>"How do you mean?" asked Roger, looking a bit bewildered.</p>
+<p>"Why," said Baird with an impatient fling of his hand, "there
+are men in my line all over the country who'd leave home, wives and
+children for the chance I've blundered onto here! A hospital fully
+equipped for research, a free hand, an opportunity which comes to
+one man in a million! But can she see it? Not at all! It's only an
+annex to her school!"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger gravely, "she's in a pretty unnatural state. I
+think she ought to get married, Baird&mdash;" To his friendly and
+disarming twinkle Baird replied with a rueful smile.</p>
+<p>"You do, eh," he growled. "Then tell her to plan her wedding to
+come before her funeral." As he rose to go, Roger took his
+hand.</p>
+<p>"I'll tell her," he said. "It's sound advice. Good-night, my
+boy, I wish you luck."</p>
+<p>A few moments later he heard in the hall their brief
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id=
+"Page_143"></a>[143]</span>good-nights to each other, and presently
+Deborah came in. She was not looking quite herself.</p>
+<p>"Why are you eyeing me like that?" his daughter asked
+abruptly.</p>
+<p>"Aren't you letting him do a good deal for you?"</p>
+<p>Deborah flushed a little:</p>
+<p>"Yes, I am. I can't make him stop."</p>
+<p>Her father hesitated.</p>
+<p>"You could," he said, "if you wanted to. If you were sure," he
+added slowly, "that you didn't love him&mdash;and told him so." He
+felt a little panic, for he thought he had gone too far. But his
+daughter only turned away and restlessly moved about the room. At
+last she came to her father's chair:</p>
+<p>"Hadn't you better leave this to me?"</p>
+<p>"I had, my dear, I most certainly had. I was all wrong to
+mention it," he answered very humbly.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>From this night on, Baird changed his tack. Although soon busy
+with the plans for the hospital, to be built at once, he said
+little about it to Deborah. Instead, he insisted on taking her off
+on little evening sprees uptown.</p>
+<p>"Do you know what's the matter with both of us?" he said to her
+one evening. "We've been getting too durned devoted to our jobs and
+our ideals. You're becoming a regular school marm and I'm getting
+to be a regular slave to every wretched little babe who takes it
+into his head to be born. We haven't one redeeming vice."</p>
+<p>And again he took up dancing. The first effort which he made,
+down at Deborah's school one evening, was a failure quite as dismal
+as his attempts of the previous year. But he did not appear in the
+least discouraged. He came to the house one Friday night.</p>
+<p>"I knew I could learn to dance," he said, "in spite of all your
+taunts and jibes. That little fiasco last Saturday
+night&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id=
+"Page_144"></a>[144]</span>Was perfectly awful," Deborah said.</p>
+<p>"Did not discourage me in the least," he continued severely. "I
+decided the only trouble with me was that I'm tall and I've got to
+bend&mdash;to learn to bend."</p>
+<p>"Tremendously!"</p>
+<p>"So I went to a lady professor, and she saw the point at once.
+Since then I've had five lessons, and I can fox-trot in my sleep.
+To-morrow is Saturday. Where shall we go?"</p>
+<p>"To the theater."</p>
+<p>"Good. We'll start with that. But the minute the play is over
+we'll gallop off to the Plaza Grill&mdash;just as the music is in
+full swing&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"And we'll dance," she groaned, "for hours. And when I get home,
+I'll creep into bed so tired and sore in every limb&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"That you'll sleep late Sunday morning. And a mighty good thing
+for you, too&mdash;if you ask my advice&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I don't ask your advice!"</p>
+<p>"You're getting it, though," he said doggedly. "If you're still
+to be a friend of mine we'll dance at the Plaza to-morrow
+night&mdash;and well into the Sabbath."</p>
+<p>"The principal of a public school&mdash;dancing on the Sabbath.
+Suppose one of my friends should see us there."</p>
+<p>"Your friends," he replied with a fine contempt, "do not dance
+in the Plaza Grill. I'm the only roisterer you know."</p>
+<p>"All right," she conceded grudgingly, "I'll roister. Come and
+get me. But I'd much prefer when the play is done to come home and
+have milk and crackers here."</p>
+<p>"Deborah," he said cheerfully, "for a radical school reformer
+you're the most conservative woman I know."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>CHAPTER
+XVIII</h2>
+<p>In Deborah's school, in the meantime, affairs had drawn to a
+climax. The moment had come for the city to say whether her new
+experiment should be dropped the following year or allowed to go on
+and develop. There came a day of sharp suspense when Deborah's
+friends and enemies on the Board of Education sat down to discuss
+and settle her fate. They were at it for several hours, but late in
+the afternoon they decided not only to let her go on the next year
+but to try her idea in four other schools and place her in charge
+with ample funds. The long strain came to an end at last in a
+triumph beyond her wildest hopes; when the news arrived she
+relaxed, grew limp, and laughed and cried a little. And her father
+felt her tremble as he held her a moment in his arms.</p>
+<p>"Now, Baird," he thought, "your chance has come. For God's sake,
+take it while it's here!"</p>
+<p>But in place of Baird that afternoon came men and women from the
+press, and friends and fellow workers. The door-bell and the
+telephone kept ringing almost incessantly. Why couldn't they leave
+her a moment's peace? Roger buried himself in his study. Later,
+when he was called to dinner, he found that Allan was there, too,
+but at first the conversation was all upon Deborah's victory.
+Flushed with success, for the moment engrossed in the wider field
+she saw ahead, she had not a thought for anything else. But after
+dinner the atmosphere changed.</p>
+<p>"To hear me talk," she told them, "you'd think the whole world
+depended on me, and on my school and my <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>ideas.
+Me, me, me! And it has been me all winter long! What a time I've
+given both of you!"</p>
+<p>She grew repentant and grateful, first to her father and then to
+Allan, and then more and more to Allan, with her happy eyes on his.
+And with a keen worried look at them both, Roger rose and left the
+room.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Baird was leaning forward. He had both her hands in his own.</p>
+<p>"Well?" he asked. "Will you marry me now?"</p>
+<p>Her eyes were looking straight into his. They kept moving
+slightly, searching his. Her wide, sensitive lips were tightly
+compressed, but did not quite hide their quivering. When she spoke
+her voice was low and a little queer and breathless:</p>
+<p>"Do you want any children, Allan?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"So do I. And with children, what of my work?"</p>
+<p>"I don't want to stop your work. If you marry me we'll go right
+on. You see I know you, Deborah, I know you've always grown like
+that&mdash;by risking what you've got to-day for something more
+to-morrow."</p>
+<p>"I've never taken a risk like this!"</p>
+<p>"I tell you this time it's no risk! Because you're a grown
+woman&mdash;formed! I'm not making a saint of you. You're no angel
+down among the poor because you feel it's your duty in
+life&mdash;it's your happiness, your passion! You couldn't neglect
+them if you tried!"</p>
+<p>"But the time," she asked him quickly. "Where shall I find the
+time for it all?"</p>
+<p>"A man finds time enough," he answered, "even when he's
+married."</p>
+<p>"But I'm not a man, I'm a woman," she said. And in a low voice
+which thrilled him, "A woman who wants a child of her own!" His
+lean muscular right hand contracted sharply upon hers. She winced,
+drew back a little.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id=
+"Page_147"></a>[147]</span>Oh&mdash;I'm sorry!" he whispered. Then
+he asked her again,</p>
+<p>"Will you marry me now?" She looked suddenly up:</p>
+<p>"Let's wait awhile, please! It won't be long&mdash;I'm in love
+with you, Allan, I'm sure of that now! And I'm not drawing back,
+I'm not afraid! Oh, I want you to feel I'm not running away! What I
+want to do is to face this square! It may be silly and foolish
+but&mdash;you see, I'm made like that. I want a little
+longer&mdash;I want to think it out by myself."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>When Allan had gone she came in to her father. And her radiant
+expression made him bounce up from his chair.</p>
+<p>"By George," he cried, "he asked you!"</p>
+<p>"Yes!"</p>
+<p>"And you've taken him!"</p>
+<p>"No!"</p>
+<p>Roger gasped.</p>
+<p>"Look here!" he demanded, angrily. "What's the matter? Are you
+mad?" She threw back her head and laughed at him.</p>
+<p>"No, I'm not&mdash;I'm happy!"</p>
+<p>"What the devil about?" he snapped.</p>
+<p>"We're going to wait a bit, that's all, till we're sure of
+everything!" she cried.</p>
+<p>"Then," said Roger disgustedly, "you're smarter than your father
+is. I'm sure of nothing&mdash;nothing! I have never been sure in
+all my days! If I'd waited, you'd never have been born!"</p>
+<p>"Oh, dearie," she begged him smilingly. "Please don't be so
+unhappy just now&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I've a right to be!" said Roger. "I see my house agog with
+this&mdash;in a turmoil&mdash;in a turmoil!"</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>But again he was mistaken. It was in fact astonishing how the
+old house quieted down. There came again one <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span>of those
+peaceful times, when his home to Roger's senses seemed to settle
+deep, grow still, and gather itself together. Day by day he felt
+more sure that Deborah was succeeding in making her work fit into
+her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy woman's life. And
+why shouldn't they live here, Allan and she? The thought of this
+dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead. How
+smoothly things were working out. The monstrous new buildings
+around his house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of
+their prey.</p>
+<p>On the mantle in Roger's study, for many years a bronze figure
+there, "The Thinker," huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching
+pose, the heavy chin on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon
+him. And in the years that had been so dark, it had been a figure
+of despair. Often he had looked up from his chair and grimly met
+its frowning gaze. But Roger seldom looked at it now, and even when
+it caught his eye it had little effect upon him. It appeared to
+brood less darkly. For though he did not think it out, there was
+this feeling in his mind:</p>
+<p>"There is to be nothing startling in this quiet home of mine, no
+crashing deep calamity here."</p>
+<p>Only the steadily deepening love between a grown man and a woman
+mature, both sensible, strong people with a firm control of their
+destinies. He felt so sure of this affair. For now, her tension
+once relaxed with the success which had come to her after so many
+long hard years, a new Deborah was revealed, more human in her
+yieldings. She let Allan take her off on the wildest little sprees
+uptown and out into the country. To Roger she seemed younger, more
+warm and joyous and more free. He loved to hear her laugh these
+nights, to catch the glad new tones in her voice.</p>
+<p>"There is to be no tragedy here."</p>
+<p>So, certain of this union and wistful for all he felt it would
+bring, Roger watched its swift approach. And <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>when the
+news came, he was sure he'd been right. Because it came so
+quietly.</p>
+<p>"It's settled, dear, at last it's sure. Allan and I are to be
+married." She was standing by his chair. Roger reached up and took
+her hand:</p>
+<p>"I'm glad. You'll be very happy, my child."</p>
+<p>She bent over and kissed him, and putting his arm around her he
+drew her down on the side of his chair.</p>
+<p>"Now tell me all your plans," he said. And her answer brought
+him a deep peace.</p>
+<p>"We're going abroad for the summer&mdash;and then if you'll have
+us we want to come here." Roger abruptly shut his eyes.</p>
+<p>"By George, Deborah," he said, "you do have a way of getting
+right into the heart of things!" His arm closed about her with new
+strength and he felt all his troubles flying away.</p>
+<p>"What a time we'll have, what a rich new life." Her deep sweet
+voice was a little unsteady. "Listen, dearie, how quiet it is." And
+for some moments nothing was heard but the sober tick-tick of the
+clock on the mantle. "I wonder what we're going to hear."</p>
+<p>And they thought of new voices in the house.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span>CHAPTER
+XIX</h2>
+<p>Edith was radiant at the news.</p>
+<p>"I do hope they're not going to grudge themselves a good long
+wedding trip!" she exclaimed.</p>
+<p>"They're going abroad," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"Oh, splendid! And the wedding! Church or home?"</p>
+<p>"Home," said Roger blissfully, "and short and simple, not a
+frill. Just the family."</p>
+<p>"Oh, that's so nice," sighed Edith. "I was afraid she'd want to
+drag in her school."</p>
+<p>"School will be out by then," he said.</p>
+<p>"Well, I hope it stays out&mdash;for the remainder of her days.
+She can't do both, and she'll soon see. Wait till she has a child
+of her own."</p>
+<p>"Well, she wants one bad enough."</p>
+<p>"Yes, but can she?" Edith asked, with the engrossed expression
+which came on her pretty florid face whenever she neared such a
+topic. She spoke with evident awkwardness. "That's the trouble. Is
+it too late? Deborah's thirty-one, you know, and she has lived her
+life so hard. The sooner she gives up her school the better for her
+chances."</p>
+<p>The face of her father clouded.</p>
+<p>"Look here," he said uneasily, "I wouldn't go talking to
+her&mdash;quite along those lines, my dear."</p>
+<p>"I'm not such an idiot," she replied. "She thinks me homely
+enough as it is. And she's not altogether wrong. Bruce and I were
+talking it over last night. We want to be closer, after this, to
+Deborah and Allan. Bruce says it will do us <i>all</i> good, and
+for once I think he's right. I <i>have</i> given too much time to
+my children, and Bruce to his <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>office&mdash;I see it now.
+Not that I regret it, but&mdash;well, we're going to blossom
+out."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>She struck the same note with Deborah. And so did Bruce.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Deborah dear," he said smiling, when he found a chance to
+see her alone, "if you knew how long I've waited for this big fine
+thing to happen. A. Baird is my best chum in the world. Don't yank
+him gently away from us now. We'll keep close&mdash;eh?&mdash;all
+four of us."</p>
+<p>"Very," said Deborah softly.</p>
+<p>"And you mustn't get too solemn, you know. You won't pull too
+much of the highbrow stuff."</p>
+<p>"Heaven forbid!"</p>
+<p>"That's the right idea. We'll have some fine little parties
+together. You and A. Baird will give us a hand and get us out in
+the evenings. We need it, God knows, we've been getting old."
+Deborah threw him a glance of affection.</p>
+<p>"Why, Brucie," she said, in admiring tones, "I knew you had it
+in you."</p>
+<p>"So has Edith," he sturdily declared. "She only needs a little
+shove. We'll show you two that we're regular fellows. Don't you be
+all school and we won't be all home. We'll jump out of our skins
+and be young again."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In pursuance of this gay resolve, Bruce planned frequent parties
+to theaters and musical shows, and to Edith's consternation he even
+began to look about for a teacher from whom he could learn to
+dance. "A. Baird," he told her firmly, "isn't going to be the only
+soubrette in this family."</p>
+<p>One of the most hilarious of these small celebrations came early
+in June, when they dined all four together and went to the summer's
+opening of "The Follies of 1914." The show rather dragged a bit at
+first, but when Bert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id=
+"Page_152"></a>[152]</span> Williams took the stage Bruce's laugh
+became so contagious that people in seats on every hand turned to
+look at him and join in his glee. Only one thing happened to mar
+the evening's pleasure. When they came outside the theater Bruce
+found in his car something wrong with the engine. He tinkered but
+it would not go. Allan hailed a taxi.</p>
+<p>"Why not come with us?" asked Deborah.</p>
+<p>"No, thanks," said Bruce. "I've got this car to look after."</p>
+<p>"Oh, let it wait," urged Allan.</p>
+<p>"It does look a little like rain," put in Edith. Bruce glanced
+up at the cloudy sky and hesitated a moment.</p>
+<p>"Rain, piffle," he said good-humoredly. "Come on, wifey, stick
+by me. I won't be long." And he and Edith went back to his car.</p>
+<p>"What a dear he is," said Deborah. Allan put his arm around her,
+and they looked at each other and smiled. It was only nine days to
+the wedding.</p>
+<p>Out of the street's commotion came a sharp cry of warning. It
+was followed by a shriek and a crash. Allan looked out of the
+window, and then with a low exclamation he jumped from the taxi and
+slammed the door.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>CHAPTER
+XX</h2>
+<p>Roger had been spending a long quiet evening at home. He had
+asked John to dine with him and they had chatted for a time. Then
+John had started up to his room. And listening to the slow
+shuffling step of the cripple going upstairs, Roger had thought of
+the quick eager feet and the sudden scampers that would be heard as
+the silent old house renewed its life. Later he had gone to
+bed.</p>
+<p>He awakened with a start. The telephone bell was ringing.</p>
+<p>"Nice time to be calling folks out of bed," he grumbled, as he
+went into the hall. The next moment he heard Deborah's voice. It
+was clear and sharp with a note of alarm.</p>
+<p>"Father&mdash;it's I! You must come to Edith's apartment at
+once! Bruce is hurt badly! Come at once!"</p>
+<p>When Roger reached the apartment, it was Deborah who opened the
+door. Her face had changed, it was drawn and gray. She took him
+into the living room.</p>
+<p>"Tell me," he said harshly.</p>
+<p>"It was just outside the theater. Bruce and Edith were out in
+the street and got caught by some idiot of a chauffeur. Bruce threw
+Edith out of the way, but just as he did it he himself got struck
+in the back and went under a wheel. Allan brought him here at once,
+while I telephoned for a friend of his&mdash;a surgeon. They're
+with Bruce now."</p>
+<p>"Where's Edith?"</p>
+<p>"She's trying to quiet the children. They all woke up&mdash;"
+Deborah frowned&mdash;"when he was brought in," she added.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id=
+"Page_154"></a>[154]</span>Well!" breathed Roger. "I declare!"
+Dazed and stunned, he sank into a chair. Soon the door opened and
+Allan came in.</p>
+<p>"He's gone," he said. And Deborah jumped. "No, no, I meant the
+doctor."</p>
+<p>"What does he say?"</p>
+<p>"Bruce can't live," said Allan gently. In the tense silence
+there came a chill. "And he knows it," Allan added. "He made me
+tell him&mdash;he said he must know&mdash;for business reasons. He
+wants to see you both at once, before Edith gets that child
+asleep."</p>
+<p>As they entered the room they saw Bruce on his bed. He was
+breathing quickly through his narrow tight-set jaws and staring up
+at the ceiling with a straining fixed intensity. As they entered he
+turned his head. His eyes met theirs and lighted up in a hard and
+terrible manner.</p>
+<p>"I'm not leaving them a dollar!" he cried.</p>
+<p>"We'll see to them, boy," said Roger, hoarsely, but Bruce had
+already turned to Baird.</p>
+<p>"I make you my executor, Allan&mdash;don't need it in
+writing&mdash;there isn't time." He drew a sudden quivering breath.
+"I have no will," he muttered on. "Never made one&mdash;never
+thought of this. Business life just
+starting&mdash;booming!&mdash;and I put in every cent!" There broke
+from him a low, bitter groan. "Made my money settling other men's
+muddles! Never thought of making this mess of my own! But even in
+mine&mdash;I could save something still&mdash;if I could be
+there&mdash;if I could be there&mdash;"</p>
+<p>The sweat broke out on his temples, and Deborah laid her hand on
+his head. "Sh-h-h," she breathed. He shut his eyes.</p>
+<p>"Hard to think of anything any more. I can't keep clear." He
+shuddered with pain. "Fix me for <i>them</i>," he muttered to
+Baird. "George and his mother. Fix me up&mdash;give me a couple of
+minutes clear. And Deborah&mdash;when<span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span> you bring 'em
+in&mdash;don't let 'em know. You understand? No infernal last
+good-byes!" Deborah sharply set her teeth.</p>
+<p>"No, dear, no," she whispered. She followed her father out of
+the room, leaving Allan bending over the bed with a hypodermic in
+his hand. And when, a few moments later, George came in with his
+mother, they found Bruce soothed and quieted. He even smiled as he
+reached up his hand.</p>
+<p>"They say I've got to sleep, old girl&mdash;just sleep and
+sleep&mdash;it'll do me good. So you mustn't stay in the room
+to-night. Stay with the kiddies and get 'em to sleep." He was still
+smiling up at her. "They say it'll be a long time, little
+wife&mdash;and I'm so sorry&mdash;I was to blame. If I'd done as
+you wanted and gone in their taxi. Remember? You said it might
+rain." He turned to George: "Look here, my boy, I'm counting on
+you. I'll be sick, you know&mdash;no good at all. You must stand by
+your mother."</p>
+<p>George gulped awkwardly:</p>
+<p>"Sure I will, dad." His father sharply pressed his hand:</p>
+<p>"That's right, old fellow, I know what you are. Now good-night,
+son. Good-night, Edith dear." He looked at her steadily just for a
+moment, then closed his eyes. "Oh, but I'm sleepy," he murmured.
+"Good-night."</p>
+<p>And they left him. Alone with Allan, Bruce looked up with a
+savage glare.</p>
+<p>"Look here!" he snarled, between his teeth. "If you think I'm
+going to lie here and die you're mistaken! I won't! I won't let go!
+I'll show you chaps you can be wrong! Been wrong before, haven't
+you, thousands of times! Why be so damnably sure about <i>me</i>?"
+He fell back suddenly, limp and weak. "So damnably sure," he
+panted.</p>
+<p>"We're never sure, my dear old boy," said Allan very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id=
+"Page_156"></a>[156]</span>tenderly. Again he was bending close
+over the bed. "We're not sure yet&mdash;by any means. You're so
+strong, old chap, so amazingly strong. You've given me
+hope&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"What are you sticking into my arm?" But Allan kept talking
+steadily on:</p>
+<p>"You've given me hope you'll pull through still. But not like
+this. You've got to rest. Let go, and try to go to sleep."</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid to," came the whisper. But soon, as again the drug
+took hold, he mumbled in a drowsy tone, "Afraid to go to sleep in
+the dark.... Say, Allan&mdash;get Deborah in here, will
+you&mdash;just for a minute. One thing more."</p>
+<p>When she came, he did not open his eyes.</p>
+<p>"That you, Deborah? Where's your hand?... Oh&mdash;there it is.
+Just one more point. You&mdash;you&mdash;" Again his mind wandered,
+but with an effort he brought it back. "You and Edith," he said in
+a whisper. "So&mdash;so&mdash;so different. Not&mdash;not like each
+other at all. But you'll stick together&mdash;eh?
+Always&mdash;always. Don't let go&mdash;I mean of my hand."</p>
+<p>"No, dear, no."</p>
+<p>And with her hand holding his, she sat for a long time perfectly
+still. Then the baby was heard crying, and Deborah went to the
+nursery.</p>
+<p>"Now, Edith, I'll see to the children," she said. "Allan says
+you can go to Bruce if you like."</p>
+<p>Edith looked up at Deborah quickly, and as quickly turned away.
+She went in to her husband. And there, hour by hour through the
+night, while he lay inert with his hand in hers, little by little
+she understood. But she asked no question of anyone.</p>
+<p>At last Bruce stirred a little and began breathing deep and
+fast.</p>
+<p>And so death came into the family.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>CHAPTER
+XXI</h2>
+<p>Roger went through the next two days in a kind of a stupor. He
+remembered holding Edith and feeling her shudder as though from a
+chill. He remembered being stopped in the hall by George who had
+dressed himself with care in his first suit with long trousers. "I
+just wanted you to remember," the boy whispered solemnly, "that I'm
+nearly sixteen and I'll be here. He said to stand by her and I
+will." The rest of that ghastly time was a blank, punctuated by
+small quiet orders which Roger obeyed. Thank God, Deborah was
+there, and she was attending to everything.</p>
+<p>But when at last it was over, and Roger had spent the next day
+in his office, had found it impossible to work and so had gone home
+early, Deborah came to him in his room.</p>
+<p>"Now we must have a talk," she said. "Allan has gone through
+Bruce's affairs, and there are still debts to be settled, it
+seems."</p>
+<p>"How much do they come to, Deborah?"</p>
+<p>"About five thousand dollars," she said. And for a moment
+neither spoke. "I wish I could help you out," she went on, "but I
+have nothing saved and neither has Allan. We've both kept using our
+money downtown&mdash;except just enough for the trip
+abroad&mdash;and we'll need almost all of that to settle for the
+funeral."</p>
+<p>"I can manage," Roger said, and again there was a silence.</p>
+<p>"Edith will have to come here to live," Deborah said presently.
+Her father's heavy face grew stern.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id=
+"Page_158"></a>[158]</span>I'd thought of that," he answered. "But
+it will be hard on her, Deborah&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I know it will&mdash;but I don't see anything else to be done."
+The deep quiet voice of his daughter grew sweet with pity as she
+spoke. "At least we can try to make it a little easier for her. You
+can take her up to the mountains and I can close her apartment. But
+of course she won't agree to it unless she knows how matters
+stand." Deborah waited a little. "Don't you think you're the best
+one to tell her?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger, after a pause.</p>
+<p>"Then suppose we go to her. I'm sleeping up there for the next
+few nights."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>They found Edith in her living room. She had sent the nurse out,
+put the children to bed, and left alone with nothing to do she had
+sat facing her first night. Her light soft hair was disheveled, her
+pretty features pale and set. But the moment Roger entered he saw
+that she had herself in hand.</p>
+<p>"Well, father," she said steadily. "You'd better tell me about
+our affairs. <i>My</i> affairs," she corrected herself. When he had
+explained, she was silent a moment, and then in a voice harsh,
+bitter, abrupt, "That will be hard on the children," she said. On
+an impulse he started to take her hand, but she drew a little away
+from him.</p>
+<p>"The children, my dear," he said huskily, "will be taken care of
+always."</p>
+<p>"Yes." And again she was silent. "I've been thinking I'd like to
+go up to the mountains&mdash;right away," she continued.</p>
+<p>"Just our idea," he told her. "Deborah will arrange it at
+once."</p>
+<p>"That's good of Deborah," she replied. And after another pause:
+"But take her home with you&mdash;will you? I'd rather not have her
+here to-night."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id=
+"Page_159"></a>[159]</span>I think she'd better stay, my dear."</p>
+<p>"All right." In a tone of weariness. "Madge Deering called me up
+to-night. She's coming in town to-morrow, and she means to stay
+till I go."</p>
+<p>"I'm glad," he said approvingly. Madge had been a widow for
+years. Living out in Morristown with four daughters to bring up,
+she had determinedly fought her way and had not only regained her
+hold but had even grown in strength and breadth since the death of
+her husband long ago. "I'm glad," he said. "You and Madge&mdash;"
+he paused.</p>
+<p>"Yes, we'll have a good deal in common," Edith finished out his
+thought. "You look tired, dad. Hadn't you better go home now?" she
+suggested after a moment.</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger, rising. "Good-night, my child. Remember."</p>
+<p>In the outer hallway he found Deborah with Laura. Laura had been
+here several times. She was getting Edith's mourning.</p>
+<p>"There's a love of a hat at Thurn's," she was saying softly, "if
+only we can get her to wear it. It's just her type." And Laura drew
+an anxious breath. "Anything," she added, "to escape that hideous
+heavy crepe."</p>
+<p>Roger slightly raised his brows. He noticed a faint delicious
+perfume that irritated him suddenly. But glancing again at his
+daughter, trim, fresh and so immaculate, the joy of life barely
+concealed in her eyes, he stopped and talked and smiled at her, as
+Deborah was doing, enjoying her beauty and her youth, her love and
+all her happiness. And though they spoke of her sister, she knew
+they were thinking of herself, and that it was quite right they
+should, for it gave them a little relief from their gloom. She was
+honestly sorry for Edith, but she was sorrier still for Bruce, who
+she knew had always liked her more than he would have cared to say.
+She was sorrier for Bruce because, while Edith had lost only her
+husband, Bruce had lost <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160"
+id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>his very life. And life meant so much
+to Laura, these days, the glowing, coursing, vibrant life of her
+warm beautiful body. She was thinking of that as she stood in the
+hall.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In the evening, at home in his study, Roger heard a slight knock
+at the door. He looked up and saw John.</p>
+<p>"May I come in, Mr. Gale, for a minute?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, my boy." John hobbled in.</p>
+<p>"Only a minute." His voice was embarrassed. "Just two or three
+things I thought of," he said. "The first was about your
+son-in-law. You see, I was his stenographer&mdash;and while I was
+in his office&mdash;this morning helping Doctor Baird&mdash;I found
+a good deal I can do there still&mdash;about things no one
+remembers but me. So I'll stay there awhile, if it's all right.
+Only&mdash;" he paused&mdash;"without any pay. See what I
+mean?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I see," said Roger. "And you'd better stay&mdash;in that
+way if you like."</p>
+<p>"Thanks," said John. "Then about his wife and family. You're to
+take them up to the mountains, I hear&mdash;and&mdash;well, before
+this happened you asked <i>me</i> up this summer. But I guess I'd
+better not."</p>
+<p>"I don't think you'd be in the way, my boy."</p>
+<p>"I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind. When I'm through in
+your son-in-law's office I thought I might go back to yours. I
+could send you your mail every two or three days."</p>
+<p>"I'd like that, John&mdash;it will be a great help."</p>
+<p>"All right, Mr. Gale." John stopped at the door. "And Miss
+Deborah," he ventured. "Is she to get married just the same?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, I think so&mdash;later on."</p>
+<p>"Good-night, sir."</p>
+<p>And John went out of the room.</p>
+<p>When <i>would</i> Deborah be married? It came over Roger, when
+he was alone, how his family had shifted its center.<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span> Deborah
+would have come here to live, to love and be happy, a mother
+perhaps, but now she must find a home of her own. In her place
+would come Edith with her children. All would center on her in her
+grief.</p>
+<p>And for no cause! Just a trick of chance, a street accident! And
+Roger grew bitter and rebelled. Bruce was not the one of the family
+to die. Bruce, so shrewd and vigorous, so vital, the practical man
+of affairs. Bruce had been going the pace that kills&mdash;yes,
+Roger had often thought of it. But that had nothing to do with
+this! If Bruce had died at fifty, say, as a result of the life he
+had chosen, the fierce exhausting city which he had loved as a man
+will love drink, then at least there would have been some sense of
+fairness in it all! If the town had let him alone till his time!
+But to be knocked down by an automobile! The devilish irony of it!
+No reason&mdash;nothing! Just hideous luck!</p>
+<p>Well, life was like that. As for Edith and her children, he
+would be glad to have them here. Only, it would be different, the
+house would have to change again. He was sorry, too, for Deborah.
+No wedding trip as she had planned, no home awaiting her
+return.</p>
+<p>So his mind went over his family.</p>
+<p>But suddenly such thoughts fell away as trivial and of small
+account. For these people would still be alive. And Bruce was dead,
+and Roger was old. So he thought about Bruce and about himself, and
+all his children grew remote. "You will live on in our children's
+lives." Was there no other immortality? The clock ticked on the
+mantle and beside it "The Thinker" brooded down. And Roger looked
+up unafraid, but grim and gravely wondering.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span>CHAPTER
+XXII</h2>
+<p>But there was a rugged practical side to the character of Roger
+Gale, and the next morning he was ashamed of the brooding thoughts
+which had come in the night. He shook them off as morbid, and
+resolutely set himself to what lay close before him. There was work
+to be done on Bruce's affairs, and the work was a decided relief.
+Madge Deering, in the meantime, had offered to go with Edith and
+the children to the mountains and see them all well settled there.
+And a little talk he had with Madge relieved his mind still
+further. What a recovery <i>she</i> had made from the tragedy of
+years ago. How alert and wide-awake she seemed. If Edith could only
+grow like that.</p>
+<p>Soon after their departure, one night when he was dining alone,
+he had a curious consciousness of the mingled presence of Edith and
+of Judith his wife. And this feeling grew so strong that several
+times he looked about in a startled, questioning manner. All at
+once his eye was caught by an old mahogany sideboard. It was
+Edith's. It had been her mother's. Edith, when she married, had
+wanted something from her old home. Well, now it was back in the
+family.</p>
+<p>The rest of Edith's furniture, he learned from Deborah that
+night, had been stored in the top of the house.</p>
+<p>"Most of it," she told him, "Edith will probably want to use in
+fitting up the children's rooms." With a twinge of foreboding,
+Roger felt the approaching change in his home.</p>
+<p>"When do you plan to be married?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"About the end of August. We couldn't very well <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>till
+then, without hurting poor Edith a little, you see. You know how
+she feels about such things&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I guess you're right," he agreed.</p>
+<p>How everything centered 'round Edith, he thought. To pay the
+debts which Bruce had left would take all Roger had on hand; and
+from this time on his expenses, with five growing children here,
+would be a fast increasing drain. He would have to be careful and
+husband his strength, a thing he had always hated to do.</p>
+<p>In the next few weeks, he worked hard in his office. He cut down
+his smoking, stayed home every evening and went to bed at ten
+o'clock. He tried to shut Deborah out of his mind. As for Laura, he
+barely gave her a thought. She dropped in one evening to bid him
+good-bye, for this summer again she was going abroad. She and her
+husband, she told him, were to motor through the Balkans and down
+into Italy. Her father gruffly answered that he hoped she would
+enjoy herself. It seemed infernally unfair that it should not be
+Deborah who was sailing the next morning. But when he felt himself
+growing annoyed, abruptly he put a check on himself. It was Edith
+he must think of now.</p>
+<p>But curiously it happened, in this narrowing of his attention,
+that while he shut out two of his daughters, a mere outsider edged
+closer in.</p>
+<p>Johnny Geer was a great help. He was back in Roger's office, and
+with the sharp wits he had gained in his eighteen years of fighting
+for a chance to stay alive, now at Roger's elbow John was watching
+like a hawk for all the little ways and means of pushing up the
+business. What a will the lad had to down bodily ills, what vim in
+the way he tackled each job. His shrewd and cheery companionship
+was a distraction and relief. John was so funny sometimes.</p>
+<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Gale," he said, as Roger came into the office
+one day.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id=
+"Page_164"></a>[164]</span>Hello, Johnny. How are you?" Roger
+replied.</p>
+<p>"Fine, thank you." And John went on with his work of opening the
+morning's mail. But a few minutes later he gave a cackling little
+laugh.</p>
+<p>"What's so funny?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"Fellers," was the answer. "Fellers. Human nature. Here's a
+letter from Shifty Sam."</p>
+<p>"Who the devil is he? A friend of yours?"</p>
+<p>"No," said John, "he's a 'con man.' He works about as mean a
+graft as any you ever heard of. He reads the 'ads' in the
+papers&mdash;see?&mdash;of servant girls who're looking for work.
+He makes a specialty of cooks. Then he goes to where they live and
+talks of some nice family that wants a servant right away. He
+claims to be the butler, and he's dressed to look the part. 'There
+ain't a minute to lose,' he says. 'If you want a chawnce, my girl,
+come quick.' He says 'chawnce' like a butler&mdash;see? 'Pack your
+things,' he tells her, 'and come right along with me.' So she packs
+and hustles off with him&mdash;Sam carrying her suit case. He puts
+her on a trolley and says, 'I guess I'll stay on the platform. I've
+got a bit of a headache and the air will do me good.' So he stays
+out there with her suit case&mdash;and as soon as the car gets into
+a crowd, Sam jumps and beats it with her clothes."</p>
+<p>"I see," said Roger dryly. "But what's he writing <i>you</i>
+about?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, it ain't me he's writing to&mdash;it's you," was John's
+serene reply. Roger started.</p>
+<p>"What?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Well," said the boy in a cautious tone, vigilantly eyeing his
+chief, "you see, a lot of these fellers like Sam have been in the
+papers lately. They're being called a crime wave."</p>
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+<p>"Sam is up for trial this week&mdash;and half the Irish cooks in
+town are waiting 'round to testify. And Shifty seems <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span>to enjoy
+himself. His picture's in the papers&mdash;see? And he wants all
+the clippings. So he encloses a five dollar bill."</p>
+<p>"He does, eh&mdash;well, you write to Sam and send his money
+back to him!" There was a little silence.</p>
+<p>"But look here," said John with keen regret. "We've had quite a
+lot of these letters this week."</p>
+<p>Roger wheeled and looked at him.</p>
+<p>"John," he demanded severely, "what game have you been up to
+here?"</p>
+<p>"No game at all," was the prompt retort. "Just getting a little
+business."</p>
+<p>"How?"</p>
+<p>"Well, there's a club downtown," said John, "where a lot of
+these petty crooks hang out. I used to deliver papers there. And I
+went around one night this month&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<i>To drum up business?</i>"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir." Roger looked at him aghast.</p>
+<p>"John," he asked, in deep reproach, "do you expect this office
+to feed the vanity of thieves?"</p>
+<p>"Where's the vanity," John rejoined, "in being called a crime
+wave?" And seeing the sudden tremor of mirth which had appeared on
+Roger's face, "Look here, Mr. Gale," he went eagerly on. "When
+every paper in the town is telling these fellers where they
+belong&mdash;calling 'em crooks, degenerates, and preaching regular
+sermons right into their faces&mdash;why shouldn't we help 'em to
+read the stuff? How do we know it won't do 'em good? It's church to
+'em, that's what it is&mdash;and business for this office. Nine of
+these guys have sent in their money just in the last week or
+so&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Look out, my boy," said Roger, with slow and solemn emphasis.
+"If you aren't extremely careful you'll find yourself a
+millionaire."</p>
+<p>"But wait a minute, Mr. Gale&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id=
+"Page_166"></a>[166]</span>Not in this office," Roger said. "Send
+'em back, every one of 'em! Understand?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," was the meek reply. And with a little sigh of regret
+John turned his wits to other kinds and conditions of New Yorkers
+who might care to see themselves in print.</p>
+<p>As they worked together day by day, Roger had occasional qualms
+over leaving John here in the hot town while he himself went up to
+the mountains. He even thought of writing to Edith that he was
+planning to bring John, too. But no, she wouldn't like it. So he
+did something else instead.</p>
+<p>"John," he said, one morning, "I'm going to raise your salary to
+a hundred dollars a month." Instantly from the lad's bright eyes
+there shot a look of triumph.</p>
+<p>"Thanks, Mr. Gale," was his hearty response.</p>
+<p>"And in the meantime, Johnny, I want you to take a good solid
+month off."</p>
+<p>"All right, sir, thank you," John replied. "But I guess it won't
+be quite a month. I don't feel as if I needed it."</p>
+<p>The next day at the office he appeared resplendent in a
+brand-new suit of clothes, a summer homespun of light gray set off
+by a tie of flaming red. There was nothing soft about that boy. No,
+Johnny knew how to look out for himself.</p>
+<p>And Roger went up to the farm.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span>CHAPTER
+XXIII</h2>
+<p>George met him at the station, as he had done a year before. But
+at once Roger noticed a difference. In the short time since his
+father's death certain lines had come in the boy's freckled face,
+and they gave him a thoughtful, resolute look. George's voice was
+changing. One moment it was high and boyish, again a deep and manly
+bass. As he kept his eyes on the horses and talked about his
+mother, his grandfather from time to time threw curious side
+glances.</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes," George was saying, "mother's all right, she's doing
+fine. It was pretty bad at first, though. She wouldn't let me sit
+up with her any&mdash;she treated me like a regular kid. But any
+fellow with any sense could see how she was feeling. She'd get
+thinking of the accident." George stopped short and clamped his
+jaws. "You know, my dad did a wonderful thing," he continued
+presently. "Even when he was dying, and mother and I were there by
+his bed, he remembered how she'd get thinking alone&mdash;all about
+the accident. You see he knew mother pretty darned well. So he told
+her to remember that he was the one to blame for it. If it hadn't
+been for him, he said, they would have gone home in the taxi.
+That's a pretty good point to keep in her mind. Don't you think
+so?" he inquired. And Roger glanced affectionately into the anxious
+face by his side.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he said, "it's a mighty good point. Did you think of
+it?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," George replied. "I've told it to her a good many
+times&mdash;that and two other points I thought of."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id=
+"Page_168"></a>[168]</span>What are they, son?" asked Roger.</p>
+<p>"First," the boy said awkwardly, "about how good she was to him.
+And second, that she let him buy the new car before he died. He had
+such a lot of fun out of that car&mdash;"</p>
+<p>On the last words the lad's changing voice went from an
+impressive bass to a most undignified treble. He savagely
+scowled.</p>
+<p>"Those three points," he continued, in more careful measured
+tones, "were about all I could think of. I had to use 'em over and
+over&mdash;on mother when things got bad, I mean." A flush of
+embarrassment came on his face. "And hold her and kiss her," he
+muttered. Then he whipped his horses. "We've had some pretty bad
+times this month," he continued, loud and manfully. "You see,
+mother isn't so young as she was. She's well on in her thirties." A
+glimmer of amusement appeared in Roger's heavy eyes. "But she don't
+cry often any more, and with you here we'll pull her through." He
+shot a quick look at his grandfather. "Gee, but I'm glad you're
+here!" he said.</p>
+<p>"So am I," said Roger. And with a little pressure of his hand on
+George's shoulder, "I guess you've had about your share. Now tell
+me the news. How are things on the farm?"</p>
+<p>With a breath of evident relief, the lad launched into the
+animal world. And soon he was talking eagerly.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In the next few days with his daughter Roger found that George
+was right. She had been through the worst of it. But she still had
+her reactions, her spells of emptiness, bleak despair, her moods of
+fierce rebellion or of sudden self-reproach for not having given
+Bruce more while he lived. And in such hours her father tried to
+comfort her with poor success.</p>
+<p>"Remember, child, I'm with you, and I know how it <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>feels,"
+he said. "I went through it all myself: When your mother
+died&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But mother was so much older!" He looked at his daughter
+compassionately.</p>
+<p>"How old are you?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"Thirty-six."</p>
+<p>"Your mother was thirty-nine," he replied. And at that Edith
+turned and stared at him, bewildered, shocked, brought face to face
+with a new and momentous fact in her life.</p>
+<p>"Mother only my age when she died?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger gently, "only three years older." With a
+twinge of pain he noticed two quite visible streaks of gray in his
+daughter's soft blonde hair. "And she felt as you do now&mdash;as
+though she were just starting out. And I felt the same way, my
+dear. If I'm not mistaken, everyone does. You still feel
+young&mdash;but the new generation is already growing up&mdash;and
+you can feel yourself being pushed on. And it is hard&mdash;it is
+very hard." Clumsily he took her hand. "Don't let yourself drop
+out," he said. "Be as your mother would have been if she had been
+left instead of me. Go straight on with your children."</p>
+<p>To this note he could feel her respond. And at first, as he felt
+what a fight she was making, Roger glorified her pluck. As he
+watched her with her children at table, smiling at their talk with
+an evident effort to enter in, and again with her baby snug in her
+lap while she read bedtime stories to Bob and little Tad at her
+side, he kept noticing the resemblance between his daughter and his
+wife. How close were these two members of his family drawing
+together now, one of them living, the other dead.</p>
+<p>But later, as the weeks wore on, she began to plan for her
+children. She planned precisely how to fit them all into the house
+in town, she planned the hours for their meals, for their going
+alone or with the nurse or a maid <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>to their different private
+schools, to music lessons, to dancing school and uptown to the park
+to play. She planned their fall clothes and she planned their
+friends. And there came to her father occasional moods of anxiety.
+He remembered Bruce's grim remarks about those "simple" schools and
+clothes, the kind that always cost the most. And he began to
+realize what Bruce's existence must have been. For scarcely ever in
+their talks did Edith speak of anything outside of her family.
+Night after night, with a tensity born of her struggle with her
+grief, she talked about her children. And Roger was in Bruce's
+place, he was the one she planned with. At moments with a vague
+dismay he glimpsed the life ahead in his home.</p>
+<p>George was hard at work each day down by the broken dam at the
+mill. He had an idea he could patch it up, put the old water-wheel
+back into place and make it run a dynamo, by which he could light
+the house and barn and run the machines in the dairy. In his new
+r&ocirc;le as the man of his family, George was planning out his
+career. He was wrestling with a book entitled "Our New Mother
+Earth" and a journal called "The Modern Farm." And to Roger he
+confided that he meant to be a farmer. He wanted to go in the
+autumn to the State Agricultural College. But when one day, very
+cautiously, Roger spoke to Edith of this, with a hard and jealous
+smile which quite transformed her features, she said,</p>
+<p>"Oh, I know all about that, father dear. It's just a stage he's
+going through. And it's the same way with Elizabeth, too, and her
+crazy idea of becoming a doctor. She took that from Allan Baird,
+and George took his from Deborah! They'll get over it soon
+enough&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"They won't get over it!" Roger cried. "Their dreams are parts
+of something new! Something I'm quite vague about&mdash;but some of
+it has come to stay! You're <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>losing all your
+chances&mdash;just as I did years ago! You'll never know your
+children!"</p>
+<p>But he uttered this cry to himself alone. Outwardly he only
+frowned. And Edith had gone on to say,</p>
+<p>"I do hope that Deborah won't come up this summer. She's been
+very good and kind, of course, and if she comes she'll be doing it
+entirely on my account. But I don't want her here&mdash;I want her
+to marry, the sooner the better, and come to her senses&mdash;be
+happy, I mean. And I wish you would tell her so."</p>
+<p>Within a few days after this Deborah wrote to her father that
+she was coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at
+first, he had William saddled and went for a ride to try to
+determine what he should do. But it was a ticklish business. For
+women were queer and touchy, and once more he felt the working of
+those uncanny family ties.</p>
+<p>"Deborah," he reflected, "is coming up here because she feels
+it's selfish of her to stay away. If she marries at once, as she
+told me herself, she thinks Edith will be hurt. Edith won't be
+hurt&mdash;and if Deborah comes, there'll be trouble every minute
+she stays. But can I tell her so? Not at all. I can't say, 'You're
+not wanted here.' If I do, <i>she'll</i> be hurt. Oh Lord, these
+girls! And Deborah knows very well that if she does get married
+this month, with Laura abroad and Edith up here and only me at the
+wedding, Edith will smile to herself and say, 'Now isn't that just
+like Deborah?'"</p>
+<p>As Roger slowly rode along a steep and winding mountain road,
+gloomily he reflected to what petty little troubles a family of
+women could descend, so soon after death itself. And he lifted his
+eyes up to the hills and decided to leave this matter alone. If
+women would be women, let them settle their own affairs. Deborah
+was due to arrive on the following Friday evening. All right, let
+her come, he thought. She would soon see she was in the way, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id=
+"Page_172"></a>[172]</span>then in a little affectionate talk he
+would suggest that she marry right off and have a decent honeymoon
+before the school year opened.</p>
+<p>So he dismissed it from his mind. And as he listened in the dusk
+to the numberless murmuring voices of living creatures large and
+small which rose out of the valley, and as from high above him the
+serenity of the mountains there towering over thousands of years
+stole into his spirit, Roger had a large quieting sense of
+something high and powerful looking down upon the earth, a sense of
+all humanity honeycombed with millions upon millions of small
+sorrows, absorbing joys and hopes and fears, and in spite of them
+all the Great Life sweeping on, with no Great Death to check its
+course, no immense catastrophe, all these little troubles like mere
+tiny specks of foam upon the surface of the tide.</p>
+<p>Deborah's visit, the following week, was as he had expected.
+Within an hour after her coming he could feel the tension grow.
+Deborah herself was tense, both from the work she had left in New
+York where she was soon to have five schools, and from the thought
+of her marriage, only a few weeks ahead. She said nothing about it,
+however, until as a sisterly duty Edith tried to draw her out by
+showing an interest in her plans. But the cloud of Bruce's death
+was there, and Deborah shunned the topic. She tried to talk of the
+children instead. But Edith at once was on the defensive, vigilant
+for trouble, and as she unfolded her winter plans she grew
+distinctly brief and curt.</p>
+<p>"If Deborah doesn't see it now, she's a fool," her father told
+himself. "I'll just wait a few days more, and then we'll have that
+little talk."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>CHAPTER
+XXIV</h2>
+<p>It had rained so hard for the past two days that no one had gone
+to the village, which was nearly three miles from the farm. But
+when the storm was over at last, George and Elizabeth tramped down
+and came back at dusk with a bag full of mail. Their clothes were
+mud-bespattered and they hurried upstairs to change before supper,
+while Roger settled back in his chair and spread open his New York
+paper. It was July 30, 1914.</p>
+<p>From a habit grown out of thirty odd years of business life,
+Roger read his paper in a fashion of his own. By instinct his eye
+swept the page for news dealing with individual men, for it was
+upon people's names in print that he had made his living. And so
+when he looked at this strange front page it gave him a swift
+twinge of alarm. For the news was not of men but of nations.
+Austria was massing her troops along the Serbian frontier, and
+Germany, Italy, Russia, France and even England, all were in a
+turmoil, with panics in their capitals, money markets going
+wild.</p>
+<p>Edith came down, in her neat black dress with its narrow white
+collar, ready for supper. She glanced at her father.</p>
+<p>"Why, what's the matter?"</p>
+<p>"Look at this." And he tossed her a paper.</p>
+<p>"Oh-h-h," she murmured softly. "Oh, how frightful that would
+be." And she read on with lips compressed. But soon there came from
+a room upstairs the sudden cry of one of her children, followed by
+a shrill wail of distress. And dropping the paper, she hurried
+away.</p>
+<p>Roger continued his reading.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id=
+"Page_174"></a>[174]</span>Deborah came. She saw the paper Edith
+had dropped, picked it up and sat down to read, and there were a
+few moments of absolute silence. Then Roger heard a quivering
+breath, and glancing up he saw Deborah's eyes, intent and startled,
+moving down the columns of print in a swift, uncomprehending
+way.</p>
+<p>"Pretty serious business," he growled.</p>
+<p>"It can't happen!" she exclaimed.</p>
+<p>And they resumed their reading.</p>
+<p>In the next three days, as they read the news, they felt war
+like a whirlpool sucking in all their powers to think or feel, felt
+their own small personal plans whirled about like leaves in a
+storm. And while their minds&mdash;at first dazed and stunned by
+the thought of such appalling armies, battles, death and
+desolation&mdash;slowly cleared and they strove to think, and Roger
+thought of business shivered to atoms in every land, and Deborah
+thought of schools by thousands all over Europe closing down, in
+cities and in villages, in valleys and on mountain sides, of homes
+in panic everywhere, of all ideals of brotherhood shaken, bending,
+tottering&mdash;war broke out in Europe.</p>
+<p>"What is this going to mean to me?"</p>
+<p>Millions of people were asking that. And so did Roger and
+Deborah. The same night they left for New York, while Edith with a
+sigh of relief settled back into her family.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>The next morning at his office Roger found John waiting with
+misery stamped on his face. John had paid small heed to war. Barely
+stopping for sleep in the last two days he had gone through scores
+and hundreds of papers, angrily skipping all those names of kings
+and emperors and czars, and searching instead for American names,
+names of patrons&mdash;business! Gone! Each hour he had been
+opening mail and piling up letters cancelling contracts, ordering
+service discontinued.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id=
+"Page_175"></a>[175]</span>Roger sat down at his desk. As he worked
+and figured and dictated letters, glancing into the outer rooms he
+saw the long rows of girls at tables obviously trying to pretend
+that there was work for them to do. He felt them anxiously watching
+him&mdash;as in other offices everywhere millions of other
+employees kept furtively glancing at their chiefs.</p>
+<p>"War," he thought. "Shall I close <i>down?</i>" He shrank from
+what it would mean to those girls. "Business will pick up again
+soon. A few days&mdash;weeks&mdash;that's all I need."</p>
+<p>And he went to his bank. No credit there. He tried other
+sources, all he could think of, racking his brains as he went about
+town, but still he could not raise a loan. Finally he went to the
+firm which had once held a mortgage on his house. The chief partner
+had been close to Bruce, an old college friend. And when even this
+friend refused him aid, "It's a question of Bruce's children,"
+Roger muttered, reddening. He felt like a beggar, but he was
+getting desperate. The younger man had looked away and was
+nervously tapping his desk with his pen.</p>
+<p>"Bad as that, eh," he answered. "Then I guess it's got to be
+done." He looked anxiously up at Roger, who just at that moment
+appeared very old. "Don't worry, Mr. Gale," he said. "Somehow or
+other we'll carry you through."</p>
+<p>"Thank you, sir." Roger rose heavily, feeling weak, and took his
+departure. "This is war," he told himself, "and I've got to look
+after my own."</p>
+<p>But he had a sensation almost of guilt, as upon his return to
+his office he saw those suddenly watchful faces. He walked past
+them and went into his room, and again he searched for ways and
+means. He tried to see his business as it would be that autumn, to
+see the city, the nation, the world as it would be in the months
+ahead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id=
+"Page_176"></a>[176]</span> Repeatedly he fought off his fears. But
+slowly and inexorably the sense of his helplessness grew clear.</p>
+<p>"No, I must shut down," he thought.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>On his way home that evening, in a crush at a turbulent corner
+he saw a big truck jam into a taxi, and with a throb of rebellion
+he thought of his son-in-law who was dead. Just the turn of a hair
+and Bruce might have lived and been here to look after the
+children! At the prospect of the crisis, the strain he saw before
+him, Roger again felt weak and old. He shook off his dread and
+strode angrily on.</p>
+<p>In his house, the rooms downstairs were still dismantled for the
+summer. There was emptiness and silence but no serenity in them
+now, only the quiet before the storm which he could feel from far
+and near was gathering about his home. He heard Deborah on the
+floor above, and went up and found her making his bed, for the
+chambermaid had not yet come. Her voice was a little unnatural.</p>
+<p>"It has been a hard day, hasn't it. I've got your bath-room
+ready," she said. "Don't you want a nice cool bath? Supper will be
+ready soon."</p>
+<p>When, a half hour later, somewhat refreshed, Roger came down to
+the table, he noticed it was set for two.</p>
+<p>"Isn't Allan coming?" he asked. Her mobile features
+tightened.</p>
+<p>"Not till later," she replied.</p>
+<p>They talked little and the meal was short. But afterwards, on
+the wooden porch, Deborah turned to her father,</p>
+<p>"Now tell me about your office," she said.</p>
+<p>"There's not enough business to pay the rent."</p>
+<p>"That won't last&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I'm not so sure."</p>
+<p>"I am," she said determinedly. Her father slowly turned his
+head.</p>
+<p>"Are you, with this war?" he asked. Her eyes met his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id=
+"Page_177"></a>[177]</span>and moved away in a baffled, searching
+manner. "She has troubles of her own," he thought.</p>
+<p>"How much can we run the house on, Deborah?" he asked her. At
+first she did not answer. "What was it&mdash;about six thousand
+last year?"</p>
+<p>"I think so," she said restlessly. "We can cut down on that, of
+course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"With Edith and the children here?"</p>
+<p>"Edith will have to manage it! There are others to be thought
+of!"</p>
+<p>"The children in your schools, you mean."</p>
+<p>"Yes," she answered with a frown. "It will be a bad year for the
+tenements. But please go on and tell me. What have you thought of
+doing?"</p>
+<p>"Mortgage the house again," he replied. "It hasn't been easy,
+for money is tight, but I think I'll be able to get enough to just
+about carry us through the year. At home, I mean," he added.</p>
+<p>"And the office?"</p>
+<p>"Shut down," he said. She turned on him fiercely.</p>
+<p>"You won't do that!"</p>
+<p>"What else can I do?"</p>
+<p>"Turn all those girls away?" she cried. At her tone his look
+grew troubled.</p>
+<p>"How can I help myself, Deborah? If I kept open it would cost me
+over five hundred a week to run. Have I five hundred dollars a week
+to lose?"</p>
+<p>"But I tell you it won't last!" she cried, and again the
+baffled, driven expression swept over her expressive face. "Can't
+you see this is only a panic&mdash;and keep going somehow? Can't
+you see what it means to the tenements? Hundreds of thousands are
+out of work! They're being turned off every day, every
+hour&mdash;employers all over are losing their heads! And City Hall
+is as mad as the rest! They've decided already down there to
+retrench!"</p>
+<p>He turned with a quick jerk of his head:</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id=
+"Page_178"></a>[178]</span>Are they cutting you down?" She set her
+teeth:</p>
+<p>"Yes, they are. But the work in my schools is going
+on&mdash;every bit of it is&mdash;for every child! I'm going to
+find a way," she said. And he felt a thrill of compassion.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry to hear it," he muttered.</p>
+<p>"You needn't be." She paused a moment, smiled and went on in a
+quieter voice: "Don't think I'm blind&mdash;I'm sensible&mdash;I
+see you can't lose five hundred a week. But why not try what other
+employers, quite a few, have decided to do? Call your people
+together, explain how it is, and ask them to choose a committee to
+help you find which ones need jobs the most. Keep all you
+can&mdash;on part time, of course&mdash;but at least pay them
+something, carry them through. You'll lose money by it, I haven't a
+doubt. But you've already found you can mortgage the house, and
+remember besides that I shall be here. I'm not going to marry
+now"&mdash;her father looked at her quickly&mdash;"and of course
+I'll expect to do my share toward meeting the expenses. Moreover, I
+know we can cut down."</p>
+<p>"Retrench," said Roger grimly. "Turn off the servants instead of
+the clerks."</p>
+<p>"No, only one of them, Martha upstairs&mdash;and she is to be
+married. We'll keep the cook and the waitress. Edith will have to
+give up her nurse&mdash;and it will be hard on her, of
+course&mdash;but she'll have to realize this is war," Deborah said
+sharply. "Besides," she urged, "it's not going to last. Business
+everywhere will pick up&mdash;in a few weeks or months at most. The
+war <i>can't</i> go on&mdash;it's too horribly big!" She broke off
+and anxiously looked at him. Her father was still frowning.</p>
+<p>"I'm asking you to risk a good deal," she continued, her voice
+intense and low. "But somehow, dearie, I always feel that this old
+house of ours is strong. It can <i>stand</i> a good deal. We can
+all of us stand so much, as soon as we know we have to." The lines
+of her wide sensitive mouth tightened firmly once again. "It's all
+so vague and un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id=
+"Page_179"></a>[179]</span>certain, I know. But one thing at least
+is sure. This is no time for people with money&mdash;no matter how
+little&mdash;to shut themselves up in their own little houses and
+let the rest starve or beg or steal. This is the time to do our
+share."</p>
+<p>And she waited. But he made no reply.</p>
+<p>"Every nation at war is doing it, dad&mdash;become like one big
+family&mdash;with everyone helping, doing his share. Must a nation
+be at war to do that? Can't we be brothers without the guns? Can't
+you see that we're all of us stunned, and trying to see what war
+will mean to all the children in the world? And while we're
+groping, groping, can't we give each other a hand?"</p>
+<p>Still he sat motionless there in the dark. At last he stirred
+heavily in his chair.</p>
+<p>"I guess you're right," he told her. "At least I'll think it
+over&mdash;and try to work out something along the lines you spoke
+of."</p>
+<p>Again there was a silence. Then his daughter turned to him with
+a little deprecating smile.</p>
+<p>"You'll forgive my&mdash;preaching to you, dad?"</p>
+<p>"No preaching," he said gruffly. "Just ordinary common
+sense."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>A little later Allan came in, and Roger soon left them and went
+to bed. Alone with Baird she was silent a moment.</p>
+<p>"Well? Have you thought it over?" she asked. "Wasn't I right in
+what I said?" At the anxious ring in her low clear voice, leaning
+over he took her hand; and he felt it hot and trembling as it
+quickly closed on his. He stroked it slowly, soothingly. In the
+semi-darkness he seemed doubly tall and powerful.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I'm sure you were right," he said.</p>
+<p>"Spring at the latest&mdash;I'll marry you then&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Her eyes were intently fixed on his.</p>
+<p>"Come here!" she whispered sharply, and Baird bent <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>over and
+held her tight. "Tighter!" she whispered. "Tighter!... There!... I
+said, spring at the latest! I can't lose you,
+Allan&mdash;now&mdash;"</p>
+<p>She suddenly quivered as though from fatigue.</p>
+<p>"I'm going to watch you close down there," he said in a moment,
+huskily.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span>CHAPTER
+XXV</h2>
+<p>Roger saw little of Deborah in the weeks that followed. She was
+gathering her forces for the long struggle she saw ahead. And his
+own worries filled his mind. On his house he succeeded in borrowing
+five thousand dollars at ten per cent, and in his office he worked
+out a scheme along the lines of Deborah's plan. At first it was
+only a struggle to save the remnants of what was left. Later the
+tide began to turn, new business came into the office again. But
+only a little, and then it stopped. Hard times were here for the
+winter.</p>
+<p>Soon Edith would come with the children. He wondered how
+sensible she would be. It was going to mean a daily fight to make
+ends meet, he told himself, and guiltily he decided not to let his
+daughter know how matters stood in his office. Take care of your
+own flesh and blood, and then be generous as you please&mdash;that
+had always been his way. And now Deborah had upset it by her
+emotional appeal. "How dramatic she is at times!" he reflected in
+annoyance. "Just lets herself out and enjoys herself!" He grew
+angry at her interference, and more than once he resolved to shut
+down. But back in the office, before those watchful faces, still
+again he would put it off.</p>
+<p>"Wait a little. We'll see," he thought.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In the meantime, in this interplay, these shifting lights and
+shadows which played upon the history of the life of Roger's home,
+there came to him a diversion from an unexpected source. Laura and
+Harold returned from abroad. Soon after landing they came to the
+house, and talking fast and eagerly they told how they had eluded
+the war.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id=
+"Page_182"></a>[182]</span>For them it had been a glorious game. In
+Venice in early August, Harold had seen a chance for a big stroke
+of business. He had a friend who lived in Rome, an Italian close to
+his government. At once they had joined forces, worked day and
+night, pulled wires, used money judiciously here and there, and so
+had secured large orders for munitions from the U.S.A. Then to get
+back to God's country! There came the hitch, they were too late.
+Naples, Genoa, and Milan, all were filled with tourist mobs. They
+took a train for Paris, and reaching the city just a week before
+the end of the German drive they found it worse than Italy. But
+there Hal had a special pull&mdash;and by the use of those wits of
+his, not to be downed by refusals, he got passage at last for
+Laura, himself and his new Italian partner. At midnight, making
+their way across the panic-stricken city, and at the station
+struggling through a wild and half crazed multitude of men and
+women and children, they boarded a train and went rushing westward
+right along the edge of the storm. To the north the Germans were so
+close that Laura was sure she could hear the big guns. The train
+kept stopping to take on troops. At dawn some twenty wounded men
+came crowding into their very car, bloody and dirty, pale and worn,
+but gaily smiling at the pain, and saying, "&Ccedil;a n'fait rien,
+madame." Later Harold opened his flask for some splendid Breton
+soldier boys just going into action. And they stood up with
+flashing eyes and shouted out the Marseillaise, while Laura
+shivered and thrilled with delight.</p>
+<p>"I nearly kissed them all!" she cried.</p>
+<p>Roger greatly enjoyed the evening. He had heard so much of the
+horrors of war. Here was something different, something bright and
+vibrant with youth and adventure! Here at last was the thrill of
+war, the part he had always read about!</p>
+<p>He glanced now and then at Deborah and was annoyed by what he
+saw. For although she said nothing and forced <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>a smile,
+he could easily tell by the set of her lips that Deborah thoroughly
+disapproved. All right, that was her way, he thought. But this was
+Laura's way, shedding the gloom and the tragic side as a duck will
+shed water off its back, a duck with bright new plumage fresh from
+the shops of the Rue de la Paix and taking some pleasure out of
+life! What an ardent gleaming beauty she was, he thought as he
+watched this daughter of his. And underneath his enjoyment, too,
+though Roger would not have admitted it, was a sense of relief in
+the news that at least one man in the family was growing rich
+instead of poor. Already Hal and his partner&mdash;a fascinating
+creature according to Laura's description&mdash;were fast equipping
+shrapnel mills. Plainly they expected a tremendous rush of
+business. And no matter how you felt about war, the word "profits"
+at least had a pleasant sound.</p>
+<p>"How has the war hit you, sir?" Harold asked his
+father-in-law.</p>
+<p>"Oh, so-so, I'll get on, my boy," was Roger's quiet answer. For
+Harold was not quite the kind he would ever like to ask for aid.
+Still, if the worst came to the worst, he would have someone to
+turn to.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Long after they had left the house, he kept thinking over all
+they had said. What an amazing time they had had, the two young
+scalawags.</p>
+<p>Deborah was still in the room. As she sat working at her desk,
+her back was turned and she did not speak. But little by little her
+father's mood changed. Of course she was right, he admitted. For
+now they were gone, the spell they had cast was losing a part of
+its glamor. Yes, their talk had been pretty raw. Sheer unthinking
+selfishness, a bold rush for plunder and a dash to get away,
+trampling over people half crazed, women and children in panicky
+crowds, and leaving behind them, so to speak, Laura's joyous
+rippling laugh over their own success <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>in the
+game. Yes, there was no denying the fact that Hal was rushing
+headlong into a savage dangerous game, a scramble and a gamble,
+with adventurers from all over Europe gathering here and making a
+little world of their own. He would work and live at a feverish
+pitch, and Laura would go it as hard as he. Roger thought he could
+see their winter ahead. How they would pile up money and spend!</p>
+<p>All at once, as though some figure silent and invisible were
+standing close beside him, from far back in his childhood a memory
+flashed into his mind of a keen and clear October night, when
+Roger, a little shaver of nine, had stood with his mother in front
+of the farmhouse and listened to the faint sharp roll of a single
+drum far down in the valley. And his mother's grip had hurt his
+hand, and a lump had risen in his throat&mdash;as Dan, his oldest
+brother, had marched away with his company of New Hampshire
+mountain boys. "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred
+thousand more." Dan had been killed at Shiloh.</p>
+<p>And it must be like that now in France. No, he did not like the
+look which he had seen on Laura's face as she had talked about the
+war and the fat profits to be made. Was this all we Yankees had to
+say to the people over in Europe?</p>
+<p>Frowning and glancing at Deborah's back, he saw that she was
+tired. It was nearly midnight, but still she kept working doggedly
+on, moving her shoulder muscles at times as though to shake off
+aches and pains, then bending again to her labor, her fight against
+such heavy odds in the winter just beginning for those children in
+the tenements. He recalled a fragment of the appeal she had made to
+him only the month before:</p>
+<p>"Can't you see that we're all of us stunned, and trying to see
+what war will mean to all the children in the world? And while
+we're groping, groping, can't we give each other a hand?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id=
+"Page_185"></a>[185]</span>And as he looked at his daughter, she
+made him think of her grandmother, as she had so often done before.
+For Deborah, too, was a pioneer. She, too, had lived in the
+wilderness. Clearing roads through jungles? Yes. And freeing slaves
+of ignorance and building a nation of new men. And now she was
+doggedly fighting to save what she had builded&mdash;not from the
+raids of the Indians but from the ravages of this war which was
+sweeping civilization aside. With her school behind her, so to
+speak, she stood facing this great enemy with stern and angry,
+steady eyes. Her pioneer grandmother come to life.</p>
+<p>So, with the deep craving which was a part of his inmost self,
+Roger tried to bind together what was old and what was new. But his
+thoughts grew vague and drifting. He realized how weary he was, and
+said good-night and went to bed. There, just before he fell asleep,
+again he had a feeling of relief at the knowledge that one at least
+in the family was to be rich this year. With a guilty sensation he
+shook off the thought, and within a few moments after that his
+harsh regular breathing was heard in the room.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span>CHAPTER
+XXVI</h2>
+<p>It was only a few days later that Edith arrived with her
+children.</p>
+<p>Roger met her at the train at eight o'clock in the evening. The
+fast mountain express of the summer had been taken off some time
+before, so Edith had had to be up at dawn and to change cars
+several times on the trip. "She'll be worn out," he thought as he
+waited. The train was late. As he walked about the new station,
+that monstrous sparkling hive of travel with its huge halls and
+passageways, its little village of shops underground and its
+bewildering levels for trains, he remembered the interest Bruce had
+shown in watching this immense puzzle worked out, the day and night
+labor year after year without the stopping of a train, this mighty
+symbol of the times, of all the glorious power and speed in an age
+that had been as the breath to his nostrils. How Bruce had loved
+the city! As Roger paced slowly back and forth with his hands
+clasped behind his back, there came over his heavy visage a look of
+affection and regret which made even New Yorkers glance at him as
+they went nervously bustling by. From time to time he smiled to
+himself. "The Catskills will be Central Park! All this city needs
+is speed!"</p>
+<p>But suddenly he remembered that Bruce had always been here
+before to meet his wife and children, and that Edith on her
+approaching train must be dreading her arrival. And when at last
+the train rolled in, and he spied her shapely little head in the
+on-coming throng of travellers, Roger saw by her set steady smile
+and the strained expression on her face that he had guessed right.
+With a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id=
+"Page_187"></a>[187]</span>quick surge of compassion he pressed
+forward, kissed her awkwardly, squeezed her arm, then hastily
+greeted the children and hurried away to see to the trunks. That
+much of it was over. And to his relief, when they reached the
+house, Edith busied herself at once in helping the nurse put the
+children to bed. Later he came up and told her that he had had a
+light supper prepared.</p>
+<p>"Thank you, dear," she answered, "it was so thoughtful in you.
+But I'm too tired to eat anything." And then with a little assuring
+smile, "I'll be all right&mdash;I'm going to bed."</p>
+<p>"Good-night, child, get a fine long sleep."</p>
+<p>And Roger went down to his study, feeling they had made a good
+start.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"What has become of Martha?" Edith asked her father at breakfast
+the next morning.</p>
+<p>"She left last month to be married," he said.</p>
+<p>"And Deborah hasn't replaced her yet?" In her voice was such a
+readiness for hostility toward her sister, that Roger shot an
+uneasy glance from under his thick grayish brows.</p>
+<p>"Has Deborah left the house?" he asked, to gain time for his
+answer. Edith's small lip slightly curled.</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, long ago," she replied. "She had just a moment to see
+the children and then she had to be off to school&mdash;to her
+office, I mean. With so many schools on her hands these days, I
+don't wonder she hasn't had time for the servants."</p>
+<p>"No, no, you're mistaken," he said. "That isn't the trouble,
+it's not her fault. In fact it was all my idea."</p>
+<p>"<i>Your</i> idea," she retorted, in an amused affectionate
+tone. And Roger grimly gathered himself. It would he extremely
+difficult breaking his unpleasant news.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he answered. "You see this damnable war abroad has hit me
+in my business."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id=
+"Page_188"></a>[188]</span>Oh, father! How?" she asked him. In an
+instant she was all alert. "You don't mean seriously?" she
+said.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I do," he answered, and he began to tell her why. But she
+soon grew impatient. Business details meant nothing to Edith. "I
+see," she kept saying, "yes, yes, I see." She wanted him to come to
+the point.</p>
+<p>"So I've had to mortgage the house," he concluded. "And for very
+little money, my dear. And a good deal of that&mdash;" he cleared
+his throat&mdash;"had to go back into the business."</p>
+<p>"I see," said Edith mechanically. Her mind was already far away,
+roving over her plans for the children. For in Roger's look of
+suspense she plainly read that other plans had been made for them
+in her absence. "Deborah's in this!" flashed through her mind.
+"Tell me what it will mean," she said.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid you'll have to try to do without your nurse for a
+while."</p>
+<p>"Let Hannah go? Oh, father!" And Edith flushed with quick
+dismay. "How can I, dad? Five children&mdash;five! And two of them
+so little they can't even dress themselves alone! And there are all
+their meals&mdash;their baths&mdash;and the older ones going uptown
+to school! I can't let them go way uptown on the 'bus or the
+trolley without a maid&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But, Edith!" he interrupted, his face contracting with
+distress. "Don't you see that they can't go to school?" She turned
+on him. "Uptown, I mean, to those expensive private schools."</p>
+<p>"Father!" she demanded. "Do you mean you want my children to go
+to common public schools?" There was rage and amazement upon her
+pretty countenance, and with it an instant certainty too. Yes, this
+was Deborah's planning! But Roger thought that Edith's look was all
+directed at himself. And for the first time in his life he felt the
+shame and humility of the male provider <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span>no
+longer able to provide. He reddened and looked down at his
+plate.</p>
+<p>"You don't understand," he said. "I'm strapped, my child&mdash;I
+can't help it&mdash;I'm poor."</p>
+<p>"Oh. Oh, dad. I'm sorry." He glanced up at his daughter and saw
+tears welling in her eyes. How utterly miserable both of them
+were.</p>
+<p>"It's the war," he said harshly and proudly. This made a
+difference to his pride, but not to his daughter's anxiety. She was
+not interested in the war, or in any other cause of the abyss she
+was facing. She strove to think clearly what to do. But no, she
+must do her thinking alone. With a sudden quiet she rose from the
+table, went around to her father's chair and kissed him very
+gently.</p>
+<p>"All right, dear&mdash;I see it all now&mdash;and I promise I'll
+try my best," she said.</p>
+<p>"You're a brave little woman," he replied.</p>
+<p>But after she had gone, he reflected. Why had he called her a
+brave little woman? Why had it all been so intense, the talk upon
+so heroic a plane? It would be hard on Edith, of course; but others
+were doing it, weren't they? Think of the women in Europe these
+days! After all, she'd be very comfortable here, and perhaps by
+Christmas times would change.</p>
+<p>He shook off these petty troubles and went to his office for the
+day.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>As she busied herself unpacking the trunks, Edith strove to
+readjust her plans. By noon her head was throbbing, but she took
+little notice of that. She had a talk with Hannah, the devoted
+Irish girl who had been with her ever since George was born. It was
+difficult, it was brutal. It was almost as though in Edith's family
+there had been two mothers, and one was sending the other away.</p>
+<p>"There, there, poor child," Edith comforted her, "I'll find you
+another nice family soon where you can stay till<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> I take
+you back. Don't you see it will not be for long?" And Hannah
+brightened a little.</p>
+<p>"But how in the wide wurrld," she asked, "will you ever do for
+the children, me gone?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'll manage," said Edith cheerfully. And that afternoon she
+began at once to rearrange her whole intricate schedule, with
+Hannah and school both omitted, to fit her children into the house.
+But instead of this, as the days wore on, nerve-racking days of
+worry and toil, sternly and quite unconsciously she fitted the
+house to her children. And nobody made her aware of the fact. All
+summer long in the mountains, everyone by tacit consent had made
+way for her, had deferred to her grief in the little things that
+make up the everyday life in a home. And to this precedent once
+established Edith now clung unawares.</p>
+<p>Her new day gave her small time to think. It began at five in
+the morning, when Roger was awakened by the gleeful cries of the
+two wee boys who slept with their mother in the next room, the room
+which had been Deborah's. And Edith was busy from that time on.
+First came the washing and dressing and breakfast, which was a
+merry, boisterous meal. Then the baby was taken out to his carriage
+on the porch at the back of the house. And after that, in her
+father's study from which he had fled with his morning cigar, for
+two hours Edith held school for her children, trying her best to be
+patient and clear, with text-books she had purchased from their
+former schools uptown. For two severe hours, shutting the world all
+out of her head, she tried to teach them about it. At eleven, their
+nerves on edge like her own, she sent them outdoors "to play,"
+intrusting the small ones to Betsy and George, who took them to
+Washington Square nearby with strict injunctions to keep them away
+from all other children. No doubt there were "nice" children there,
+but she herself could not be along to distinguish <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>the
+"nice" from the "common"&mdash;for until one o'clock she was busy
+at home, bathing the baby and making the beds, and then hurrying to
+the kitchen to pasteurize the baby's milk and keep a vigilant
+oversight on the cooking of the midday meal. And the old cook's
+growing resentment made it far from easy.</p>
+<p>After luncheon, thank heaven, came their naps. And all
+afternoon, while again they went out, Edith would look over their
+wardrobes, mend and alter and patch and contrive how to make last
+winter's clothes look new. At times she would drop her work in her
+lap and stare wretchedly before her. This was what she had never
+known; this was what made life around her grim and hard,
+relentless, frightening; this was what it was to be poor. How it
+changed the whole city of New York. Behind it, the sinister cause
+of it all, she thought confusedly now and then of the Great Death
+across the sea, of the armies, smoking battle-fields, the shrieks
+of the dying, the villages blazing, the women and children flying
+away. But never for more than a moment. The war was so remote and
+dim. And soon she would turn back again to her own beloved
+children, whose lives, so full of happiness, so rich in promise
+hitherto, were now so cramped and thwarted. Each day was harder
+than the last. It was becoming unbearable!</p>
+<p>No, they must go back to school. But how to manage it? How? How?
+It would cost eight hundred dollars, and this would take nearly all
+the money she would be able to secure by the sale of her few
+possessions. And then what? What of sickness, and the other
+contingencies which still lay ahead of her? How old her father
+seemed, these days! In his heavy shock of hair the flecks of white
+had doubled in size, were merging one into the other, and his tall,
+stooping, massive frame had lost its look of ruggedness. Suppose,
+suppose.... Her breath came fast. Was his life insured, she
+wondered.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id=
+"Page_192"></a>[192]</span>On such afternoons, in the upstairs room
+as the dusk crept in and deepened, she would bend close to her
+sewing&mdash;planning, planning, planning. At last she would hear
+the children trooping merrily into the house. And making a very
+real effort, which at times was in truth heroic, to smile, she
+would rise and light the gas, would welcome them gaily and join in
+their chatter and bustle about on the countless tasks of washing
+them, getting their suppers, undressing the small ones and hearing
+their prayers. With smiling good-night kisses she would tuck her
+two babies into their cribs. Afterward, just for a moment or two,
+she would linger under the gas jet, her face still smiling, for a
+last look. A last good-night. Then darkness.</p>
+<p>Darkness settling over her spirit, together with loneliness and
+fatigue. She would go into Betsy's room and throw herself dressed
+on her daughter's bed, and a dull complete indifference to
+everything under the moon and the stars would creep from her body
+up into her mind. At times she would try to fight it off. To-night
+at dinner she must not be what she knew she had been the night
+before, a wet blanket upon all the talk. But if they only knew how
+hard it was&mdash;what a perfect&mdash;hell it was! Her breath
+coming faster, she would dig her nails into the palms of her hands.
+One night she noticed and looked at her hand, and saw the skin was
+actually cut and a little blood was appearing. She had read of
+women doing this, but she had never done it before&mdash;not even
+when her babies were born. She had gripped Bruce's hand
+instead.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>CHAPTER
+XXVII</h2>
+<p>Roger found her like that one evening. He heard what he thought
+was a sob from the room, for she had forgotten to close the door.
+He came into the doorway but drew back, and closed the door with
+barely a sound. Frowning and irresolute, he stood for a moment in
+the hall, then turned and went into his room. Soon he heard Deborah
+enter the house and come slowly up the stairs. She too had had a
+hard day, he recalled, a day all filled with turbulence, with
+problems and with vexing toil, in her enormous family. And he felt
+he could not blame her for not being of more help at home. Still,
+he had been disappointed of late in her manner toward her sister.
+He had hoped she would draw closer to Edith, now that again they
+were living together in their old home where they had been born.
+But no, it had worked just the opposite way. They were getting upon
+each other's nerves. Why couldn't she make overtures, small kindly
+proffers of help and advice and sympathy, the womanly things?</p>
+<p>From his room he heard her knock softly at the same door he had
+closed. And he heard her low clear voice:</p>
+<p>"Are you there, Edith dear?" He listened a moment intently, but
+he could not hear the reply. Then Deborah said, "Oh, you poor
+thing. I'm awfully sorry. Edith&mdash;don't bother to come
+downstairs&mdash;let me bring you up your supper." A pause. "I wish
+you would. I'd love to."</p>
+<p>He heard Deborah come by his door and go up the second flight of
+stairs to the room she had taken on the third floor.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id=
+"Page_194"></a>[194]</span>I was wrong," he reflected, "she has
+been trying&mdash;but it doesn't do any good. Women simply haven't
+it in 'em to see each other's point of view. Deborah doesn't admire
+Edith&mdash;she can't, she only pities her and puts her down as out
+of date. And Edith feels that, and it gets her riled, and she sets
+herself like an angry old hen against all Deborah's new ideas. Why
+the devil can't they live and let live?"</p>
+<p>And he hesitated savagely between a pearl gray <i>and</i> a
+black cravat. Then he heard another step on the stairs. It was much
+slower than Deborah's, and cautious and dogged, one foot lifted
+carefully after the other. It was John, who had finished his
+kitchen supper and was silently making his way up through the house
+to his room at the top, there to keep out of sight for the evening.
+And it came into Roger's mind that John had been acting in just
+this fashion ever since Edith had been in the house.</p>
+<p>"We'll have trouble there, too!" he told himself, as he jerked
+the black satin cravat into place, a tie he thoroughly disliked.
+Yes, black, by George, he felt like it to-night! These women! These
+evenings! This worry! This war! This world gone raving, driveling
+mad!</p>
+<p>And frowning with annoyance, Roger went down to his dinner.</p>
+<p>As he waited he grew impatient. He had eaten no lunch, he was
+hungry; and he was very tired, too, for he had had his own hard
+day. Pshaw! He got up angrily. <i>Somebody</i> must be genial here.
+He went into the dining room and poured himself a good stiff drink.
+Roger had never been much of a drinker. Ever since his marriage,
+cigars had been his only vice. But of late he had been having
+curious little sinking spells. They worried him, and he told
+himself he could not afford to get either too tired or too
+faint.</p>
+<p>Nevertheless, he reflected, it was setting a bad example for
+George. But glancing into his study he saw that the lad was
+completely absorbed. With knees drawn up, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>his long
+lank form all hunched and huddled on the lounge, hair rumpled,
+George was reading a book which had a cover of tough gray cloth. At
+the sight of it his grandfather smiled, for he had seen it once
+before. Where George had obtained it, the Lord only knew. Its title
+was "Bulls and Breeding." A thoroughly practical little book, but
+nothing for George's mother to see. As his grandfather entered
+behind him, the boy looked up with a guilty start, and resumed with
+a short breath of relief.</p>
+<p>Young Elizabeth, too, had a furtive air, for instead of
+preparing her history lesson she was deep in the evening paper
+reading about the war abroad. Stout and florid, rather plain, but
+with a frank, attractive face and honest, clear, appealing eyes,
+this curious creature of thirteen was sitting firmly in her chair
+with her feet planted wide apart, eagerly scanning an account of
+the work of American surgeons in France. And again Roger smiled to
+himself. (He was feeling so much better now.) So Betsy was still
+thinking of becoming a surgeon. He wondered what she would take up
+next. In the past two years in swift succession she had made up her
+mind to be a novelist, an actress and a women's college president.
+And Roger liked this tremendously.</p>
+<p>He loved to watch these two in the house. Here again his family
+was widening out before him, with new figures arising to draw his
+attention this way and that. But these were bright distractions. He
+took a deep, amused delight in watching these two youngsters caught
+between two fires, on the one side their mother and upon the other
+their aunt; both obviously drawn toward Deborah, a figure who stood
+in their regard for all that thrilling outside world, that heaving
+sparkling ocean on which they too would soon embark; both sternly
+repressing their eagerness as an insult to their mother, whom they
+loved and pitied so, regarding her as a brave and dear but rapidly
+ageing creature "well on in her thirties," whom they must
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id=
+"Page_196"></a>[196]</span>cherish and preserve. They both had such
+solemn thoughts as they looked at Edith in her chair. But as Roger
+watched them, with their love and their solemnity, their guilt and
+their perplexity, with quiet enjoyment he would wait to see the
+change he knew would come. And it always did. The sudden picking up
+of a book, the vanishing of an anxious frown, and in an instant
+their young minds had turned happily back into themselves, into
+their own engrossing lives, their plans, their intimate dreams and
+ambitions, all so curiously bound up with memories of small
+happenings which had struck them as funny that day and at which
+they would suddenly chuckle aloud.</p>
+<p>And this was only one stage in their growth. What would be the
+next, he asked, and all the others after that? What kind of world
+would they live in? Please heaven, there would be no wars. Many old
+things, no doubt, would be changed, by the work of Deborah and her
+kind&mdash;but not too many, Roger hoped. And these young people,
+meanwhile, would be bringing up children in their turn. So the
+family would go on, and multiply and scatter wide, never to unite
+again. And he thought he could catch glimpses, very small and far
+away but bright as patches of sunlight upon distant mountain tops,
+into the widening vista of those many lives ahead. A wistful look
+crept over his face.</p>
+<p>"In their lives too we shall be there, the dim strong figures of
+the past."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Deborah came into the room, and at once the whole atmosphere
+changed. Her niece sprang up delightedly.</p>
+<p>"Why, Auntie, how lovely you look!" she exclaimed. And Roger
+eyed Deborah in surprise. Though she did not believe in mourning,
+she had been wearing dark gowns of late to avoid hurting Edith's
+feelings. But to-night she had donned bright colors instead; her
+dress was as near d&eacute;collet&eacute; as anything that Deborah
+wore, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id=
+"Page_197"></a>[197]</span>and there was a band of dull blue velvet
+bound about her hair.</p>
+<p>"Thanks, dearie," she said, smiling. "Shall we go in to dinner
+now?" she added to her father. "Edith said not to wait for
+her&mdash;and I'll have to be off rather early this evening."</p>
+<p>"What is it to-night?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"A big meeting at Cooper Union."</p>
+<p>And at dinner she went on to say that in her five schools the
+neighborhood clubs had combined to hold this meeting, and she
+herself was to preside. At once her young niece was all
+animation.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I wish I could go and hear you!" she sighed.</p>
+<p>"Afraid you can't, Betsy," her aunt replied. And at this, with
+an instinctive glance toward the door where her mother would soon
+come in to stop by her mere presence all such conversation,
+Elizabeth eagerly threw out one inquiry after the other, pell
+mell.</p>
+<p>"How on earth do you do it?" she wanted to know. "How do you get
+a speech ready, Aunt Deborah&mdash;how much of it do you write out
+ahead? Aren't you just the least bit nervous&mdash;now, I
+mean&mdash;this minute? And how will you feel on the platform?
+<i>What on earth do you do with your feet?</i>"</p>
+<p>As the girl bent forward there with her gaze fixed ardently on
+her aunt, her grandfather thought in half comic dismay, "Lord, now
+she'll want to be a great speaker&mdash;like her aunt. And she will
+tell her mother so!"</p>
+<p>"What's the meeting all about?" he inquired. And Deborah began
+to explain.</p>
+<p>In her five schools the poverty was rapidly becoming worse. Each
+week more children stayed away or came to school ragged and
+unkempt, some without any overcoats, small pitiful mites wearing
+shoes so old as barely to stick on their feet. And when the
+teachers and visitors followed these children into their homes they
+found bare, dirty, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id=
+"Page_198"></a>[198]</span>chilly rooms where the little folk
+shivered and wailed for food and the mothers looked distracted,
+gaunt and sullen and half crazed. Over three hundred thousand
+workers were idle in the city. Meanwhile, to make matters worse,
+half the money from uptown which had gone in former years into work
+for the tenements was going over to Belgium instead. And the same
+relentless drain of war was felt by the tenement people themselves;
+for all of them were foreigners, and from their relatives abroad,
+in those wide zones of Europe already blackened and laid waste, in
+endless torrents through the mails came wild appeals for money.</p>
+<p>In such homes her children lived. And Deborah had set her mind
+on vigorous measures of relief. Landlords must be made to wait and
+the city be persuaded to give work to the most needy, food and fuel
+must be secured. As she spoke of the task before her, with a flush
+of animation upon her bright expressive face at the thought that in
+less than an hour she would be facing thousands of people, the
+gloom of the picture she painted was dispelled in the spirit she
+showed.</p>
+<p>"These things always work out," she declared, with an impatient
+shrug of her shoulders. And watching her admiringly, young Betsy
+thought, "How strong she is! What a wonderful grown-up woman!" And
+Roger watching thought, "How young."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"What things?" It was Edith's voice at the door, and among those
+at the table there was a little stir of alarm. She had entered
+unnoticed and now took her seat. She was looking pale and tired.
+"What things work out so finely?" she asked, and with a glance at
+Deborah's gown,</p>
+<p>"Where are you going?" she added.</p>
+<p>"To a meeting," Deborah answered.</p>
+<p>"Oh." And Edith began her soup. In the awkward pause that
+followed, twice Deborah started to speak to her <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span>sister,
+but checked herself, for at other dinners just like this she had
+made such dismal failures.</p>
+<p>"By the way, Edith," she said, at last, "I've been thinking of
+all that furniture of yours which is lying in storage." Her sister
+looked up at her, startled.</p>
+<p>"What about it?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"There's so much of it you don't care for," Deborah answered
+quietly. "Why don't you let a part of it go? I mean the few pieces
+you've always disliked."</p>
+<p>"For what purpose?"</p>
+<p>"Why, it seems such a pity not to have Hannah back in the house.
+She would make things so much easier." Roger felt a glow of
+relief.</p>
+<p>"A capital plan!" he declared at once.</p>
+<p>"It would be," Edith corrected him, "if I hadn't already made
+<i>other</i> plans." And then in a brisk, breathless tone, "You see
+I've made up my mind," she said, "to sell not only part but
+<i>all</i> my furniture&mdash;very soon&mdash;and a few other
+belongings as well&mdash;and use the money to put George and
+Elizabeth and little Bob back in the schools where they
+belong."</p>
+<p>"Mother!" gasped Elizabeth, and with a prolonged "Oh-h" of
+delight she ran around to her mother's chair.</p>
+<p>"But look here," George blurted worriedly, "I don't like it,
+mother, darned if I do! You're selling everything&mdash;just for
+school!"</p>
+<p>"School is rather important, George," was Edith's tart
+rejoinder. "If you don't think so, ask your aunt." "What do you
+think of it, Auntie?" he asked. The cloud which had come on
+Deborah's face was lifted in an instant.</p>
+<p>"I think, George," she answered gently, "that you'd better let
+your mother do what she thinks best for you. It <i>will</i> make
+things easier here in the house," she added, to her sister, "but I
+wish you could have Hannah, too."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id=
+"Page_200"></a>[200]</span>Oh, I'll manage nicely now," said Edith.
+And with a slight smile of triumph she resumed her dinner.</p>
+<p>"The war won't last forever," muttered Roger uneasily. And to
+himself: "But suppose it <i>should</i> last&mdash;a year or more."
+He did not approve of Edith's scheme. "It's burning her bridges all
+at once, for something that isn't essential," he thought. But he
+would not tell her so.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Deborah glanced at the clock.</p>
+<p>"Oh! It's nearly eight o'clock! I must hurry or I'll be late,"
+she said. "Good-night, all&mdash;"</p>
+<p>And she left them.</p>
+<p>Roger followed her into the hall.</p>
+<p>"What do you think of this?" he demanded. Her reply was a
+tolerant shrug.</p>
+<p>"It's her own money, father&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"All her money!" he rejoined. "Every dollar she has in the
+world!"</p>
+<p>"But I don't just see how it can be helped."</p>
+<p>"Can't you talk to her, show her what folly it is?"</p>
+<p>"Hardly," said Deborah, smiling. Already she had on her coat and
+hat and was turning to go. And her father scowled with annoyance.
+She was always going, he told himself, leaving him to handle her
+sister alone. He would like to go out himself in the
+evenings&mdash;yes, by George, this very night&mdash;it would act
+like a tonic on his mind. Just for a moment, standing there, he saw
+Cooper Union packed to the doors, he heard the ringing speeches,
+the cheers. But no, it was not to be thought of. With this silent
+war going on in his house he knew he must stay neutral. Watchful
+waiting was his course. If he went out with Deborah, Edith would be
+distinctly hurt, and sitting all evening here alone she would draw
+still deeper into herself. And so it would be night after night, as
+it had been for many weeks. He would be cooped up at home while
+Deborah did the running about.... In half the time <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span>it takes
+to tell it, Roger had worked himself into a state where he felt
+like a mighty badly used man.</p>
+<p>"I wish you <i>would</i> speak to her," he said. "I wish you
+could manage to find time to be here more in the evenings. Edith
+worries so much and she's trying so hard. A little sympathy now and
+then&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But she doesn't seem to want any from me," said his daughter, a
+bit impatiently. "I know it's hard&mdash;of course it is. But what
+can I do? She won't let me help. And besides&mdash;there are other
+families, you know&mdash;thousands&mdash;really suffering&mdash;for
+the lack of all that we have here." She smiled and kissed him
+quickly. "Good-night, dad dear, I've got to run."</p>
+<p>And the door closed behind her.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span>CHAPTER
+XXVIII</h2>
+<p>After dinner that night, in the living room the two older
+children studied their lessons and Edith sat mending a pair of
+rompers for little Tad. Presently Roger came out from his den with
+the evening paper in his hand and sat down close beside her. He did
+this conscientiously almost every evening. With a sigh he opened
+his paper to read, again there was silence in the room, and in this
+silence Roger's mind roamed far away across the sea.</p>
+<p>For the front page of his paper was filled with the usual
+headlines, tidings which a year before would have made a man's
+heart jump into his throat, but which were getting commonplace now.
+Dead and wounded by the thousands, famine, bombs and shrapnel,
+hideous atrocities, submarines and floating mines, words once
+remote but now familiar, always there on the front page and
+penetrating into his soul, becoming a part of Roger Gale, so that
+never again when the war was done would he be the same man he was
+before. For he had forever lost his faith in the sanity and
+steadiness of the great mind of humanity. Roger had thought of
+mankind as mature, but there had come to him of late the same
+feeling he had had before in the bosom of his family. Mankind had
+suddenly unmasked and shown itself for what it was&mdash;still only
+a precocious child, with a terrible precocity. For its growth had
+been one sided. Its strength was growing at a speed breathless and
+astounding. But its vision and its poise, its sense of human
+justice, of kindliness and tolerance and of generous brotherly
+love, these had been neglected and were being left behind. Vaguely
+he thought of its ships of steel, its railroads and its flaming
+mills, its miracles, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id=
+"Page_203"></a>[203]</span>its prodigies. And the picture rose in
+his mind of a child, standing there of giant's size with dangerous
+playthings in its hands, and boastfully declaring,</p>
+<p>"I can thunder over the earth, dive in the ocean, soar on the
+clouds! I can shiver to atoms a mountain, I can drench whole lands
+with blood! I can look up and laugh at God!"</p>
+<p>And Roger frowned as he read the news. What strange new century
+lay ahead? What convulsing throes of change? What was in store for
+his children? Tighter set his heavy jaw.</p>
+<p>"It shall be good," he told himself with a grim determination.
+"For them there shall be better things. Something great and
+splendid shall come out of it at last. They will look back upon
+this time as I look on the French Revolution."</p>
+<p>He tried to peer into that world ahead, dazzling, distant as the
+sun. But then with a sigh he returned to the news, and little by
+little his mind again was gripped and held by the most compelling
+of all appeals so far revealed in humanity's growth, the appeal of
+war to the mind of a man. He frowned as he read, but he read on.
+Why didn't England send over more men?</p>
+<p>The clock struck nine.</p>
+<p>"Now, George. Now, Elizabeth," Edith said. With the usual delay
+and reluctance the children brought their work to an end, kissed
+their mother and went up to bed. And Edith continued sewing.
+Presently she smiled to herself. Little Tad had been so droll that
+day.</p>
+<p>On the third page of his paper, Roger's glance was arrested by a
+full column story concerning Deborah's meeting that night. And as
+in a long interview he read here in the public print the same
+things she had told him at supper, he felt a little glow of pride.
+Yes, this daughter of his was a wonderful woman, living a big
+useful life, taking a leading part in work which would certainly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id=
+"Page_204"></a>[204]</span>brighten the lives of millions of
+children still unborn. Again he felt the tonic of it. Here was a
+glimmer of hope in the world, here was an antidote to war. He
+finished the column and glanced up.</p>
+<p>Edith was still sewing. He thought of her plan to sell all she
+possessed in order to put her children back in their expensive
+schools uptown.</p>
+<p>"Why can't she save her money?" he thought. "God knows there's
+little enough of it left. But I can't tell her that. If I do she'll
+sell everything, hand me the cash and tell me she's sorry to be
+such a burden. She'll sit like a thundercloud in my house."</p>
+<p>No, he could say nothing to stop her. And over the top of his
+paper her father shot a look at her of keen exasperation. Why risk
+everything she had to get these needless frills and fads? Why must
+she cram her life so full of petty plans and worries and
+titty-tatty little jobs? For the Lord's sake, leave their clothes
+alone! And why these careful little rules for every minute of their
+day, for their washing, their dressing, their eating, their
+napping, their play and the very air they breathed! He crumpled his
+paper impatiently. She was always talking of being old-fashioned.
+Well then, why not be that way? Let her live as her grandmother
+had, up there in the mountain farmhouse. <i>She</i> had not been so
+particular. With one hired girl she had thought herself lucky. And
+not only had she cooked and sewed, but she had spun and woven too,
+had churned and made cheese and pickles and jam and quilts and even
+mattresses. Once in two months she had cut Roger's hair, and the
+rest of the time she had let him alone, except for something really
+worth while&mdash;a broken arm, for example, or church. She had
+stuck to the essentials!... But Edith was not old-fashioned, nor
+was she alive to this modern age. In short, she was neither here
+nor there!</p>
+<p>Then from the nursery above, her smallest boy was <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span>heard to
+cry. With a little sigh of weariness, quickly she rose and went
+upstairs, and a few moments later to Roger's ears came a low,
+sweet, soothing lullaby. Years ago Edith had asked him to teach her
+some of his mother's cradle songs. And the one which she was
+singing to-night was a song he had heard when he was small, when
+the mountain storms had shrieked and beat upon the rattling old
+house and he had been frightened and had cried out and his mother
+had come to his bed in the dark. He felt as though she were near
+him now. And as he listened to the song, from the deep well of
+sentiment which was a part of Roger Gale rose memories that changed
+his mood, and with it his sense of proportions.</p>
+<p>Here was motherhood of the genuine kind, not orating in Cooper
+Union in the name of every child in New York, but crooning low and
+tenderly, soothing one little child to sleep, one of the five she
+herself had borne, in agony, without complaint. How Edith had
+slaved and sacrificed, how bravely she had rallied after the death
+of her husband. He remembered her a few hours ago on the bed
+upstairs, spent and in anguish, sobbing, alone. And remorse came
+over him. Deborah's talk at dinner had twisted his thinking, he
+told himself. Well, that was Deborah's way of life. She had her
+enormous family and Edith had her small one, and in this hell of
+misery which war was spreading over the earth each mother was up in
+arms for her brood. And, by George, of the two he didn't know but
+that he preferred his own flesh and blood. All very noble, Miss
+Deborah, and very dramatic, to open your arms to all the children
+under the moon and get your name in the papers. But there was
+something pretty fine in just sitting at home and singing to
+one.</p>
+<p>"All right, little mother, you go straight ahead. This is war
+and panic and hard times. You're perfectly right to look after your
+own."</p>
+<p>He would show Edith he did not begrudge her this <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span>use of
+her small property. And more than that, he would do what he could
+to take her out of her loneliness. How about reading aloud to her?
+He had been a capital reader, during Judith's lifetime, for he had
+always enjoyed it so. Roger rose and went to his shelves and began
+to look over the volumes there. Perhaps a book of travel....
+Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Edith came into the room, sat down and took up her
+sewing. As she did so he turned and glanced at her, and she smiled
+brightly back at him. Yes, he thought with a genial glow, from this
+night on he would do his part. He came back to his chair with a
+book in his hand, prepared to start on his new course.</p>
+<p>"Father," she said quietly. Her eyes were on the work in her
+lap.</p>
+<p>"Yes, my child, what is it?"</p>
+<p>"It's about John," she answered. And with a movement of alarm he
+looked at his daughter intently.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter with John?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"He has tuberculosis," she said.</p>
+<p>"He has no such thing!" her father retorted. "John has Pott's
+Disease of the spine!"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I know he has," she replied. "And I'm sorry for him, poor
+lad. But in the last year," she added, "certain complications have
+come. And now he's tubercular as well."</p>
+<p>"How do you know? He doesn't cough&mdash;his lungs are sound as
+yours or mine!"</p>
+<p>"No, it's&mdash;" Edith pursed her lips. "It's different," she
+said softly.</p>
+<p>"Who told you?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Not Deborah," was the quick response. "She knew it, I'm
+certain, for I find that she's been having Mrs. Neale, the woman
+who comes in to wash, do John's things in a separate tub. I found
+her doing it yesterday, and she told me what Deborah had said."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id=
+"Page_207"></a>[207]</span>It's the first I'd heard of it," Roger
+put in.</p>
+<p>"I know it is," she answered. "For if you'd heard of it before,
+I don't believe you'd have been as ready as Deborah was,
+apparently, to risk infecting the children here." Edith's voice was
+gentle, slow and relentless. There was still a reflection in her
+eyes of the tenderness which had been there as she had soothed her
+child to sleep. "As time goes on, John is bound to get worse. The
+risk will be greater every week."</p>
+<p>"Oh, pshaw!" cried her father. "No such thing! You're just
+scaring yourself over nothing at all!"</p>
+<p>"Doctor Lake didn't think I was." Lake was the big child
+specialist in whose care Edith's children had been for years. "I
+talked to him to-day on the telephone, and he said we should get
+John out of the house."</p>
+<p>Roger heartily damned Doctor Lake!</p>
+<p>"It's easy to find a good home for the boy," Edith went on
+quietly, "close by, if you like&mdash;in some respectable family
+that will be only too thankful to take in a boarder."</p>
+<p>"How about the danger to that family's children?" Roger asked
+malignantly.</p>
+<p>"Very well, father, do as you please. Take any risk you want
+to."</p>
+<p>"I'm taking no risk," he retorted. "If there were any risk they
+would have told me&mdash;Allan and Deborah would, I mean."</p>
+<p>"They wouldn't!" burst from Edith with a vehemence which
+startled him. "They'd take the same risk for my children they would
+for any street urchin in town! All children are the same in their
+eyes&mdash;and if you feel as they do&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I don't feel as they do!"</p>
+<p>"Don't you? Then I'm telling you that Doctor Lake said there was
+very serious risk&mdash;every day this boy remains in the house!"
+Roger rose angrily from his chair:</p>
+<p>"So you want me to turn him out! To-night!"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id=
+"Page_208"></a>[208]</span>No, I want you to wait a few
+days&mdash;until we can find him a decent home."</p>
+<p>"All right, I won't do it!"</p>
+<p>"Very well, father&mdash;it's your house, not mine."</p>
+<p>For a few moments longer she sat at her sewing, while her father
+walked the floor. Then abruptly she rose, her eyes brimming with
+tears, and left the room. And he heard a sob as she went
+upstairs.</p>
+<p>"Now she'll shut herself up with her children," he reflected
+savagely, "and hold the fort till I come to terms!" Rather than
+risk a hair on their heads, Edith would turn the whole world out of
+doors! He thought of Deborah and he groaned. She would have to be
+told of this; and when she was, what a row there would be! For
+Johnny was one of <i>her</i> family. He glanced at the clock. She'd
+be coming home soon. Should he tell her? Not to-night! Just for one
+evening he'd had enough!</p>
+<p>He picked up the book he had meant to read&mdash;Stoddard's
+"Lectures on Japan." And Roger snorted wrathfully. By George, how
+<i>he'd</i> like to go to Japan&mdash;or to darkest Africa!
+Anywhere!</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>CHAPTER
+XXIX</h2>
+<p>But later in the evening, when Allan and Deborah came in, Roger,
+who in the meantime had had a good hour in Japan and was somewhat
+relaxed and soothed, decided at once this was the time to tell her
+and have done with it. For Deborah was flushed with triumph, the
+meeting had been a huge success. Cooper Union had been packed to
+the walls, with an overflow meeting out on the street; thousands of
+dollars had been pledged and some big politicians had promised
+support; and men and women, rich and poor, had volunteered their
+services. She started to tell him about it, but noticed his
+troubled expression and asked him what was on his mind.</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing tremendous," Roger said. "I hate to be any damper
+to-night. I hadn't meant to tell you to-night&mdash;but I think I
+will now, for you look as though you could find a solution for
+anything."</p>
+<p>"Then I must look like an idiot," his daughter said
+good-humoredly. "What is it?" she demanded.</p>
+<p>"It's about John." Her countenance changed.</p>
+<p>"Oh. Is he worse?"</p>
+<p>"Edith thinks he is&mdash;and she says it's not safe."</p>
+<p>"I see&mdash;she wants him out of the house. Tell me what she
+said to you." As he did so she listened intently, and turning to
+Allan at the end, "What do you say to this, Allan?" she asked. "Is
+there any real risk to the children?"</p>
+<p>"A little," he responded. "As much as they take every day in the
+trolley going to school."</p>
+<p>"They never go in the trolley," Deborah answered dryly. "They
+always go on the top of the 'bus." She was <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span>silent
+for a moment. "Well, there's no use discussing it. If Edith feels
+that way, John must go. The house won't be livable till he
+does."</p>
+<p>Roger looked at her in surprise. He felt both relieved and
+disappointed. "John's only one of thousands to her," he told
+himself aggrievedly. "He isn't close to her, she hasn't room, she
+has a whole mass meeting in her head. But I haven't, by George, I
+like the boy&mdash;and I'm the one who will have to tell him to
+pack up and leave the house! Isn't it the very devil, how things
+all come back on me?"</p>
+<p>"Look here, father," Deborah said, "suppose you let me manage
+this." And Roger's heavy visage cleared.</p>
+<p>"You mean you'll tell him?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," she replied, "and he'll understand it perfectly. I think
+he has been expecting it. I have, for a good many weeks," she
+added, with some bitterness. "And I know some people who will be
+glad enough to take him in. I'll see that he's made comfortable.
+Only&mdash;" her face clouded.</p>
+<p>"It has meant a lot to him, being here," her father put in
+gruffly.</p>
+<p>"Oh, John's used to getting knocks in this world." Her quiet
+voice grew hard and stern. "I wasn't thinking of John just now.
+What frightens me at times like this is Edith," she said slowly.
+"No, not just Edith&mdash;motherhood. I see it in so many mothers
+these days&mdash;in the women downtown, in their fight for their
+children against all other children on earth. It's the hardest
+thing we have to do&mdash;to try to make them see and feel outside
+of their own small tenement homes&mdash;and help each
+other&mdash;pull together. They can't see it's their only chance!
+And all because of this mother love! It's so blind sometimes, like
+an animal!" She broke off, and for a moment she seemed to be
+looking deep into herself. "And I suppose we're all like that, we
+women are," she muttered, "when we marry and have children. If the
+pinch is ever hard enough&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id=
+"Page_211"></a>[211]</span><i>You</i> wouldn't be," said Allan. And
+a sudden sharp uneasiness came into Roger's mind.</p>
+<p>"When are you two to be married?" he asked, without stopping to
+think. And at once he regretted his question. With a quick
+impatient look at him, Allan bent over a book on the table.</p>
+<p>"I don't know," Deborah answered. "Next spring, I hope." The
+frown was still on her face.</p>
+<p>"Don't make it too long," said her father brusquely. He left
+them and went up to bed.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Deborah sat motionless. She wished Allan would go, for she
+guessed what was coming and did not feel equal to it to-night. All
+at once she felt tired and unnerved from her long exciting evening.
+If only she could let go of herself and have a good cry. She locked
+her hands together and looked up at him with impatience. He was
+still at the table, his back was turned.</p>
+<p>"Don't you <i>know</i> I love you?" she was thinking fiercely.
+"Can't you see it&mdash;haven't you seen it&mdash;growing,
+growing&mdash;day after day? But I don't want you here to-night!
+Why can't you see you must leave me alone? Now! This minute!"</p>
+<p>He turned and came over in front of her, and stood looking
+steadily down.</p>
+<p>"I wonder," he said slowly, "how well you understand
+yourself."</p>
+<p>"I think I do," she muttered. With a sudden twitching of her lip
+she looked quickly up at him. "Go on, Allan&mdash;let's talk it all
+over now if you must!"</p>
+<p>"Not if you feel like that," he said. At his tone of displeasure
+she caught his hand.</p>
+<p>"Yes, yes, I want to! Please!" she cried. "It's
+better&mdash;really! Believe me, it is&mdash;"</p>
+<p>He hesitated a moment, his wide generous mouth set hard, and
+then in a tone as sharp as hers he demanded,<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span> "Are
+you sure you'll marry me next spring? Are you sure you <i>hope</i>
+you will next spring? Are you sure this sister of yours in the
+house, on your nerves day and night, with this blind narrow
+motherhood, this motherhood which frightens you&mdash;isn't
+frightening you too much?"</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;a little&mdash;but not too much." Her deep sweet voice
+was trembling. "You're the one who frightens me. If you only knew!
+When you come like this&mdash;with all you've done for me back of
+you&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Deborah! Don't be a fool!"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I know you say you've done nothing, except what you've been
+glad to do! You love me like that! But it's just that love! Giving
+up all your practice little by little, and your reputation
+uptown&mdash;all for the sake of me, Allan, me!"</p>
+<p>"You're wrong," he replied. "Compared to what I'm getting, I've
+given up nothing! Can't you see? You're just as narrow in your
+school as Edith is right here in her home! You look upon my
+hospital as a mere annex to your schools, when the truth of it is
+that the work down there is a chance I've wanted all my life! Can't
+you understand," he cried, "that instead of your being in debt to
+me it's I who am in debt to you? You're a suffragist, eh, a
+feminist&mdash;whatever you want to call it! All right! So you want
+to be equal with man! Then, for God's sake, why not begin?
+<i>Feel</i> equal! I'm no annex to you, nor you to me! It has
+happened, thank God, that our work fits in&mdash;each with the
+other!"</p>
+<p>He stopped and stared, seemed to shake himself; he walked the
+floor. And when he turned back his expression had changed.</p>
+<p>"Look here, Deborah," he asked, with an appealing humorous
+smile, "will you tell me what I'm driving at?"</p>
+<p>Deborah threw back her head and laughed, and her laughter
+thrilled with relief. "How sure I feel now that I love him," she
+thought.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id=
+"Page_213"></a>[213]</span>You've proved I owe you nothing!" she
+cried. "And that men and women of our kind can work on splendidly
+side by side, and never bother our poor little heads about anything
+else&mdash;even marriage!"</p>
+<p>"We will, though!" he retorted. The next moment she was in his
+arms. "Now, Deborah, listen to reason, child. Why can't you marry
+me right away?"</p>
+<p>"Because," she said, "when I marry you I'm going to have you all
+to myself&mdash;for weeks and weeks as we planned before! And
+afterwards, with a wonderful start&mdash;and with the war over,
+work less hard and the world less dark and gloomy&mdash;we're going
+to find that at last we can live! But this winter it couldn't be
+like that. This winter we've got to go on with our work&mdash;and
+without any more silly worries or talk about whether or not we're
+in love. <i>For we are</i>!" Her upturned face was close to his,
+and for some moments nothing was said, "Well?" she asked. "Are you
+satisfied?"</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;I want to get married. But it is now a quarter past
+one. And I'm your physician. Go straight to bed."</p>
+<p>She stopped him a minute at the front door:</p>
+<p>"Are you sure, absolutely, you understand?"</p>
+<p>He told her he did. But as he walked home he reflected. How
+tense she had been in the way she had talked. Yes, the long strain
+was telling. "Why was she so anxious to get me out of the house,"
+he asked, "when we were alone for the first time in days? And why,
+if she's really sure of her love, does she hate the idea that she's
+in my debt?"</p>
+<p>He walked faster, for the night was cold. And there was a chill,
+too, in this long waiting game.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Roger heard Deborah come up to bed, and he wondered what they
+had been talking about. Of the topic he himself had
+broached&mdash;each other, love and marriage?</p>
+<p>"Possibly&mdash;for a minute or two&mdash;but no more," he
+grumbled. "For don't forget there's work to discuss, there's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id=
+"Page_214"></a>[214]</span>that mass meeting still on her mind. And
+God knows a woman's mind is never any child's play. But when you
+load a mass meeting on top&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Here he yawned long and noisily. His head ached, he felt sore
+and weak&mdash;"from the evening's entertainment my other daughter
+gave me." No, he was through, he had had enough. They could settle
+things to suit themselves. Let Edith squander her money on frills,
+the more expensive the better. Let her turn poor Johnny out of the
+house, let her give full play to her motherhood. And if that scared
+Deborah out of marrying, let her stay single and die an old maid.
+He had worried enough for his family. He wanted a little peace in
+his house.</p>
+<p>Drowsily he closed his eyes, and a picture came into his mind of
+the city as he had seen it only a few nights before. It had been so
+cool, so calm and still. At dusk he had been in the building of the
+great tower on Madison Square; and when he had finished his
+business there, on an impulse he had gone up to the top, and
+through a wide low window had stood a few moments looking down. A
+soft light snow was falling; and from high up in the storm, through
+the silent whirling flakes, he had looked far down upon lights
+below, in groups and clusters, dancing lines, between tall phantom
+buildings, blurred and ghostly, faint, unreal. From all that bustle
+and fever of life there had risen to him barely a sound. And the
+town had seemed small and lonely, a little glow in the infinite
+dark, fulfilling its allotted place for its moment in eternity.
+Suddenly from close over his head like a brazen voice out of the
+sky, hard and deafening and clear, the great bell had boomed the
+hour. Then again had come the silence, and the cool, soft, whirling
+snow.</p>
+<p>Like a dream it faded all away, and with a curious smile on his
+face presently Roger fell asleep.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span>CHAPTER
+XXX</h2>
+<p>And now he felt the approach at last of another season of quiet,
+one of those uneventful times which come in family histories. As he
+washed and dressed for dinner, one night a little later, he thought
+with satisfaction, "How nicely things are smoothing out." His
+dressing for dinner, as a rule, consisted in changing his low wing
+collar and his large round detachable cuffs; but to-night he
+changed his cravat as well, from a black to a pearl gray one. He
+hoped the whole winter would be pearl gray.</p>
+<p>The little storm which Edith had raised over John's presence in
+the house had been allayed. Deborah had talked to John, and had
+moved him with his belongings to a comfortable sunny room in the
+small but neat apartment of a Scotch family nearby. And John had
+been so sensible. "Oh, I'm fine, thank you," he had answered
+simply, when in the office Roger had asked him about his new home.
+So that incident was closed. Already Edith was disinfecting John's
+old room to her heart's content, for George was to occupy it now.
+She was having the woodwork repainted and a new paper put on the
+walls. She had already purchased a small new rug, and a bed and a
+bureau and one easy chair, and was making a pair of fresh pretty
+curtains. All right, let her do it&mdash;if only there could be
+peace in the house.</p>
+<p>With his cravat adjusted and his thick-curling silver hair trim
+from having just been cut by "Louis" over at the Brevoort, Roger
+went comfortably down to his dinner. Edith greeted him with a
+smile.</p>
+<p>"Deborah's dining out," she said.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he replied, "so much the better. We'll <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span>go right
+in&mdash;I'm hungry. And we'll have the evening to ourselves. No
+big ideas nor problems. Eh, daughter?" He slipped his hand in hers,
+and she gave it a little affectionate squeeze. With John safely out
+of the way, and not only the health of her children but their
+proper schooling assured, Edith was herself again, placid, sweet
+and kindly. And dinner that night was a cheerful meal. Later, in
+the living room, as Roger contentedly lit his cigar, Edith gave an
+appreciative sniff.</p>
+<p>"You do smoke such good cigars, father," she said, smiling over
+her needle. And glancing up at her daughter, "Betsy, dear," she
+added, "go and get your grandfather's evening paper."</p>
+<p>In quiet perusal of the news he spent the first part of his
+evening. The war did not bother him to-night, for there had come a
+lull in the fighting, as though even war could know its place. And
+times were better over here. As, skipping all news from abroad his
+eye roved over the pages for what his business depended upon, Roger
+began to find it now. The old familiar headliness were reappearing
+side by side&mdash;high finance exposures, graft, the antics and
+didos cut up by the sons and daughters of big millionaires; and
+after them in cheery succession the Yale-Harvard game, a new man
+for the Giants, a new college building for Cornell, a new city plan
+for Seattle, a woman senator in Arizona and in Chicago a "sporting
+mayor." In brief, all over the U.S.A., men and women old and new
+had risen up, to power, fame, notoriety, whatever you chose to call
+it. Men and women? Hardly. "Children" was the better word. But the
+thought did not trouble Roger to-night. He had instead a heartening
+sense of the youth, the wild exuberance, the boundless vigor in his
+native land. He could feel it rising once again. Life was soon to
+go on as before; people were growing hungry to see the names of
+their countrymen back in the headlines where they belonged. And
+Roger's business was picking <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span>up. He was not sure of the
+figure of his deficit last week&mdash;he had always been vague on
+the book-keeping side&mdash;but he knew it was down
+considerably.</p>
+<p>When Betsy and George had gone to bed, Roger put down his
+paper.</p>
+<p>"Look here, Edith," he proposed, "how'd you like me to read
+aloud while you sew?" She looked up with a smile of pleased
+surprise.</p>
+<p>"Why, father dear, I'd love it." At once, she bent over her
+needle again, so that if there were any awkwardness attending this
+small change in their lives it did not reveal itself in her pretty
+countenance. "What shall we read?" she affably asked.</p>
+<p>"I've got a capital book," he replied. "It's about travel in
+Japan."</p>
+<p>"I'd like nothing better," Edith replied. And with a slight glow
+of pride in himself Roger took his book in hand. The experiment was
+a decided success. He read again the next night and the next, while
+Edith sat at her sewing. And so this hour's companionship, from
+nine to ten in the evening, became a regular custom&mdash;just one
+hour and no more, which Roger spent with his daughter, intimately
+and pleasantly. Yes, life was certainly smoothing out.</p>
+<p>Edith's three older children had been reinstated in school. And
+although at first, when deprived of their aid, she had found it
+nearly impossible to keep her two small boys amused and give them
+besides the four hours a day of fresh air they required, she had
+soon met this trouble by the same simple process as before. Of her
+few possessions still unsold, she had disposed of nearly all, and
+with a small fund thus secured she had sent for Hannah to return.
+The house was running beautifully.</p>
+<p>Christmas, too, was drawing near. And though Roger knew that in
+Edith's heart was a cold dread of this season, she bravely kept it
+to herself; and she set about so determinedly to make a merry
+holiday, that her father ad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218"
+id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span>miring her pluck drew closer still to
+his daughter. He entered into her Christmas plans and into all the
+conspiracies which were whispered about the house. Great secrets,
+anxious consultations, found in him a ready listener.</p>
+<p>So passed three blessed quiet weeks, and he had high hopes for
+the winter.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXI</h2>
+<p>If there were any cloud upon his horizon, it was the thought of
+Laura. She had barely been to the house since Edith had come back
+to town; and at times, especially in the days when things had
+looked dark for Roger, he had caught himself reproaching this
+giddy-gaddy youngest child, so engrossed in her small
+"m&eacute;nage" that apparently she could not spare a thought for
+her widowed sister. Laura on her return from abroad had brought as
+a gift for Edith a mourning gown from Paris, a most alluring
+creation&mdash;so much so, in fact, that Edith had felt it simply
+indecent, insulting, and had returned it to her sister with a
+stilted note of thanks. But Roger did not know of this. There were
+so many ways, he thought, in which Laura might have been nice to
+Edith. She had a gorgeous limousine in which she might so easily
+have come and taken her sister off on little trips uptown. But no,
+she kept her car to herself. And from her small apartment, where a
+maid whom she had brought from Rome dressed her several times each
+day, that limousine rushed her noiselessly forth, gay and wild as
+ever, immaculate and elegant, radiant and very rich. To what places
+did she go? What new friends was she making? What was Laura up
+to?</p>
+<p>He did not like her manner, one evening when she came to the
+house. As he helped her off with her cloak, a sleek supple leopard
+skin which fitted her figure like a glove, he asked,</p>
+<p>"Where's Hal this evening?" And she answered lightly,</p>
+<p>"Oh, don't ask <i>me</i> what he does with himself."</p>
+<p>"You mean, I suppose," said Edith, with quiet dis<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id=
+"Page_220"></a>[220]</span>approval, "that he is rushed to death
+this year with all this business from the war."</p>
+<p>"Yes, it's business," Laura replied, as she deftly smoothed and
+patted her soft, abundant, reddish hair. "And it's war, too," she
+added.</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" her father asked. He knew what she meant,
+war with her husband. But before Laura could answer him, Edith cut
+in hastily, for two of her children were present. At dinner she
+turned the talk to the war. But even on this topic, Laura's remarks
+were disturbing. She did not consider the war wholly bad&mdash;by
+no means, it had many good points. It was clearing away a lot of
+old rubbish, customs, superstitions and institutions out of date.
+"Musty old relics," she called them. She spoke as though repeating
+what someone else had told her. Laura with her chicken's mind could
+never have thought it all out by herself. When asked what she
+meant, she was smilingly vague, with a glance at Edith's
+youngsters. But she threw out hints about the church and even
+Christianity, as though it were falling to pieces. She spoke of a
+second Renaissance, "a glorious pagan era" coming. And then she
+exploded a little bomb by inquiring of Edith.</p>
+<p>"What do you think the girls over there are going to do for
+husbands, with half the marriageable men either killed or
+hopelessly damaged? They're not going to be nuns all their
+lives!"</p>
+<p>Again her sister cut her off, and the rest of the brief evening
+was decidedly awkward. Yes, she was changing, growing fast. And
+Roger did not like it. Here she was spending money like water,
+absorbed in her pleasures, having no baby, apparently at loose ends
+with her husband, and through it all so cocksure of herself and her
+outrageous views about war, and smiling about them with such an
+air, and in her whole manner, such a tone of amused superiority.
+She talked about a world for the strong, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span>bits of
+gabble from Nietzsche and that sort of rot; she spoke blithely of a
+Rome reborn, the "Wings of the Eagles" heard again. This part of it
+she had taken, no doubt, from her new Italian friend, her husband's
+shrapnel partner.</p>
+<p>Pshaw! What was Laura up to?</p>
+<p>But that was only one evening. It was not repeated, another
+month went quickly by, and Roger had soon shaken it from him, for
+he had troubles enough at home. One daughter at a time, he had
+thought. And as the dark clouds close above him had cleared, the
+other cloud too had drifted away, until it was small, just on the
+horizon, far away from Roger's house. What was Laura up to? He
+barely ever thought of that now.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>But one night when he came home, Edith, who sat in the living
+room reading aloud to her smaller boys, gave him a significant look
+which warned him something had happened. And turning to take off
+his overcoat, in the hall he almost stumbled upon a pile of hand
+luggage, two smart patent leather bags, a hat trunk and a sable
+cloak.</p>
+<p>"Hello," he exclaimed. "What's this? Who's here?"</p>
+<p>"Laura," Edith answered. "She's up in Deborah's room, I
+think&mdash;they've been up there for over an hour." Roger looked
+indignantly in at his daughter.</p>
+<p>"What has happened?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Edith replied. "They didn't seem
+to need me. They made it rather plain, in fact. Another quarrel, I
+presume. She came into the house like a whirlwind, asked at once
+for Deborah and flew up to Deborah's room."</p>
+<p>"Pshaw!" Roger heavily mounted the stairs. He at least did not
+feel like flying. A whirlwind, eh&mdash;a nice evening ahead!</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Meanwhile, in her room upstairs Deborah sat motionless, sternly
+holding her feelings down, while in a tone <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span>now
+kindly but more often full of a sharp dismay, she threw out
+question after question to Laura who was walking the floor in a
+quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her
+voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.</p>
+<p>"No, this time it's divorce!" she declared, at the end of her
+first outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband's
+double life. "I've stood it long enough! I'm through!"</p>
+<p>"You mean you don't care for him," Deborah said. She was
+fighting for time to think it out. "You want a divorce. Very well,
+Laura dear&mdash;but how do you think you are going to get it? The
+laws are rather strict in this state. They allow but one cause.
+Have you any proofs?"</p>
+<p>"No, I haven't&mdash;but I don't need any proofs! He wants it as
+badly as I do! Wait&mdash;I'll give you his very words!" Laura's
+face grew white with fury. "'It's entirely up to you,
+Sweetie'&mdash;the beast!&mdash;'You can have any kind of divorce
+you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to
+fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the
+reporters and tell them all about yourself!'"</p>
+<p>"<i>Your husband is to bring suit against you</i>?" Deborah's
+voice was loud and harsh. "For God's sake, Laura, what do you
+mean?"</p>
+<p>"Mean? I mean that <i>he has proofs</i>! He has used a
+detective, the mean little cur, and he's treating me like the dirt
+under his feet! Just as though it were one thing for a man, and
+another&mdash;quite&mdash;for a woman! He even had the nerve to be
+mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn me!&mdash;turn me
+out on the street!" Deborah winced as though from a blow. "Oh, it
+was funny, funny!" Laura was almost sobbing now.</p>
+<p>"Stop, this minute!" Deborah said. "You say that you've been
+doing&mdash;what he has?" she demanded.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id=
+"Page_223"></a>[223]</span>Why shouldn't I? What do you know about
+it? Are you going to turn against me, too?"</p>
+<p>"I am&mdash;pretty nearly&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Oh, good God!" Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her
+walking.</p>
+<p>"Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain."</p>
+<p>"Explain&mdash;to you? How can I? <i>You</i> don't
+understand&mdash;you know nothing about it&mdash;all you know about
+is schools! You're simply a nun when it comes to this. I see it
+now&mdash;I didn't before&mdash;I thought you a modern
+woman&mdash;with your mind open to new ideas. But it isn't, it
+seems, when it comes to a pinch&mdash;it's shut as tight as Edith's
+is&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, tight!"</p>
+<p>"Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you
+kindly leave me alone! I'll have a talk with father!"</p>
+<p>"You will <i>not</i> have a talk with father&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I most certainly will&mdash;and he'll understand! He's a man,
+at least&mdash;and he led a man's life before he was married!"</p>
+<p>"Laura!"</p>
+<p>"<i>You</i> can't see it in him&mdash;<i>but I can</i>!"</p>
+<p>"You'll say not a word to him, not one word! He has had enough
+this year as it is!"</p>
+<p>"Has he? Then I'm sorry! If <i>you</i> were any help to
+me&mdash;instead of acting like a nun&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Will you please stop talking like a fool?"</p>
+<p>"I'm not! I'm speaking the truth and you know it! You know no
+more about love like mine than a nun of the middle ages! You
+needn't tell me about Allan Baird. You think you're in love with
+him, don't you? Well then, I'll tell you that you're not&mdash;your
+love is the kind that can wait for years&mdash;because it's cold,
+it's cold, it's cold&mdash;it's all in your mind and your reason!
+And so I say you're no help to me now! Here&mdash;look at yourself
+in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id=
+"Page_224"></a>[224]</span>the glass over there! You're just plain
+angry&mdash;frightened!"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I am&mdash;I'm frightened." While she strove to think
+clearly, to form some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly
+on:</p>
+<p>"I know you are! And you can't be fair! You're like nearly all
+American women&mdash;married or single, young or old&mdash;you're
+all of you scared to death about sex&mdash;just as your Puritan
+mothers were! And you leave it alone&mdash;you keep it
+down&mdash;you never give it a chance&mdash;you're afraid! But I'm
+not afraid&mdash;and I'm living my life! And let me tell you I'm
+not alone! There are hundreds and thousands doing the
+same&mdash;right here in New York City to-night! It's been so
+abroad for years and years&mdash;in Rome and Berlin, in Paris and
+London&mdash;and now, thank God, it has come over here! If our
+husbands can do it, why can't we? And we are&mdash;we're
+starting&mdash;it's come with the war! You think war is hell and
+nothing else, don't you&mdash;but you're wrong! It's not only
+killing men&mdash;it's killing a lot of hypocrisies too&mdash;it's
+giving a jolt to marriage! You'll see what the women will do soon
+enough&mdash;when there aren't enough men any longer&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you've
+done," Deborah interrupted. A simple course of action had just
+flashed into her mind.</p>
+<p>"All right, I will. I'm not ashamed. I've given you this
+'tirade' to show you exactly how I feel&mdash;that it's not any
+question of sin or guilt or any musty old rubbish like that! I know
+I'm right! I know just what I'm doing!"</p>
+<p>"Who's the man? That Italian?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Where is he?"</p>
+<p>"Right here in New York."</p>
+<p>"Does he mean to stand by you?"</p>
+<p>"Of course he does."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id=
+"Page_225"></a>[225]</span>Will he marry you, Laura?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, he will&mdash;the minute I'm free from my beast of a
+husband!"</p>
+<p>"And your husband will keep his suit quiet, you said, if you
+agree not to fight him."</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>Deborah rose abruptly.</p>
+<p>"Then will you stay right here to-night, and leave this matter
+to me?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"What do <i>you</i> mean to do?"</p>
+<p>"See your husband."</p>
+<p>"What for? When?"</p>
+<p>"To-night, if I can. I want to be sure."</p>
+<p>Laura looked for the moment nonplussed.</p>
+<p>"And what of my wishes?" she inquired.</p>
+<p>"<i>Your</i> wishes," said Deborah steadily. "You want a
+divorce, don't you&mdash;so do I. And you want it quiet&mdash;and
+so do I. I want it so hard that I want to make sure." Deborah's
+tone was kinder now, and she came over close to her sister. "Look
+here, Laura, if I've been hard, forgive me&mdash;please&mdash;and
+let me help. I'm not so narrow as you think. I've been through a
+good deal of this before&mdash;downtown, I mean, with girls in my
+school. They come to me, we have long talks. Maybe I <i>am</i> a
+nun&mdash;as you say&mdash;but I'm one with a confessional. Not for
+sins," she added, as Laura looked up angrily. "Sins don't interest
+me very much. But troubles do. And heaven knows that marriage is
+one," she said with a curious bitterness. "And when it has failed
+and there's no love left&mdash;as in your case&mdash;I'm for
+divorce. Only&mdash;" her wide sensitive lips quivered just a
+little, "I'm sorry it had to come like this. But I love you, dear,
+and I want to help, I want to see you safely through. And while I'm
+doing it, if we can, I want to keep dad out of it&mdash;at least
+until it's settled." She paused a moment. "So if you agree, I'll go
+to your husband. I want to be sure, absolutely, just what we can
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id=
+"Page_226"></a>[226]</span>count on. And until I come back, stay
+here in my room. You don't want to talk to father and
+Edith&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Most certainly not!" Laura muttered.</p>
+<p>"Good. Then stay here until I return. I'll send you up some
+supper."</p>
+<p>"I don't want any, thank you."</p>
+<p>Laura went and threw herself on the bed, while her sister
+finished dressing.</p>
+<p>"It's decent of you, Deborah." Her voice was muffled and
+relaxed. "I wasn't fair," she added. "I'm sorry for some of the
+things I said."</p>
+<p>"About me and marriage?" Deborah looked at herself in the glass
+in a peculiar searching way. A slight spasm crossed her features.
+"I'm not sure but that you were right. At times I feel far from
+certain," she said. Laura lifted her head from the pillow, watched
+her sister a moment, dropped back.</p>
+<p>"Don't let this affect <i>you</i>, Deborah."</p>
+<p>"Oh, don't worry, dearie." And Deborah moved toward the door.
+"My affair is just mine, you see, and this won't make any
+difference."</p>
+<p>But in her heart she knew it would. What an utter loathing she
+had to-night for all that people meant by sex! Suddenly she was
+quivering, her limbs and her whole body hot.</p>
+<p>"You say I'm cold," she was thinking. "Cold toward Allan, calm
+and cool, nothing but mind and reason! You say it means little to
+me, all that! But if I had had trouble with Allan, would I have
+come running home to talk? Wouldn't I have hugged it tight? And
+isn't that love? What do <i>you</i> know of me and the life I've
+led? Do you know how it feels to want to work, to be something
+yourself, without any man? And can't <i>that</i> be a passion? Have
+you had to live with Edith here and see what motherhood can be,
+what it can do to a woman? And now you come with <i>another</i>
+side, just as narrow as hers, devouring <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id=
+"Page_227"></a>[227]</span>everything else in sight! And because
+I'm a little afraid of that, for myself and all I want to do, you
+say I don't know what love is! But I do! And my love's worth more
+than yours! It's deeper, richer, it will last!... Then why do I
+loathe it <i>all</i> to-night?... But I don't, I only loathe
+<i>your</i> side!... But yours is the very heart of it!... All
+right, then what am I going to do?"</p>
+<p>She was going slowly down the stairs. She stopped for a moment,
+frowning.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXII</h2>
+<p>On the floor below she met her father, who was coming out of his
+room. He looked at her keenly:</p>
+<p>"What's the trouble?"</p>
+<p>"Laura's here," she answered. "Trouble again with her husband.
+Better leave her alone for the present&mdash;she's going to stay in
+my room for a while."</p>
+<p>"Very well," her father grunted, and they went down to dinner.
+There Deborah was silent, and Edith did most of the talking. Edith,
+quite aware of the fact that Laura and all Laura's ways were in
+disgrace for the moment, and that she and her ways with her
+children shone by the comparison, was bright and sweet and tactful.
+Roger glanced at her more than once, with approval and with
+gratitude for the effort she was making to smooth over the
+situation. Deborah rose before they had finished.</p>
+<p>"Where are you off to?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, there's something I have to attend to&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"School again this evening, dear?" inquired Edith cheerfully,
+but her sister was already out of the room. She looked at her
+father with quiet concern. "I'm sorry she has to be out
+to-night&mdash;to-night of all nights," she murmured.</p>
+<p>"Humph!" ejaculated her father. This <i>eternal</i> school
+business of Deborah's was beginning to get on his nerves. Yes, just
+a little on his nerves! Why couldn't she give up one evening, just
+one, and get Laura out of this snarl she was in? He heard her at
+the telephone, and presently she came back to them.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Edith," she said casually, "don't send any supper
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id=
+"Page_229"></a>[229]</span>up to Laura. She says she doesn't want
+any to-night. And ask Hannah to put a cot in my room. Will
+you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, dear, I'll attend to it."</p>
+<p>"Thanks." And again she left them. In silence, when the front
+door closed, Edith looked at her father. This must be rather
+serious, Roger thought excitedly. So Laura was to stay all night,
+while Deborah gallivanted off to those infernal schools of hers! He
+had little joy in his paper that night. The news of the world had
+such a trick of suddenly receding a million miles away from a man
+the minute he was in trouble. And Roger was in trouble. With each
+slow tick of the clock in the hall he grew more certain and more
+disturbed. An hour passed. The clock struck nine. With a snort he
+tossed his paper aside.</p>
+<p>"Well, Edith," he said glumly, "how about some chess this
+evening?" In answer she gave him a quick smile of understanding and
+sympathy.</p>
+<p>"All right, father dear." And she fetched the board. But they
+had played only a short time when Deborah's latchkey was heard in
+the door. Roger gave an angry hitch to his chair. Soon she appeared
+in the doorway.</p>
+<p>"May I talk to you, father?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"I suppose so." Roger scowled.</p>
+<p>"You'll excuse us, Edith?" she added.</p>
+<p>"Oh, assuredly, dear." And Edith rose, looking very much hurt.
+"Of course, if I'm not needed&mdash;"</p>
+<p>At this her father scowled again. Why couldn't Deborah show her
+sister a little consideration?</p>
+<p>"What is it?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Suppose we go into the study," she said.</p>
+<p>He followed her there and shut the door.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"Well?" he asked, from his big leather chair. Deborah had
+remained standing.</p>
+<p>"I've got some bad news," she began.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id=
+"Page_230"></a>[230]</span>What is it?" he snapped. "School burnt
+down?" Savagely he bit off a cigar.</p>
+<p>"I've just had a talk with Harold," she told him. He shot a
+glance of surprise and dismay.</p>
+<p>"Have, eh&mdash;what's it all about?"</p>
+<p>"It's about a divorce," she answered.</p>
+<p>The lighted match dropped from Roger's hand. He snatched it up
+before it was out and lit his cigar, and puffing smoke in a
+vigilant way again he eyed his daughter.</p>
+<p>"I've done what I could," she said painfully, "but they seem to
+have made up their minds."</p>
+<p>"Then they'll unmake 'em," he replied, and he leaned forward
+heavily. "They'll unmake 'em," he repeated, in a thick unnatural
+tone. "I'm not a'goin' to hear to it!" In a curious manner his
+voice had changed. It sounded like that of a man in the mountains,
+where he had been born and raised. This thought flashed into
+Deborah's mind and her wide resolute mouth set hard. It would be
+very difficult.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid this won't do, father dear. Whether you give your
+consent or not&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Wun't, wun't it! You wait and see if it wun't!" Deborah came
+close to him.</p>
+<p>"Suppose you wait till you understand," she admonished
+sternly.</p>
+<p>"All right, I'm waiting," he replied. She felt herself trembling
+deep inside. She did not want him to understand, any more than she
+must to induce him to keep out of this affair.</p>
+<p>"To begin with," she said steadily, "you will soon see yourself,
+I think, that they fairly loathe the sight of each other&mdash;that
+there is no real marriage left."</p>
+<p>"That's fiddlesticks!" snapped Roger. "Just modern talk and new
+ideas&mdash;ideas you're to blame for! Yes, you are&mdash;you put
+'em in her head&mdash;you and your gabble about <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span>woman's
+rights!" He was angry now. He was glad he was angry. He'd just
+begun!</p>
+<p>"If you want me to leave her alone," his daughter cut in
+sharply, "just say so! I'll leave it all to you!" And she saw him
+flinch a little. "What would be <i>your</i> idea?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"My idea? She's to go straight home and make up with him!"</p>
+<p>She hesitated. Then she said:</p>
+<p>"Suppose there's another woman."</p>
+<p>"Then he's a beast," growled Roger.</p>
+<p>"And yet you want her to live with him?"</p>
+<p>He scowled, he felt baffled, his mind in a whirl. And a wave of
+exasperation suddenly swept over him.</p>
+<p>"Well, why shouldn't she?" he cried. "Other wives have done
+it&mdash;millions! Made a devilish good success of it,
+too&mdash;made new men of their husbands! Let her show him she's
+ready to forgive! That's only Christian, ain't it? Hard? Of course
+it's hard on her! But can you tell me one hard thing she has ever
+had to do in her life? Hasn't it been pleasure, pleasure from the
+word go? Can't she stand something hard? Don't we all of us have
+to? I do&mdash;God knows&mdash;with all of you!" And he puffed his
+cigar in a fury. His daughter smiled. She saw her chance.</p>
+<p>"Father," she said, in a low clear voice, "You've had so
+<i>many</i> troubles. Why not leave this one to me? You can't
+help&mdash;no matter how hard you try&mdash;you'll only make it
+worse and worse. And you've been through so much this
+year&mdash;you've earned the right to be quiet. And that's what
+<i>they</i> want, both of them&mdash;they both want it quiet,
+without any scandal." Her father glared, for he knew about scandal,
+he handled it in his office each day. "Let me manage
+this&mdash;please," she said. And her offer tempted him. He
+struggled for a moment.</p>
+<p>"No, I won't!" he burst out in reply. "I want quiet right
+enough, but not at the price of her peace with her<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span> God!"
+This sounded foolish, he felt that it did, and he flushed and grew
+the angrier. "No, I won't," he said stubbornly. "She'll go back to
+him if I take her myself. And what's more," he added, rising,
+"she's to go straight back to-night!"</p>
+<p>"She is not going back to-night, my dear." And Deborah caught
+her father's arm. "Sit down, please&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I've heard enough!"</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid you haven't," she replied.</p>
+<p>"Very well." His smile was caustic. "Give me some more of it,"
+he said.</p>
+<p>"Her husband won't have her," said Deborah bluntly. "He told me
+so himself&mdash;to-night."</p>
+<p>"Did, eh&mdash;then <i>I'll</i> talk to him!"</p>
+<p>"He thinks," she went on in a desperate tone, "that Laura has
+been leading&mdash;'her own little life'&mdash;as he put it to
+me."</p>
+<p>"<i>Eh</i>?"</p>
+<p>"He is bringing suit himself."</p>
+<p>"<i>Oh! He is</i>!" cried Roger hoarsely. "Then I <i>will</i>
+talk to this young man!" But she put out a restraining hand:</p>
+<p>"Father! Don't try to fight this suit!"</p>
+<p>"You watch me!" he snarled. Tears showed in her eyes:</p>
+<p>"Think! Oh, please! Think what you're doing! Have you ever seen
+a divorce-court&mdash;here, in New York? Do you know what it's
+like? What it <i>can</i> be like?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," Roger panted. He did know, and the picture came vividly
+into his mind&mdash;a mass of eager devouring eyes fixed on a girl
+in a witness chair. "To-morrow I see a lawyer!" he said.</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;you won't do that, my dear," Deborah told him sadly.
+"Laura's husband has got proofs."</p>
+<p>Her father looked up slowly and glared into his daughter's
+face.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id=
+"Page_233"></a>[233]</span>I've seen them myself," she added. "And
+Laura has admitted it, too."</p>
+<p>Still for a moment he stared at her. Then slowly he settled back
+in his chair, his eyes dropped in their sockets, and very
+carefully, with a hand which was trembling visibly, he lifted his
+cigar to his lips. It had gone nearly out, but he drew on it hard
+until it began to glow again.</p>
+<p>"Well," he asked simply, "what shall we do?"</p>
+<p>Sharply Deborah turned away. To be quiet, to be matter of fact,
+to act as though nothing had happened at all&mdash;she knew this
+was what he wanted now, what he was silently begging her to be for
+his sake, for the family's sake. For he had been raised in New
+England. And so, when she turned back to him, her voice was flat
+and commonplace.</p>
+<p>"Keep her here," she said. "Let him do what he likes. There'll
+be nothing noisy, he promised me that. But keep her here till it's
+over."</p>
+<p>Roger smoked for a moment, and said,</p>
+<p>"There's Edith and her children."</p>
+<p>"The children needn't know anything&mdash;and Edith only part of
+it."</p>
+<p>"The less, the better," he grunted.</p>
+<p>"Of course." She looked at him anxiously. This tractable mood of
+his might not last. "Why not go up and see her now&mdash;and get it
+all over&mdash;so you can sleep."</p>
+<p>Over Roger's set heavy visage flitted a smile of grim relish at
+that. Sleep! Deborah was funny. Resolutely he rose from his
+chair.</p>
+<p>"You'll be careful, of course," she admonished him, and he
+nodded in reply. At the door he turned back:</p>
+<p>"Where's the other chap?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know," she answered. "Surely you don't want to see
+<i>him</i>&mdash;." Her father snorted his contempt:</p>
+<p>"See him? No. Nor she neither. <i>She's</i> not to see him.
+Understand?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id=
+"Page_234"></a>[234]</span>I wouldn't tell her that to-night."</p>
+<p>"Look here." Roger eyed his daughter a moment.</p>
+<p>"You've done well. I've no complaint. But don't try to manage
+everything."</p>
+<p>He went out and slowly climbed the stairs. Outside the bedroom
+door he paused. When had he stood like this before? In a moment he
+remembered. One evening some two years ago, the night before
+Laura's wedding, when they had had that other talk. And so it had
+come to this, had it. Well, there was no use making a scene. Again,
+with a sigh of weariness, Laura's father knocked at her door.</p>
+<p>"Come in, Deborah," she said.</p>
+<p>"It isn't Deborah, it's I." There was a little silence.</p>
+<p>"Very well, father, come in, please." Her voice sounded tired
+and lifeless. He opened the door and found the room dark. "I'm over
+on the bed," she said. "I've had a headache this evening."</p>
+<p>He came over to the bedside and he could just see her there, a
+long shadow upon the white. She had not taken off her clothes. He
+stood a moment helplessly.</p>
+<p>"Please don't <i>you</i> talk to me!" His daughter fiercely
+whispered. "I can't stand any more to-night!"</p>
+<p>"I won't," he answered. "It's too late." Again there was a
+pause.</p>
+<p>"What time is it?" she asked him. But he did not answer.</p>
+<p>"Well, Laura," he said presently, "your sister has told me
+everything. She has seen your husband&mdash;it's all
+arranged&mdash;and you're to stay here till it's over ... You want
+to stay here, don't you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Then it's settled," he went on. "There's only one
+thing&mdash;the other man. I don't know who he is and I don't want
+to know. And I don't want you to know him <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span>again.
+You're not to see him. Understand?" For a moment Laura was
+silent.</p>
+<p>"I'm going to marry him, father," she said. And standing in the
+darkened room Roger stiffened sharply.</p>
+<p>"Well," he answered, after a pause, "that's your affair. You're
+no longer a child. I wish you were," he added.</p>
+<p>Suddenly in the darkness Laura's hand came out clutching for
+his. But he had already turned to the door.</p>
+<p>"Good-night," he said, and left her.</p>
+<p>In the hallway below he met Deborah, and to her questioning look
+he replied, "All right, I guess. Now I'm going to bed." He went
+into his room and closed the door.</p>
+<p>As soon as Roger was alone, he knew this was the hardest
+part&mdash;to be here by himself in this intimate room, with this
+worn blue rug, these pictures and this old mahogany bed. For he had
+promised Judith his wife to keep close to the children. What would
+she think of him if she knew?</p>
+<p>Judith had been a broad-minded woman, sensible, big-hearted. But
+she never would have stood for this. Once, he recollected, she had
+helped a girl friend to divorce her husband, a drunkard who ran
+after chorus girls. But that had been quite different. There the
+wife had been innocent and had done it for her children. Laura was
+guilty, she hadn't a child, she was already planning to marry
+again. And then what, he asked himself. "From bad to worse, very
+likely. A woman can't stop when she's started downhill." His eye
+was caught by the picture directly before him on the wall&mdash;the
+one his wife had given him&mdash;two herdsmen with their cattle
+high up on a shoulder of a sweeping mountain side, tiny blue
+figures against the dawn. It had been like a symbol of their lives,
+always beginning clean glorious days. What was Laura beginning?</p>
+<p>"Well," he demanded angrily, as he began to jerk off his
+clothes, "what can I do about it? Try to keep her <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span>from
+re-marrying, eh? And suppose I succeeded, how long would it last?
+She wouldn't stay here and I couldn't keep her. She'll be
+independent now&mdash;her looks will be her bank account. There'd
+be some other chap in no time, and he might not even marry her!" He
+tugged ferociously at his boots. "No, let well enough alone!"</p>
+<p>He finished undressing, opened the window, turned out the gas
+and got into bed. Wearily he closed his eyes. But after a time he
+opened them and stared long through the window up at the beetling
+cliff of a building close by, with its tier upon tier of lighted
+apartments, a huge garish hive of homes. Yes, the town was crowding
+down on him to-night, on his house and on his family. He realized
+it had never stopped, and that his three grown children, each one
+of them a part of himself, had been struggling with it all the
+time. Laura&mdash;wasn't she part of himself? Hadn't he, too, had
+his little fling, back in his early twenties? "You will live on in
+our children's lives." She was a part of him gone wild. She gave it
+free rein, took chances. God, what a chance she had taken this
+time! The picture of that court he had seen, with the girl in the
+witness chair and those many rows of eyes avidly fixed upon her,
+came back to his mind so vividly they seemed for a moment right
+here in the room, these eyes of the town boring into his house.
+Angrily he shut out the scene. And alone in the darkness, Roger
+said to his daughter all the ugly furious things he had not said to
+her upstairs&mdash;until at last he was weary of it.</p>
+<p>"Why am I working myself all up? I've got to take this. It's my
+medicine."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXIII</h2>
+<p>But as he watched Laura in the house, Roger's first emotions
+were complicated more and more by a feeling of bewilderment. At
+dinner the next evening he noticed with astonishment that she
+appeared like her natural self. "She's acting," he decided. But
+this explanation he soon dismissed. No, it was something deeper.
+She was actually unashamed, unafraid. That first display of
+feelings, the night of her arrival, had been only the scare of an
+hour. Within a few days she was back on her feet; and her cure for
+her trouble, if trouble she felt, was not less but more pleasure,
+as always. She went out nearly every evening now; and when she had
+spent what money she had, she sold a part of her jewelry to the
+little old Galician Jew in the shop around the corner. Yes, she was
+her natural self. And she was as before to her father. Her attitude
+said plainly,</p>
+<p>"It isn't fair to you, poor dear, to expect you to fully
+understand how right I am in this affair. And considering your
+point of view, you're acting very nicely."</p>
+<p>Often as she talked to him a note of good-humored forgiveness
+crept into his daughter's voice. And looking at her grimly out of
+the corner of his eye, he saw that she looked down on him, far, far
+down from heights above.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he thought, "this is modern." Then he grew angry all at
+once. "No," he added, "this is wrong! You can't fool me, young
+woman, you know it as well as I do myself! You're not going to
+carry this off with an air&mdash;not with your father! No, by
+George!"</p>
+<p>And he would grow abrupt and stern. But days would <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span>pass and
+in spite of himself into their talks would creep a natural friendly
+tone. Again he found himself friends with her&mdash;friends as
+though nothing whatever had happened! Could it be that a woman who
+had so sinned could go right on? Here was Laura, serenely
+unconscious of guilt, and smiling into her future, dreaming still
+of happiness, quite plainly sure of it, in fact! With a curious
+dismayed relief Roger would scowl at this daughter of his&mdash;a
+radiant enigma in his quiet sober house.</p>
+<p>But Edith was not at all perplexed. When she learned from
+Deborah that there was soon to be a divorce, she came at once to
+her father. Her face was like a thundercloud.</p>
+<p>"A nice example for my children!" she indignantly exclaimed.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry, my dear. But what can I do?"</p>
+<p>"You can make her go back to her husband, can't you?"</p>
+<p>"No, I can't," he flatly replied.</p>
+<p>"Then I'd better try it myself!"</p>
+<p>"You'll do no such thing!" he retorted. "I've gone clear to the
+bottom of this&mdash;and I say you're to leave her alone!"</p>
+<p>"Very well," she answered. And she did leave her sister alone,
+so severely that Laura soon avoided being home for lunch or dinner.
+She had taken the room which George had occupied ever since John
+had been turned out, and there she breakfasted late in bed, until
+Edith put a stop to it. They barely spoke to each other now. Laura
+still smiled defiance.</p>
+<p>Days passed. Christmas came at last, and despite Edith's glum
+resolution to make it a happy time for the children, the happiness
+soon petered out. After the tree in the morning, the day hung heavy
+on the house. Roger buried himself in his study. Laura had motored
+off into the country with a gay party of her friends. Or was this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id=
+"Page_239"></a>[239]</span>just a ruse, he wondered, and was she
+spending the day with her lover? Well, what if she was? Could he
+lock her in?</p>
+<p>About twilight he thought he heard her return, and later from
+his bedroom he heard her voice and Edith's. Both voices sounded
+angry, but he would not interfere.</p>
+<p>At the Christmas dinner that evening Laura did not put in an
+appearance, but Edith sat stiff and silent there; and despite the
+obvious efforts which Deborah and Allan made to be genial with the
+children, the very air in the room was charged with the feeling of
+trouble close ahead. Again Roger retreated into his den, and
+presently Laura came to him.</p>
+<p>"Good-night&mdash;I'm going out," she said, and she pressed her
+cheek lightly to his own. "What a dear you've been to me, dad," she
+murmured. And then she was gone.</p>
+<p>A few minutes later Edith came in. She held a small note in her
+hand, which Roger saw was addressed to himself.</p>
+<p>"Well, father, I learned this afternoon what you've been keeping
+from me," she said. Roger gave her a steady look.</p>
+<p>"You did, eh&mdash;Laura told you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, she did!" his daughter exclaimed. "And I can't help
+wondering, father&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Why did she tell you? Have you been at her again to-day?"</p>
+<p>"Again? Not at all," she answered. "I've done as you asked me
+to, let her alone. But to-day&mdash;mother's day&mdash;I got
+thinking of <i>her</i>."</p>
+<p>"Leave your mother out of it, please. What did you say to
+Laura?"</p>
+<p>"I tried to make her go back, of course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"And she told you&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"He wouldn't have her! And then in a perfect tantrum she went on
+to tell me why!" Edith's eyes were <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span>cold with disgust. "And
+I'm wondering why you let her stay here&mdash;in the same house
+with my children!"</p>
+<p>Roger reached out his hand.</p>
+<p>"Give me that note," he commanded. He read it quickly and handed
+it back. The note was from Laura, a hasty good-bye.</p>
+<p>"Edith will explain," she wrote, "and you will see I cannot stay
+any longer. It is simply too impossible. I am going to the man I
+love&mdash;and in a few days we shall sail for Naples. I know you
+will not interfere. It will make the divorce even simpler and
+everything easier all round. Please don't worry about me. We shall
+soon be married over there. You have been so dear and sensible and
+I do so love you for it." Then came her name scrawled hastily. And
+at the bottom of the page: "I have paid every bill I can think
+of."</p>
+<p>Edith read it in silence, her color slowly mounting.</p>
+<p>"All right," said her father, "your children are safe." She gave
+him a quick angry look, burst into tears and ran out of the
+room.</p>
+<p>Roger sat without moving, his heavy face impassive. And so he
+remained for a long time. Well, <i>Laura</i> was gone&mdash;no
+mistake about that&mdash;and this time she was gone for good. She
+was going to live in Rome. Try to stop her? No. What good would it
+do? Wings of the Eagles, Rome reborn. That was it, she had hit it,
+struck the keynote of this new age. Rome reborn, all clean,
+old-fashioned Christian living swept away by millions of men at
+each others' throats like so many wolves. And at last quite openly
+to himself Roger admitted that he felt old. Old and beaten, out of
+date. Moments passed, and hours&mdash;he took little note of time.
+Nor did he see on the mantle the dark visage of "The Thinker"
+there, resting on the huge clinched fist and brooding down upon
+him. Lower, imperceptibly, he sank into his leather chair.</p>
+<p>Quiet had returned to his house.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXIV</h2>
+<p>But the quiet was dark to Roger now. Each night he spent in his
+study alone, for instinctively he felt the need of being by himself
+for a while, of keeping away from his children&mdash;out of whose
+lives he divined that other events would soon come forth to use up
+the last of the strength that was in him.</p>
+<p>And Roger grew angry with the world. Why couldn't it let a man
+alone, an old man in a silent house alive for him with memories?
+Repeatedly in such hours his mind would go groping backward into
+the years behind him. What a long and winding road, half buried in
+the jungle, dim, almost impenetrable, made up of millions of small
+events, small worries, plans and dazzling dreams, with which his
+days had all been filled. But the more he recalled the more certain
+he grew that he was right. Life had never been like this: the world
+had never come smashing into his house, his very family, with its
+dirty teeming tenements, its schools, its prisons, electric chairs,
+its feverish rush for money, its luxuries, its scandals. These
+things had existed in the world, but remote and never real, mere
+things which he had read about. War? Did he not remember wars that
+had come and gone in Europe? But they hadn't come into his home
+like this, first making him poor when he needed money for Edith and
+her children, then plunging Deborah into a struggle which might
+very probably ruin her life, and now taking Laura and filling her
+mind with thoughts of pagan living. Why was every man, woman and
+child, these days, bound up in the whole life of the world? What
+would come of it all? A <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242"
+id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span>new day out of this deafening night?
+Maybe so. But for him it would come too late.</p>
+<p>"What have I left to live for?"</p>
+<p>One night with a sigh he went to his desk, lit a cigar and laid
+his hand upon a pile of letters which had been mounting steadily.
+It was made up of Laura's bills, the ones she had not remembered.
+Send them after her to Rome for that Italian fellow to pay? No, it
+could not be thought of. Roger turned to his dwindling bank
+account. He was not yet making money, he was still losing a little
+each week. But he would not cut expenses. To the few who were left
+in his employ, to be turned away would mean dire need. And angrily
+he determined that they should not starve to pay Laura's bills.
+"The world for the strong, eh? Not in my office!" In Rome or Berlin
+or Vienna, all right! But not over here!</p>
+<p>Grimly, when he had made out the checks, Roger eyed his balance.
+By spring he would be penniless. And he had no one to turn to now,
+no rich young son-in-law who could aid.</p>
+<p>He set himself doggedly to the task of forcing up his business,
+and meanwhile in the evenings he tried with Edith to get back upon
+their former footing. To do this was not easy at first, for his
+bitterness still rankled deep: "When you were in trouble I took you
+in, but when she was in trouble you turned her out, as you turned
+out John before her." In the room again vacated, young George had
+been reinstalled. One night Edith found her father there looking in
+through the open doorway, and the look on his massive face was
+hard.</p>
+<p>"Better have the room disinfected again," he muttered when he
+saw her. He turned and went slowly down the stairs. And she was
+late for dinner that night.</p>
+<p>But Edith had her children. And as he watched her night by night
+hearing their lessons patiently, reading them <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span>fairy
+stories and holding them smilingly in her arms, the old appeal of
+her motherhood regained its hold upon him. One evening when the
+clock struck nine, putting down his paper he suggested gruffly,</p>
+<p>"Well, daughter, how about some chess?"</p>
+<p>Edith flushed a little:</p>
+<p>"Why, yes, dear, I'd be glad to."</p>
+<p>She rose and went to get the board. So the games were resumed,
+and part at least of their old affection came to life. But only a
+part. It could never be quite the same again.</p>
+<p>And though he saw little of Deborah, slowly, almost unawares to
+them both, she assumed the old place she had had in his
+home&mdash;as the one who had been right here in the house through
+all the years since her mother had died, the one who had helped and
+never asked help, keeping her own troubles to herself. He fell back
+into his habit of going before dinner to his daughter's bedroom
+door to ask whether she would be home that night. At one such time,
+getting no response and thinking Deborah was not there, he opened
+the door part way to make sure. And he saw her at her dresser,
+staring at herself in the glass, rigid as though in a trance. Later
+in the dining room he heard her step upon the stairs. She came in
+quietly and sat down; and as soon as dinner was over, she said her
+good-nights and left the house. But when she came home at midnight,
+he was waiting up for her. He had foraged in the kitchen, and on
+his study table he had set out some supper. While she sat there
+eating, her father watched her from his chair.</p>
+<p>"Things going badly in school?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"Yes," she replied. There was silence.</p>
+<p>"What's wrong?"</p>
+<p>"To-night we had a line of mothers reaching out into the street.
+They had come for food and coal&mdash;but we had to send most of
+them home empty-handed. Some of <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span>them cried&mdash;and one
+of them fainted. She's to have a baby soon."</p>
+<p>"Can't you get any money uptown?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"I have," she answered grimly. "I've been a beggar&mdash;heaven
+knows&mdash;on every friend I can think of. And I've kept a press
+agent hard at work trying to make the public see that Belgium is
+right here in New York." She stopped and went on with her supper.
+"But it's a bad time for work like mine," she continued presently.
+"If we're to keep it going we must above all keep it cheap. That's
+the keynote these days, keep everything cheap&mdash;at any
+cost&mdash;so that men can expensively kill one another." Her voice
+had a bitter ring to it. "You try to talk peace and they bowl you
+over, with facts on the need of preparedness&mdash;for the defence
+of your country. And that doesn't appeal to me very much. I want a
+bigger preparedness&mdash;for the defence of the whole
+world&mdash;for democracy, and human rights, no matter who the
+people are! I'd like to train every child to that!"</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" her father asked.</p>
+<p>"To teach him what his life can be!" she replied in a hard
+quivering tone. "A fight? Oh yes! So long as he lives&mdash;and
+even with guns if it must be so! But a fight for all the people on
+earth!&mdash;and a world so full of happy lives that men will think
+hard&mdash;before ever again letting themselves be led by the
+nose&mdash;into war and death&mdash;for a place in the sun!" She
+rose from her chair, with a weary smile: "Here I am making a speech
+again. I've made so many lately it's become a habit. I'm tired out,
+dad, I'm going to bed." Her father looked at her anxiously.</p>
+<p>"You're seeing things out of proportion," he said. "You've
+worked so hard you're getting stale. You ought to get out of it for
+a while."</p>
+<p>"I can't!" she answered sharply. "You don't know&mdash;you don't
+even guess&mdash;how it takes every hour&mdash;all the
+demands!"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id=
+"Page_245"></a>[245]</span>Where's Allan these days?"</p>
+<p>"Working," was her harsh reply. "Trying to keep his hospital
+going with half its staff. The woman who was backing him is giving
+her money to Belgium instead."</p>
+<p>"Do you see much of him?"</p>
+<p>"Every day. Let's drop it. Shall we?"</p>
+<p>"All right, my dear&mdash;"</p>
+<p>And they said good-night ...</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>In the meantime, in the house, Edith had tried to scrimp and
+save, but it was very difficult. Her children had so many needs,
+they were all growing up so fast. Each month brought fresh demands
+on her purse, and the fund from the sale of her belongings had been
+used up long ago. Her sole resource was the modest allowance her
+father gave her for running the house, and she had not asked him
+for more. She had put off trouble from month to month. But one
+evening early in March, when he gave her the regular monthly check,
+she said hesitatingly:</p>
+<p>"I'm very sorry, father dear, but I'm afraid we'll need more
+money this month." He glanced up from his paper:</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?" She gave him a forced little smile, and her
+father noticed the gray in her hair.</p>
+<p>"Oh, nothing in particular. Goodness knows I've tried to keep
+down expenses, but&mdash;well, we're a pretty large household, you
+know&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Roger kindly, "I know. Are the month's bills
+in?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Let me see them." She brought him the bills and he looked
+relieved. "Not so many," he ventured.</p>
+<p>"No, but they're large."</p>
+<p>"Why, look here, Edith," he said abruptly, "these are bills for
+two months&mdash;some for three, even four!"</p>
+<p>"I know&mdash;that's just the trouble. I couldn't meet them at
+the time."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id=
+"Page_246"></a>[246]</span>Why didn't you tell me?"</p>
+<p>"Laura was here&mdash;and I didn't want to bother you&mdash;you
+had enough on your mind as it was. I've done the best I could,
+father dear&mdash;I've sold everything, you know&mdash;but I've
+about come to the end of my rope." And her manner said clearly,
+"I've done my part. I'm only a woman. I'll have to leave the rest
+to you."</p>
+<p>"I see&mdash;I see." And Roger knitted his heavy brows. "I
+presume I can get it somehow." This would play the very devil with
+things!</p>
+<p>"Father." Edith's voice was low. "Why don't you let Deborah help
+you? She does very little, it seems to me&mdash;compared to the
+size of her salary."</p>
+<p>"She can't do any more than she's doing now," was his decisive
+answer. Edith looked at him, her color high. She hesitated, then
+burst out:</p>
+<p>"I saw her check book the other day, she had left it on the
+table! She's spending thousands&mdash;every month!"</p>
+<p>"That's not her own money," Roger said.</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;it's money she gets for her fads&mdash;her work for
+those tenement children! She can get money enough for <i>them!</i>"
+He flung out his hand:</p>
+<p>"Leave her out of this, please!"</p>
+<p>"Very well, father, just as you say." And she sat there hurt and
+silent while again he looked slowly through the bills. He jotted
+down figures and added them up. They came to a bit over nine
+hundred dollars. Soon Deborah's key was heard in the door, and
+Roger scowled the deeper. She came into the room, but he did not
+look up. He heard her voice:</p>
+<p>"What's the matter, Edith?"</p>
+<p>"Bills for the house."</p>
+<p>"Oh." And Deborah came to her father. "May I see what's the
+trouble, dear?"</p>
+<p>"I'd rather you wouldn't. It's nothing," he growled. He wanted
+her to keep out of this.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id=
+"Page_247"></a>[247]</span>Why shouldn't she see?" Edith tartly
+inquired. "Deborah is living here&mdash;and before I came she ran
+the house. In her place I should certainly want to know."</p>
+<p>Deborah was already glancing rapidly over the bills.</p>
+<p>"Why, Edith," she exclaimed, "most of these bills go back for
+months. Why didn't you pay them when they were due?"</p>
+<p>"Simply because I hadn't the money!"</p>
+<p>"You've had the regular monthly amount."</p>
+<p>"That didn't last long&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Why didn't you tell us?"</p>
+<p>"Laura was here."</p>
+<p>Deborah gave a shrug of impatience, and Roger saw how tired she
+was, her nerves on edge from her long day.</p>
+<p>"Never mind about it now," he put in.</p>
+<p>"What a pity," Deborah muttered. "If we had been told, we could
+have cut down."</p>
+<p>"I don't agree with you!" Edith rejoined. "I have already done
+that myself! I've done nothing else!"</p>
+<p>"Have the servants been paid?" her sister asked.</p>
+<p>"No, they haven't-"</p>
+<p>"Since when?"</p>
+<p>"Three months!"</p>
+<p>Roger got up and walked the room. Deborah tried to speak
+quietly:</p>
+<p>"I can't quite see where the money has gone."</p>
+<p>"Can't you? Then look at my check book." And Edith produced it
+with a glare. Her sister turned over a few of the stubs.</p>
+<p>"What's this item?"</p>
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+<p>"Here. A hundred and twenty-two dollars."</p>
+<p>"The dentist," Edith answered. "Not extravagant, is it&mdash;for
+five children?"</p>
+<p>"I see," said Deborah. "And this?"</p>
+<p>"Bedding," was Edith's sharp response. "A mattress <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span>and more
+blankets. I found there weren't half enough in the house."</p>
+<p>"You burned John's, didn't you?"</p>
+<p>"Naturally!"</p>
+<p>All at once both grew ashamed.</p>
+<p>"Let's be sensible," Deborah said. "We must do something,
+Edith&mdash;and we can't till we're certain where we stand."</p>
+<p>"Very well&mdash;"</p>
+<p>They went on more calmly and took up the items one by one.
+Deborah finished and was silent.</p>
+<p>"Well, father, what's to be done?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"I don't know," he answered shortly.</p>
+<p>"Somehow or other," Deborah said, "we've got to cut our expenses
+down."</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid that's impossible," Edith rejoined. "I've already
+cut as much as I can."</p>
+<p>"So did I, in my school," said her sister. "And when I thought I
+had reached the end, I called in an expert. And he showed me ways
+of saving I had never dreamed of."</p>
+<p>"What kind of expert would you advise here?" Edith's small lip
+curled in scorn.</p>
+<p>"Domestic science, naturally&mdash;I have a woman who does
+nothing else. She shows women in their homes just how to make money
+count the most."</p>
+<p>"What women? And what homes? Tenements?"</p>
+<p>"Yes. She's one of my teachers."</p>
+<p>"Thank you!" said Edith indignantly. "But I don't care to have
+my children brought down to tenement standards!"</p>
+<p>"I didn't mean to <i>have</i> them! But I know she could show
+you a great many things you can buy for less!"</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid I shouldn't agree with her!"</p>
+<p>"Why not, Edith?"</p>
+<p>"Because she knows only tenement children&mdash;nothing of
+children bred like mine!"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id=
+"Page_249"></a>[249]</span>Deborah drew a quick short breath, her
+brows drew tight and she looked away. She bit her lip, controlled
+herself:</p>
+<p>"Very well, I'll try again. This house is plenty large enough so
+that by a little crowding we could make room for somebody else. And
+I know a teacher in one of my schools who'd be only too
+glad&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Take a boarder, you mean?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I do! We've got to do something!"</p>
+<p>"No!"</p>
+<p>Deborah threw up her hands:</p>
+<p>"All right, Edith, I'm through," she said. "Now what do you
+propose?"</p>
+<p>"I can try to do without Hannah again&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"That will be hard&mdash;on all of us. But I guess you'll have
+to."</p>
+<p>"So it seems."</p>
+<p>"But unfortunately that won't he enough."</p>
+<p>Edith's face grew tenser:</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid it will have to be&mdash;just now&mdash;I've had
+about all I can stand for one night!"</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. For a moment they confronted each
+other. And Edith's look said to Deborah plainly, "You're spending
+thousands, thousands, on those tenement children! You can get money
+enough for them, but you won't raise a hand to help with mine!" And
+as plainly Deborah answered, "My children are starving, shivering,
+freezing! What do yours know about being poor?" Two mothers, each
+with a family, and each one baffled, brought to bay. There was
+something so insatiable in each angry mother's eyes.</p>
+<p>"I think you'd better leave this to me," said Roger very
+huskily. And both his daughters turned with a start, as though in
+their bitter absorption they had forgotten his presence there. Both
+flushed, and now the glances of all three in that room avoided each
+other. For <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id=
+"Page_250"></a>[250]</span>they felt how sordid it had been.
+Deborah turned to her sister.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry, Edith," she said again, and this time there were
+tears in her eyes.</p>
+<p>"So am I," said Edith unsteadily, and in a moment she left the
+room. Deborah stood watching her father.</p>
+<p>"I'm ashamed of myself," she said. "Well? Shall we talk it
+over?"</p>
+<p>"No," he replied. "I can manage it somehow, Deborah, and I
+prefer that you leave it to me."</p>
+<p>Roger went into his study and sank grimly into his chair. Yes,
+it had been pretty bad; it had been ugly, ominous. He took paper
+and pencil and set to work. How he had come to hate this job of
+wrestling with figures. Of the five thousand dollars borrowed in
+August he had barely a thousand left. The first semi-annual
+interest was due next week and must be paid. The balance would
+carry them through March and on well into April. By that time he
+hoped to be making money, for business was better every week. But
+what of this nine hundred dollars in debts? Half at least must be
+paid at once. Lower and lower he sank in his chair. But a few
+moments later, his blunt heavy visage cleared, and with a little
+sigh of relief he put away his papers, turned out the lights and
+went upstairs. The dark house felt friendly and comforting now.</p>
+<p>In his room he opened the safe in the corner where his
+collection of curious rings had lain unnoticed for many months. He
+drew out a tray, sat down by the light and began to look them over.
+At first only small inanimate objects, gradually as from tray after
+tray they glittered duskily up at him, they began to yield their
+riches as they had so often done before. Spanish, French, Italian,
+Bohemian, Hungarian, Russian and Arabian, rings small and rings
+enormous, religious rings and magic rings, poison rings, some black
+with age for all his careful polishing&mdash;<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span>again
+they stole deep into Roger's imagination with suggestions of the
+many hands that had worn them through the centuries, of women
+kneeling in old churches, couples in dark crooked streets,
+adventures, love, hate, jealousy. Youth and fire, dreams and
+passion....</p>
+<p>At last he remembered why he was here. He thought of possible
+purchasers. He knew so many dealers, but he knew, too, that the war
+had played the devil with them as with everyone else. Still, he
+thought of several who would find it hard to resist the temptation.
+He would see them to-morrow, one by one, and get them bidding,
+haggling. Roger frowned disgustedly.</p>
+<p>No help for it, though, and it was a relief. It would bring a
+truce in his house for a time.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>But the truce was brief.</p>
+<p>On the afternoon when he sold his collection Roger came home all
+out of sorts. He had been forced to haggle long; it had been a mean
+inglorious day; one of the brightest paths in his life had ended in
+a pigstie. But at least he had bought some peace in his home!
+Women, women, women! He shut the front door with a slam and went up
+to his room for a little rest, a little of what he had paid for! On
+the stairs he passed young Betsy, and he startled the girl by the
+sudden glare of reproach he bestowed upon her. Savagely he told
+himself he was no "feminist" that night!</p>
+<p>The brief talk he had with Edith was far from reassuring. With
+no Deborah there to wound her pride, Edith quickly showed herself
+friendly to her father; but when he advised her to keep her nurse,
+she at once refused to consider it.</p>
+<p>"I want you to," he persisted, with an anxious note in his
+voice. He had tried life without Hannah here and he did not care to
+try it again.</p>
+<p>"It is already settled, father, I sent her away this
+morning."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id=
+"Page_252"></a>[252]</span>Then you get her right back!" he
+exclaimed. But Edith's face grew obstinate.</p>
+<p>"I don't care to give Deborah," she replied, "another chance to
+talk as she did."</p>
+<p>Roger looked at her gloomily. "You will, though," he was
+thinking. "You two have only just begun. Let any little point
+arise, which a couple of men would settle offhand, and you two will
+get together and go it! There'll be no living in the house!"</p>
+<p>With deepening displeasure he watched the struggle between them
+go on. Sometimes it seemed to Roger there was not a topic he could
+bring up which would not in some way bring on a clash. One night in
+desperation he proposed the theatre.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid we can't afford it," said Edith, glancing at
+Deborah. And she had the same answer, again and again, for the
+requests her children made, if they involved but the smallest
+expense. "No, dear, I'm afraid we can't afford that," she would say
+gently, with a sigh. And under this constant pressure, these
+nightly little thrusts and jabs, Deborah would grow rigid with
+annoyance and impatience.</p>
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, Edith," she burst out, one night when the
+children had gone to their lessons, "can you think of nothing on
+earth, except your own little family?"</p>
+<p>"Here it comes again," thought Roger, scowling into his paper.
+He heard Edith's curt reply:</p>
+<p>"No, I can't, not nowadays. Nobody <i>else</i> seems to think of
+them."</p>
+<p>"You mean that I don't!"</p>
+<p>"Do you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes! I'm thinking of George! Do you want him killed in the
+trenches&mdash;in a war with Germany or Japan?"</p>
+<p>"Are you utterly mad?" demanded Edith.</p>
+<p>"No, I'm awake&mdash;my eyes are open! But yours are shut so
+tight, my dear, you can't see what has happened!<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span> You
+know this war has made us poor and your own life harder, but that's
+all. The big thing it has done you know nothing about!"</p>
+<p>"Suppose you teach me," Edith said, with a prim provoking little
+smile. Deborah turned on her angrily:</p>
+<p>"It has shown that all such mothers as you are out of date and
+have got to change! That we're bound together&mdash;all over the
+world&mdash;whether we like it or whether we don't! And that if we
+want to keep out of war, we've got to do it by coming right out of
+our own little homes&mdash;<i>and thinking, Edith,
+thinking!</i>"</p>
+<p>"Votes for women," Edith said. Deborah looked at her, rose with
+a shrug.</p>
+<p>"All right, Edith, I give up."</p>
+<p>"Thank you. I'm not worth it. You'd better go back to your
+office now and go on with your work of saving the world. And use
+every hour of your time and every dollar you possess. I'll stay
+here and look after my children."</p>
+<p>Deborah had gone into the hall. Roger, buried deep in his paper,
+heard the heavy street door close. He looked up with a feverish
+sigh&mdash;and saw at the open door of his study George and Betsy
+standing, curious, solemn and wide eyed. How long had they been
+listening?</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXV</h2>
+<p>There came a season of sleet and rain when the smaller children
+were shut indoors and it was hard to keep them amused. They did not
+look well, and Edith was worried. She had always dreaded the
+spring, and to carry her family safely through she had taken them,
+in former years, to Atlantic City for two weeks. That of course was
+impossible now. Trouble was bound to come, she thought. And it was
+not long in coming. Bobby, who was ten years old and went to school
+with his brother George, caught a wretched cold one day. Edith
+popped him into bed, but despite her many precautions he gave his
+cold to Bruce and Tad.</p>
+<p>"Suppose I ask Allan Baird to come," Deborah suggested. "He's
+wonderful with children, you know."</p>
+<p>Edith curtly accepted his services. She felt he had been sent
+for to prevent her getting Doctor Lake. But she said nothing. She
+would wait. Through long hard days and longer nights she slaved
+upstairs. All Deborah's proffers of aid she declined. She kept
+Elizabeth home from school to help her with the many meals, the
+medicines and the endless task of keeping her lively patients in
+bed. She herself played with them by the hour, while the ache in
+her head was a torment. At night she was up at the slightest sound.
+Heavy circles came under her eyes. Within a few days her baby,
+Bruce, had developed pneumonia.</p>
+<p>That evening after dinner, while Deborah was sitting with Roger
+in the living room, she heard her sister coming downstairs. She
+listened acutely, and glancing around she saw that Roger was
+listening, too. Edith passed the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span>doorway and went on down
+the hall, where they heard her voice at the telephone. She came
+back and looked in at the door.</p>
+<p>"I've called Doctor Lake," she said. "I've just taken Bruce's
+temperature. It's a hundred and five and two fifths." Deborah
+glanced up with a start.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Edith!" she said softly. Her sister turned and looked at
+her.</p>
+<p>"I ought to have had him before," she said. "When he comes,
+please bring him right up to the room." And she hurried
+upstairs.</p>
+<p>"Pshaw!" breathed Roger anxiously. He had seen Bruce an hour
+ago; and the sight of the tiny boy, so exhausted and so still, had
+given him a sudden scare. Could it be that <i>this</i> would
+happen? Roger rose and walked the floor. Edith was right, he told
+himself, they should have had Lake long before. And they would
+have, by George, if it had not been for Deborah's interference! He
+glanced at her indignantly. Bringing in Baird to save money, eh?
+Well, it was just about time they stopped saving money on their own
+flesh and blood! What had Bruce to do with tenement babies? But he
+had had tenement treatment, just that! Deborah had had her way at
+last with Edith's children, and one of them might have to pay with
+its life! Again Roger glared at his silent daughter. And now, even
+in his excited state, he noticed how still and rigid she was, how
+unnatural the look she bent on the book held tightly in her
+hands.</p>
+<p>Still Deborah said nothing. She could feel her father's anger.
+Both he and Edith held her to blame. She felt herself in a position
+where she could not move a hand. She was stunned, and could not
+think clearly. A vivid picture was in her mind, vivid as a burning
+flame which left everything else in darkness. It was of Bruce, one
+adorable baby, fighting for breath. "What would I do if he were
+mine?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id=
+"Page_256"></a>[256]</span>When the doctor arrived she took him
+upstairs and then came down to her father.</p>
+<p>"Well?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"I don't know. We'll have to wait." And they both sat silent. At
+last they heard a door open and close, and presently steps coming
+down the stairs. Roger went out into the hall:</p>
+<p>"Come right in here, doctor, won't you? I want to hear about
+this myself."</p>
+<p>"Very well, sir." And Lake entered the room, with Edith close
+behind him. He took no notice of anyone else. "Write this down," he
+said to her. "And give it to the nurse when she comes." A heavy man
+of middle age, with curious dark impassive eyes that at times
+showed an ironic light, Lake was a despot in a world of mothers to
+whom his word was law. He was busy to-night, with no time to waste,
+and his low harsh voice now rattled out orders which Edith wrote
+down in feverish haste&mdash;an hourly schedule, night and day. He
+named a long list of things needed at once. "Night nurse will be
+here in an hour," he ended. "Day nurse, to-morrow, eight a.m. Get
+sleep yourself and plenty of it. As it is you're not fit to take
+care of a cat." Abruptly he turned and left the room. Edith
+followed. The street door closed, and in a moment after that his
+motor was off with a muffled roar. Edith came back, picked up her
+directions and turned to her sister:</p>
+<p>"Will you go up and sit with Bruce? I'll telephone the
+druggist," she said.</p>
+<p>Deborah went to the sick room. Bruce's small face, peaked and
+gray in the soft dim light, turned as she entered and came to the
+bed.</p>
+<p>"Well, dear?" she whispered. The small boy's eyes, large and
+heavy with fever, looked straight into hers.</p>
+<p>"Sick," said the baby hoarsely. The next instant he tossed up
+his hands and went through a spasm, trying to <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span>breathe.
+It passed, he relaxed a little, and again stared solemnly at his
+aunt. "Sick," he repeated. "Wery sick."</p>
+<p>Deborah sat silent. The child had another fight for his breath;
+and this time as he did so, Deborah's body contracted, too. A few
+moments later Edith came in. Deborah returned downstairs, and for
+over an hour she sat by herself. Roger was in his study, Betsy and
+George had gone to bed. The night nurse arrived and was taken
+upstairs. Still Deborah's mind felt numb and cold. Instinctively
+again and again it kept groping toward one point: "If I had a baby
+as sick as that, what would I do? What would I do?"</p>
+<p>When the doorbell rang again, she frowned, rose quickly and went
+to the door. It was Allan.</p>
+<p>"Allan&mdash;come in here, will you?" she said, and he followed
+her into the living room.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>"Bruce is worse."</p>
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I'm sorry. Why didn't Edith let me know?"</p>
+<p>"She had Lake to-night," said Deborah. He knitted his brows in
+annoyance, then smiled.</p>
+<p>"Well, I don't mind that," he replied. "I'm rather glad. She'll
+feel easier now. What did he tell her?"</p>
+<p>"He seemed to consider it serious&mdash;by the number of things
+he ordered."</p>
+<p>"Two nurses, of course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, day and night." Deborah was silent a moment.</p>
+<p>"I may be wrong," she continued, "but I still feel sure the
+child will live. But I know it means a long hard fight. The expense
+of it all will be heavy."</p>
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+<p>"Whatever it is, I'll meet it," she said. "Father can't, he has
+reached the end. But even if he could help still, it wouldn't make
+much difference in what I've been deciding. Because when I was with
+Bruce to-night,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id=
+"Page_258"></a>[258]</span> I saw as clear as I see you now that if
+I had a child like that&mdash;as sick as that&mdash;I'd sacrifice
+anything&mdash;everything&mdash;schools, tenement children,
+thousands! I'd use the money which should have been theirs, and the
+time and the attention! I'd shut them all out, they could starve if
+they liked! I'd be like Edith&mdash;exactly! I'd center on this one
+child of mine!"</p>
+<p>Deborah turned her eyes to his, stern and gleaming with her
+pain. And she continued sharply:</p>
+<p>"But I don't mean to shut those children out! And so it's clear
+as day to me that I can't ever marry you! That baby to-night was
+the finishing stroke!"</p>
+<p>She made a quick restless movement. Baird leaned slowly forward.
+Her hands in her lap were clenched together. He took them both and
+held them hard.</p>
+<p>"No, this isn't clear," he said. "I can feel it in your hands.
+This is nerves. This is the child upstairs. This is Edith in the
+house. This is school, the end of the long winter's strain."</p>
+<p>"No, it's what I've decided!"</p>
+<p>"But this is the wrong decision," Allan answered steadily.</p>
+<p>"It's made!"</p>
+<p>"Not yet, it isn't, not to-night. We won't talk of it now,
+you're in no condition." Deborah's wide sensitive lips began to
+quiver suddenly:</p>
+<p>"We <i>will</i> talk of it now, or never at all! I want it
+settled&mdash;done with! I've had enough&mdash;it's killing
+me!"</p>
+<p>"No," was Allan's firm reply, "in a few days things will change.
+Edith's child will be out of danger, your other troubles will clear
+away!"</p>
+<p>"But what of next winter, and the next? What of Edith's
+children? Can't you see what a load they are on my father? Can't
+you see he's ageing fast?"</p>
+<p>"Suppose he dies," Baird answered. "It will leave them on your
+hands. You'll have <i>these</i> children, won't <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span>you,
+whether you marry or whether you don't! And so will I! I'm their
+guardian!"</p>
+<p>"That won't be the same," she cried, "as having children of our
+own&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Look into my eyes."</p>
+<p>"I'm looking&mdash;" Her own eyes were bright with tears.</p>
+<p>"Why are you always so afraid of becoming a mother?" Allan
+asked. In his gruff low voice was a fierce appeal. "It's this
+obsession in your mind that you'll be a mother like Edith. And
+that's absurd! You never will! You say you're afraid of not keeping
+school the first thing in your life! But you always do and you
+always will! You're putting it ahead of me now!"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I can put it ahead of <i>you</i>! But I couldn't put it
+ahead of <i>my child</i>!" He winced at this and she noticed it.
+"Because you are strong, and the child would be weak! The child
+would be like Bruce to-night!"</p>
+<p>"Are you sure if you marry you must have a child?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," she answered huskily, "if I married you I'd want a child.
+And that want in me would grow and grow until it made both of us
+wretched. I'm that kind of a woman. That's why my work has
+succeeded so far&mdash;because I've a passion for children! They're
+not my work, they're my very life!" She bowed her head, her mouth
+set hard. "But so are you," she whispered. "And since this is
+settled, Allan, what do you think? Shall we try to go
+on&mdash;working together side by side&mdash;seeing each other
+every day as we have been doing all these months? Rather hard on
+both of us, don't you think? I do, I feel that way," she said.
+Again her features quivered. "The kind of feeling I have&mdash;for
+you&mdash;would make that rather&mdash;difficult!"</p>
+<p>His grip tightened on her hands.</p>
+<p>"I won't give you up," he said. "Later you will change your
+mind."</p>
+<p>He left the room and went out of the house. Deborah <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span>sat
+rigid. She trembled and the tears came. She brushed them angrily
+away. Struggling to control herself, presently she grew quieter.
+Frowning, with her clear gray eyes intently staring before her, she
+did not see her father come into the doorway. He stopped with a
+jerk at sight of her face.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?" he asked. She started.</p>
+<p>"Nothing's the matter! How is Bruce?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know. Who went out a few minutes ago?"</p>
+<p>"Allan Baird," she answered.</p>
+<p>"Oh. You explained to him, of course, about Lake&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, he understands," she said. "He won't come here after
+this&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Roger looked at her sharply, wondering just what she meant. He
+hesitated. No, he would wait.</p>
+<p>"Good-night," he said, and went upstairs.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXVI</h2>
+<p>On the morrow Bruce did not grow better. If anything, the child
+grew worse. But by the next morning the crisis had passed. In the
+house the tension relaxed, and Roger suddenly felt so weak that he
+went to see his own physician. They had a long and serious talk.
+Later he went to his office, but he gave little heed to his work.
+Sitting there at his desk, he stared through the window far out
+over the city. A plan was forming in his mind.</p>
+<p>At home that night, at dinner, he kept watching Deborah, who
+looked tired and pale and rather relaxed. And as soon as she was
+out of the house he telephoned Allan to come at once.</p>
+<p>"It's something which can't wait," he urged.</p>
+<p>"Very well, I'll come right up."</p>
+<p>When Baird arrived a little later, Roger opened the door
+himself, and they went back into his study.</p>
+<p>"Sit down," he said. "Smoke, Allan?"</p>
+<p>"No, thanks." Baird looked doubly tall and lean, his face had a
+gaunt appearance; and as he sat down, his lithe supple right hand
+slowly closed on the arm of his chair.</p>
+<p>"Now then," began Roger, "there are two things we want to get
+clear on. The first is about yourself and Deborah. There has been
+trouble, hasn't there?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"She has made up her mind not to marry you."</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"I guessed as much." And Roger paused. "Do you mind my asking
+questions?</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id=
+"Page_262"></a>[262]</span>Are you still in love with her,
+Allan?"</p>
+<p>"I am."</p>
+<p>"And she with you?"</p>
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+<p>"Then it's the same old trouble."</p>
+<p>"Yes." And he told a part of what she had said. As he talked in
+clear, terse, even tones, Baird's steady eyes had a tortured light,
+the look of a man who has almost reached the end of his endurance.
+Roger smoked in silence.</p>
+<p>"What do you propose to do?"</p>
+<p>"Wait," said Allan, "a few days more. Then try again. If I fail
+I'm through." Roger shot a quick look at him.</p>
+<p>"I don't think you'll fail, my boy&mdash;and what's more I think
+I can help you. This is a large house, Allan&mdash;there's more in
+it than you know. My second point concerns myself. I'm going to die
+within a year."</p>
+<p>As Baird turned on him suddenly, Roger grimly smiled and said,
+"We won't go into the details, but I've been examined lately and I
+have quite positive knowledge of what I've suspected for some time.
+So far, I have told no one but you. And I'm telling you only
+because of the bearing it has on Deborah." Roger leaned forward
+heavily. "She's the one of my daughters who means the most, now
+that I'm so near the end. When I die next year that may be
+all&mdash;I may simply end&mdash;a blank, a grave&mdash;I am not
+sure. But I've made up my mind above everything else to see Deborah
+happy before I go. And I mean to do it by setting her free&mdash;so
+free I think it will frighten her."</p>
+<p>Roger went on to explain his plan, and they talked together for
+some time.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Another week had soon gone by. Bruce still recovered rapidly,
+and the other sick children were up and about. Deborah, in the
+meantime, had barely been in the house <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span>at all.
+But late on Saturday evening Roger found her in her room. She was
+working. He came behind her.</p>
+<p>"What is it, dad?"</p>
+<p>"Busy, eh?" He hesitated, and laid his hand on her shoulder with
+a little affectionate pressure. "You've kept so busy lately," he
+said, "I haven't had time to see anything of you. How's your work
+going?"</p>
+<p>"Much better, thanks&mdash;now that the winter is over."</p>
+<p>He questioned her about her schools. And then after a brief
+pause,</p>
+<p>"Well, daughter," he said, "it has been a great fight, and I'm
+proud of you for it. And if I've got anything to say&mdash;" his
+hand was still on her shoulder, and he felt her tighten
+suddenly&mdash;"it isn't by way of criticism&mdash;please be sure
+of that ahead. In this damnable war my faith in men has been badly
+shaken up. Humanity seems to me still a child&mdash;a child who
+needs to go to school. God knows we need men and women like
+you&mdash;and I'm proud of all you've accomplished, I'd be the last
+man to hold you back. I only want to help you go on&mdash;by seeing
+to it that you are free&mdash;from anything which can hinder you."
+He stopped again for a moment.</p>
+<p>"To begin with," he said, "I understand you're not going to
+marry Allan Baird." She stirred slightly:</p>
+<p>"Did he tell you so?"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I asked him," Roger replied. "I had Allan here a few
+nights ago, and he told me you had decided to give up your
+happiness for the sake of all those children in that big family of
+yours. You felt you must keep yourself free for them. Very well, if
+that is your decision I propose to clear the way." She looked
+intently up at his face. "You're not free now," he continued. "We
+have Edith and her children here. And I'm growing old&mdash;that
+has got to be thought of&mdash;I don't want to leave them on your
+hands. So as soon as the baby is well enough, I'm going to move
+them up to the mountains&mdash;not only for the sum<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id=
+"Page_264"></a>[264]</span>mer&mdash;they are to stay the whole
+year 'round. From this time on they're to make it their home."</p>
+<p>"Father! But they can't do that! Think of the winters!" Deborah
+cried.</p>
+<p>"It's already settled," he answered. "I've talked to Edith and
+she has agreed. She has always loved the farm, and it will be good
+for her children. In the meantime I've been talking to George.
+'George,' I told him, 'I'm going to talk to you, man to man, about
+a man's job I want you to tackle.'"</p>
+<p>"The farm? But, dearie! He's only a boy!"</p>
+<p>"He's nearly seventeen," said Roger, "and a young moose for his
+age. And old Dave Royce will still be there. It's the work George
+has been dreaming about ever since he was a child. You should have
+seen how he was thrilled by the scheme. I told him we'd spend the
+summer together up there laying all our plans, investing our money
+carefully to make every dollar count."</p>
+<p>"What money?" Deborah sharply asked. But her father was talking
+steadily on:</p>
+<p>"We already have a fine lot of cattle. We'll add to it and
+enlarge the barn and put in some new equipment. In short, we'll put
+it in fine shape, make it a first class dairy farm. 'And then,
+George,' I said to him, 'I'm going to turn it over to you. I shall
+give the farm to your mother, and the rest of the money I have I
+mean to invest in her name down here, so that she'll have a small
+income until you can make your dairy pay.'"</p>
+<p>"What money are you speaking of?" Deborah's voice was thick and
+hard, her sensitive lips were parted and she was breathing
+quickly.</p>
+<p>"I've sold the house," he told her. Convulsively she gripped his
+arms:</p>
+<p>"Then tell me where <i>you</i> mean to live!"</p>
+<p>"I'm not going to live&mdash;I'm going to die&mdash;very
+soon&mdash;I have definite knowledge."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id=
+"Page_265"></a>[265]</span>Without speaking Deborah rose; her face
+went white. Her father kept tight hold of her hands, and he felt
+them trembling, growing cold.</p>
+<p>"You're soon to be free of everyone," he continued painfully. "I
+know this is hurting you, but I see so plain, so plain, my child,
+just what it is I've got to do. I'm trying to clear the way for you
+to make a simple definite choice&mdash;a choice which is going to
+settle your life one way or the other. I want to make sure you see
+what you're doing. Because you mean so much to me. We're flesh and
+blood&mdash;eh, my daughter?&mdash;and in this family of ours we've
+been the closest ones of all!" She seemed to sway a little.</p>
+<p>"<i>You're not going to die</i>!" she whispered.</p>
+<p>"So it hurts you to lose me," he replied. "It will be hard to be
+so free. Would you rather not have had me at all? I've been quite a
+load on your back, you know. A fearful job you had of it, dragging
+me up when I was down. And since then Edith and Bruce and the rest,
+what burdens they have been at times. What sharp worries, heavy
+sorrows, days and nights you and I have gone through, when we
+should have been quietly resting&mdash;free&mdash;to keep up our
+strength for our next day's work. Suppose you had missed them,
+lived alone, would you have worked better? You don't know. But you
+will know soon, you're to give it a trial. For I've cleared the
+way&mdash;so that if you throw over Baird to be free you shall get
+the freedom you feel you need!"</p>
+<p>"Father! Please! Is this fair? Is this kind?" She asked in a
+harsh frightened tone. Her eyes were wet with angry tears.</p>
+<p>"This isn't a time to be kind, my dear." His voice was quivering
+like her own. "I'm bungling it&mdash;I'm bungling it&mdash;but you
+must let me stumble along and try to show you what I mean. You will
+have your work, your crowded schools, to which you'll be able to
+give your life. But I <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id=
+"Page_266"></a>[266]</span>look ahead, I who know you&mdash;and I
+don't see you happy, I don't even see you whole. For you there will
+be no family. None of the intimate sorrows and joys that have been
+in this house will come to you. I look back and I see them
+all&mdash;for a man who has come so near the end gets a larger
+vision." He shut his eyes, his jaw set tight. "I look into my
+family back and back, and I see how it has been made of many
+generations. Certain figures stand out in my mind&mdash;they cover
+over a hundred years. And I see how much they've meant to me. I see
+that I've been one of them&mdash;a link in a long chain of
+lives&mdash;all inter-bound and reaching on. In my life they have
+all been here&mdash;as I shall be in lives to come.</p>
+<p>"And this is what I want for you." He held her close a moment.
+The tears were rolling down her cheeks. "Until now you have been
+one of us, too. You have never once been free. You have been the
+one in this house to step in and take hold and try to decide what's
+best to be done. I'm not putting you up on a pedestal, I don't say
+you've made no mistakes&mdash;but I say you're the kind of a woman
+who craves what's in a family. You're the one of my daughters who
+has loved this house the most!"</p>
+<p>"Yes," she said, "I've loved this house&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But now for you all this will stop&mdash;quite suddenly," he
+told her. "This house of ours will soon be sold. And within a few
+months I shall be dead, and your family will have dropped out of
+your life."</p>
+<p>"Stop! Can't you? Stop! It's brutal! It isn't true about you!"
+she cried. "I won't believe it!" Her voice broke.</p>
+<p>"Go and see my physician," he said.</p>
+<p>"How long have you known it? Why didn't you tell me?"</p>
+<p>"Because we had troubles enough as it was, other things to think
+of. But there's only one thing now, this freedom you are
+facing."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id=
+"Page_267"></a>[267]</span>Please! Please!" she cried imploringly.
+"I don't want to talk of myself but of you! This
+physician&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"No," he answered with stern pain, "you'll have to hear me out,
+my child. We're talking of you&mdash;of you alone when I am gone.
+How will it be? Are you quite sure? You will have your work, that
+vision of yours, and I know how close it has been to you, vivid and
+warm, almost like a friend. But so was my business once like that,
+when I was as young as you. And the business grew and it got
+cold&mdash;impersonal, a mere machine. Thank God I had a family.
+Isn't your work growing too? Are you sure it won't become a
+machine? And won't you lose touch with the children then, unless
+you have a child of your own? Friends won't be enough, you'll find,
+they're not bound up into yourself. The world may reach a stage at
+last where we shall live on in the lives of all&mdash;we may all be
+one big family. But that time is still far off&mdash;we hold to our
+own flesh and blood. And so I'm sure it will be with you. You see
+you have been young, my dear, and your spirit has been fresh and
+new. But how are you going to keep it so, without the ties you've
+always had?" He felt the violent clutch of her hand.</p>
+<p>"<i>You won't die</i>!" she whispered. But he went on
+relentlessly:</p>
+<p>"And what will you do without Allan Baird? For you see you have
+not even worked alone. You have had this man who has loved you
+there. I've seen how much he has helped you&mdash;how you have
+grown and he has grown since you two got together. And if you throw
+him over now, it seems to me you are not only losing what has done
+the most for your work, but you're running away from life as well.
+You've never won by doing that, you've always won by meeting life,
+never evading it, taking it all, living it full, taking chances! If
+you marry Baird, I see you both go on together in your work, while
+in your home you struggle through the troubles, tangles, joys and
+griefs <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id=
+"Page_268"></a>[268]</span>which most of us mortals know so well! I
+see you in a world of children, but with children, too, of your
+own&mdash;to keep your spirit always young! Living on in your
+children's lives!"</p>
+<p>Roger stopped abruptly. He groped for something more to say.</p>
+<p>"On the one side, all that," he muttered, "and on the other, a
+lonely life which will soon grow old."</p>
+<p>There fell a dangerous silence. And sharply without warning, the
+influence, deep and invisible, of many generations of stolid folk
+in New England made itself felt in each of them. Father and
+daughter grew awkward, both. The talk had been too emotional. Each
+made, as by an instinct, a quick strong effort at self-control, and
+felt about for some way to get back upon their old easy footing.
+Roger turned to his daughter. Her head was still bent, her hands
+clasped tight, but she was frowning down at them now, although her
+face was still wet with tears. She drew a deep unsteady breath.</p>
+<p>"Well, Deborah," he said simply, "here I've gone stumbling on
+like a fool. I don't know what I've said or how you have
+listened."</p>
+<p>"I've listened," she said thickly.</p>
+<p>"I have tried," he went on in a steadier tone, "to give you some
+feeling of what is ahead&mdash;and to speak for your mother as well
+as myself. And more than that&mdash;much more than that&mdash;for
+the world has changed since she was here. God knows I've tried to
+be modern." A humorous glint came into his eyes, "Downright
+modern," he declared. "Have I asked you to give up your career? Not
+at all, I've asked you to marry Baird, and go right on with him in
+your work. And if you can't marry Allan Baird, after what he has
+done for you, how in God's name can you modern women ever marry
+anyone? Now what do you say? Will you marry him? Don't laugh at me!
+I'm serious! Talk!"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id=
+"Page_269"></a>[269]</span>But Deborah was laughing&mdash;although
+her father felt her hands still cold and trembling in his. Her gray
+eyes, bright and luminous, were shining up into his own.</p>
+<p>"What a time you've been having, haven't you, dear!" his
+daughter cried unsteadily. "Fairly lying awake at night and racking
+your brains for everything modern I've ever said&mdash;to turn it
+and twist it and use it against me!"</p>
+<p>"Well?" he demanded. "How does it twist?"</p>
+<p>"It twists hard, thank you," she declared. "You've turned and
+twisted me about till I barely see how I can live at all!"</p>
+<p>"You can, though! Marry Allan Baird!"</p>
+<p>"I'll think it over&mdash;later on."</p>
+<p>"What is there left to think about? Can you point to one hole in
+all I've said?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, a good many&mdash;and one right off."</p>
+<p>"Out with it!"</p>
+<p>"You're not dying," Deborah told him calmly, "I feel quite
+certain you'll live for years."</p>
+<p>"Oh, you do, eh&mdash;then see my physician!"</p>
+<p>"I will, I'll see him to-morrow. How long did you give yourself?
+Just a few months?"</p>
+<p>"No, he said it might be more," admitted Roger grudgingly. "If I
+had no worries to wear me out&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Me, you mean."</p>
+<p>"Exactly."</p>
+<p>"Well, you've worried quite enough. You're going to leave it to
+me to decide."</p>
+<p>"Very well," he agreed. He looked at her. "You have
+listened&mdash;hard?" he gruffly asked.</p>
+<p>"Yes, dear." Her hands slowly tightened on his. "But don't speak
+of this again. You're to leave it to me. You promise?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>And Roger left her.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id=
+"Page_270"></a>[270]</span>He went to bed but he could not sleep.
+With a sudden sag in his spirits he felt what a bungler he had
+been. He was not used to these solemn talks, he told himself
+irately. What a fool to try it! And how had Deborah taken it all?
+He did not mind her laughter, nor that lighter tone of hers. It was
+only her way of ending the talk, an easy way out for both of them.
+But what had she thought underneath? Had his points gone home? He
+tried to remember them. Pshaw! He had been too excited, and he
+could recall scarcely anything. He had not meant to speak of
+Baird&mdash;he had meant to leave him out! Yes, how he must have
+bungled it! Doubtless she was smiling still. Even the news about
+himself she had not taken seriously.</p>
+<p>But as he thought about that news, Roger's mood completely
+changed. The talk of the evening grew remote, his family no longer
+real, mere little figures, shadowy, receding swiftly far away....
+Much quieter now, he lay a long time listening to the life of the
+house, the occasional sounds from the various rooms. From the
+nursery adjoining came little Bruce's piping laugh, and Roger could
+hear the nurse moving about. Afterwards for a long time he could
+hear only creaks and breathings. Never had the old house seemed so
+like a living creature. For nearly forty years it had held all that
+he had loved and known, all he had been sure of. Outside of it was
+the strange, the new, the uncertain, the vast unknown, stretching
+away to infinity....</p>
+<p>Again he heard Bruce's gay little laugh. What did it remind him
+of? He puzzled. Then he had it. Edith had been a baby here. Her
+cradle had been in this very room, close by the bed. And how she
+had laughed! What gurgles and ripples of bursting glee! The first
+child in his family....</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXVII</h2>
+<p>On the next day, which was Sunday, Deborah made an appointment
+with her father's physician, and had a long talk with him at his
+house. Upon her return she went to her room and stayed there until
+evening, but when she came down to supper her manner was as usual.
+At the table she joined in the talk of Edith and the children,
+already deep in their preparations for the move up to the farm.
+George could hardly wait to start. That life would be a change
+indeed in Edith's plans for her family, and as they talked about it
+now the tension of hostility which had so long existed between the
+two sisters passed away. Each knew the clash had come to an end,
+that they would live together no more; and as though in remorse
+they drew close, Deborah with her suggestions, Edith in her
+friendly way of taking and discussing each one. Then Deborah went
+again to her room. Her room was just over Roger's, and waking
+several times in the night he heard his daughter walking the
+floor.</p>
+<p>The next day she was up early and off to her school before he
+came down. It was a fine spring morning, Roger had had a good
+night's sleep, and as he walked to his office he was buoyed up by a
+feeling both of hope for his daughter and of solid satisfaction in
+himself as he remembered all that he had said to her. Curiously
+enough he could recall every word of it now. Every point which he
+had made rose up before him vividly. How clear he had been, how
+simple and true, and yet with what a tremendous effect he had piled
+the points one on the other. "By George," he thought with a little
+glow, "for a fellow who's never been in a pulpit I put up a
+devilish strong appeal." And he <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span>added sagely, "Let it work
+on the girl, give it a chance. She'll come out of this all right.
+This idea some fellows have, that every woman is born a fool, isn't
+fair, it isn't true. Just let a line of argument be presented to
+her strong and clear&mdash;straight from the shoulder&mdash;by some
+man&mdash;"</p>
+<p>And again with a tingle of pleasure his mind recurred to his
+sermon. His pleasures had been few of late, so he dwelt on this
+little glow of pride and made the most of it while it was here.</p>
+<p>At the office, as he entered his room, he stopped with a slight
+shock of surprise. John, standing on his crutches in front of a
+large table, had been going through the morning's mail, sorting out
+the routine letters Roger did not need to see. To-day he had just
+finished and was staring at the window. The light fell full on his
+sallow face and showed an amazing happiness. At Roger's step he
+started.</p>
+<p>"Well, Johnny, how goes it this morning?"</p>
+<p>"Fine, thank you," was the prompt reply. And John hobbled
+briskly over to his typewriter in the corner. Roger sat down at his
+desk. As he did so he glanced again at the cripple and felt a
+little pang of regret. "What will become of him," he asked, "when I
+close out my business?" He still thought of him as a mere boy, for
+looking at the small crooked form it was difficult to remember that
+John was twenty years of age. The lad had worked like a Trojan of
+late. Even Roger, engrossed as he had been in family anxieties, had
+noticed it in the last few weeks. He would have to make some
+provision for John. Deborah would see to it.... Roger went slowly
+through his mail. One letter was from the real estate firm through
+whom he was to sell the house. The deal had not been closed as yet,
+there were certain points still to be settled. So Roger called John
+to his desk and dictated a reply. When he finished there was a
+brief pause.</p>
+<p>"That's all," said Roger gruffly.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id=
+"Page_273"></a>[273]</span>So you're sellin' the house," John
+ventured.</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>The lad limped back to his corner and went to work at his
+machine. But presently he came over again and stood waiting
+awkwardly.</p>
+<p>"What is it, Johnny?" Roger inquired, without looking up.</p>
+<p>"Say, Mr. Gale," the boy began, in a carefully casual tone,
+"would you mind talking business a minute or two?"</p>
+<p>"No. Fire ahead."</p>
+<p>"Well, sir, you've had your own troubles lately, you haven't had
+much time for things here. The last time you went over the books
+was nearly a couple of weeks ago."</p>
+<p>John paused and his look was portentous.</p>
+<p>"Well," asked Roger, "what about it? Business been picking up
+any since then?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir!" was the answer. "We didn't lose a cent last week! We
+made money! Fifteen dollars!"</p>
+<p>"Good Lord, Johnny, we're getting rich."</p>
+<p>"But that's nothing," John continued. "The fact of the matter
+is, Mr. Gale, I have been working lately on a new line I thought
+of. And now it's got agoing so fast it's getting clean away from
+me!" Again he stopped, and swallowed hard.</p>
+<p>"Out with it, then," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"I got it from the war," said John. "The papers are still half
+full of war news, and that's what's keeping our business
+down&mdash;because we ain't adopting ourselves to the new war
+conditions. So I figured it like this. Say there are a million
+people over here in America who've got either friends or relations
+in the armies over there. Say that all of 'em want to get
+news&mdash;not just this stuff about battles, but real live news of
+what's happened to Bill. Has Bill still got his legs and arms? Can
+he hold down a job when he gets home? News which counts for
+something! See? A big new market! Business for us! So I tried to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id=
+"Page_274"></a>[274]</span>see what I could do!" John excitedly
+shifted his crutches. Roger was watching intently.</p>
+<p>"Go on, Johnny."</p>
+<p>"Sure, I'll go on! One night I went to a library where they have
+English papers. I went over their files for about a month. I took
+one Canadian regiment&mdash;see?&mdash;and traced it through, and I
+got quite a story. Then I used some of the money I've saved and
+bought a whole bunch of papers. I piled 'em up in the room where I
+sleep and went through 'em nights. I hired two kids to help me.
+Well, Mr. Gale, the thing worked fine! In less than a week I had
+any amount of little bunches of clippings. See how I mean? Each
+bunch was the story of one regiment for a month. So I knew we could
+deliver the goods!</p>
+<p>"Well, this was about ten days ago. And then I went after the
+market. I went to a man I met last year in an advertising office,
+and for fifty dollars we put an 'ad' in the Sunday Times. After
+that there was nothing to do but wait. The next day&mdash;nothing
+doing! I was here at seven-thirty and I went through every mail.
+Not a single answer to my 'ad'&mdash;and I thought I was busted!
+But Tuesday morning there were three, with five dollar checks
+inside of 'em! In the afternoon there were two more and the next
+day eleven! By the end of last week we'd had forty-six! Friday I
+put in another 'ad' and there've been over seventy more since then!
+That makes a hundred and twenty in all&mdash;six hundred dollars!
+And I'm swamped! I ain't done nothing yet&mdash;I've just kept 'em
+all for you to see!"</p>
+<p>He went quickly to the table, gathered a pile of letters there
+and brought them over to Roger's desk. Roger glanced over a few of
+them, dazed. He looked around into John's shrewd face, where
+mingled devotion and triumph and business zeal were shining.</p>
+<p>"Johnny," he said huskily, "you've adopted my busi<span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span>ness and
+no mistake." John swallowed again and scowled with joy.</p>
+<p>"Let's figure it out!" he proposed.</p>
+<p>"We will!"</p>
+<p>They were at it all day, laying their plans, "adopting" the work
+of the office to the new conditions. They found they would need a
+larger force, including a French and a German translator. They
+placed other "ads" in the papers. They forgot to have lunch and
+worked steadily on, till the outer rooms were empty and still. At
+last they were through. Roger wearily put on his cuffs, and went
+and got his coat and hat.</p>
+<p>"Say, Mr. Gale," John asked him, "how about this
+letter&mdash;the one you dictated this morning to that firm about
+your house?" Roger turned and looked at him.</p>
+<p>"Throw it into the basket," he said. "We'll write 'em another
+to-morrow and tell 'em we have changed our minds." He paused for
+just a moment, and then he added brusquely, "If this goes through
+as I hope it will, I guess you'd better come into the firm."</p>
+<p>And he left the room abruptly. Behind him there was not a
+sound.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>At home in his study, that evening, he made some more
+calculations. In a few weeks he would have money enough to start
+Edith and her family in their new life on the farm. For the present
+at least, the house was safe.</p>
+<p>"Why, father." Edith came into the room. "I didn't know you had
+come home. What kept you so long at the office?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, business, my dear&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Have you had any supper?"</p>
+<p>"No, and I'd like some," he replied.</p>
+<p>"I'll see to it myself," she said. Edith was good at this sort
+of thing, and the supper she brought was delicious. He ate it with
+keen relish. Then he went back to his study <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span>and
+picked up a book, an old favorite. He started to read, but
+presently dozed. The book dropped from his hands and he fell
+asleep.</p>
+<p>He awakened with a start, and saw Deborah looking down at him.
+For a moment he stared up, as he came to his senses, and in his
+daughter's clear gray eyes he thought he saw a happiness which set
+his heart to beating fast.</p>
+<p>"Well?" he questioned huskily.</p>
+<p>"We're to be married right away."</p>
+<p>He stared a moment longer; "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad, my dear. I
+was afraid you&mdash;" he stopped short. Deborah bent close to him,
+and he felt her squeeze his arm:</p>
+<p>"I've been over and over all you said," she told him, in a low
+sweet voice. "I had a good many ups and downs. But I'm all through
+now&mdash;I'm sure you were right." And she pressed her cheek to
+his. "Oh, dad, dad&mdash;it's such a relief! And I'm so happy!...
+Thank you, dear."</p>
+<p>"Where is Allan?" he asked presently.</p>
+<p>"I'll get him," she said. She left the room, and in a moment
+Allan's tall ungainly form appeared in the doorway.</p>
+<p>"Well, Allan, my boy," Roger cried.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Roger Gale," said Allan softly. He was wringing Roger's
+hand.</p>
+<p>"So she decided to risk you, eh," Roger said unsteadily. "Well,
+Baird, you look like a devilish risk for a woman like her&mdash;who
+has the whole world on her back as it is&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I know&mdash;I know&mdash;and how rash she has been! Only two
+years and her mind was made up!"</p>
+<p>"But that's like her&mdash;that's our Deborah&mdash;always
+acting like a flash&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Stop acting like children!" Deborah cried. "And be sensible and
+listen to me! We're to be married to-morrow morning&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Why to-morrow?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"Because," she said decidedly, "there has been enough
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id=
+"Page_277"></a>[277]</span>fuss over this affair. So we'll just be
+married and have it done. And when Edith and the children go up
+next week to the mountains, we want to move right into this
+house."</p>
+<p>"This house?" exclaimed her father.</p>
+<p>"I know&mdash;it's sold," she answered. "But we're going to get
+a lease. We'll see the new owner and talk him around."</p>
+<p>"Then you'll have to talk <i>your father</i> around&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<i>You</i> around?" And Deborah stared. "You mean to say you're
+not going to sell?"</p>
+<p>"I do," said Roger blithely. He told them the story of John's
+new scheme. "And if things turn out in the office as I hope they
+will," he ended, "we'll clear the mortgage on the house and then
+make it your wedding gift&mdash;from the new firm to the new
+family."</p>
+<p>Deborah choked a little:</p>
+<p>"Allan! What do you think of us now?"</p>
+<p>"I think," he answered, in a drawl, "that we'd better try to
+persuade the new firm to live with the new family."</p>
+<p>"We will, and the sooner the better!" she said.</p>
+<p>"I'm going up to the mountains," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"Yes, but you're coming back in the fall, and when you do you're
+coming here! And you're going to live here years and years!"</p>
+<p>"You're forgetting my doctor."</p>
+<p>"Not at all. I had a long talk with him Sunday and I know just
+what I'm saying."</p>
+<p>"You don't look it, my dear," said Roger, "but of course you may
+be right. If you take the proper care of me here&mdash;and John
+keeps booming things for the firm&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"And George makes a huge success of the farm," Deborah added
+quickly.</p>
+<p>"And Deborah of teaching the world&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Oh, Allan, hush up!"</p>
+<p>"Look here," he said. "You go upstairs and tell Edith all this.
+Your father and I want to be alone."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id=
+"Page_278"></a>[278]</span>And when the two men were left alone,
+they smoked and said nothing. They smiled at each other.</p>
+<p>"It's hard to decide," grunted Roger at last. "Which did
+it&mdash;my wonderful sermon or your own long waiting game? I'm
+inclined to think it was the game. For any other man but
+you&mdash;with all you've done, without any talk&mdash;no, sir,
+there wouldn't have been a chance. For she's modern, Baird, she's
+modern. And I'm going to live just as long as I can. I want to see
+what happens here."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>The next night in his study, how quiet it was. Edith was busy
+packing upstairs, Deborah and Allan were gone. Thoughts drifted
+slowly across his mind. Well, she was married, the last of his
+daughters, the one whom he cared most for, the one who had taken
+the heaviest risks. And this was the greatest risk of all. For
+although she had put it happily out of her thoughts for the moment,
+Roger knew the old troublesome question was still there in
+Deborah's mind. The tenement children or her own, the big family or
+the small? He felt there would still be struggles ahead. And with a
+kind of a wistfulness he tried to see into the future here.</p>
+<p>He gave a sudden start in his chair.</p>
+<p>"By George!" he thought. "They forgot the ring!" Scowling, he
+tried to remember. Yes, in the brief simple service that day, in
+which so much had been omitted&mdash;music, flowers, wedding
+gown&mdash;even the ring had been left out. Why? Not from any
+principle, he knew that they were not such fools. No, they had
+simply forgotten it, in the haste of getting married at once. Well,
+by thunder, for a girl whose father had been a collector of rings
+for the best part of his natural life, it was pretty shabby to say
+the least! Then he recollected that he, too, had forgotten it. And
+this quieted him immediately.</p>
+<p>"I'll get one, though," he promised himself. "And no
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id=
+"Page_279"></a>[279]</span>plain wedding ring either. I'll make A.
+Baird attend to that. No, I'll get her a ring worth while."</p>
+<p>He sank deep in his chair and took peace to his soul by thinking
+of the ring he would choose. And this carried his thoughts back
+over the years. For there had been so many rings....</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXVIII</h2>
+<p>It was a clear beautiful afternoon toward the end of May. And as
+the train puffing up the grade wound along the Connecticut River,
+Roger sat looking out of the window. The orchards were pink and
+white on the hills. Slowly the day wore away. The river narrowed,
+the hills reared high, and in the sloping meadows gray ribs and
+shoulders of granite appeared. The air had a tang of the mountains.
+Everywhere were signs of spring, of new vigor and fresh life. But
+the voices at each station sounded drowsier than at the last, the
+eyes appeared more stolid, and to Roger it felt like a journey far
+back into old ways of living, old beliefs and old ideals. He had
+always had this feeling, and always he had relished it, this dive
+into his boyhood. But it was different to-day, for this was more
+than a journey, it was a migration, too. Close about him in the car
+were Edith and her children, bound for a new home up there in the
+very heart and stronghold of all old things in America.</p>
+<p>Old things dear to Edith's heart. As she sat by the window
+staring out, he watched her shapely little head; he noted the
+hardening lines on her forehead and the gray which had come in her
+hair. It had been no easy move for her, this, she'd shown pluck to
+take it so quietly. He saw her smile a little, then frown and go on
+with her thinking. What was she thinking about, he
+wondered&mdash;all she had left behind in New York, or the rest of
+her life which lay ahead? She had always longed for things simple
+and old. Well, she would have them now with a vengeance, summer and
+winter, the year 'round, in the battered frame house on the
+mountain side, the birthplace of her family. A <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id=
+"Page_281"></a>[281]</span>recollection came to him of a summer's
+dusk two years ago and a woman with a lawn mower cutting the grass
+on the family graves. Would Edith ever be like that, a mere
+custodian of the past? If she did, he thought, she would be false
+to the very traditions she tried to preserve. For her forefathers
+had never been mere guardians of things gone by. Always they had
+been pioneers. That house had not been old to them, but a thrilling
+new adventure. Their old homes they had left behind, far down in
+the valleys to the east. And even those valley homes had been new
+to the rugged men come over the sea. Would Edith ever understand?
+Would she see that for herself the new must emerge from her
+children, from the ideas, desires and plans already teeming in
+their minds? Would she show keen interest, sympathy? Would she be
+able to keep her hold?</p>
+<p>In the seat behind her mother, Betsy was sitting with Bruce in
+her lap, looking over a picture book. Quietly Roger watched the
+girl.</p>
+<p>"What are you going to be?" he asked. "A woman's college
+president, a surgeon or a senator? And what will your mother think
+of you then?"</p>
+<p>They changed cars, and on a train made up of antiquated coaches
+they wound through a side valley, down which rushing and tumbling
+came the river that bore Roger's name. He went into the smoking
+car, and presently George joined him there. George did not yet
+smoke, (with his elders), but he had bought a package of gum and he
+was chewing absorbedly. Plainly the lad was excited over the great
+existence which he saw opening close ahead. Roger glanced at the
+boy's broad shoulders, noticed the eager lines of his jaw, looked
+down at his enormous hands, unformed as yet, ungainly; but in them
+was a hungriness that caused a glow in Roger's breast. One more of
+the family starting out.</p>
+<p>"It's all going to depend on you," Roger gravely <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id=
+"Page_282"></a>[282]</span>counseled. "Your whole life will depend
+on the start you make. Either you're going to settle down, like so
+many of your neighbors up there, or you're going to hustle, plan
+out your day, keep on with your studies and go to college&mdash;the
+State Agricultural College, I mean. In short, keep up to date, my
+boy, and become in time a big figure in farming."</p>
+<p>"I'm going to do it," George replied. His grandfather glanced
+again at his face, so scowling, so determined. And a gleam of
+compassion and yearning came for a moment in Roger's eyes. His
+heavy hand lay on George's knee.</p>
+<p>"That's right, son," he grunted. "Make the family proud of you.
+I'll do all I can to help you start. My business is picking up,
+thank God, and I'll be able to back you now. I'll stay up here a
+good part of the summer. We've both of us got a lot to
+learn&mdash;and not only from books&mdash;we want to remember we've
+plenty to learn from the neighbors, too. Take old Dave Royce, for
+instance, who when all is said and done has worked our farm for
+twenty odd years and never once run me into debt."</p>
+<p>"But, Gee!" demurred George. "He's so 'way out of date!"</p>
+<p>"I know he is, son, but we've got to go slow." And Roger's look
+passed furtively along the faces in the car. "We don't want to
+forget," he warned, "that this is still New England. Every new idea
+we have we want to go easy with, snake it in."</p>
+<p>"I've got an awful lot of 'em," the boy muttered hungrily.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>At the farm, the next morning at daybreak, Roger was awakened by
+the sound of George's voice. It was just beneath his window:</p>
+<p>"But cattle are only part of it, Dave," the boy declared, in
+earnest tones, "just part of what we can have up <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span>here.
+Think what we've got&mdash;over three hundred acres! And we want to
+make every acre count! We want to get in a whole lot more of
+hogs&mdash;Belted Hampshires, if we can afford 'em&mdash;and a
+couple of hundred hens. White Leghorns ought to fill the bill. Of
+course that's just a starter. I've got a scheme for some
+incubators&mdash;electric&mdash;run by the dynamo which we'll put
+in down by the dam. And we can do wonders with bees, too,
+Dave&mdash;I've got a book on 'em I'd like you to read. And
+besides, there's big money in squab these days. Rich women in New
+York hotels eat thousands of 'em every night. And ducks, of course,
+and turkeys. I'd like a white gobbler right at the start, if we
+knew where we could get one cheap." The voice broke off and there
+was a pause. "We can do an awful lot with this place."</p>
+<p>Then Dave's deep drawl:</p>
+<p>"That's so, George&mdash;yes, I guess that's so. Only we don't
+want to fool ourselves. That ain't Noah's Ark over thar&mdash;it's
+a barn. And just for a starter, if I was you&mdash;" Here Dave
+deliberated. "Of course it's none of my business," he said, "it's
+for you and your grandfather to decide&mdash;and I don't propose to
+interfere in what ain't any of my affair&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, yes, Dave, sure! That's all right! But go on! <i>What</i>,
+just for a starter?"</p>
+<p>"Cows," came the tranquil answer. "I've been hunting around
+since you wrut me last month. And I know of three good
+milkers&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Three? Why, Dave, I wrote we want thirty or forty!"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;you wrut," Dave answered. "But I've druv all around
+these parts&mdash;and there ain't but three that I can find. And I
+ain't so sure of that third one. She looks like she might&mdash;"
+George cut in.</p>
+<p>"But you only had a buggy, Dave! Gee! I'm going to have a
+Ford!"</p>
+<p>"That so, George?"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id=
+"Page_284"></a>[284]</span>You bet it's so! And we'll go on a cow
+hunt all over the State!"</p>
+<p>"Well&mdash;I dunno but what you're right," Dave responded
+cautiously. "You might get more cows if you had a Ford&mdash;an'
+got so you could run it. Yes, I guess it's a pretty good scheme. I
+believe in being conservative, George&mdash;but I dunno now but
+what a Ford&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Their voices passed from under the window, and Roger relaxed and
+smiled to himself. It was a good beginning, he thought.</p>
+<p>They bought a Ford soon afterwards and in the next few weeks of
+June they searched the farms for miles around, slowly adding to
+their herd. To Roger's surprise he found many signs of a new life
+stirring there&mdash;the farmers buying "autos" and improved
+machinery, thinking of new processes; and down in the lower valleys
+they found several big stock farms which were decidedly modern
+affairs. At one such place, the man in charge took a fancy to
+George and asked him to drop over often.</p>
+<p>"You bet I'll drop over often!" George replied, as he climbed
+excitedly into his Ford. "I want to see more of those milking
+machines! We're going to have 'em some day ourselves! A dynamo
+too!"</p>
+<p>And at home, down by the ruined mill he again set about
+rebuilding the dam.</p>
+<p>Roger felt himself growing stronger. His sleeps were sound, and
+his appetite had come back to a surprising degree. The mountain air
+had got into his blood and George's warm vigor into his soul. One
+afternoon, watching the herd come home, some thirty huge animals
+swinging along with a slow heavy power in their limbs, he breathed
+the strong sweet scent of them on the mountain breeze. George came
+running by them and stopped a moment by Roger's side, watching
+closely and eagerly every animal as it passed. And Roger glanced at
+George's face. The herd passed on and George followed behind, his
+collie dog <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id=
+"Page_285"></a>[285]</span>leaping and barking beside him. And
+Roger looked up at a billowy cloud resting on a mountain top and
+wondered whether after all that New York doctor had been right.</p>
+<p>He followed the herd into the barn. In two long rows, the great
+heads of the cattle turned hungrily, lowing and sniffing deep,
+breathing harshly, stamping, as the fodder cart came down the
+lines. What a splendidly wholesome work for a lad, growing up with
+his roots in the soil, in these massive simple forces of life. What
+of Edith's other children? Would they be willing to stay here long?
+Each morning Roger breakfasted with Bruce the baby by his side.
+"What a thing for you, little lad," he thought, "if you could live
+here all your days. But will you? Will you want to stay? Won't you,
+too, get the fever, as I did, for the city?" In the joyous,
+shining, mysterious eyes of the baby he found no reply. He had many
+long talks with Betsy, who was eager to go away to school, and with
+Bob and little Tad who were going to school in the village that
+fall. And the feeling came to Roger that surely he would see these
+lives, at least for many years ahead. They were so familiar and so
+real, so fresh and filled with hopes and dreams. And he felt
+himself so a part of them all.</p>
+<p>But one morning, climbing the steep upper field to a spring
+George wanted to show him, Roger suddenly swayed, turned faint. He
+caught hold of a boulder on the wall and held himself rigid,
+breathing hard. It passed, and he looked at his grandson. But
+George had noticed nothing. The boy had turned and his brown eyes
+were fixed on a fallow field below. Wistfully Roger watched his
+face. They both stood motionless for a long time.</p>
+<p>As the summer drew slowly to a close, Roger spent many quiet
+hours alone by the copse of birches, where the glory of autumn was
+already stealing in and out among the tall slender stems of the
+trees. And he thought of the silent winter there, and of the spring
+which would come again, and the long fragrant summer. And he
+watched the glow on <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id=
+"Page_286"></a>[286]</span>the mountains above and the rolling
+splendors of the clouds. At dusk he heard the voices of animals,
+birds and insects, murmuring up from all the broad valley, then
+gradually sinking to deep repose, many never to wake again. And the
+span of his life, from the boyhood which he could recall so vividly
+here among these children, seemed brief to him as a summer's day,
+only a part of a mighty whole made up of the innumerable lives, the
+many generations, of his family, his own flesh and blood, come out
+of a past he could never know, and going on without him now,
+branching, dividing, widening out to what his eyes would never
+see.</p>
+<p>Vaguely he pictured them groping their way, just as he himself
+had done. It seemed to Roger that all his days he had been only
+entering life, as some rich bewildering thicket like this copse of
+birches here, never getting very deep, never seeing very clearly,
+never understanding all. And so it had been with his children, and
+so it was with these children of Edith's, and so it would be with
+those many others&mdash;always groping, blundering,
+starting&mdash;children, only children all. And yet what lives they
+were to lead, what joys and revelations and disasters would be
+theirs, in the strange remote world they would live in&mdash;"my
+flesh and blood that I never shall know."</p>
+<p>But the stars were quiet and serene. The meadows and the forests
+on the broad sweep of the mountain side took on still brighter,
+warmer hues. And there was no gloom in these long good-byes.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>On a frosty night in September, he left the farm to go to the
+city. From his seat in the small automobile Roger looked back at
+the pleasant old house with its brightly lighted windows, and then
+he turned to George by his side:</p>
+<p>"We're in good shape for the winter, son."</p>
+<p>But George did not get his full meaning.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id=
+"Page_287"></a>[287]</span>At the little station, there were no
+other passengers. They walked the platform for some time. Then the
+train with a scream came around the curve. A quick grip on George's
+hand, and Roger climbed into the car. Inside, a moment later, he
+looked out through the window. By a trainman with a lantern, George
+stood watching, smiling up, and he waved his hand as the train
+pulled out.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span>CHAPTER
+XXXIX</h2>
+<p>The next morning on his arrival in town, Roger went to his
+office. He had little cause for uneasiness there, for twice in the
+summer he had come down to keep an eye on the business, while John
+had taken brief vacations at a seaside place nearby. The boy had no
+color now in his cheeks; as always, they were a sallow gray with
+the skin drawn tight over high cheek bones; his vigor was all in
+his eyes. But here was a new John, nevertheless, a successful man
+of affairs. He had on a spruce new suit of brown, no cheap
+ready-made affair but one carefully fitted to conceal and soften
+his deformity. He was wearing a bright blue tie and a cornflower in
+his buttonhole, and his sandy hair was sleekly brushed. He showed
+Roger into his private room, a small place he had partitioned off,
+where over his desk was a motto in gold: "This is no place for your
+troubles or mine."</p>
+<p>"Lord, but you've got yourself fixed up fine in here," said
+Roger. John smiled broadly. "And you're looking like a new man,
+Johnny."</p>
+<p>"I had a great time at the seashore. Learned to sail a boat
+alone. What do you think of this chair of mine?" And John
+complacently displayed the ingenious contrivance in front of his
+desk, somewhat like a bicycle seat. It was made of steel and
+leather pads.</p>
+<p>"Wonderful," said Roger. "Where'd you ever pick it up?"</p>
+<p>"I had it made," was the grave reply. "When a fellow has got up
+in life enough to have a stenographer, it's high time he was
+sitting down."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id=
+"Page_289"></a>[289]</span>Let's see you do it." John sat down.
+"Now how is business?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"Great. Since the little slump we had in August it has taken a
+new start&mdash;and not only war business, at that&mdash;the old
+people are sending in orders again. I tell you what it is, Mr.
+Gale, this country is right on the edge of a boom!"</p>
+<p>And the junior member of the firm tilted triumphantly back in
+his chair.</p>
+<p>With the solid comfort which comes to a man when he returns to
+find his affairs all going well, Roger worked on until five
+o'clock, and then he started for his home.</p>
+<p>Deborah had not yet come in, and a deep silence reigned in the
+house. He looked through the rooms downstairs, and with content he
+noticed how little had been altered. His beloved study had not been
+touched. On the third floor, in the large back room, he found John
+comfortably installed. There were gay prints upon the walls, fresh
+curtains at the windows, a mandolin lying on a chair. And Roger,
+glancing down at the keen glad face of his partner, told himself
+that the doctor who had said this lad would die was a fool.</p>
+<p>"These doctors fool themselves often," he thought.</p>
+<p>Deborah and Allan had the front room on the floor below. Roger
+went in, and for a moment he stood looking about him. How restful
+and how radiant was this large old-fashioned chamber, so softly
+lighted, waiting. Through a passageway lined with cupboards he went
+into his room at the back. Deborah had repapered it, but with a
+pattern so similar that Roger did not notice the change. He only
+felt a vague freshness here, as though even this old chamber, too,
+were making a new start in life. And he felt as though he were to
+live here for years. Slowly he unpacked his trunk and took a bath
+and dressed at his leisure. Then he heard Deborah's voice at the
+door.</p>
+<p>"Come in, come in!" he answered.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id=
+"Page_290"></a>[290]</span>Why, father! Dearie!" Deborah cried "Oh,
+how well you're looking, dad!" And she kissed him happily. "Oh, but
+I'm glad to have you back&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"That's good," he said, and he squeezed her hand "Here, come to
+the light, let me look at you." He saw her cheeks a little flushed,
+the gladness in her steady eyes. "Happy? Everything just right?"
+His daughter nodded, smiling, and he gave a whimsical frown. "No
+ups and down at all? That's bad."</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, plenty&mdash;but all so small."</p>
+<p>"Good fellow to live with."</p>
+<p>"Very."</p>
+<p>"And your work?</p>
+<p>"It's going splendidly. I'll tell you about it this evening,
+after you give me the news from the farm."</p>
+<p>They chatted on for a short while, but he saw she was barely
+listening.</p>
+<p>"Can't you guess what it means," she asked him softly, "to a
+woman of my age&mdash;after she has been so afraid she was too old,
+that she'd married too late&mdash;to know at last&mdash;to be sure
+at last&mdash;that she's to have a baby, dad?" He drew back a
+little, and a lump rose in his throat.</p>
+<p>"By George!" he huskily exclaimed. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" And
+he held her close in his arms for some time, till both of them grew
+sensible.</p>
+<p>Soon after she had gone to her room, he heard Allan coming
+upstairs. He heard her low sweet cry of welcome, a silence, then
+their voices. He heard them laughing together and later Deborah
+humming a song. And still thinking of what she had told him, he
+felt himself so close to it all. And again the feeling came to him
+that surely he would live here for years.</p>
+<p>Allan came in and they had a talk.</p>
+<p>"Deborah says she has told you the news."</p>
+<p>"Yes. Everything's all right, I suppose&mdash;her condition, I
+mean," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id=
+"Page_291"></a>[291]</span>Couldn't be better."</p>
+<p>"Just as I thought."</p>
+<p>"Those six weeks we had up in Maine&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Yes, you both show it. Working hard?"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"And Deborah?" Roger asked.</p>
+<p>"You'll have to help me hold her in."</p>
+<p>They talked a few moments longer and went down to the living
+room. John was there with Deborah. All four went in to dinner. And
+through the conversation, from time to time Roger noticed the looks
+that went back and forth between husband and wife; and again he
+caught Deborah smiling as though oblivious of them all. After
+dinner she went with him into his den.</p>
+<p>"Well! Do you like the house?" she inquired.</p>
+<p>"Better than ever," he replied.</p>
+<p>"I wonder if you'll mind it. There'll be people coming to
+dinner, you know&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"That won't bother me any," he said.</p>
+<p>"And committee meetings now and then. But you're safe in here,
+it's a good thick door."</p>
+<p>"Let 'em talk," he retorted, "as hard as they please. You're
+married now&mdash;they can't scare me a bit. Only at ten o'clock,
+by George, you've got to knock off and go to bed."</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'll take care of myself," she said.</p>
+<p>"If you don't, Allan will. We've had a talk."</p>
+<p>"Scheming already."</p>
+<p>"Yes. When will it be?"</p>
+<p>"In April, I think."</p>
+<p>"You'll quit work in your schools?"</p>
+<p>"A month before."</p>
+<p>"And in the meantime, not too hard."</p>
+<p>"No, and not too easy. I'm so sure now that I can do both." And
+Deborah kissed him gently. "I'm so happy, dearie&mdash;and oh, so
+very glad you're here!"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id=
+"Page_292"></a>[292]</span>There followed for Roger, after that,
+many quiet evenings at home, untroubled days in his office. Seldom
+did he notice the progress of his ailment. His attention was upon
+his house, as this woman who mothered thousands of children worked
+on for her great family, putting all in order, making ready for the
+crisis ahead when she would become the mother of one.</p>
+<p>Now even more than ever before, her work came crowding into his
+home. The house was old, but the house was new. For from schools
+and libraries, caf&eacute;s and tenements and streets, the mighty
+formless hunger which had once so thrilled her father poured into
+the house itself and soon became a part of it. He felt the presence
+of the school. He heard the daily gossip of that bewildering system
+of which his daughter was a part: a world in itself, with its
+politics, its many jarring factions, its jealousies, dissensions,
+its varied personalities, ambitions and conspiracies; but in spite
+of these confusions its more progressive elements downing all
+distrusts and fears and drawing steadily closer to life, fearlessly
+rousing everywhere the hunger in people to live and learn and to
+take from this amazing world all the riches that it holds: the
+school with its great challenge steadily increasing its demands in
+the name of its children, demands which went deep down into
+conditions in the tenements and ramified through politics to the
+City Hall, to Albany, and even away to Washington&mdash;while day
+by day and week by week, from cities, towns and villages came the
+vast prophetic story of the free public schools of the land.</p>
+<p>And meanwhile, in the tenements, still groping and testing,
+feeling her way, keeping close watch on her great brood, their
+wakening desires, their widening curiosities, Deborah was bringing
+them, children, mothers and fathers too, together through the one
+big hope of brighter and more ample lives for everybody's children.
+Step by step this hope was spread out into the surrounding swamps
+and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id=
+"Page_293"></a>[293]</span>jungles of blind driven lives, to find
+surprising treasures there deep buried under dirt and din, locked
+in the common heart of mankind&mdash;old songs and fables, hopes
+and dreams and visions of immortal light, handed down from father
+to son, nurtured, guarded, breathed upon and clothed anew by
+countless generations, innumerable millions of simple men and women
+blindly struggling toward the sun. Over the door of one of the
+schools, were these words carved in the stone:</p>
+<p>"Humanity is still a child. Our parents are all people who have
+lived upon the earth&mdash;our children, all who are to come. And
+the dawn at last is breaking. The great day has just begun."</p>
+<p>This spirit of triumphal life poured deep into Roger's house. It
+was as though his daughter, in these last months which she had left
+for undivided service, were strengthening her faith in it all and
+pledging her devotion&mdash;as communing with herself she felt the
+crisis drawing near.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span>CHAPTER
+XL</h2>
+<p>There came an interruption. One night when Deborah was out and
+Roger sat in his study alone, the maid came in highly flustered and
+said,</p>
+<p>"Mr. Gale! It's Miss Laura to see you!"</p>
+<p>He turned with a startled jerk of his head and his face slowly
+reddened. But when he saw the maid's eager expression and saw that
+she was expecting a scene, with a frown of displeasure he rose from
+his chair.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he said, and he went to his daughter. He found her
+in the living room. No repentant Magdalene, but quite unabashed and
+at her ease, she came to her father quickly.</p>
+<p>"Oh, dad, I'm so glad to see you, dear!" And she gave him a
+swift impetuous kiss, her rich lips for an instant pressing warmly
+to his cheek.</p>
+<p>"Laura!" he said thickly. "Come into my study, will you? I'm
+alone this evening."</p>
+<p>"I'm so glad you are!" she replied. She followed him in and he
+closed the door. He glanced at her confusedly. In her warmth, her
+elegance, an indefinable change in the tone and accent of her high
+magnetic voice, and in her ardent smiling eyes, she seemed to him
+more the foreigner now. And Roger's thoughts were in a whirl. What
+had happened? Had she married again?</p>
+<p>"Is Edith here still?" she was asking.</p>
+<p>"No, she's up in the mountains. She's living there," he
+answered.</p>
+<p>"Edith? In the mountains?" demanded Laura, in surprise. And she
+asked innumerable questions. He <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span>replied to each one of
+them carefully, slowly, meanwhile getting control of himself.</p>
+<p>"And Deborah married&mdash;married at last! How has it worked?
+Is she happy, dad?"</p>
+<p>"Very," he said.</p>
+<p>"And is she still keeping up her schools?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, for the present. She'll have to stop soon." Laura leaned
+forward, curious:</p>
+<p>"Tell me, dad&mdash;a baby?"</p>
+<p>"Yes." She stared a moment.</p>
+<p>"Deborah!" she softly exclaimed; and in a moment, "I
+wonder."</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?" her father asked, but Laura evaded his
+question. She plied him with her inquiries for a few minutes
+longer, then turned to him with a challenging smile:</p>
+<p>"Well, father, don't you think you had better ask me now about
+myself?" He looked away a moment, but turned resolutely back:</p>
+<p>"I suppose so. When did you land?"</p>
+<p>"This morning, dear, from Italy&mdash;with my husband," she
+replied. And Roger started slightly. "I want you to meet him soon,"
+she said.</p>
+<p>"Very well," he answered. At his disturbed, almost guilty
+expression Laura laughed a little and rose and came over and hugged
+him tight.</p>
+<p>"Oh, but, father dearest&mdash;it's working out so splendidly! I
+want you to know him and see for yourself! We've come to live in
+New York for a while&mdash;he has more to do here about war
+supplies."</p>
+<p>"More shrapnel, eh, machine guns. More wholesale death," her
+father growled. But Laura smiled good-naturedly.</p>
+<p>"Yes, love, from America. Aren't you all ashamed of
+yourselves&mdash;scrambling so, to get rich quick&mdash;out of this
+war you disapprove of."</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id=
+"Page_296"></a>[296]</span><i>You</i> look a bit rich," her father
+retorted.</p>
+<p>"Rather&mdash;for the moment," was her cheerful answer.</p>
+<p>"And you still like living in Italy?"</p>
+<p>"Tremendously! Rome is wonderful now!"</p>
+<p>"Reborn, eh. Wings of the Eagles."</p>
+<p>"Yes, and we're doing rather well."</p>
+<p>"I haven't noticed it," Roger said. "Why don't you send a few of
+your troops to help those plucky Frenchmen?"</p>
+<p>"Because," she replied, "we have a feeling that this is a war
+where we had much better help ourselves."</p>
+<p>"High ideals," he snorted.</p>
+<p>"Rome reborn," she remarked, unabashed. And her father scowled
+at her whimsically.</p>
+<p>"You're a heathen. I give you up," he declared. Laura had risen,
+smiling.</p>
+<p>"Oh, no, don't give me up," she said. "For you see," she added
+softly, "I'm a heathen with a great deal of love in her heart for
+thee, my dearest dad. May I bring him down, my husband?"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I'll telephone to Deborah to-morrow and arrange it."</p>
+<p>When she had gone he returned to his chair and sat for a long
+time in a daze. He was still disturbed and bewildered. What a
+daughter of his! And what did it mean? Could she really go on being
+happy like this? Sinning? Yes, she was sinning! Laura had broken
+her marriage vows, she had "run off with another fellah." Those
+were the plain ugly facts. And now, divorced and re-married, she
+was careering gayly on! And her views of the war were plain
+heathenish! And yet there was something about her&mdash;yes, he
+thought, he loved her still! What for? For being so happy! And yet
+she was wrong to be happy, all wrong! His thoughts went 'round in
+circles.</p>
+<p>And his confusion and dismay grew even deeper the <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span>next
+night when Laura brought her new husband to dine. For in place of
+the dark polished scoundrel whom Roger had expected, here was a
+spruce and affable youth with thick light hair and ruddy cheeks, a
+brisk pleasant manner of talking and a decidedly forcible way of
+putting the case of his country at war. They kept the conversation
+to that. For despite Deborah's friendly air, she showed plainly
+that she wanted to keep the talk impersonal. And Laura, rather
+amused at this, replied by treating Deborah and Allan and her
+father, too, with a bantering forbearance for their old-fashioned,
+narrow views and Deborah's religion of brotherhood, democracy. All
+that to Laura was pass&eacute;.</p>
+<p>From time to time Roger glanced at her face, into her clear and
+luminous eyes so warm with the joy of living with this new man, her
+second. How his family had split apart. He wrote Edith the news of
+her sister, and he received but a brief reply. Nor did Deborah
+speak of it often. She seemed to want to forget Laura's life as the
+crisis in her own drew near.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span>CHAPTER
+XLI</h2>
+<p>Deborah had not yet stopped work. Again and again she put it
+off. For in her busy office so many demands both old and new kept
+pressing in upon her, such unexpected questions and vexing little
+problems kept cropping up as Deborah tried to arrange her work for
+the colleague who was to take her place in the spring, that day
+after day she lingered there&mdash;until one afternoon in March her
+husband went to her office, gave her an hour to finish up, and then
+brought her home with him. She had a fit of the blues that night.
+Allan was called out on a case, and a little while later Roger
+found his daughter alone in the living room, a book unopened in her
+lap, her gray eyes glistening with tears. She smiled when she
+caught sight of him.</p>
+<p>"It's so silly!" she muttered unsteadily. "Just my condition, I
+suppose. I feel as though I had done with school for the remainder
+of my days!... Better leave me now, dearie," she added. "I'm not
+very proud of myself to-night&mdash;but I'll be all right in the
+morning."</p>
+<p>The next day she was herself again, and went quietly on with her
+preparations for the coming of her child. But still the ceaseless
+interests of those hordes of other children followed her into the
+house. Not only her successor but principals and teachers came for
+counsel or assistance. And later, when reluctantly she refused to
+see such visitors, still the telephone kept ringing and letters
+poured in by every mail. For in her larger family there were
+weddings, births and deaths, and the endless savage struggle for
+life; and there were many climaxes of dreams and aspirations, of
+loves and bitter jealousies. And out <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_299" id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span>of all this straining and
+this fever of humanity, came messages to Deborah: last appeals for
+aid and advice, and gifts for the child who was to be born; tiny
+garments quaintly made by women and girls from Italy, from Russia
+and from Poland; baby blankets, wraps and toys and curious charms
+and amulets. There were so many of these gifts.</p>
+<p>"There's enough for forty babies," Deborah told her father.
+"What on earth am I to do, to avoid hurting anyone's feelings? And
+isn't it rather awful, the way these inequalities will crop up in
+spite of you? I know of eight tenement babies born down there in
+this one week. How much fuss and feathers is made over them, and
+their coming into the world, poor mites?" Roger smiled at his
+daughter.</p>
+<p>"You remind me of Jekyll and Hyde," he said.</p>
+<p>"Father! What a horrible thought! What have Jekyll and Hyde to
+do with me?"</p>
+<p>"Nothing, my dear," he answered. "Only it's queer and a little
+uncanny, something I've never seen before, this double mother life
+of yours."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>It was only a few days later when coming home one evening he
+found that Deborah's doctor had put her to bed and installed a
+nurse. There followed a week of keen suspense when Roger stayed
+home from the office. She liked to have him with her, and sitting
+at her bedside he saw how changed his daughter was, how far in
+these few hours she had drawn into herself. He had suspected for
+some time that all was not well with Deborah, and Allan confirmed
+his suspicions. There was to be grave danger both for the mother
+and the child. It would come out all right, of course, he strove to
+reassure himself. Nothing else could happen now, with her life so
+splendidly settled at last. That Fate could be so
+pitiless&mdash;no, it was unthinkable!</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id=
+"Page_300"></a>[300]</span>This is what comes of your modern
+woman!" Roger exclaimed to Allan one night. "This is the price
+she's paying for those nerve-racking years of work!"</p>
+<p>The crisis came toward the end of the week. And while for one
+entire night and through the day that followed and far into the
+next night the doctors and nurses fought for life in the room
+upstairs, Roger waited, left to himself, sitting in his study or
+restlessly moving through the house. And still that thought was
+with him&mdash;the price! It was kept in his mind by the anxious
+demands which her big family made for news. The telephone kept
+ringing. Women in motors from uptown and humbler visitors young and
+old kept coming to make inquiries. More gifts were brought and
+flowers. And Roger saw these people, and as he answered their
+questions he fairly scowled in their faces&mdash;unconsciously, for
+his mind was not clear. Reporters came. Barely an hour passed
+without bringing a man or a woman from some one of the papers. He
+gave them only brief replies. Why couldn't they leave his house
+alone? He saw her name in headlines: "Deborah Gale at Point of
+Death." And he turned angrily away. Vividly, on the second night,
+there came to him a picture of Deborah's birth so long ago in this
+same house. How safe it had been, how different, how secluded and
+shut in. No world had clamored <i>then</i> for news. And so vivid
+did this picture grow, that when at last there came to his ears the
+shrill clear cry of a new life, it was some time before he could be
+sure whether this were not still his dream of that other night so
+long ago.</p>
+<p>But now a nurse had led him upstairs, and he stood by a cradle
+looking down at a small wrinkled face almost wholly concealed by a
+soft woolly blanket. And presently Allan behind him said,</p>
+<p>"It's a boy, and he's to be named after you." Roger looked
+up.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id=
+"Page_301"></a>[301]</span>How's the mother?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Almost out of danger," was the reply. Then Roger glanced at
+Allan's face and saw how drawn and gray it was. He drew a long
+breath and turned back to the child. Allan had gone and so had the
+nurse, and he was alone by the cradle. Relief and peace and
+happiness stole into his spirit. He felt the deep remoteness of
+this strange new little creature from all the clamoring world
+without&mdash;which he himself was soon to leave. The thought grew
+clearer, clearer, as with a curious steady smile Roger stood there
+looking down.</p>
+<p>"Well, little brother, you're here, thank God. And nobody knows
+how close we'll be&mdash;for a little while," he thought. "For
+we're almost out of the world, you and I."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Days passed, Deborah's strength increased, and soon they let
+Roger come into the room. She, too, was remote from the world for a
+time. That great family outside was anxious no longer, it left her
+alone. But soon it would demand her. Never again, he told himself,
+would she be so close, so intimate, as here in her bed with this
+child of hers to whom she had given her father's name. "These hours
+are my real good-byes."</p>
+<p>Two long quiet weeks of this happiness, and then in a twinkling
+it was gone. The child fell sick, within a few hours its small
+existence hung by a thread&mdash;and to Roger's startled eyes a new
+Deborah was revealed! Tense and silent on her bed, her sensitive
+lips compressed with pain, her birthmark showing a jagged line of
+fiery red upon her brow as her ears kept straining to catch every
+sound from the nursery adjoining, through hours of stern anguish
+she became the kind of mother that she had once so
+dreaded&mdash;shutting out everything else in the world: people,
+schools, all other children, rich or poor, well, sick or dying!
+Here was the crisis of Deborah's life!</p>
+<p>One night as she lay listening, with her hand
+gripping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id=
+"Page_302"></a>[302]</span> Roger's tight, frowning abruptly she
+said to him, in a harsh, unnatural voice:</p>
+<p>"They don't care any longer, none of them care! <i>I'm</i> safe
+and they've stopped worrying, for they know they'll soon have me
+back at work! The work," she added fiercely, "that made my body
+what it is, not fit to bear a baby!" She threw a quick and tortured
+look toward the door of the other room. "My work for those others,
+all those years, will be to blame if this one dies! And if it
+doesn't live I'm through! I won't go on! I couldn't! I'd be too
+bitter after this&mdash;toward all of them&mdash;<i>those
+children</i>!"</p>
+<p>These last two words were whispers so bitter they made Roger
+cold.</p>
+<p>"But this child is going to live," he responded hoarsely. Its
+mother stared up with a quivering frown. The next moment her limbs
+contracted as from an electric shock. There had come a faint wail
+from the other room.</p>
+<p>And this went on for three days and nights. Again Roger lived as
+in a dream. He saw haggard faces from time to time of doctors,
+nurses, servants. He saw Allan now and then, his tall ungainly
+figure stooped, his features gaunt, his strong wide jaw set like a
+vise, but his eyes kind and steady still, his low voice reassuring.
+And Roger noticed John at times hobbling quickly down a hall and
+stopping on his crutches before a closed door, listening. Then
+these figures would recede, and it was as though he were alone in
+the dark.</p>
+<p>At last the nightmare ended. One afternoon as he sat in his
+study, Allan came in slowly and dropped exhausted into a chair. He
+turned to Roger with a smile.</p>
+<p>"Safe now, I think," he said quietly.</p>
+<p>Roger went to Deborah and found her asleep, her face at peace.
+He went to his room and fell himself into a long dreamless
+slumber.</p>
+<p>In the days which followed, again he sat at her bedside and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id=
+"Page_303"></a>[303]</span>together they watched the child in her
+arms. So feeble still the small creature appeared that they both
+spoke in whispers. But as little by little its strength returned,
+Deborah too became herself. And though still jealously watchful of
+its every movement, she had time for other thinking. She had talks
+with her husband, not only about their baby but about his work and
+hers. Slowly her old interest in all they had had in common
+returned, and to the messages from outside she gave again a
+kindlier ear.</p>
+<p>"Allan tells me," she said one day, when she was alone with her
+father, "that I can have no more children. And I'm glad of that.
+But at least I have one," she added, "and he has already made me
+feel like a different woman than before. I feel sometimes as though
+I'd come a million miles along in life. And yet again it feels so
+close, all that I left back there in school. Because I'm so much
+closer now&mdash;to every mother and every child. At last I'm one
+of the family."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span>CHAPTER
+XLII</h2>
+<p>Of that greater family, one member had been in the house all
+through the month which had just gone by. But he had been so quiet,
+so carefully unobtrusive, that he had been scarcely noticed. Very
+early each morning, day after day, John had gone outside for his
+breakfast and thence to the office where he himself had handled the
+business as well as he could, only coming to Roger at night now and
+then with some matter he could not settle alone, but always stoutly
+declaring that he needed no other assistance.</p>
+<p>"Don't come, Mr. Gale," he had urged. "You look worn out. You'll
+be sick yourself if you ain't careful. And anyhow, if you hang
+around you'll be here whenever she wants you."</p>
+<p>Early in Deborah's illness, John had offered to give up his room
+for the use of one of the nurses.</p>
+<p>"That's mighty thoughtful of you, Johnny," Allan had responded.
+"But we've got plenty of room as it is. Just you stick around. We
+want you here."</p>
+<p>"All right, Doc. If there's any little thing, you
+know&mdash;answering the 'phone at night or anything else that I
+can do&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Thank you, so; I'll let you know. But in the meantime go to
+bed."</p>
+<p>From that day on, John had taken not only his breakfast but his
+supper, too, outside, and no one had noticed his absence. Coming in
+late, he had hobbled silently up to his room, stopping to listen at
+Deborah's door. He had kept so completely out of the way, it was
+not <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id=
+"Page_305"></a>[305]</span>till the baby was three weeks old, and
+past its second crisis, that Deborah thought to ask for John. When
+he came to her bed, she smiled up at him with the baby in her
+arms.</p>
+<p>"I thought we'd see him together," she said. John stood on his
+crutches staring down. And as Deborah watched him, all at once her
+look grew intent. "Johnny," she said softly, "go over there, will
+you, and turn up the light, so we can see him better."</p>
+<p>And when this was done, though she still talked smilingly of the
+child, again and again she glanced up at John's face, at the
+strange self-absorbed expression, stern and sad and wistful, there.
+When he had gone the tears came in her eyes. And Deborah sent for
+her husband.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>The next day, at the office, John came into Roger's room. Roger
+had been at work several days and they had already cleared up their
+affairs.</p>
+<p>"Here's something," said John gruffly, "that I wish you'd put
+away somewhere."</p>
+<p>And he handed to his partner a small blue leather album, filled
+with the newspaper clippings dealing with Deborah's illness. On the
+front page was one with her picture and a long record of her
+service to the children of New York.</p>
+<p>"She wouldn't want to see it now," John continued awkwardly.
+"But I thought maybe later on the boy would like to have it. What
+do you think?" he inquired. Roger gave him a kindly glance.</p>
+<p>"I think he will. It's a fine thing to keep." And he handed it
+back. "But I guess you'd better put it away, and give it to her
+later yourself."</p>
+<p>John shifted his weight on his crutches, so quickly that Roger
+looked up in alarm:</p>
+<p>"Look here! You're not well!" He saw now that the face of the
+cripple was white and the sweat was glistening on his brow. John
+gave a harsh little nervous laugh.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id=
+"Page_306"></a>[306]</span>Oh, it's nothing much, partner," he
+replied. "That's another thing I wanted to tell you. I've had some
+queer pains lately&mdash;new ones!" He caught his breath.</p>
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me, you young fool?"</p>
+<p>"You had your own troubles, didn't you?" John spoke with
+difficulty. "But I'll be all right, I guess! All I need is a few
+days off!"</p>
+<p>Roger had pressed a button, and his stenographer came in.</p>
+<p>"Call a taxi," he said sharply. "And, John, you go right over
+there and lie down. I'm going to take you home at once!"</p>
+<p>"I've got a better scheme," said John, setting his determined
+jaws. The sweat was pouring down his cheeks. "It may be a
+week&mdash;but there's just a chance it&mdash;may be a little worse
+than that! So I've got a room in a hospital! See? Be better all
+round!" He swayed forward.</p>
+<p>"Johnny!" Roger caught him just in time, and the boy lay
+senseless in his arms.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>At home, a few hours later, Allan came with another physician
+down from John's small bedroom. He saw his colleague to the door
+and then came in to Roger.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid Johnny has come to the end."</p>
+<p>For a moment Roger stared at him.</p>
+<p>"Has, eh," he answered huskily. "You're absolutely sure he has?
+There's nothing&mdash;nothing on earth we can do?"</p>
+<p>"Nothing more than we're doing now."</p>
+<p>"He has fooled you fellows before, you know&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"Not this time."</p>
+<p>"How long will it be?"</p>
+<p>"Days or hours&mdash;I don't know."</p>
+<p>"He mustn't suffer!"</p>
+<p>"I'll see to that." Roger rose and walked the floor.</p>
+<p>"It was the last month did it, of course&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id=
+"Page_307"></a>[307]</span>Yes&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"I blame myself for that."</p>
+<p>"I wouldn't," said Allan gently. "You've done a good deal for
+Johnny Geer."</p>
+<p>"He has done a good deal for this family! Can Deborah see
+him?"</p>
+<p>"I wish she could."</p>
+<p>"Better stretch a point for her, hadn't you? She's been a kind
+of a mother to John."</p>
+<p>"I know. But she can't leave her bed."</p>
+<p>"Then you won't tell her?"</p>
+<p>"I think she knows. She talked to me about him last night."</p>
+<p>"That's it, a mother!" Roger cried. "She was watching! We were
+blind!" He came back to his chair and dropped into it.</p>
+<p>"Does John know this himself?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"He suspects it, I think," said Allan.</p>
+<p>"Then go and tell him, will you, that he's going to get well.
+And after you've done it I'll see him myself. I've got something in
+mind I want to think out."</p>
+<p>After Allan had left the room, Roger sat thinking about John. He
+thought of John's birth and his drunken mother, the accident and
+his struggle for life, through babyhood and childhood, through
+ignorance and filth and pain, through din and clamor and hunger,
+fear; of the long fierce fight which John had made not to be "put
+away" in some big institution, of his battle to keep up his head,
+to be somebody, make a career for himself. He thought of John's
+becoming one of Deborah's big family, only one of thousands, but it
+seemed now to Roger that John had stood out from them all, as the
+figure best embodying that great fierce hunger for a full life, and
+as the link connecting, the one who slowly year by year had emerged
+from her greater family and come into her small one. And last of
+all he thought of John as his own <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_308" id="Page_308"></a>[308]</span>companion, his only one,
+in the immense adventure on which he was so soon to embark.</p>
+<p>A few moments later he stood by John's bed.</p>
+<p>"Pretty hard, Johnny?" he gently asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, not so bad as it might be, I guess&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"You'll soon feel better, they tell me, boy." John shut his
+eyes.</p>
+<p>"Yes," he muttered.</p>
+<p>"Can you stand my talking, just a minute?"</p>
+<p>"Sure I can," John whispered. "I'm not suffering any now. He's
+given me something to put me to sleep. What is it you want to talk
+about? Business?"</p>
+<p>"Not exactly, partner. It's about the family. You've got so
+you're almost one of us. I guess you know us pretty well."</p>
+<p>"I guess I do. It's meant a lot to me, Mr. Gale&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"But I'll tell you what you don't know, John," Roger went on
+slowly. "I had a son in the family once, and he died when he was
+three months old. That was a long time ago&mdash;and I never had
+another, you see&mdash;to take his place&mdash;till you came
+along." There fell a breathless silence. "And I've been thinking
+lately," Roger added steadily. "I haven't long to live, you know.
+And I've been wondering whether&mdash;you'd like to come into the
+family&mdash;take my name. Do you understand?"</p>
+<p>John said nothing. His eyes were still closed. But presently,
+groping over the bed, he found Roger's hand and clutched it tight.
+After this, from time to time his throat contracted sharply. Tears
+welled from under his eyelids. Then gradually, as the merciful drug
+which Allan had given did its work, his clutch relaxed and he began
+breathing deep and hard. But still for some time longer Roger sat
+quietly by his side.</p>
+<p>The next night he was there again. Death had come to the huddled
+form on the bed, but there had been no relaxing. With the head
+thrown rigidly far back and <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_309" id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span>all the features tense and
+hard, it was a fighting figure still, a figure of stern protest
+against the world's injustice. But Roger was not thinking of this,
+but of the discovery he had made, that in their talk of the night
+before John had understood him&mdash;completely. For upon a piece
+of paper which Allan had given the lad that day, these words had
+been painfully inscribed:</p>
+<p>"This is my last will and testament. I am in my right
+mind&mdash;I know what I am doing&mdash;though nobody else
+does&mdash;nobody is here. To my partner Roger Gale I leave my
+share in our business. And to my teacher Deborah Baird I leave my
+crutches for her school."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a>[310]</span>CHAPTER
+XLIII</h2>
+<p>After John had gone away the house was very quiet. Only from the
+room upstairs there could be heard occasionally the faint clear cry
+of Deborah's child. And once again to Roger came a season of
+repose. He was far from unhappy. His disease, although progressing
+fast, gave him barely any pain; it rather made its presence felt by
+the manner in which it affected his mind. His inner life grew
+uneven. At times his thoughts were as in a fog, again they were
+amazingly clear and vistas opened far ahead. He could not control
+his thinking.</p>
+<p>This bothered him at the office, in the work he still had to do.
+For some months he had been considering an offer from one of his
+rivals, a modern concern which wished to buy out his business
+together with that of three other firms and consolidate them all
+into one corporation. And Roger was selling, and it was hard; for
+the whole idea of bargaining was more distasteful than ever now. He
+had to keep reminding himself of Edith and her children.</p>
+<p>At last it was over, his books were closed, and there was
+nothing left to be done. Nor did he care to linger. These rooms had
+meant but little to him; they had been but a place of transition
+from the old office far downtown, so full of memories of his youth,
+to the big corporation looming ahead, the huge impersonal clipping
+mill into which his business was to merge. And it came to his mind
+that New York was like that&mdash;no settled calm abiding place
+cherishing its memories, but only a town of transition, a great
+turbulent city of change, restlessly shaking off its past, tearing
+down and building anew, building higher, higher, higher, rearing to
+the very stars, and shouting,<span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_311" id="Page_311"></a>[311]</span> "Can you see me now?"
+What was the goal of this mad career? What dazzling city would be
+here? For a time he stared out of his window as into a promised
+land. Slowly at last he rose from his desk. Clippings, clippings,
+clippings. He looked at those long rows of girls gleaning in items
+large and small the public reputations of all kinds of men and
+women, new kinds in a new nation seething with activities, sweeping
+on like some wide river swollen at flood season to a new America, a
+world which Roger would not know. And yet it would be his world
+still, for in it he would play a part.</p>
+<p>"In their lives, too, we shall be there&mdash;the dim strong
+figures of the past."</p>
+<p>From his desk he gathered a few belongings. Then he looked into
+John's small room, with the big gold motto over the desk: "This is
+no place for your troubles or mine." On the desk lay that small
+album, John's parting gift to Deborah's boy. Roger picked it up and
+walked out of the office. He had never liked good-byes.</p>
+<p>In the elevator he noticed that his shoes needed shining, and
+when he reached the street below he stopped at the stand on the
+corner. The stocky Greek with bushy black hair, who had run the
+stand for many years, gave him a cheery greeting; for Roger had
+stopped there frequently&mdash;not that he cared about his shoes,
+but he had always liked to watch the crowds of people passing.</p>
+<p>"No hurry, boss?"</p>
+<p>"None," said Roger.</p>
+<p>"Then I give a fine shine! Polish, too?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, polish, too." And Roger settled back to watch.</p>
+<p>"And put in new shoe strings," he added, with a whimsical
+smile.</p>
+<p>Men and women, girls and boys by thousands passed him, pushing,
+hurrying, shuffling by. Girls tittering and nudging and darting
+quick side glances. Bobbing heads and figures, vigorous steps and
+dancing eyes. Life <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id=
+"Page_312"></a>[312]</span>bubbling over everywhere, in laughter,
+in sharp angry tones, in glad expectant chatter. Deborah's big
+family. Across the street was a movie between two lurid posters,
+and there was a dance hall overhead. The windows were all open, and
+faintly above the roar of the street he could hear the piano, drum,
+fiddle and horn. The thoroughfare each moment grew more tumultuous
+to his ears, with trolley cars and taxis, motor busses, trucks and
+drays. A small red motor dashed uptown with piles of evening
+papers; a great black motor hearse rushed by. In a taxi which had
+stopped in a jam, a man was kissing a girl in his arms, and both of
+them were laughing. The smart little toque of blue satin she wore
+was crushed to one side. How red were her lips as she threw back
+her head....</p>
+<p>"Silk or cotton, boss? Which you like?" Roger glanced at the
+shoe strings and pondered.</p>
+<p>"Silk," he grunted in reply. Idly for a moment he watched this
+busy little man. From whence had he come in far away Greece? What
+existence had he here, and what kind of life would he still have
+through those many years to come? A feeling half of sadness crept
+into Roger's heavy eyes as he looked at the man, at his smiling
+face and then at other faces in the multitudes sweeping past. The
+moment he tried to single them out, how doubly chaotic it became.
+What an ocean of warm desires, passions, vivid hopes and worries.
+Vaguely he could feel them pass. Often in the midst of his life,
+his active and self-centered life, Roger had looked at these crowds
+on the street and had thought these faces commonplace. But now at
+the end it was not so.</p>
+<p>A woman with a baby carriage stopped directly in front of him
+and stood there anxiously watching for a chance to cross the
+street. And Roger thought of Deborah. Heavily he climbed down from
+his seat, paid the man and bade him good-night, and went home to
+see Deborah's baby.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id=
+"Page_313"></a>[313]</span>For a long time he sat by the cradle.
+Presently Deborah joined him, and soon they were laughing heartily
+at the astonishing jerks and kicks and grimaces of the tiny boy. He
+was having his bath and he hated it. But safe at last on his
+mother's lap, wrapped to his ears in a big soft towel, he grew very
+gay and contented and looked waggishly about.</p>
+<p>There followed long lazy days of spring, as April drifted into
+May. Early in the morning Roger could hear through his window the
+cries of the vendors of flowers and fruits. And he listened
+drowsily. He rose late and spent most of the day in the house; but
+occasionally he went out for a stroll. And one balmy evening when
+groups of youths came trooping by, singing in close harmony, Roger
+called a taxi and went far down through the tenement streets to a
+favorite haunt of his, a little Syrian pawnshop, where after long
+delving he purchased a ring to put in the new collection that he
+had been making lately. He had nearly a dozen now.</p>
+<p>Days passed. The house was still so quiet, Deborah was still
+upstairs. At last, one night upon leaving his study, he stopped
+uncertainly in the hall. He took more time than was his wont in
+closing up the house for the night, in trying all the windows, in
+turning out the various lights. Room after room he left in the
+dark. Then he went slowly up the stairs, his hand gratefully
+feeling those guiding points grown so familiar to his touch through
+many thousand evenings. His hand lingered on the banister and he
+stopped again to listen there.</p>
+<p>He did not come downstairs again.</p>
+<p>He was able to sleep but little at night. Turning restlessly on
+his bed, he would glance out of the window up at the beetling wall
+close by, tier on tier of apartments from which faint voices
+dropped out of the dark. Gradually as the night wore on, these
+voices would all die away into long mysterious silences&mdash;for
+to him at least such silences <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_314" id="Page_314"></a>[314]</span>had grown to be very
+mysterious. Alone in the hours that followed, even these modern
+neighbors and this strange new eager town pressing down upon his
+house seemed no longer strange to him nor so appallingly immense,
+seemed even familiar and small to him, as the eyes of his mind
+looked out ahead.</p>
+<p>From his bed he could see on the opposite wall the picture
+Judith had given him, always so fresh and cool and dim with its
+deep restful tones of blue, of the herdsmen and the cattle on the
+dark mountain rim at dawn. And vaguely he wondered whether it was
+because he saw more clearly, or whether his mind in this curious
+haze could no longer see so well, that as he looked before him he
+felt no fear nor any more uncertainty. All his doubts had lifted,
+he was so sure of Judith now. As though she were coming to meet
+him, her image grew more vivid, with memories emerging out of all
+the years gone by. What memories, what vivid scenes! What intimate
+conversations they had, her voice so natural, close in his ear, as
+together they planned for their children.... Wistfully he would
+search the years for what he should soon tell his wife&mdash;until
+the drowsiness returned, and then again came visions.</p>
+<p>But by day it was not so, for the life of the house would rouse
+him and at intervals hold his attention.</p>
+<p>One evening a slight rustle, a faint fragrance in the room, made
+Roger suddenly open his eyes. And he saw Laura by his bed, her
+slender figure clad in blue silk, something white at her full
+bosom. He noticed her shapely shoulders, her glossy hair and moist
+red lips. She was smiling down at him.</p>
+<p>"See what I've brought you, dear," she said. And she turned to a
+chair where, one on the other, tray after tray, was piled his whole
+collection of rings. At sight of them his eyes grew fixed; he could
+feel his pulse beat faster.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id=
+"Page_315"></a>[315]</span>How did you ever find them?" he asked
+his daughter huskily.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I had a long hunt all by myself. But I found them at last
+and I've brought them home. Shall we look them over a little
+while?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," he said. She turned up the light, and came and sat down
+at the bedside with a tray of rings in her lap. One by one she held
+them up to his gaze, still smiling and talking softly on in that
+rich melodious voice of hers, of which he heard but snatches. How
+good it felt to be so gay. No solemn thoughts nor questionings,
+just these dusky glittering beauties here, deep soft gleams of
+color, each with its suggestion of memories for Roger, a procession
+of adventures reaching back into his life. He smiled and lay in
+silence watching, until at last she bent over him, kissed him
+softly, breathed a good-night and went out of the room. Roger
+followed her with his glance. He knew he would never see her again.
+How graceful of her to go like that.</p>
+<p>He lay there thinking about her. In her large blue limousine he
+saw his gay young daughter speeding up the Avenue, the purple
+gleaming pavement reflecting studded lines of lights. And he
+thought he could see her smiling still. He recalled scattered
+fragments of her life&mdash;the first luxurious little
+m&eacute;nage, and the second. How many more would there be? She
+was only in her twenties still. Uneasily he tried to see into the
+years ahead for her, and he thought he saw a lonely old age,
+childless, loveless, cynical, hard. But this fear soon fell from
+his mind. No, whatever happened, she would do it gracefully, an
+artist always, to the end. He sighed and gave up the effort. For he
+could not think of Laura as old, nor could he think of her any more
+as being a part of his family.</p>
+<p>Edith came to him several times, and there was something in her
+face which gave him sharp forebodings. Making a great effort he
+tried to talk to her clearly.</p>
+<p>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id=
+"Page_316"></a>[316]</span>It's hard to keep up with your
+children," he said. "It means keeping up with everything new. And
+you stay in your rut and then it's too late. Before you know it you
+are old."</p>
+<p>But his words subsided in mutterings, and Roger wearily closed
+his eyes. For a glance up into Edith's face had shown him only pity
+there and no heed to his warning. He saw that she looked upon him
+as old and still upon herself as young, though he noticed the
+threads of gray in her hair.... Then he realized she had gone and
+that his chamber had grown dark. He must have been dreaming. Of
+what, he asked. He tried to remember. And suddenly out of the
+darkness, so harsh and clear it startled him, a picture rose in
+Roger's mind of a stark lonely figure, a woman in a graveyard
+cutting the grass on family graves. Where had he seen it? He could
+not recall. What had it to do with Edith? Was she not living in New
+York?... What had so startled him just now? Some thought, some
+vivid picture, some nightmare he could not recall.</p>
+<p>His last talks were with Deborah. All through those days and the
+long nights, too, he kept fancying she was in the room, and it
+brought deep balm to his restless soul. He asked her to tell him
+about the schools, and Deborah talked to him quietly. She was going
+back to her work in the fall. She felt very humble about
+it&mdash;she told him she felt older now and she saw that her work
+was barely begun. But she was even happier than before. Her hand
+lay in his, and it tightened there. He opened his eyes and looked
+up into hers.</p>
+<p>"All so strange," he muttered, "life." There was a sharp
+contracting of her wide and sensitive mouth.</p>
+<p>"Yes, dear, strange!" she whispered.</p>
+<p>"But I'm so glad you're going on." He frowned as he tried to be
+simple and clear, and make her feel he understood what she had set
+herself to do. "All people," he <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_317" id="Page_317"></a>[317]</span>said slowly, "never
+counted so much as now. And never so hungry&mdash;all&mdash;as
+now&mdash;for all of life&mdash;like children&mdash;children who
+should go to school. Your work will grow&mdash;I can see ahead.
+Never a time when every man and woman and child could grow so
+much&mdash;and hand it on&mdash;and hand it on&mdash;as you will do
+to your small son."</p>
+<p>He felt her hand on his forehead, and for some moments nothing
+was said. Vaguely in glimpses Roger saw his small grandson growing
+up; and he pictured other children here, not her own but of her
+greater family, as the two merged into one. He felt that she would
+not grow old. Children, lives of children; work, dreams and
+aspirations. How bright it seemed as he stared ahead. Then he heard
+the cry of her baby.</p>
+<p>"Shall I nurse him here?" he heard her ask. He pressed her hand
+in answer. And when again he opened his eyes she was by his side
+with the child at her breast. Its large round eyes, so pure and
+clear, gazed into his own for a long, long time.</p>
+<p>"Now he's so sleepy," she whispered. "Would you like him beside
+you a moment?"</p>
+<p>"Please."</p>
+<p>He felt the faint scent of the tiny boy, and still those eyes
+looked into his. He forgot his daughter standing there; and as he
+watched, a sweet fresh sense of the mystery of this life so new
+stole deep into his spirit. All at once the baby fell asleep.</p>
+<p>"Good-night, little brother," he whispered. "God grant the world
+be very kind." He could feel the mother lift it up, and he heard
+the door close softly.</p>
+<p>Smiling he, too, fell asleep. And after that there were only
+dreams.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a><span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a>[318]</span>CHAPTER
+XLIV</h2>
+<p>And his dreams were of children. Their faces passed before him.
+Now they were young again in the house. They were eating their
+suppers, three small girls, chattering like magpies. From her end
+of the table their mother smiled quietly across at him. "Come
+children," she was saying, "that will do for a little while." But
+Roger said, "Oh, let them talk."... Then he saw new-comers. Bruce
+came in with Edith, and George and young Elizabeth, and Allan came
+with Deborah who had a baby in her arms, and Laura stood beside
+them. Here were his three daughters, grown, but still in some
+uncanny way they looked to him like children still; and behind them
+he detected figures long forgotten, of boys and girls whom he had
+known far back in his own childhood. John, too, had come into the
+house. Strangely now the walls were gone, had lifted, and a
+clamorous throng, laughing, shouting, pummeling, hedged him in on
+every hand&mdash;Deborah's big family!</p>
+<p>Soon the uproar wearied him, and Roger tried to shut them out,
+to bring back again the walls to his house. And sometimes he
+succeeded, and he was left for a while in peace with Judith and his
+three small girls. But despite his efforts to keep them there, new
+faces kept intruding. Swiftly his small family grew, split into
+other families, and these were merged with other figures pressing
+in from every side. Again he felt the presence of countless
+families all around, dividing, reuniting, with ceaseless changes
+and fresh life&mdash;a never ending multitude. Here they were
+singing and dancing, and Laura gaily waved to him. At another place
+were only men, and they were <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"Page_319" id="Page_319"></a>[319]</span>struggling savagely to
+clutch things from each other's hands. A sea of scowling visages,
+angry shouts, fists clinched in air. And he thought he saw Bruce
+for an instant. Behind them lay wide valleys obscured by heavy
+clouds of smoke, and he could hear the roar of guns. But they
+vanished suddenly, and he saw women mourning now, and Edith with
+her children turned to him her anxious eyes. He tried to reach and
+help her, but already she had gone. And behind her came huge
+bending forms, men heaving at great burdens, jaws set in scowls of
+fierce revolt. And John was there on his crutches, and near him was
+a figure bound into a chair of steel, with terror in the straining
+limbs, while in desperation Deborah tried to wrench him free.
+Abruptly Roger turned away.</p>
+<p>And in a twinkling all was gone, the tumult and the clamor, and
+he was in a silent place high up on a mountain side. It was dusk. A
+herd of cattle passed, and George came close behind them. And
+around him Roger saw, emerging from the semi-dark, faces turning
+like his own to the summits of the mountains and the billowy
+splendors there. It grew so dark he could see no more. There fell a
+deep silence, not a sound but the occasional chirp of a bird or the
+faint whirr of an insect. Even the glow on the peaks was gone.
+Darkness, only darkness.</p>
+<p>"Surely this is death," he thought. After that he was alone. And
+presently from far away he heard the booming of a bell, deep and
+slow, sepulchral, as it measured off his life. Another silence
+followed, and this time it was more profound; and with a breathless
+awe he knew that all the people who had ever lived on earth were
+before him in the void to which he himself was drifting: people of
+all nations, of countless generations reaching back and back and
+back to the beginnings of mankind: the mightiest family of all,
+that had stumbled up through the ages, had slaved and starved and
+dreamed and died, had blindly hated, blindly killed, had raised up
+gods and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id=
+"Page_320"></a>[320]</span>idols and yearned for everlasting life,
+had laughed and played and danced along, had loved and mated, given
+birth, had endlessly renewed itself and handed on its heritage, had
+striven hungrily to learn, had groped its way in darkness, and
+after all its struggles had come now barely to the dawn. And then a
+voice within him cried,</p>
+<p>"What is humanity but a child? In the name of the dead I salute
+the unborn!"</p>
+<p>Slowly a glow appeared in his dream, and once again the scene
+had changed. The light was coming from long rows of houses rising
+tall and steep out of a teeming city street. And from these lighted
+houses children now came pouring forth. They filled the street from
+wall to wall with a torrent of warm vivid hues, they joined in mad
+tempestuous games, they shouted and they danced with glee, they
+whirled each other 'round and 'round. The very air seemed
+quivering. Then was heard the crash of a band, and he saw them
+marching into school. In and in and in they pressed, till the
+school seemed fairly bursting. Out they came by another way, and
+went off marching down the street with the big flag waving at their
+head. He followed and saw the street divide into narrower streets
+and bye-ways, into roads and country lanes. And all were filled
+with children. In endless multitudes they came&mdash;marching,
+marching, spreading, spreading, like wide bobbing fields of flowers
+rolling out across the land, toward a great round flashing sun
+above a distant rim of hills.</p>
+<p>The sun rose strangely dazzling. It filled the heavens with
+blinding light. He felt himself drawn up and up&mdash;while from
+somewhere far behind he heard the cry of Deborah's child. A clear
+sweet thrill of happiness came. And after that&mdash;we do not
+know.</p>
+<p>For he had left his family.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h5>Printed in the United States of America</h5>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id=
+"Page_321"></a>[321]</span>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Family, by Ernest Poole
+
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diff --git a/old/14396.txt b/old/14396.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of His Family, by Ernest Poole
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: His Family
+
+Author: Ernest Poole
+
+Release Date: December 20, 2004 [EBook #14396]
+[Date last updated: April 8, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS FAMILY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS
+ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO
+
+MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
+LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
+MELBOURNE
+
+THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
+TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+BY
+ERNEST POOLE
+AUTHOR OF "THE HARBOR"
+
+New York
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+1917
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917
+BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1917
+BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+TO M.A.
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+
+
+
+HIS FAMILY
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of _old_ New York--he had
+heard of that from old, old men when he himself had still been young and
+had smiled at their garrulity. He was thinking of a _young_ New York, the
+mighty throbbing city to which he had come long ago as a lad from the New
+Hampshire mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting
+drivers, hurrying crowds, the crack of whips and the clatter of wheels; an
+uproarious, thrilling town of enterprise, adventure, youth; a city of
+pulsing energies, the center of a boundless land; a port of commerce with
+all the world, of stately ships with snowy sails; a fascinating pleasure
+town, with throngs of eager travellers hurrying from the ferry boats and
+rolling off in hansom cabs to the huge hotels on Madison Square. A city
+where American faces were still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner
+and a kindlier town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar
+scramble. A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling
+trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and groups of
+youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark. A place of music
+and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on those dazzling evenings
+when as a boy he had ushered there for the sake of hearing the music, how
+the rich joy of being alive, of being young, of being loved, had shone out
+of women's eyes. Shimmering satins, dainty gloves and little jewelled
+slippers, shapely arms and shoulders, vivacious movements, nods and smiles,
+swift glances, ripples, bursts of laughter, an exciting hum of voices.
+Then silence, sudden darkness--and music, and the curtain. The great wide
+curtain slowly rising....
+
+But all that had passed away.
+
+Roger Gale was a rugged heavy man not quite sixty years of age. His broad,
+massive features were already deeply furrowed, and there were two big
+flecks of white in his close-curling, grayish hair. He lived in a narrow
+red brick house down on the lower west side of the town, in a neighborhood
+swiftly changing. His wife was dead. He had no sons, but three grown
+daughters, of whom the oldest, Edith, had been married many years. Laura
+and Deborah lived at home, but they were both out this evening. It was
+Friday, Edith's evening, and as was her habit she had come from her
+apartment uptown to dine with her father and play chess. In the living
+room, a cheerful place, with its lamp light and its shadows, its
+old-fashioned high-back chairs, its sofa, its book cases, its low marble
+mantel with the gilt mirror overhead, they sat at a small oval table in
+front of a quiet fire of coals. And through the smoke of his cigar Roger
+watched his daughter.
+
+Edith had four children, and was soon to have another. A small demure woman
+of thirty-five, with light soft hair and clear blue eyes and limbs softly
+rounded, the contour of her features was full with approaching maternity,
+but there was a decided firmness in the lines about her little mouth. As he
+watched her now, her father's eyes, deep set and gray and with signs of
+long years of suffering in them, displayed a grave whimsical wistfulness.
+For by the way she was playing the game he saw how old she thought him. Her
+play was slow and absent-minded, and there came long periods when she did
+not make a move. Then she would recall herself and look up with a little
+affectionate smile that showed she looked upon him as too heavy with his
+age to have noticed her small lapses.
+
+He was grimly amused at her attitude, for he did not feel old at all. With
+that whimsical hint of a smile which had grown to be a part of him, he
+tried various moves on the board to see how far he could go without
+interrupting her reveries. He checkmated her, re-lit his cigar and waited
+until she should notice it. And when she did not notice, gravely he moved
+back his queen and let the game continue. How many hundreds of games, he
+thought, Edith must have played with him in the long years when his spirit
+was dead, for her now to take such chances. Nearly every Friday evening for
+nearly sixteen years.
+
+Before that, Judith his wife had been here. It was then that the city had
+been young, for to Roger it had always seemed as though he were just
+beginning life. Into its joys and sorrows too he had groped his way as most
+of us do, and had never penetrated deep. But he had meant to, later on.
+When in his busy city days distractions had arisen, always he had promised
+himself that sooner or later he would return to this interest or passion,
+for the world still lay before him with its enthralling interests, its
+beauties and its pleasures, its tasks and all its puzzles, intricate and
+baffling, all some day to be explored.
+
+This deep zest in Roger Gale had been bred in his boyhood on a farm up in
+the New Hampshire mountains. There his family had lived for many
+generations. And from the old house, the huge shadowy barn and the crude
+little sawmill down the road; from animals, grown people and still more
+from other boys, from the meadows and the mountain above with its cliffs
+and caves and forests of pine, young Roger had discovered, even in those
+early years, that life was fresh, abundant, new, with countless glad
+beginnings.
+
+At seventeen he had come to New York. There had followed hard struggles in
+lean years, but his rugged health had buoyed him up. And there had been
+genial friendships and dreams and explorations, a search for romance, the
+strange glory of love, a few furtive ventures that left him dismayed. But
+though love had seemed sordid at such times it had brought him crude
+exultations. And if his existence had grown more obscure, it had been
+somber only in patches, the main picture dazzling still. And still he had
+been just making starts.
+
+He had ventured into the business world, clerking now at this, now at that,
+and always looking about him for some big opportunity. It had come and he
+had seized it, despite the warnings of his friends. What a wild adventure
+it had been a bureau of news clippings, a business new and unheard of but
+he had been sure that here was growth, he had worked at it day and night,
+and the business widening fast had revealed long ramifications which went
+winding and stretching away into every phase of American life. And this
+life was like a forest, boundless and impenetrable, up-springing,
+intertwining. How much could _he_ ever know of it all?
+
+Then had come his marriage. Judith's family had lived long in New York, but
+some had died and others had scattered until only she was left. This house
+had been hers, but she had been poor, so she had leased it to some friends.
+It was through them he had met her here, and within a few weeks he had
+fallen in love. He had felt profound disgust for the few wild oats he had
+sown, and in his swift reaction he had overworshipped the girl, her beauty
+and her purity, until in a delicate way of her own she had hinted that he
+was going too far, that she, too, was human and a passionate lover of
+living, in spite of her low quiet voice and her demure and sober eyes.
+
+And what beginnings for Roger now, what a piling up of intimate joys,
+surprises, shocks of happiness. There had come disappointments, too, sudden
+severe little checks from his wife which had brought him occasional
+questionings. This love had not been quite _all_ he had dreamed, this woman
+not so ardent. He had glimpsed couples here and there that set him to
+imagining more consuming passions. Here again he had not explored very
+deep. But he had dismissed regrets like these with only a slight
+reluctance. For if they had settled down a bit with the coming of their
+children, their love had grown rich in sympathies and silent
+understandings, in humorous enjoyment of their funny little daughters'
+chattering like magpies in the genial old house. And they had looked
+happily far ahead. What a woman she had been for plans. It had not been all
+smooth sailing. There had come reverses in business, and at home one baby,
+a boy, had died. But on they had gone and the years had swept by until he
+had reached his forties. Absorbed in his growing business and in his
+thriving family, it had seemed to Roger still as though he were just
+starting out.
+
+But one day, quite suddenly, the house had become a strange place to him
+with a strange remote figure in it, his wife. For he had learned that she
+must die. There had followed terrible weeks. Then Judith had faced their
+disaster. Little by little she had won back the old intimacy with her
+husband; and through the slow but inexorable progress of her ailment, again
+they had come together in long talks and plans for their children. At this
+same chessboard, in this room, repeatedly she would stop the game and
+smiling she would look into the future. At one such time she had said to
+him,
+
+"I wonder if it won't be the same with the children as it has been with us.
+No matter how long each one of them lives, won't their lives feel to them
+unfinished like ours, only just beginning? I wonder how far they will go.
+And then their children will grow up and it will be the same with them.
+Unfinished lives. Oh, dearie, what children all of us are."
+
+He had put his arm around her then and had held her very tight. And feeling
+the violent trembling of her husband's fierce revolt, slowly bending back
+her head and looking up into his eyes she had continued steadily:
+
+"And when you come after me, my dear, oh, how hungry I shall be for all you
+will tell me. For you will live on in our children's lives."
+
+And she had asked him to promise her that.
+
+But he had not kept his promise. For after Judith's dying he had felt
+himself terribly alone, with eternity around him, his wife slipping far
+away. And the universe had grown stark and hard, impersonal, relentless,
+cold. A storm of doubts had attacked his faith. And though he had resisted
+long, for his faith in God had been rooted deep in the mountains of New
+England, in the end it had been wrenched away, and with it he had lost all
+hope that either for Judith or himself was there any existence beyond the
+grave. So death had come to Roger's soul. He had been deaf and blind to his
+children. Nights by the thousand spent alone. Like a gray level road in his
+memory now was the story of his family.
+
+When had his spirit begun to awaken? He could not tell, it had been so
+slow. His second daughter, Deborah, who had stayed at home with her father
+when Laura had gone away to school, had done little things continually to
+rouse his interest in life. Edith's winsome babies had attracted him when
+they came to the house. Laura had returned from school, a joyous creature,
+tall and slender, with snapping black eyes, and had soon made her presence
+felt. One day in the early afternoon, as he entered the house there had
+burst on his ears a perfect gale of laughter; and peering through the
+portieres he had seen the dining-room full of young girls, a crew as wild
+as Laura herself. Hastily he had retreated upstairs. But he had enjoyed
+such glimpses. He had liked to see her fresh pretty gowns and to have her
+come in and kiss him good-night.
+
+Then had come a sharp heavy jolt. His business had suffered from long
+neglect, and suddenly for two anxious weeks he had found himself facing
+bankruptcy. Edith's husband, a lawyer, had come to his aid and together
+they had pulled out of the hole. But he had been forced to mortgage the
+house. And this had brought to a climax all the feelings of guiltiness
+which had so long been stirring within him over his failure to live up to
+the promise he had made his wife.
+
+And so Roger had looked at his children.
+
+And at first to his profound surprise he had had it forced upon him that
+these were three grown women, each equipped with her own peculiar feminine
+traits and desires, the swift accumulations of lives which had expanded in
+a city that had reared to the skies in the many years of his long sleep.
+But very slowly, month by month, he had gained a second impression which
+seemed to him deeper and more real. To the eye they were grown women all,
+but inwardly they were children still, each groping for her happiness and
+each held back as he had been, either by checks within herself or by the
+gay distractions of the absorbing city. He saw each of his daughters, parts
+of himself. And he remembered what Judith had said: "You will live on in
+our children's lives." And he began to get glimmerings of a new
+immortality, made up of generations, an endless succession of other lives
+extending into the future.
+
+Some of all this he remembered now, in scattered fragments here and there.
+Then from somewhere far away a great bell began booming the hour, and it
+roused him from his revery. He had often heard the bell of late. A calm
+deep-toned intruder, it had first struck in upon his attention something
+over two years ago. Vaguely he had wondered about it. Soon he had found it
+was on the top of a tower a little to the north, one of the highest
+pinnacles of this tumultuous modern town. But the bell was not tumultuous.
+And as he listened it seemed to say, "There is still time, but you have not
+long."
+
+Edith, sitting opposite him, looked up at the sound with a stir of relief.
+Ten o'clock. It was time to go home.
+
+"I wonder what's keeping Bruce," she said. Bruce was still in his office
+downtown. As a rule on Friday evenings he came with his wife to supper
+here, but this week he had some new business on hand. Edith was vague about
+it. As she tried to explain she knitted her brows and said that Bruce was
+working too hard. And her father grunted assent.
+
+"Bruce ought to knock off every summer," he said, "for a good solid month,
+or better two. Can't you bring him up to the mountains this year?" He
+referred to the old New Hampshire home which he had kept as a summer place.
+But Edith smiled at the idea.
+
+"Yes, I could bring him," she replied, "and in a week he'd be perfectly
+crazy to get back to his office again." She compressed her lips. "I know
+what he needs--and we'll do it some day, in spite of him."
+
+"A suburb, eh," her father said, and his face took on a look of dislike.
+They had often talked of suburbs.
+
+"Yes," his daughter answered, "I've picked out the very house." He threw at
+her a glance of impatience. He knew what had started her on this line.
+Edith's friend, Madge Deering, was living out in Morristown. All very well,
+he reflected, but her case was not at all the same. He had known Madge
+pretty well. Although the death of her husband had left her a widow at
+twenty-nine, with four small daughters to bring up, she had gone on
+determinedly. Naturally smart and able, Madge was always running to town,
+keeping up with all her friends and with every new fad and movement there,
+although she made fun of most of them. Twice she had taken her girls
+abroad. But Edith was quite different. In a suburb she would draw into her
+house and never grow another inch. And Bruce, poor devil, would commute and
+take work home from the office. But Roger couldn't tell her that.
+
+"I'd be sorry to see you do it," he said. "I'd miss you up in the
+mountains."
+
+"Oh, we'd come up in the summer," she answered. "I wouldn't miss the
+mountains for worlds!"
+
+Then they talked of summer plans. And soon again Edith's smooth pretty
+brows were wrinkling absorbedly. It was hard in her planning not to be sure
+whether her new baby would come in May or early June. It was only the first
+of April now. While she talked her father watched her. He liked her quiet
+fearlessness in facing the ordeal ahead. Into the bewildering city he felt
+her searching anxiously to find good things for her small brood, to make
+every dollar count, to keep their little bodies strong, to guard their
+hungry little souls from many things she thought were bad. Of all his
+daughters, he told himself, she was the one most like his wife.
+
+While she was talking Bruce came in. Of medium height and a wiry build, his
+quick kindly smile of greeting did not conceal the fine tight lines about
+his mouth and between his eyes. His small trim moustache was black, but his
+hair already showed streaks of gray although he was not quite thirty-eight,
+and as he lit a cigarette his right hand twitched perceptibly.
+
+Bruce Cunningham had married just after he left law school. He had worked
+in a law office which took receiverships by the score, and through managing
+bankrupt concerns by slow degrees he had made himself a financial surgeon.
+He had set up an office of his own and was doing splendidly. But he worked
+under fearful tension. Bruce had to deal with bankrupts who had barely
+closed their eyes for weeks, men half out of their minds from the strain,
+the struggle to keep up their heads in those angry waters of finance which
+Roger vaguely pictured as a giant whirlpool. Though honest enough in his
+own affairs, Bruce showed a genial relish for all the tricks of the savage
+world which was as the breath to his nostrils. And at times he appeared so
+wise and keen he made Roger feel like a child. But again it was Bruce who
+seemed the child. He seemed to be so naive at times, and Edith had him so
+under her thumb. Roger liked to hear Bruce's stories of business, when
+Edith would let her husband talk. But this she would not often do, for she
+said Bruce needed rest at night. She reproved him now for staying so late,
+she wrung from him the fact that he'd had no supper.
+
+"Well, Bruce," she exclaimed impatiently, "now isn't that just like you?
+You're going straight home--that's where you're going--"
+
+"To be fed up and put to bed," her husband grumbled good-naturedly. And
+while she made ready to bundle him off he turned to his father-in-law.
+
+"What do you think's my latest?" he asked, and he gave a low chuckle which
+Roger liked. "Last week I was a brewer, to-day I'm an engineer," he said.
+"Can you beat it? A building contractor. Me." And as he smoked his
+cigarette, in laconic phrases he explained how a huge steel construction
+concern had gone to the wall, through building skyscrapers "on spec" and
+outstripping even the growth of New York. "They got into court last week,"
+he said, "and the judge handed me the receivership. The judge and I have
+been chums for years. He has hay fever--so do I."
+
+"Come, Bruce, I'm ready," said his wife.
+
+"I've been in their office all day," he went on. "Their general manager was
+stark mad. He hadn't been out of the office since last Sunday night, he
+said. You had to ask him a question and wait--while he looked at you and
+held onto his chair. He broke down and blubbered--the poor damn fool--he'll
+be in Matteawan in a week--"
+
+"You'll be there yourself if you don't come home," broke in Edith's voice
+impatiently.
+
+"And out of that poor devil, and out of the mess his books are in, I've
+been learning engineering!"
+
+He had followed his wife out on the steps. He turned back with a quick
+appealing smile:
+
+"Well, good-night--see you soon--"
+
+"Good-night, my boy," said Roger. "Good luck to the engineering."
+
+"Oh, father dear," cried Edith, from the taxi down below. "Remember supper
+Sunday night--"
+
+"I won't forget," said Roger.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He watched them start off up the street. The night was soft, refreshing,
+and the place was quiet and personal. The house was one of a dozen others,
+some of red brick and some of brown stone, that stood in an uneven row on a
+street but a few rods in length, one side of a little triangular park
+enclosed by a low iron fence, inside of which were a few gnarled trees and
+three or four park benches. On one of these benches his eye was caught by
+the figure of an old woman there, and he stood a moment watching her, some
+memory stirring in his mind.
+
+Occasionally somebody passed. Otherwise it was silent here. But even in the
+silence could be felt the throes of change; the very atmosphere seemed
+charged with drastic things impending. Already the opposite house line had
+been broken near the center by a high apartment building, and another still
+higher rose like a cliff just back of the house in which Roger lived. Still
+others, and many factory lofts, reared shadowy bulks on every hand. From
+the top of one an enormous sign, a corset pictured forth in lights, flashed
+out at regular intervals; and from farther off, high up in the misty haze
+of the night, could be seen the gleaming pinnacle where hour by hour that
+great bell slowly boomed the time away. Yes, here the old was passing.
+Already the tiny parklet was like the dark bottom of a pit, with the hard
+sparkling modern town towering on every side, slowly pressing, pressing in
+and glaring down with yellow eyes.
+
+But Roger noticed none of these things. He watched the old woman on the
+bench and groped for the memory she had stirred. Ah, now at last he had it.
+An April night long, long ago, when he had sat where she was now, while
+here in the house his wife's first baby, Edith, had begun her life....
+
+Slowly he turned and went inside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Roger's hearing was extremely acute. Though the room where he was sitting,
+his study, was at the back of the house, he heard Deborah's key at the
+street door and he heard the door softly open and close.
+
+"Are you there, dearie?" Her voice from the hallway was low; and his
+answer, "Yes, child," was in the same tone, as though she were with him in
+the room. This keen sense of hearing had long been a peculiar bond between
+them. To her father, Deborah's voice was the most distinctive part of her,
+for often as he listened the memory came of her voice as a girl,
+unpleasant, hurried and stammering. But she had overcome all that. "No
+grown woman," she had declared, when she was eighteen, "has any excuse for
+a voice like mine." That was eleven years ago; and the voice she had
+acquired since, with its sweet magnetic quality, its clear and easy
+articulation, was to him an expression of Deborah's growth. As she took off
+her coat and hat in the hall she said, in the same low tone as before,
+
+"Edith has been here, I suppose--"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I'm so sorry I missed her. I tried to get home early, but it has been a
+busy night."
+
+Her voice sounded tired, comfortably so, and she looked that way as she
+came in. Though only a little taller than Edith, she was of a sturdier
+build and more decided features. Her mouth was large with a humorous droop
+and her face rather broad with high cheekbones. As she put her soft black
+hair up over her high forehead, her father noticed her birthmark, a faint
+curving line of red running up from between her eyes. Imperceptible as a
+rule, it showed when she was tired. In the big school in the tenements
+where she had taught for many years, she gave herself hard without stint to
+her work, but she had such a good time through it all. She had a way, too,
+he reflected, of always putting things in their place. As now she came in
+and kissed him and sank back on his leather lounge with a tranquil breath
+of relief, she seemed to be dropping school out of her life.
+
+Roger picked up his paper and continued his reading. Presently they would
+have a talk, but first he knew that she wanted to lie quite still for a
+little while. Vaguely he pictured her work that night, her class-room
+packed to bursting with small Jews and Italians, and Deborah at the
+blackboard with a long pointer in her hand. The fact that for the last two
+years she had been the principal of her school had made little impression
+upon him.
+
+And meanwhile, as she lay back with eyes closed, her mind still taut from
+the evening called up no simple class-room but far different places--a mass
+meeting in Carnegie Hall where she had just been speaking, some schools
+which she had visited out in Indiana, a block of tenements far downtown and
+the private office of the mayor. For her school had long curious arms these
+days.
+
+"Was Bruce here too this evening?" she asked her father presently. Roger
+finished what he was reading, then looked over to the lounge, which was in
+a shadowy corner.
+
+"Yes, he came in late." And he went on to tell her of Bruce's
+"engineering." At once she was interested. Rising on one elbow she
+questioned him good-humoredly, for Deborah was fond of Bruce.
+
+"Has he bought that automobile he wanted?"
+
+"No," replied her father. "Edith said they couldn't afford it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"This time it's the dentist's bills. Young Betsy's teeth aren't
+straightened yet--and as soon as she's been beautified they're going to put
+the clamps on George."
+
+"Poor Georgie," Deborah murmured. At the look of pain and disapproval on
+her father's heavy face, she smiled quietly to herself. George, who was
+Edith's oldest and the worry of her days, was Roger's favorite grandson.
+"Has he been bringing home any more sick dogs?"
+
+"No, this time it was a rat--a white one," Roger answered. A glint of dry
+relish appeared in his eyes. "George brought it home the other night. He
+had on a pair of ragged old pants."
+
+"What on earth--"
+
+"He had traded his own breeches for the rat," said Roger placidly.
+
+"No! Oh, father! Really!" And she sank back laughing on the lounge.
+
+"His school report," said Roger, "was quite as bad as ever."
+
+"Of course it was," said Deborah. And she spoke so sharply that her father
+glanced at her in surprise. She was up again on one elbow, and there was an
+eager expression on her bright attractive face. "Do you know what we're
+going to do some day? We're going to put the rat in the school," Deborah
+said impatiently. "We're going to take a boy like George and study him till
+we think we know just what interests him most. And if in his case it's
+animals, we'll have a regular zoo in school. And for other boys we'll have
+other things they really want to know about. And we'll keep them until five
+o'clock--when their mothers will have to drag them away." Her father looked
+bewildered.
+
+"But arithmetic, my dear."
+
+"You'll find they'll have learned their arithmetic without knowing it,"
+Deborah answered.
+
+"Sounds a bit wild," murmured Roger. Again to his mind came the picture of
+hordes of little Italians and Jews. "My dear, if I had _your children_ to
+teach, I don't think I'd add a zoo," he said. And with a breath of
+discomfort he turned back to his reading. He knew that he ought to question
+her, to show an interest in her work. But he had a deep aversion for those
+millions of foreign tenement people, always shoving, shoving upward through
+the filth of their surroundings. They had already spoiled his neighborhood,
+they had flowed up like an ocean tide. And so he read his paper, frowning
+guiltily down at the page. He glanced up in a little while and saw Deborah
+smiling across at him, reading his dislike of such talk. The smile which he
+sent back at her was half apologetic, half an appeal for mercy. And Deborah
+seemed to understand. She went into the living room, and there at the piano
+she was soon playing softly. Listening from his study, again the feeling
+came to him of her fresh and abundant vitality. He mused a little enviously
+on how it must feel to be strong like that, never really tired.
+
+And while her father thought in this wise, Deborah at the piano, leaning
+back with eyes half closed, could feel her tortured nerves relax, could
+feel her pulse stop throbbing so and the dull aching at her temples little
+by little pass away. She played like this so many nights. Soon she would be
+ready for sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After she had gone to bed, Roger rose heavily from his chair. By long habit
+he went about the house trying the windows and turning out lights. Last he
+came to the front door. There were double outer doors with a ponderous
+system of locks and bolts and a heavy chain. Mechanically he fastened them
+all; and putting out the light in the hall, in the darkness he went up the
+stairs. He could so easily feel his way. He put his hand lightly, first on
+the foot of the banister, then on a curve in it halfway up, again on the
+sharper curve at the top and last on the knob of his bedroom door. And it
+was as though these guiding objects came out to meet him like old friends.
+
+In his bedroom, while he slowly undressed, his glance was caught by the
+picture upon the wall opposite his bed, a little landscape poster done in
+restful tones of blue, of two herdsmen and their cattle far up on a
+mountainside in the hour just before the dawn, tiny clear-cut silhouettes
+against the awakening eastern sky. So immense and still, this birth of the
+day--the picture always gave him the feeling of life everlasting. Judith
+his wife had placed it there.
+
+From his bed through the window close beside him he looked up at the
+cliff-like wall of the new apartment building, with tier upon tier of
+windows from which murmurous voices dropped out of the dark: now soft, now
+suddenly angry, loud; now droning, sullen, bitter, hard; now gay with
+little screams of mirth; now low and amorous, drowsy sounds. Tier upon tier
+of modern homes, all overhanging Roger's house as though presently to crush
+it down.
+
+But Roger was not thinking of that. He was thinking of his children--of
+Edith's approaching confinement and all her anxious hunting about to find
+what was best for her family, of Bruce and the way he was driving himself
+in the unnatural world downtown where men were at each other's throats, of
+Deborah and that school of hers in the heart of a vast foul region of
+tenement buildings swarming with strange, dirty little urchins. And last he
+thought of Laura, his youngest daughter, wild as a hawk, gadding about the
+Lord knew where. She even danced in restaurants! Through his children he
+felt flowing into his house the seething life of this new town. And
+drowsily he told himself he must make a real effort, and make it soon, to
+know his family better. For in spite of the storm of long ago which had
+swept away his faith in God, the feeling had come to him of late that
+somewhere, in some manner, he was to meet his wife again. He rarely tried
+to think this out, for as soon as he did it became a mere wish, a hungry
+longing, nothing more. So he had learned to let it lie, deep down inside of
+him. Sometimes he vividly saw her face. After all, who could tell? And she
+would want to hear of her children. Yes, he must know them better. Some day
+soon he must begin.
+
+Suddenly he remembered that Laura had not yet come home. With a sigh of
+discomfort he got out of bed and went downstairs, re-lit the gas in the
+hallway, unfastened the locks and the chain at the door. He came back and
+was soon asleep. He must have dozed for an hour or two. He was roused by
+hearing the front door close and a big motor thundering. And then like a
+flash of light in the dark came Laura's rippling laughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+On the next evening, Saturday, while Roger ate his dinner, Laura came to
+sit with him. She herself was dining out. That she should have dressed so
+early in order to keep him company had caused her father some surprise, and
+a faint suspicion entered his mind that she had overdrawn at the bank, as
+she had the last time she sat with him like this. Her manner certainly was
+a bit strange.
+
+But Roger put the thought aside. Whatever she wanted, Laura was worth it.
+In a tingling fashion he felt what a glorious time she was having, what a
+gorgeous town she knew. It was difficult to realize she was his own
+daughter, this dashing stranger sitting here, playing idly with a knife and
+caressing him with her voice and her eyes. The blue evening gown she was
+wearing to-night (doubtless not yet paid for) made her figure even more
+supple and lithe, set off her splendid bosom, her slender neck, her creamy
+skin. Her hair, worn low over her temples, was brown with just a tinge of
+red. Her eyes were black, with gleaming lights; her lips were warm and
+rich, alive. He did not approve of her lips. Once when she had kissed him
+Roger had started slightly back. For his daughter's lips were rouged, and
+they had reminded him of his youth. He had asked her sister to speak to
+her. But Deborah had told him she did not care to speak to people in that
+way--"especially women--especially sisters," she had said, with a quiet
+smile. All very well, he reflected, but somebody ought to take Laura in
+hand.
+
+She had been his favorite as a child, his pet, his tiny daughter. He
+remembered her on his lap like a kitten. How she had liked to cuddle there.
+And she had liked to bite his hand, a curious habit in a child. "I hurt
+daddy!" He could still recollect the gay little laugh with which she said
+that, looking up brightly into his face.
+
+And here she was already grown, and like a light in the sober old house,
+fascinating while she disturbed him. He liked to hear her high pitched
+voice, gossiping in Deborah's room or in her own dainty chamber chatting
+with the adoring maid who was dressing her to go out. He loved her joyous
+thrilling laugh. And he would have missed her from the house as he would
+have missed Fifth Avenue if it had been dropped from the city. For the
+picture Roger had formed of this daughter was more of a symbol than of a
+girl, a symbol of the ardent town, spending, wasting, dancing mad. It was
+Laura who had kept him living right up to his income.
+
+"Where are you dining to-night?" he asked.
+
+"With the Raymonds." He wondered who they were. "Oh, Sarah," she added to
+the maid. "Call up Mrs. Raymond's apartment and ask what time is dinner
+to-night."
+
+"Are you going to dance later on?" he inquired.
+
+"Oh, I guess so," she replied. "On the Astor Roof, I think they said--"
+
+Her father went on with his dinner. These hotel dances, he had heard, ran
+well into Sunday morning. How Judith would have disapproved. He hesitated
+uneasily.
+
+"I don't especially care for this dancing into Sunday," he said. For a
+moment he did not look up from his plate. When he did he saw Laura
+regarding him.
+
+"Oh, do you mind? I'm sorry. I won't, after this," she answered. And Roger
+colored angrily, for the glint of amusement in Laura's mischievous black
+eyes revealed quite unmistakably that she regarded both her father and his
+feeling for the Sabbath as very dear and quaint and old. Old? Of course he
+seemed old to _her_, Roger thought indignantly. For what was Laura but a
+child? Did she ever think of anything except having a good time? Had she
+ever stopped to think out her own morals, let alone anyone else's? Was she
+any judge of what was old--or of _who_ was old? And he determined then and
+there to show her he was in his prime. Impatiently he strove to remember
+the names of her friends and ask her about them, to show a keen lively
+interest in this giddy gaddy life she led. And when that was rather a
+failure he tried his daughter next on books, books of the most modern kind.
+Stoutly he lied and said he was reading a certain Russian novel of which he
+had heard Deborah speak. But this valiant falsehood made no impression
+whatever, for Laura had never heard of the book.
+
+"I get so little time for reading," she murmured. And meanwhile she was
+thinking, "As soon as he finishes talking, poor dear, I'll break the news."
+
+Then Roger had an audacious thought. He would take her to a play, by
+George! Mustering his courage he led up to it by speaking of a play Deborah
+had seen, a full-fledged modern drama all centered upon the right of a
+woman "to lead her own life." And as he outlined the story, he saw he had
+caught his daughter's attention. With her pretty chin resting on one hand,
+watching him and listening, she appeared much older, and she seemed
+suddenly close to him.
+
+"How would you like to go with me and see it some evening?" he inquired.
+
+"See what, my love?" she asked him, her thoughts plainly far away; and he
+looked at her in astonishment:
+
+"That play I've just been speaking of!"
+
+"Why, daddy, I'd love to!" she exclaimed.
+
+"When?" he asked. And he fixed a night. He was proud of himself. Eagerly he
+began to talk of opening nights at Wallack's. Roger and Judith, when they
+were young, had been great first nighters there. And now it was Laura who
+drew him out, and as he talked on she seemed to him to be smilingly trying
+to picture it all.... "Now I'd better tell him," she thought.
+
+"Do you remember Harold Sloane?" she asked a little strangely.
+
+"No," replied her father, a bit annoyed at the interruption.
+
+"Why--you've met him two or three times--"
+
+"Have I?" The queer note in her voice made him look up. Laura had risen
+from her chair.
+
+"I want you to know him--very soon." There was a moment's silence. "I'm
+going to marry him, dad," she said. And Roger looked at her blankly. He
+felt his limbs beginning to tremble. "I've been waiting to tell you when we
+were alone," she added in an awkward tone. And still staring up at her he
+felt a rush of tenderness and a pang of deep remorse. Laura in love and
+settled for life! And what did he know of the affair? What had he ever done
+for her? Too late! He had begun too late! And this rush of emotion was so
+overpowering that while he still looked at her blindly she was the first to
+recover her poise. She came around the table and kissed him softly on the
+cheek. And now more than ever Roger felt how old his daughter thought him.
+
+"Who is he?" he asked hoarsely. And she answered smiling,
+
+"A perfectly nice young man named Sloane."
+
+"Don't, Laura--tell me! What does he do?"
+
+"He's in a broker's office--junior member of the firm, Oh, you needn't
+worry, dear, he can even afford to marry _me_."
+
+They heard a ring at the front door.
+
+"There he is now, I think," she said. "Will you see him? Would you mind?"
+
+"See him? No!" her father cried.
+
+"But just to shake hands," she insisted. "You needn't talk or say a word.
+We've only a moment, anyway." And she went swiftly out of the room.
+
+Roger rose in a panic and strode up and down. Before he could recover
+himself she was back with her man, or rather her boy--for the fellow, to
+her father's eyes, looked ridiculously young. Straight as an arrow,
+slender, his dress suit irreproachable, the chap nevertheless was more than
+a dandy. He looked hard, as though he trained, and his smooth and ruddy
+face had a look of shrewd self-reliance. So much of him Roger fathomed in
+the indignant cornered glance with which he welcomed him into the room.
+
+"Why, good evening, Mr. Gale--glad to see you again, sir!" Young Sloane
+nervously held out his hand. Roger took it and muttered something. For
+several moments, his mind in a whirl, he heard their talk and laughter and
+his own voice joining in. Laura seemed enjoying herself, her eyes brimming
+with amusement over both her victims. But at last she had compassion,
+kissed her father gaily and took her suitor out of the room.
+
+Soon Roger heard them leave the house. He went into his study, savagely bit
+off a cigar and gripped his evening paper as though he meant to choke it.
+The maid came in with coffee. "Coffee? No!" he snapped at her. A few
+moments later he came to his senses and found himself smoking fast and
+hard. He heartily damned this fellow Sloane for breaking into the family
+and asking poor Laura to risk her whole life--just for his own selfish
+pleasure, his whim! Yes, "whim" was the very word for it! Laura's attitude,
+too! Did she look at it seriously? Not at all! Quite plainly she saw her
+career as one long Highland fling and dance, with this Harry boy as her
+partner! Who had he danced with in his past? The fellow's past must be gone
+into, and at once, without delay!
+
+Here indeed was a jolt for Roger Gale, a pretty shabby trick of fate. This
+was not what he had planned, this was a little way life had of jabbing a
+man with surprises. For months he had been slowly and comfortably feeling
+his way into the lives of his children, patiently, conscientiously. But
+now without a word of warning in popped this young whipper-snapper, turning
+the whole house upside down! Another young person to be known, another life
+to be dug into, and with pick and shovel too! The job was far from
+pleasant. Would Deborah help him? Not at all. She believed in letting
+people alone--a devilish easy philosophy! Still, he wanted to tell her at
+once, if only to stir her up a bit. He did not propose to bear this alone!
+But Deborah was out to-night. Why must she always be out, he asked, in that
+infernal zoo school? But no, it was not school to-night. She was dining out
+in some cafe with a tall lank doctor friend of hers. Probably she was to
+marry him!
+
+"I'll have that news for breakfast!" Roger smote his paper savagely. Why
+couldn't Laura have waited a little? Restlessly he walked the room. Then he
+went into the hall, took his hat and a heavy stick which he used for his
+night rambles, and walked off through the neighborhood. It was the first
+Saturday evening of Spring, and on those quiet downtown streets he met
+couples strolling by. A tall thin lad and a buxom girl went into a cheap
+apartment building laughing gaily to themselves, and Roger thought of
+Laura. A group of young Italians passed, humming "Trovatore," and it put
+him in mind of the time when he had ushered at the opera. Would Laura's
+young man be willing to usher? More like him to _tango_ down the aisle!
+
+He reached Washington Square feeling tired but even more restless than
+before. He climbed to the top of a motor 'bus, and on the lurching ride
+uptown he darkly reflected that times had changed. He thought of the Avenue
+he had known, with its long lines of hansom cabs, its dashing broughams and
+coupes with jingling harness, livened footmen, everything sprucely
+up-to-date. How the horses had added to the town. But they were gone, and
+in their place were these great cats, these purring motors, sliding softly
+by the 'bus. Roger had swift glimpses down into lighted limousines. In one
+a big rich looking chap with a beard had a dressy young woman in his arms.
+Lord, how he was hugging her! Laura would have a motor like that, kisses
+like that, a life like that! She was the kind to go it hard! Ahead as far
+as he could see was a dark rolling torrent of cars, lights gleaming by the
+thousand. A hubbub of gay voices, cries and little shrieks of laughter
+mingled with the blare of horns. He looked at huge shop windows softly
+lighted with displays of bedrooms richly furnished, of gorgeous women's
+apparel, silks and lacy filmy stuffs. And to Roger, in his mood of anxious
+premonition, these bedroom scenes said plainly,
+
+"O come, all ye faithful wives! Come let us adore him, and deck ourselves
+to please his eye, to catch his eye, to hold his eye! For marriage is a
+game these days!"
+
+Yes, Laura would be a spender, a spender and a speeder too! How much money
+had he, that chap? And damn him, what had he in his past? How Roger hated
+the very thought of poking into another man's life! Poking where nobody
+wanted him! He felt desperately alone. To-night they were dancing, he
+recalled, not at a party in somebody's home, but in some flashy public
+place where girls of her kind and fancy women gaily mixed together! How
+mixed the whole city was getting, he thought, how mad and strange, gone out
+of its mind, this city of his children's lives crowding in upon him!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+He breakfasted with Deborah late on Sunday morning. He had come down at the
+usual hour despite his long tramp of the previous night, for he wanted to
+tell her the news and talk it all out before Laura came down--because
+Deborah, he hadn't a doubt, with her woman's curiosity had probed deep into
+Laura's affairs in the many long talks they had had in her room. He had
+often heard them there. And so, as he waited and waited and still his
+daughter did not come, Roger grew distinctly annoyed; and when at last she
+did appear, his greeting was perfunctory:
+
+"What kept you out so late last night?"
+
+"Oh, I was having a very good time," said Deborah contentedly. She poured
+herself some coffee. "I've always wanted," she went on, "to see Laura
+really puzzled--downright flabbergasted. And I saw her just like that last
+night."
+
+Roger looked up with a jerk of his head:
+
+"You and Laura--together last night?"
+
+"Exactly--on the Astor Roof." At her father's glare of astonishment a look
+of quiet relish came over her mobile features. Her wide lips twitched a
+little. "Well, why not?" she asked him. "I'm quite a dancer down at school.
+And last night with Allan Baird--we were dining together, you know--he
+proposed we go somewhere and dance. He's a perfectly awful dancer, and so I
+held out as long as I could. But he insisted and I gave in, though I much
+prefer the theater."
+
+"Well!" breathed Roger softly. "So you hoof it with the rest!" His
+expression was startled and intent. Would he ever get to know these girls?
+"Well," he added with a sigh, "I suppose you know what you're about."
+
+"Oh no, I don't," she answered. "I never know what I'm about. If you always
+do, you miss so much--you get into a solemn habit of trying nothing till
+you're sure. But to return to Laura. As we came gaily down the room we ran
+right into her, you see. That's how Allan dances. And when we collided, I
+smiled at her sweetly and said, 'Why, hello, dearie--you here too?" And
+Deborah sipped her coffee. "I have never believed that the lower jaw of a
+well-bred girl could actually drop open. But Laura's did. With a good
+strong light, Allan told me, he could have examined her tonsils for her.
+Rather a disgusting thought. You see until she saw me there, poor Laura had
+me so thoroughly placed--my school-marm job, my tastes and habits,
+everything, all cut and dried. She has never once come to my school, and in
+every talk we've ever had there has always been some perfectly good and
+absorbing reason why we should talk about Laura alone."
+
+"There is now," said her father. He was in no mood for tomfoolery. His
+daughter saw it and smiled a little.
+
+"What is it?" she inquired. And then he let her have it!
+
+"Laura wants to get married," he snapped.
+
+Deborah caught her breath at that, and an eager excited expression swept
+over her attractive face. She had leaned forward suddenly.
+
+"Father! No! Which one?" she asked. "Tell me! Is it Harold Sloane?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Oh, dad." She sank back in her chair. "Oh, dad," she repeated.
+
+"What's the matter with Sloane?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing--it's all right--"
+
+"It is, eh? How do you know it is?" His anxious eyes were still upon hers,
+and he saw she was thinking fast and hard and shutting him completely out.
+And it irritated him. "What do you know of this fellow Sloane?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--nothing--"
+
+"Nothing! Humph! Then why do you sit here and say it's all right? Don't
+talk like a fool!" he exclaimed. He waited, but she said no more, and
+Roger's exasperation increased. "He has money enough apparently--and
+they'll spend it like March hares!"
+
+Deborah looked up at him:
+
+"What did Laura tell you, dear?"
+
+"Not very much. I'm only her father. She had a dinner and dance on her
+mind."
+
+But Deborah pressed her questions and he gave her brief replies.
+
+"Well, what shall we do about it?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing--until we know something more." Roger regarded her fiercely.
+
+"Why don't you go up and talk to her, then?"
+
+"She's asleep yet--"
+
+"Never mind if she is! If she's going to marry a chap like that and ruin
+her life it's high time she was up for her breakfast!"
+
+While he scanned his Sunday paper he heard Deborah in the pantry. She
+emerged with a breakfast tray and he saw her start up to Laura's room. She
+was there for over an hour. And when she returned to his study, he saw her
+eyes were shining. How women's eyes will shine at such times, he told
+himself in annoyance.
+
+"Well?" he demanded.
+
+"Better leave her alone to-day," she advised. "Harold is coming some night
+soon."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To have a talk with you."
+
+Her father smote his paper. "What did she tell you about him?" he asked.
+
+"Not much more than she told you. His parents are dead--but he has a rich
+widowed aunt in Bridgeport who adores him. They mean to be married the end
+of May. She wants a church wedding, bridesmaids, ushers--the wedding
+reception here, of course--"
+
+"Oh, Lord," breathed Roger dismally.
+
+"We won't bother you much, father dear--"
+
+"You _will_ bother me much," he retorted. "I propose to be
+bothered--bothered a lot! I'm going to look up this fellow Sloane--"
+
+"But let's leave him alone for to-day." She bent over her father
+compassionately. "What a night you must have had, poor dear." Roger looked
+up in grim reproach.
+
+"You like all this," he grunted. "You, a grown woman, a teacher too."
+
+"I wonder if I do," she said. "I guess I'm a queer person, dad, a curious
+family mixture--of Laura and Edith and mother and you, with a good deal of
+myself thrown in. But it feels rather good to be mixed, don't you think?
+Let's stay mixed as long as we can--and keep together the family."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That afternoon, to distract him, Deborah took her father to a concert in
+Carnegie Hall. She had often urged him to go of late, but despite his
+liking for music Roger had refused before, simply because it was a change.
+But why balk at going anywhere now, when Laura was up to such antics at
+home?
+
+"Do you mind climbing up to the gallery?" Deborah asked as they entered the
+hall.
+
+"Not at all," he curtly answered. He did mind it very much!
+
+"Then we'll go to the very top," she said. "It's a long climb but I want
+you to see it. It's so different up there."
+
+"I don't doubt it," he replied. And as they made the slow ascent, pettishly
+he wondered why Deborah must always be so eager for queer places.
+Galleries, zoo schools, tenement slums--why not take a two dollar seat in
+life?
+
+Deborah seated him far down in the front of the great gallery, over at the
+extreme right, and from here they could look back and up at a huge dim
+arena of faces.
+
+"Now watch them close," she whispered. "See what the music does to them."
+
+As the symphony began below the faces all grew motionless. And as the music
+cast its spell, the anxious ruffled feelings which had been with Roger all
+that day little by little were dispelled, and soon his imagination began to
+work upon this scene. He saw many familiar American types. He felt he knew
+what they had been doing on Sundays only a few years before. After church
+they had eaten large Sunday dinners. Then some had napped and some had
+walked and some had gone to Sunday school. At night they had had cold
+suppers, and afterwards some had gone back to church; while others, as in
+Roger's house in the days when Judith was alive, had gathered around the
+piano for hymns. Young men callers, friends of their daughters, had joined
+in the family singing. Yes, some of these people had been like that. To
+them, a few short years ago, a concert on the Sabbath would have seemed a
+sacrilege. He could almost hear from somewhere the echo of "Abide With Me."
+
+But over this memory of a song rose now the surging music of Tschaikovsky's
+"Pathetique." And the yearnings and fierce hungers in this tumultuous music
+swept all the hymns from Roger's mind. Once more he watched the gallery,
+and this time he became aware that more than half were foreigners. Out of
+the mass from every side individual faces emerged, swarthy, weird, and
+staring hungrily into space. And to Roger the whole shadowy place, the very
+air, grew pregnant, charged with all these inner lives bound together in
+this mood, this mystery that had swept over them all, immense and
+formless, baffling, this furious demanding and this blind wistful groping
+which he himself had known so well, ever since his wife had died and he had
+lost his faith in God. What was the meaning of it all if life were nothing
+but a start, and there were nothing but the grave?
+
+"You will live on in our children's lives."
+
+He glanced around at Deborah. Was _she_ so certain, so serene? "What do I
+know of her?" he asked. "Little or nothing," he sadly replied. And he tried
+to piece together from things she had told him her life as it had passed
+him by. Had there been no questionings, no sharp disillusionments? There
+must have been. He recalled irritabilities, small acts and exclamations of
+impatience, boredom, "blues." And as he watched her he grew sure that his
+daughter's existence had been like his own. Despite its different setting,
+its other aims and visions, it had been a mere beginning, a feeling for a
+foothold, a search for light and happiness. And Deborah seemed to him still
+a child. "How far will _you_ go?" he wondered.
+
+Although he was still watching her even after the music had ceased, she did
+not notice him for a time. Then she turned to him slowly with a smile.
+
+"Well? What did you see?" she asked.
+
+"I wasn't looking," he replied.
+
+"Why, dearie," she retorted. "Where's that imagination of yours?"
+
+"It was with you," he answered. "Tell me what you were thinking."
+
+And still under the spell of the music, Deborah said to her father,
+
+"I was thinking of hungry people--millions of them, now, this minute--not
+only here but in so many places--concerts, movies, libraries. Hungry, oh,
+for everything--life, its beauty, all it means. And I was thinking this is
+youth--no matter how old they happen to be--and that to feed it we have
+schools. I was thinking how little we've done as yet, and of all that
+we're so sure to do in the many, many years ahead. Do you see what I mean?"
+she squeezed his hand.
+
+"Welcome back to school," she said, "back into the hungry army of youth!...
+Sh-h-h!"
+
+Again the music had begun. And sitting by her side he wondered whether it
+was because she knew that Laura's affair had made him feel old that Deborah
+had brought him here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They went to Edith's for supper.
+
+The Cunninghams' apartment was on the west side, well uptown. It was not
+the neighborhood which Edith would have chosen, for nearly all the nice
+people she knew lived east of the park. But rents were somewhat lower here
+and there was at least an abundance of fresh air for her family. Edith had
+found that her days were full of these perplexing decisions. It was all
+very simple to resolve that her children be old-fashioned, normal,
+wholesome, nice. But then she looked into the city--into schools and
+kindergartens, clothes and friends and children's parties, books and plays.
+And through them all to her dismay she felt conflicting currents, clashes
+between old and new. She felt New York. And anxiously she asked herself,
+"What is old-fashioned? What is normal? What is wholesome? What is nice?"
+Cautiously she made her way, testing and comparing, trying small
+experiments. Often sharply she would draw in her horns. She had struck
+something "common!" And she knew all this was nothing compared to the
+puzzles that lay ahead. For from her friend, Madge Deering, whose girls
+were well along in their 'teens, she heard of deeper problems. The girls
+were so inquisitive. Dauntlessly Madge was facing each month the most
+disturbing questions. Thank Heaven, Edith had only one daughter. Sons were
+not quite so baffling.
+
+So she had groped her way along.
+
+When her father and Deborah arrived, placidly she asked them what they had
+been doing. And when she heard that they had been at a concert on the
+Sabbath, though this was far from old-fashioned and something she would not
+have done herself, it did not bother her half so much as the fact that
+Hannah, the Irish nurse, had slapped little Tad that afternoon. She had
+never known Hannah to do it before. Could it be that the girl was tired or
+sick? Perhaps she needed a few days off. "I must have a talk with her,"
+Edith thought, "as soon as father and Deborah go."
+
+Roger always liked to come here. Say what you would about Edith's habit of
+keeping too closely to her home, the children to whom she had devoted
+herself were a fine, clean, happy lot. Here were new lives in his family,
+glorious fresh beginnings. He sat on the floor with her three boys,
+watching the patient efforts of George to harness his perturbed white rat
+to Tad's small fire engine. George was a lank sprawling lad of fourteen,
+all legs and arms and elbows, with rumpled hair and freckled face, a quick
+bright smile and nice brown eyes--frank, simple, understandable eyes. All
+but one of Edith's children were boys, and boys were a blessed relief to a
+man who had three grown-up daughters.
+
+And while Roger watched them, with a gentle glow of anticipation he waited
+for what should follow, when as had been already arranged Deborah should
+break to her sister the news of Laura's engagement. And he was not
+disappointed. The change in Edith was something tremendous. Until now so
+quietly self-absorbed, at the news that Laura was to be married instantly
+she was all alert. Sitting there in the midst of her children and facing a
+time of agony only a few weeks ahead which would add one more to her
+family, Edith's pretty florid face grew flushed and radiant as she
+exclaimed,
+
+"What a perfectly wonderful thing for Laura! Now if only she can have a
+child!"
+
+Her questions followed thick and fast, and with them her thoughts of what
+should be done. Bruce must look up this suitor at once. Bruce demurred
+stoutly but without avail. She eagerly questioned her sister as to Laura's
+plans for the wedding, but plainly she considered that Deborah was no woman
+to give her the full information she wanted. She must see Laura herself at
+once. For though she had thoroughly disapproved of the gay helter-skelter
+existence of her youngest sister, still Laura was now to be married, and
+this made all the difference.
+
+Just before Roger and Deborah left, Edith drew her father aside, and with a
+curious concern and pity in her voice, she said,
+
+"I'm so sorry I shan't be able to help you with the wedding, dear, and make
+it the sweet old-fashioned kind that mother would have wanted. Of course
+there's Deborah, she'll be there. But her head is so full of new ideas. I'm
+afraid she may find the house rather a burden after Laura has gone away."
+Edith gave a worried little sigh. "I'll be so glad," she added, "when we
+get that place in Morristown. We'll want you out there often, and for good
+long visits too. You may even find you'll care to try staying there with us
+for a while."
+
+Roger scowled and thanked her. She had given him a shock of alarm.
+
+"So she thinks that Deborah will find the housekeeping too hard," he
+reflected anxiously. And as he walked home with his daughter, he kept
+glancing at her face, which for all its look of quiet had so much tensity
+beneath. She had packed her life so full of school. What if she wanted to
+give up their home? "She'll try, of course, she'll try her best--but she'll
+find it too much of an added strain." And again he felt that sickening
+dread. Deborah said nothing. He felt as though they had drifted apart.
+
+And at night in his bed, as Roger stared up at the beetling cliff of
+apartment windows just outside, drearily he asked himself how it would feel
+to live like that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+One afternoon a few days later Roger was riding in the park. He rode
+"William," a large lazy cob who as he advanced in age had so subtly and
+insidiously slackened his pace from a trot to a jog that Roger barely
+noticed how slowly he was riding. As he rode along he liked to watch the
+broad winding bridle path with its bobbing procession of riders that kept
+appearing before him under the tall spreading trees. Though he knew
+scarcely anyone by name, he was a familiar figure here and he recognized
+scores of faces. To many men he nodded at passing, and to not a few
+alluring young dames, ardent creatures with bright eyes who gave him smiles
+of greeting, Roger gravely raised his hat. One was "The Silver Lady" in a
+Broadway musical show, but he thought she was "one of the Newport crowd."
+He liked to make shrewd guesses like that. There were so many kinds of
+people here. There were stout anxious ladies riding for figures and lean
+morose gentlemen riding for health. There were joyous care-free girls,
+chatting and laughing merrily. There were some gallant foreigners, and
+there were riding masters, and Roger could not tell them apart. There were
+mad boys from the Squadron who rode at a furious canter, and there were
+groups of children, eager and flushed, excited and gay, with stolid grooms
+behind them. The path in several places ran close beside the main road of
+the park, and with the coming of the dusk this road took on deep purple
+hues and glistened with reflections from countless yellow motor eyes. And
+from the polished limousines, sumptuous young women smiled out upon the
+riders.
+
+At least so Roger saw this life. And after those bleak lonely years
+confronted by eternity, it was good to come here and forget, to feel
+himself for the moment a part of the thoughtless gaiety, the ease and
+luxury of the town. Here he was just on the edge of it all. Often as a
+couple passed he would wonder what they were doing that night. In the
+riding school where he kept his horse, it was a lazy pleasure to have the
+English "valet" there pull off his boots and breeches--though if anyone had
+told him so, Roger would have denied it with indignation and surprise. For
+was he not an American?
+
+It had been a wonderful tonic, a great idea of Laura's, this forcing him up
+here to ride. In one of her affectionate moods, just after a sick spell he
+had been through, his gay capricious daughter had insisted that he have his
+horse brought down from the mountains. She had promised to ride with him
+herself, and she had done so--for a week. Since then he had often met her
+here with one of her many smart young men. What a smile of greeting would
+flash on her face--when Laura happened to notice him.
+
+He was thinking of Laura now, and there was an anxious gleam in his eyes.
+For young Sloane was coming to dinner to-night. What was he going to say to
+the fellow? Bruce had learned that Sloane played polo, owned and drove a
+racing car and was well liked in his several clubs. But what about women
+and his past? Edith had urged her father to go through the lad's life with
+a fine tooth comb, and if he should find anything there to kick up no end
+of a row for the honor of the family. All of which was nothing but words,
+reflected Roger pettishly. It all came to this, that he had a most ticklish
+evening ahead! On the path as a rider greeted him, his reply was a dismal
+frown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Laura's suitor arrived at six o'clock. In his study Roger heard the bell,
+listened a moment with beating heart, then raised himself heavily from his
+chair and went into the hallway.
+
+"Ah, yes! It's you!" he exclaimed, with a nervous cordiality. "Come in, my
+boy, come right in! Here, let me help you with your coat. I don't know just
+where Laura is. Ahem!" He violently cleared his throat. "Suppose while
+we're waiting we have a smoke." He kept it up back into his den. There the
+suitor refused a cigar and carefully lit a cigarette. Roger noticed again
+how young the chap was, and marriage seemed so ridiculous! All this
+feverish trouble was for something so unreal!
+
+"Well, sir," the candidate blurted forth, "I guess I'd better come right to
+the point. Mr. Gale, I want to marry your daughter."
+
+"Laura?"
+
+"Yes." Roger cursed himself. Why had he asked, "Laura?" Of course it was
+Laura! Would this cub be wanting Deborah?
+
+"Well, my boy," he said thickly. "I--I wish I knew you better."
+
+"So do I, sir. Suppose we begin." The youth took a quick pull at his
+cigarette. He waited, stirred nervously in his seat. "You'll have some
+questions to ask, I suppose--"
+
+"Yes, there are questions." Roger had risen mechanically and was slowly
+walking the room. He threw out short gruff phrases. "I'm not interested in
+your past--I don't care about digging into a man--I never have and I never
+will--except as it might affect my daughter. That's the main question, I
+suppose. Can you make her happy?"
+
+"I think so," said Sloane, decidedly. Roger gave him a glance of
+displeasure.
+
+"That's a large order, young man," he rejoined.
+
+"Then let's take it in sections," the youngster replied. Confound his
+boyish assurance! "To begin with," he was saying, "I rather think I have
+money enough. We'd better go into that, hadn't we?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger indifferently. "We might as well go into it." Of course
+the chap had money enough. He was a money maker. You could hear it in his
+voice; you could see it in his jaw, in his small aggressive blonde
+moustache. Now he was telling briefly of his rich aunt in Bridgeport, of
+the generous start she had given him, his work downtown, his income.
+
+"Twenty-two thousand this year," he said. "We can live on that all right, I
+guess."
+
+"You won't starve," was the dry response. Roger walked for a moment in
+silence, then turned abruptly on young Sloane.
+
+"Look here, young man, I don't want to dig," he continued very huskily.
+"But I know little or nothing of what may be behind you. I don't care to
+ask you about it now--unless it can make trouble."
+
+"It can't make trouble." At this answer, low but sharp, Roger wheeled and
+shot a glance into those clear and twinkling eyes. And his own eyes gleamed
+with pain. Laura had been such a little thing in the days when she had been
+his pet, the days when he had known her well. What could he do about it?
+This was only the usual thing. But he felt suddenly sick of life.
+
+"How soon do you want to get married?" he demanded harshly.
+
+"Next month, if we can."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Abroad," said Sloane. Roger caught at this topic as at a straw. Soon they
+were talking of the trip, and the tension slackened rapidly. He had never
+been abroad himself but had always dreamed of going there. With maps and
+books of travel Judith and he had planned it out. In imagination they had
+lived in London and Paris, Munich and Rome, always in queer old lodgings
+looking on quaint crooked streets. He had dreamed of long delicious
+rambles, glimpses into queer old shops, vast, silent, dark cathedrals. For
+Laura how different it would be. This boy of hers knew Europe as a group
+of gorgeous new hotels.
+
+The moment Laura joined them, her father's eye was caught and held by the
+ring upon her finger. Roger knew rings, they were his hobby, and this huge
+yellow solitaire in its new and brilliant setting at once awakened his
+dislike. It just fitted the life they were to lead! What life? As he
+listened to his daughter he kept wondering if she were so sure. Had she
+felt no uneasiness? She must have, he decided, for all her gay excitement.
+One Laura in that smiling face; another Laura deep inside, doubting and
+uncertain, reaching for her happiness, now elated, now dismayed,
+exclaiming, "Now at last I'm starting!" Oh, what an ignorant child she was.
+He wanted to cry out to her, "You'll _always_ be just starting! You'll
+never be sure, you'll never be happy, you'll always be just beginning to
+be! And the happier you are, the more you will feel it is only a start!...
+And then-"
+
+More and more his spirit withdrew from these two heedless children. Later
+on, when Deborah came, he barely noticed her meeting with Sloane. And
+through dinner, while they talked of plans for the wedding, the trip
+abroad, still Roger took no part at all. He felt dull and heavy. Deborah
+too, he noticed, after her first efforts to be welcoming and friendly, had
+gradually grown silent. He saw her watching Laura with a mingled look of
+affection and of whimsical dismay. Soon after dinner she left them, and
+Roger smoked with the boy for a while and learned that he was twenty-nine.
+Both had grown uneasy and rather dull with each other. It was a relief when
+again Laura joined them, dressed to go out. She and her lover left the
+house.
+
+Roger sat motionless for some time. His cigar grew cold unheeded. One of
+the sorrows of his life had been that his only son had died. Bruce had been
+almost like a son. But this young man of Laura's? No.
+
+Later he went for his evening walk. And as though drawn by invisible
+chains he strayed far down into the ghetto. Soon he was elbowing his way
+through a maze of uproarious tenement streets as one who had been there
+many times. But he noticed little around him. He went on, as he had always
+gone, seeing and hearing this seething life only as a background to his own
+adventure. He reached his destination. Pushing his way through a swarm of
+urchins playing in front of a pawnshop, he entered and was a long time
+inside, and when he came out again at last the whole expression of his face
+had undergone a striking change. As one who had found the solace he needed
+for the moment, his pace unconsciously quickened and he looked about him
+with brighter eyes.
+
+Around the corner from his home, he went into a small jewelry shop, a
+remnant of the town of the past. There were no customers in the place, and
+the old Galician jeweler sat at the back playing solitaire. At sight of
+Roger he arose; and presently in a small back room, beneath the glare of a
+powerful lamp, the two were studying the ring which Roger had found in the
+ghetto that night. It was plain, just a thin worn band of gold with an
+emerald by no means large; but the setting was old and curious, and
+personal, distinctive. Somebody over in Europe had worked on it long and
+lovingly. Now as the Galician gently rubbed and polished and turned the
+ring this way and that, the light revealed crude tiny figures, a man and a
+woman under a tree. And was that a vine or a serpent? They studied it long
+and absorbedly.
+
+At home, up in his bedroom, Roger opened a safe which stood in one corner,
+took out a large shallow tray and sat down with it by his lamp. A strange
+array of rings was there, small and delicate, huge, bizarre; great signet
+rings and poison rings, love tokens, charms and amulets, rings which had
+been worn by wives, by mistresses, by favorite slaves and by young girls in
+convents; rings with the Madonna and rings with many other saints graven
+on large heavy stones; rings French and Russian, Polish, Italian, Spanish,
+Syrian. Some were many centuries old. In nine shallow metal trays they
+filled the safe in Roger's room. Although its money value was small, the
+Gale collection was well known to a scattered public of connoisseurs, and
+Roger took pride in showing it. But what had always appealed to him most
+was the romance, the mystery, stored up in these old talismans that had
+lived so many ages, travelled through so many lands, decked so many
+fingers. Roger had found every one of them in the pawnshops of New York.
+What new recruits to America had brought them here and pawned them? From
+what old cities had they come? What passions of love and jealousy, of
+hatred, faith, devotion were in this glittering array? Roger's own love
+affair had been deep, but quiet and even and happy. All the wild
+adventures, the might-have-beens in his sex life, were gathered in these
+dusky trays with their richly colored glints of light.
+
+Of his daughters, Laura had been the one most interested in his rings, and
+so he thought of Laura now as he placed in the tray the new ring he had
+bought, the one he would have liked for her. But a vague uneasiness filled
+his mind, for he knew she had the same craving as he for what gleamed out
+of these somber trays. The old Galician jeweler had long been quite a
+friend of hers, she had often dropped in at his shop to ask him curious
+questions about his women patrons. And it was just this side of him that
+Roger did not care for. So many of those women were from a dubious
+glittering world, and the old Galician took a weird vicarious joy in many
+of the gay careers into which he sent his beloved rings, his brooches,
+earrings, necklaces, his clasps and diamond garters. And Laura loved to
+make him talk.... Yes, she was her father's child, a part of himself. He,
+too, had had his yearnings, his burning curiosities, his youthful ventures
+into the town. "You will live on in our children's lives." With her
+inheritance what would she do? Would she stop halfway as he had done, or
+would she throw all caution aside and let the flames within her rise?
+
+He heard a step in the doorway, and Deborah stood there smiling.
+
+"A new one?" she inquired. He nodded, and she bent over the tray. "Poor
+father," Deborah murmured. "I saw you eyeing Laura's engagement ring at
+dinner to-night. It wasn't like this one, was it?" He scowled:
+
+"I don't like what I see ahead of her. Nor do you," he said. "Be honest."
+She looked at him perplexedly.
+
+"We can't stop it, can we? And even if we could," she said, "I'm not quite
+sure I'd want to. It's her love affair, not yours or mine--grown out of a
+life she made for herself--curious, eager, thrilled by it all--and in the
+center of her soul the deep glad growing certainty, 'I'm going to be a
+beautiful woman--I myself, I, Laura Gale!' Oh, you don't know--nor do I.
+And so she felt her way along--eagerly, hungrily, making mistakes--and you
+and I left her to do it alone. I'm afraid we both rather neglected her,
+dad," Deborah ended sadly. "And all we can do now, I think, is to give her
+the kind of wedding she wants."
+
+Roger started to speak but hesitated.
+
+"What is it?" she inquired.
+
+"Queer," he answered gruffly, "how a man can neglect his children--as I
+have done, as I do still--when the one thing he wants most in life is to
+see each one of 'em happy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Roger soon grew accustomed to seeing young Sloane about the house. They
+could talk together more easily, and he began to call him Harold. Harold
+asked him with Laura to lunch at the Ritz to meet the aunt from Bridgeport,
+a lady excessively stout and profound. But that ended the formalities. It
+had all been so much easier than Roger had expected. So, in its calm sober
+fashion, the old house took into its life this new member, these new plans,
+and the old seemed stronger for the new--for Laura and Edith and Deborah
+drew together closer than they had been in many years. But only because
+they felt themselves on the eve of a still deeper and more lasting
+separation, as the family of Roger Gale divided and went different ways. At
+times he noticed it sadly. Laura, who had scarcely ever been home for
+dinner, now spent many evenings here. She needed her home for her wedding,
+he thought. Each daughter needed it now and then. But as the years wore
+slowly on, the seasons when they needed it grew steadily wider and wider
+apart....
+
+Early in May, when Roger came home from his office one night he found
+Edith's children in the house. From the hallway he could hear their gay
+excited voices, and going into the dining room he found them at their
+supper. Deborah was with them, and at once her father noticed how much
+younger she appeared--as she always did with these children who all
+idolized her so. She rose and followed him into the hall, and her quiet
+voice had a note of compassion.
+
+"Edith's baby is coming," she said.
+
+"Good Lord. Is anything wrong?" he asked.
+
+"No, no, it's all right--"
+
+"But I thought the child wasn't due for three weeks."
+
+"I know, and poor Edith is fearfully worried. It has upset all her plans.
+I'd go up and see her if I were you. Your supper is ready; and if you like
+you can have it with the children."
+
+There followed a happy boisterous meal, with much expectant chatter about
+the long summer so soon to begin at the farm up in the mountains. George,
+whose hair was down over his eyes, rumpled it back absorbedly as he told of
+a letter he had received from his friend Dave Royce, Roger's farmer, with
+whom George corresponded. One of the cows was to have a calf, and George
+was anxious to get there in time.
+
+"I've never seen a real new calf, new absolutely," he explained. "And I
+want a look at this one the very minute that he's born. Gee, I hope we can
+get there in time--"
+
+"Gee! So do I!" cried Bobby aged nine. And then Tad, the chubby
+three-year-old who had been intently watching his brothers, slowly took the
+spoon from his mouth and in his grave sweet baby voice said very softly,
+"Gee." At her end of the table, Elizabeth, blonde and short and rather
+plump, frowned and colored slightly. For she was eleven and she knew there
+was something dark and shameful about the way calves appear in barns. And
+so, with a quick conscious cough, she sweetly interrupted:
+
+"Oh, Aunt Deborah! Won't you please tell us about--about--"
+
+"About--about," jeered the ironical George. "About what, you little ninny?"
+Poor Elizabeth blushed desperately. She was neither quick nor resourceful.
+
+"Now, George," said his aunt warningly.
+
+"Wasn't I talking?" the boy rejoined. "And didn't Betsy butt right
+in--without even a thing to butt in about? About--about," he jeered again.
+
+"About Paris!" cried his sister, successful at last in her frantic search
+for a proper topic of conversation. "Aunt Deborah's trip to Paris!"
+
+"How many times has she told it already?" her brother replied with
+withering scorn. "And anyhow, I was talking of cows!"
+
+"Very well," said his aunt, "we'll talk about cows, some cows I saw on a
+lovely old farm in a little village over in France."
+
+"There!" cried his young sister. "Did she ever tell of _that_ part of her
+trip?" And she made a little face at her brother.
+
+"I don't care," he answered doggedly. "She has told about Paris lots of
+times--and that was what _you_ wanted. Yes, you did. You said, 'About
+Paris.' Didn't she, Bob?"
+
+"You bet she did," young Bob agreed.
+
+"Now, children, children, what does it matter?"
+
+"All right, go ahead with your barn in France," said George with patient
+tolerance. "Did they have any Holsteins?"
+
+Soon the questions were popping from every side, while little Tad beamed
+from one to the other. To Tad it was all so wonderful, to be having supper
+away from home, to be here, to go to bed upstairs, to take part perhaps in
+a pillow fight.... And glancing at the glowing face and the parted lips of
+his small grandson Roger felt a current of warm new life pour into his
+soul.
+
+Early in the evening he went up to Edith's apartment. He found his daughter
+in her room, looking flushed and very tense. He took her arm and they
+walked for a time. A trained nurse was soaping the windows. Roger asked the
+reason for this and was told that in case the baby did not come till
+morning the doctor wanted to pull up the shades in order to work by
+daylight. "And neighbors in New York are such cats! You've no idea!" said
+Edith. She looked out at the numberless windows crowding close about her
+home, and she fairly bristled with scorn. "Oh, how I loathe apartments!"
+
+"They seem to have come to stay, my dear. In a few years more New York will
+be a city without a house," he said. "Only a palace here and there." The
+thought flashed in his mind, "But I shall be gone."
+
+"Then we'll move out to the country!" she cried. Still walking the floor
+with her father, she talked of the perplexities which in her feverish state
+of mind had loomed suddenly enormous. She had planned everything so nicely
+for the baby to come the first of June, but now her plans were all upset.
+She did not want the children here, it would make too much confusion. They
+had much better go up to the mountains, even though George and Elizabeth
+lost their last few weeks at school. But who could she find to take them?
+Bruce was simply rushed to death with his new receivership. Laura was
+getting her trousseau. Deborah, said Edith, had time for nothing on earth
+but school.
+
+"Suppose I take them," Roger ventured. But she only smiled at this. "My
+dear," he urged, "your nurse will be with me, and when we arrive there's
+the farmer's wife." But Edith impatiently shook her head. Her warm bright
+eyes seemed to picture it all, hour by hour, day and night, her children
+there without her.
+
+"You poor dear," she told him, "you haven't the slightest idea what it
+means. The summer train is not on yet, and you have to change three times
+on the way--with all the children--luggage, too. And there are their naps,
+and all their meals. You don't arrive till late at night. No," she decided
+firmly, "Bruce will simply have to go." She drew a breath of discomfort.
+"You go and talk to him," she said.
+
+"I will, my dear." Roger looked at his daughter in deep concern. Awkwardly
+his heavy hand touched her small plump shoulder, and he felt the constant
+quivering there. "Now, now," he muttered, uneasily, "it's going to be all
+right, you know--" And at that she gave him a rapid glance out of those
+warm hunted eyes, as though to ask, "What do you know of this?" And Roger
+flinched and turned to the door.
+
+Bruce was working at his desk, with an old briar pipe in his teeth. He
+looked up with a quick nervous smile which showed his dread of the coming
+ordeal, but his voice had a carefully casual tone.
+
+"Does she want me now?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Roger. And he told of her plan for the children. "I volunteered
+myself," he added, "but she wouldn't hear to it."
+
+"Oh, my God, man, you wouldn't do," said Bruce, in droll disparagement.
+"You with forty-nine bottles of pasteurized milk? Suppose you smashed one?
+Where'd you be? Moving our family isn't a job; it's a science, and I've got
+my degree." He rose and his face softened. "Poor girl, she mustn't worry
+like that. I'll run in and tell her I'll do it myself--just to get it off
+her mind."
+
+He went to his wife. And when he came back his dark features appeared a
+little more drawn.
+
+"Poor devil," thought Roger, "he's scared to death--just as I used to be
+myself."
+
+"Pretty tough on a woman, isn't it?" Bruce muttered, smiling constrainedly.
+
+"Did Baird say everything's going well?" Baird was Edith's physician.
+
+"Yes. He was here this afternoon, and he said he'd be back this evening."
+Bruce stopped with a queer little scowl of suspense. "I told her I'd see to
+the trip with the kiddies, and it seemed to relieve her a lot." His eye
+went to a pile of documents that lay on the desk before him. "It'll play
+the very devil with business, taking three days off just now. But I guess I
+can manage it somehow--"
+
+A muscle began to twitch on his face. He re-lit his pipe with elaborate
+care and looked over at Roger confidingly:
+
+"Do you know what's the matter with kids these days? It's the twentieth
+century," he said. "It's a disease. It starts in their teeth. No modern
+girl can get married unless she has had her teeth straightened for years.
+Our dentist's bill, this year alone, was over eight hundred dollars. But
+that isn't all. It gets into their young intestines, God bless 'em, and
+makes you pasteurize all they eat. It gets into their nerves and tears 'em
+up, and your only chance to save 'em is school--not a common school but a
+'simple' school, tuition four hundred dollars a year. And you hire a
+dancing teacher besides--I mean a rhythm teacher--and let 'em shake it out
+of their feet. And after that you buy 'em clothes--not fluffy clothes, but
+'simple' clothes, the kind which always cost the most. And then you build a
+simple home, in a simple place like Morristown. The whole idea is
+simplicity. If you can't make enough to buy it, you're lost. If you can
+make enough, just barely enough, you get so excited you lose your head--and
+do what I did Monday."
+
+The two men smiled at each other. Roger was very fond of Bruce.
+
+"What did you do Monday?" he asked.
+
+"I bought that car I told you about."
+
+"Splendid! Best thing in the world for you! Tell me all about it!"
+
+And while Bruce rapidly grew engrossed in telling of the car's fine points,
+Roger pictured his son-in-law upon hot summer evenings (for Bruce spent his
+summers in town) forgetting his business for a time and speeding out into
+the country. Then he thought of Edith and the tyranny of her motherhood,
+always draining her husband's purse and keeping Edith so wrapt up in her
+children and their daily needs that she had lost all interest in anything
+outside her home. What was there wrong about it? He knew that Edith prided
+herself on being like her mother. But Judith had always found time for her
+friends. He himself had been more as Edith was now. How quickly after
+Judith died he had dropped all friends, all interests. "That's it," he
+ruefully told himself, "Edith takes after her father." And the same curious
+feeling which he had had with Laura, came back to him with her sister. This
+daughter, too, was a part of himself. His deep instinctive craving to keep
+to himself and his family was living on in Edith, was already dominating
+her home. What a queer mysterious business it was, this tie between a man
+and his child.
+
+He was thinking of this when Baird arrived. Allan Baird was not only the
+doctor who had brought Edith's children into the world, he was besides an
+intimate friend, he had been Bruce's room-mate at college. As he came
+strolling into the room with his easy greeting of "Well, folks--" his low
+gruff voice, his muscular frame, over six feet two, and the kindly calm
+assurance in his lean strong visage, gave to Bruce and Roger the feeling of
+safety they needed. For this kind of work was his life. He had specialized
+on women, and after over fifteen years of toilsome uphill labor he had
+become at thirty-seven one of the big gynecologists. He was taking his
+success with the quiet relish of a man who had had to work for it hard. And
+yet he had not been spoiled by success. He worked even harder than
+before--so hard, in fact, that Deborah, with whom through Bruce and Edith
+he had long ago struck up an easy bantering friendship, had sturdily set
+herself the task of prying open his eyes a bit. She had taken him to her
+school at night and to queer little foreign cafes. And Baird, with a humor
+of his own, had retaliated by dragging her to the Astor Roof and to musical
+plays.
+
+"If my eyes are to be opened," he had doggedly declared, "I propose to have
+some diamonds in the scenery, and a little cheery ragtime, too. You've got
+a good heart, Deborah Gale, but your head is full of tenements."
+
+To-night to divert Bruce's thoughts from his wife, Baird started him
+talking of his work. In six weeks Bruce had crammed his mind with the
+details of skyscraper building, and his talk was bewildering now, bristling
+with technical terms, permeated through and through with the feeling of
+strain and fierce competition. As Roger listened he had again that sharp
+and oppressive sensation of a savage modern town unrelentingly pressing,
+pressing in. Restlessly he glanced at Baird who sat listening quietly. And
+Roger thought of the likeness between their two professions. For Bruce,
+too, was a surgeon. His patients were the husbands in their distracting
+offices. Baird's were the wives and mothers in their equally distracting
+homes. Which were more tense, the husbands or wives? And, good Lord, what
+was it all about, this feverish strain of getting and spending? What were
+they spending? Their very life's blood. And what were they getting?
+Happiness? What did most of them know of real happiness? How little they
+knew, how blind they were, and yet how they laughed and chattered along,
+how engrossed in their little games. What children, oh, what children!
+
+"And am I any better than the rest? Do I know what I'm after--what I'm
+about?"
+
+He left them soon, for he felt very tired. He went to his daughter to say
+good-night. And in her room the talk he had heard became to him suddenly
+remote, that restless world of small account. For in Edith, in the one
+brief hour since her father had seen her last, there had come a great
+transformation, into her face an eager light. She was slipping down into a
+weird small world which for a brief but fearful season was to be utterly
+her own, with agony and bloody sweat, and joy and a deep mystery. Clumsily
+he took her hand. It was moist and he felt it clutch his own. He heard her
+breathing rapidly.
+
+"Good-night," he said in a husky tone. "I'll be so glad, my dear, so
+glad."
+
+For answer she gave him a hurried smile, a glance from her bright restless
+eyes. Then he went heavily from the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home he found Deborah sitting alone, with a pile of school papers in her
+lap. As he entered she slowly turned her head.
+
+"How is Edith?" she asked him. Roger told of his visit uptown, and spoke of
+Edith's anxiety over getting the children up to the farm.
+
+"I'll take them myself," said Deborah.
+
+"But how can you get away from school?"
+
+"Oh, I think I can manage it. We'll leave on Friday morning and I can be
+back by Sunday night. I'll love it," Deborah answered.
+
+"It'll be a great relief to her," said Roger, lighting a cigar. Deborah
+resumed her work, and there was silence for a time.
+
+"I let George sit up with me till an hour after his bedtime," she told her
+father presently. "We started talking about white rats--you see it's still
+white rats with George--and that started us wondering about God. George
+wonders if God really knows about rats. 'Has he ever stuck his face right
+down and had a good close look at one? Has God ever watched a rat stand up
+and brush his whiskers with both paws? Has he ever really laughed at rats?
+And that's another thing, Aunt Deborah--does God ever laugh at all? Does he
+know how to take a joke? If he don't, we might as well quit right now!'"
+
+Roger laughed with relish, and his daughter smiled at him:
+
+"Then the talk turned from rats and God to a big dam out in the Rockies.
+George has been reading about it, he's thinking of being an engineer. And
+there was so much he wanted to know that he was soon upon the verge of
+discovering my ignorance--when all of a sudden a dreamy look, oh, a very
+dreamy look, came into his eyes--and he asked me this." And over her bright
+expressive face came a scowl of boyish intensity: "Suppose I _was_ an
+engineer--and I was working on a dam, or may be a bridge, in the Rockies.
+And say it was pretty far down south--say around the Grand Canyon. I should
+think they'd need a dam down there, or anyhow a bridge,' said George. And
+he eyed me in a cautious way which said as plain as the nose on your face,
+'Good Lord, she's only a woman, and she won't understand.' But I showed him
+I was serious, and he asked me huskily, 'Suppose it was winter, Aunt
+Deborah, and the Giants were in Texas. Do you think I could get a few days
+off?' And then before he could tell me the Giants were a baseball nine, I
+said I was sure he could manage it. You should have seen his face light up.
+And he added very fervently, 'Gee, it must be wonderful to be an engineer
+out there!'"
+
+Roger chuckled delightedly and Deborah went on with her work. "How good she
+is with young uns," he thought. "What a knack she has of drawing 'em out.
+What a pity she hasn't some of her own."
+
+He slept until late the next morning, and awoke to find Deborah by his bed.
+
+"It's another boy," she told him. Roger sat up excitedly. "Bruce has just
+telephoned the news. The children and I have breakfasted, and they're going
+out with their nurse. Suppose you and I go up and see Bruce and settle this
+trip to the mountains."
+
+About an hour later, arriving at Edith's apartment, they found Bruce
+downstairs with Allan Baird who was just taking his departure. Bruce's dark
+eyes shone with relief, but his hand was hot and nervous. Allan, on the
+contrary, held out to Edith's father a hand as steady and relaxed as was
+the bantering tone of his voice.
+
+"Bruce," he said, "has for once in his life decided to do something
+sensible. He's going to drop his wretched job and take a week off with his
+children."
+
+"And worry every minute he's gone," Deborah retorted, "and come back and
+work day and night to catch up. But he isn't going to do it. I've decided
+to take the children myself."
+
+"You have?" cried Bruce delightedly.
+
+"You'll do no such thing," said Allan, indignant.
+
+"Oh, you go to thunder," Bruce put in. "Haven't you any delicacy? Can't you
+see this is no business of yours?"
+
+"It isn't, eh," Allan sternly rejoined. And of Deborah he demanded, "Didn't
+you say you'd go with me to 'Pinafore' this Saturday night?"
+
+"Ah," sneered Bruce. "So that's your game. And for one little night of your
+pleasure you'd do me out of a week of my life!"
+
+"Like that," said Baird, with a snap of his fingers.
+
+"I'm going, though," said Deborah.
+
+"Quite right, little woman," Bruce admonished her earnestly. "Don't let him
+rob you of your happiness."
+
+"Come here," growled Baird to Deborah. She followed him into the living
+room, and Roger went upstairs with Bruce.
+
+"If he ever hopes to marry that girl," said Bruce, with an anxious backward
+glance, "he's got to learn to treat her with a little consideration."
+
+"Quit your quarreling," Roger said. "What's a week in the mountains to you?
+Hasn't your wife just risked her life?"
+
+"Sure she has," said Bruce feelingly. "And I propose to stick by her, too."
+
+"Can I see her?"
+
+"No, you can't--another of Baird's fool notions."
+
+"Then where's the baby?"
+
+"Right in here."
+
+Silently in front of the cradle Bruce and Roger stood looking down with the
+content which comes to men on such occasions when there is no woman by
+their side expecting them to say things.
+
+"I made it a rule in my family," Roger spoke up presently, "to have my
+first look at each child alone."
+
+"Same here," said Bruce. And they continued their silent communion. A few
+moments later, as they were leaving, Deborah came into the room and went
+softly to the cradle. Downstairs they found that Allan had gone, and when
+Deborah rejoined them she said she was going to stick to her plan. It was
+soon arranged that she and the youngsters should start on their journey the
+following day.
+
+Back at home she threw herself into the packing and was busy till late that
+night. At daybreak she was up again, for they were to make an early start.
+Bruce came with his new automobile, the children were all bundled in,
+together with Deborah and their nurse, and a half hour later at the train
+Bruce and Roger left them--Deborah flushed and happy, surrounded by
+luggage, wraps, small boys, an ice box, toys and picture books. The small
+red hat upon her head had already been jerked in a scrimmage, far down over
+one of her ears.
+
+"Don't worry about us, Bruce," she said. "We're going to have the time of
+our lives!" Bruce fairly beamed his gratitude.
+
+"If she don't marry," he declared, as he watched the train move slowly out,
+"there'll be a great mother wasted."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+In the weeks which followed, Roger found the peace of his home so
+interrupted and disturbed by wedding preparations that often retreating
+into his den he earnestly told himself he was through, that a man with
+three grown daughters was a fool to show any sympathy with the utter folly
+of their lives. Yield an inch and they took a mile! It began one night when
+Deborah said,
+
+"Now, dearie, I think you had better make up your mind to give Laura just
+the kind of wedding she likes."
+
+And Roger weakly agreed to this, but as time wore on he discovered that the
+kind of wedding Laura liked was a thing that made his blood run cold. There
+seemed to be no end whatever to the young bride's blithe demands. The
+trousseau part of it he didn't mind. To the gowns and hats and gloves and
+shoes and trunks and jaunty travelling bags which came pouring into the
+house, he made no objection. All that, he considered, was fair play. But
+what got on Roger's nerves was this frantic fuss and change! The faded hall
+carpet had to come up, his favorite lounge was whisked away, the piano was
+re-tuned while he was trying to take a nap, rugs were beaten, crates and
+barrels filled the halls, and one whole bedroom stripped and bare was
+transformed into a shop where the wedding presents were displayed. In the
+shuffle his box of cigars disappeared. In short, there was the devil to
+pay!
+
+And Deborah, was as bad as the bride. At times it appeared to Roger as
+though her fingers fairly itched to jab and tug at his poor old house,
+which wore an air of mute reproach. She revealed a part of her nature that
+he viewed with dark amazement. Every hour she could spare from school, she
+was changing something or other at home--with an eager glitter in her eyes.
+Doing it all for Laura, she said. Fiddlesticks and rubbish! She did it
+because she liked it!
+
+In gloomy wrath one afternoon he went up to see Edith and quiet down. She
+was well on the way to recovery, but instead of receiving solace here he
+only found fresh troubles. For sitting up in her old-fashioned bed, with an
+old-fashioned cap of lace upon her shapely little head, Edith made her
+father feel she had washed her hands of the whole affair.
+
+"I'm sorry," she said in an injured tone, "that Laura doesn't care enough
+about her oldest sister to put off the wedding two or three weeks so I
+could be there. It seems rather undignified, I think, for a girl to hurry
+her wedding so. I should have loved to make it the dear simple kind of
+wedding which mother would have wanted. But so long as she doesn't care for
+that--and in fact has only found ten minutes--once--to run in and see the
+baby--"
+
+In dismay her father found himself defending the very daughter of whom he
+had come to complain. It was not such a short engagement, he said, he had
+learned they had been engaged some time before they told him.
+
+"Do you approve of that?" she rejoined. "When I was engaged, I made Bruce
+go to you before I even let him--" here Edith broke off primly. "Of course
+that was some time ago. An engagement, Laura tells me, is 'a mere
+experiment' nowadays. They 'experiment' till they feel quite sure--then
+notify their parents and get married in a week."
+
+"She is rushing it, I admit," Roger soothingly replied. "But she has her
+mind set on Paris in June."
+
+"Paris in June," said Edith, "sums up in three words Laura's whole
+conception of marriage. You really ought to talk to her, father. It's your
+duty, it seems to me."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I'd rather not tell you." Edith's glance went sternly to the cradle by her
+bed. "Laura pities me," she said, "for having had five children."
+
+"Oh, now, my dear girl!"
+
+"She does, though--she said as much. When she dropped in the other day and
+I tried to be sympathetic and give her a little sound advice, she said I
+had had the wedding I liked and the kind of married life I liked, and she
+was going to have hers. And she made it quite plain that her kind is to
+include no children. It's to be simply an effort to find by 'experiment'
+whether or not she loves Hal Sloane. If she doesn't--" Edith gave a slight
+but emphatic wave of dismissal.
+
+"Do you mean to say Laura told you that?" her father asked with an angry
+frown.
+
+"I mean she made me feel it--as plainly as I'm telling it! What I can't
+understand," his daughter went on, "is Deborah's attitude in the affair."
+
+"What's the matter with Deborah?" inquired Roger dismally.
+
+"Oh, nothing's the matter with Deborah. She's quite self-sufficient. She at
+least can play with modern ideas and keep her head while she's doing it.
+But when poor Laura--a mere child with the mind of a chicken--catches
+vaguely at such ideas, applies them to her own little self and risks her
+whole future happiness, it seems to me perfectly criminal for Deborah not
+to interfere! Not even a word of warning!"
+
+"Deborah believes," said her father, "in everyone's leading his own life."
+
+"That's rot," was Edith's curt reply. "Do I lead my own life? Does Bruce?
+Do you?"
+
+"No," growled Roger feelingly.
+
+"Do my children?" Edith demanded. "I know Deborah would like them to.
+That's her latest and most modern fad, to run a school where every child
+shall sit with a rat in its lap or a goat, and do just what he
+pleases--follow his natural bent, she says. I hope she won't come up to the
+mountains and practice on my children. I should hate to break with
+Deborah," Edith ended thoughtfully.
+
+Roger rose and walked the room. The comforting idea entered his mind that
+when the wedding was over he would take out his collection of rings and
+carefully polish every one. But even this hope did not stay with him long.
+
+"With Laura at home," he heard Edith continue, "you at least had a daughter
+to run your house. If Deborah tries to move you out--"
+
+"She won't!" cried Roger in alarm.
+
+"If she does," persisted Edith, "or if she begins any talk of the kind--you
+come to me and _I'll_ talk to her!"
+
+Her father walked in silence, his head down, frowning at the floor.
+
+"It seems funny," Edith continued, "that women like me who give children
+their lives, and men like Bruce who are building New York--actually doing
+it all the time--have so little to say in these modern ideas. I suppose
+it's because we're a little too real."
+
+"To come back to the wedding," Roger suggested.
+
+"To come back to the wedding, father dear," his daughter said
+compassionately. "I'm afraid it's going to be a 'mere form' which will make
+you rather wretched. When you get so you can't endure it, come in and see
+me and the baby."
+
+As he started for home, her words of warning recurred to his mind. Yes,
+here was the thing that disturbed him most, the ghost lurking under all
+this confusion, the part which had to do with himself. It was bad enough to
+know that his daughter, his own flesh and blood, was about to settle her
+fate at one throw. But to be moved out of his house bag and baggage! Roger
+strode wrathfully up the street.
+
+"It's your duty to talk to her," Edith had said. And he meditated darkly on
+this: "Maybe I will and maybe I won't. I know my duties without being told.
+How does Edith know what her mother liked? We had our own likings, her
+mother and I, and our own ideas, long after she was tucked into bed. And
+yet she's always harping on 'what mother would have wanted.' What I should
+like to know--right now--is what Judith would want if she were here!"
+
+With a pang of utter loneliness amid these vexing problems, Roger felt it
+crowding in, this city of his children's lives. As he strode on down
+Broadway, an old hag selling papers thrust one in his face and he caught a
+glimpse of a headline. Some bigwig woman re-divorced. How about Laura's
+"experiment"? A mob of street urchins nearly upset him. How about Deborah?
+How about children? How about schools, education, the country? How about
+God? Was anyone thinking? Had anyone time? What a racket it made,
+slam-banging along. The taxis and motor trucks thundered and brayed, dark
+masses of people swept endlessly by, as though their very souls depended on
+their dinners or their jobs, their movies, roaring farces, thrills, their
+harum scarum dances, clothes. A plump little fool of a woman, her skirt so
+tight she could barely walk, tripped by on high-heeled slippers. That was
+it, he told himself, the whole city was high-heeled! No solid footing
+anywhere! And, good Lord, how they chattered!
+
+He turned into a less noisy street. What would Judith want if she were
+here? It became disturbingly clear to him that she would undoubtedly wish
+him to have a talk with Laura now, find out if she'd really made up her
+mind not to have any children, and if so to tell her plainly that she was
+not only going against her God but risking her own happiness. For though
+Judith had been liberal about any number of smaller things, she had been
+decidedly clear on this. Yes, he must talk to Laura.
+
+"And she'll tell me," he reflected, "that Edith put me up to it!"
+
+If only his oldest daughter would leave the other girls alone! Here she was
+planning a row with Deborah over whether poor young George should be
+allowed to play with rats! It was all so silly!... Yes, his three children
+were drifting apart, each one of them going her separate way. And he rather
+took comfort in the thought, for at least it would stop their wrangling.
+But again he pulled himself up with a jerk. No, certainly Judith would not
+have liked this. If she'd ever stood for anything, it was for keeping the
+family together. It had been the heart and center of their last talks
+before she died.
+
+His face relaxed as he walked on, but in his eyes was a deeper pain. If
+only Judith could be here. Before he reached home he had made up his mind
+to talk with Laura that very night. He drew out his latchkey, opened his
+door, shut it firmly and strode into his house. In the hall they were
+putting down the new carpet. Cautiously picking his way upstairs, he
+inquired for Laura and was told she was dressing for dinner. He knocked at
+her door.
+
+"Yes?" came her voice.
+
+"It's I," he said, "your father."
+
+"Oh, hello, dad," came the answer gaily, in that high sweet voice of hers.
+"I'm frightfully rushed. It's a dinner dance to-night for the bridesmaids
+and the ushers." Roger felt a glow of relief. "Come in a moment, won't
+you?"
+
+What a resplendent young creature she was, seated at her dresser. Behind
+her the maid with needle and thread was swiftly mending a little tear in
+the fluffy blue tulle she was wearing. The shaded light just over her head
+brought a shimmer of red in her sleek brown hair. What lips she had, what a
+bosom. She drew a deep breath and smiled at him.
+
+"What are you doing to-morrow night?" her father asked her.
+
+"Oh, dad, my love, we have every evening filled and crammed right up to the
+wedding," she replied. "No--the last evening I'll be here. Hal's giving his
+ushers a dinner that night."
+
+"Good. I want to talk to you, my dear." He felt his voice solemn, a great
+mistake. He saw the quick glance from her luminous eyes.
+
+"All right, father--whenever you like."
+
+Much embarrassed Roger left the room.
+
+The few days which remained were a crowding confusion of dressmakers, gowns
+and chattering friends and gifts arriving at all hours. As a part of his
+resolve to do what he could for his daughter, Roger stayed home from his
+office that week. But all he could do was to unpack boxes, take out
+presents and keep the cards, and say, "Yes, my dear, it's very nice. Where
+shall I put this one?" As the array of presents grew, from time to time
+unconsciously he glanced at the engagement ring upon Laura's finger. And
+all the presents seemed like that. They would suit her apartment
+beautifully. He'd be glad when they were out of the house.
+
+The only gift that appealed to his fancy was a brooch, neither rich nor
+new, a genuine bit of old jewelry. But rather to his annoyance he learned
+that it had been sent to Laura by the old Galician Jew in the shop around
+the corner. It recalled to his mind the curious friendship which had
+existed for so long between the old man and his daughter. And as she turned
+the brooch to the light Roger thought he saw in her eyes anticipations
+which made him uneasy. Yes, she was a child of his. "June in Paris--"
+other Junes--"experiments"--no children. Again he felt he must have that
+talk. But, good Lord, how he dreaded it.
+
+The house was almost ready now, dismantled and made new and strange. It was
+the night before the wedding. Laura was taking her supper in bed. What was
+he going to say to her? He ate his dinner silently. At last he rose with
+grim resolution.
+
+"I think I'll go up and see her," he said. Deborah quickly glanced at him.
+
+"What for?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, I just want to talk to her--"
+
+"Don't stay long," she admonished him. "I've a masseuse coming at nine
+o'clock to get the child in condition to rest. Her nerves are rather tense,
+you know."
+
+"How about mine?" he said to himself as he started upstairs. "Never mind,
+I've got to tackle it."
+
+Laura saw what he meant to say the moment that he entered the room, and the
+tightening of her features made it all the harder for Roger to think
+clearly, to remember the grave, kind, fatherly things which he had intended
+to tell her.
+
+"I don't want to talk of the wedding, child, but of what's coming after
+that--between you and this man--all your life." He stopped short, with his
+heart in his mouth, for although he did not look at her he had a quick
+sensation as though he had struck her in the face.
+
+"Isn't this rather late to speak about that? Just now? When I'm nervous
+enough as it is?"
+
+"I know, I know." He spoke hurriedly, humbly. "I should have talked to you
+long ago, I should have known you better, child. I've been slack and
+selfish. But it's better late than never."
+
+"But you needn't!" the girl exclaimed. "You needn't tell me anything! I
+know more than you think--I know enough!" Roger looked at her, then at the
+wall. She went on in a voice rather breathless: "I know what I'm
+doing--exactly--just what I'm getting into. It's not as it was when you
+were young--it's different--we talk of these things. Harold and I have
+talked it all out." In the brief and dangerous pause which followed Roger
+kept looking at the wall.
+
+"Have you talked--about having children?"
+
+"Yes," came the answer sharply, and then he felt the hot clutch of her
+hand. "Hadn't you better go now, dad?" He hesitated.
+
+"No," he said. His voice was low. "Do you mean to have children, Laura?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I think you do know. Do you mean to have children?" Her big black eyes,
+dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.
+
+"Well then, no, I don't!" she replied. He made a desperate effort to think
+what he could say to her. Good God, how he was bungling! Where were all his
+arguments?
+
+"How about your religion?" he blurted out.
+
+"I haven't any--which makes me do that--I've a right to be happy!"
+
+"You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed. In accent and in quality it
+was like a voice from the heart of New England where he had been born and
+bred. "I mean you won't be happy--not unless you have a child! It's what
+you need--it'll fill your life! It'll settle you--deepen you--tone you
+down!"
+
+"Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost hysterical.
+"I'm no Puritan--I want to live! I tell you we are different now! We're not
+all like Edith--and we're not like our mothers! We want to live! And we
+have a right to! Why don't you go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? It's my
+last night, my very last! I don't want to talk to you--I don't even know
+what I'm saying! And you come and try to frighten me!" Her voice caught
+and broke into sobs. "You know nothing about me! You never did! Leave me
+alone, can't you--leave me alone!"
+
+"Father?" He heard Deborah's voice, abrupt and stern, outside the door.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He went in blind fashion out of the room and
+down to his study. He lit a cigar and smoked wretchedly there. When
+presently Deborah appeared he saw that her face was set and hard; but as
+she caught the baffled look, the angry tortured light in his eyes, her own
+expression softened.
+
+"Poor father," she said, in a pitying way. "If Edith had only let you
+alone."
+
+"I certainly didn't do much good."
+
+"Of course you didn't--you did harm--oh, so much more harm than you know."
+Into the quiet voice of his daughter crept a note of keen regret. "I wanted
+to make her last days in this house a time she could look back on, so that
+she'd want to come home for help if ever she's in trouble. She has so
+little--don't you see?--of what a woman needs these days. She has grown up
+so badly. Oh, if you'd only let her alone. It was such a bad, bad time to
+choose." She went to her father and kissed him. "Well, it's over now," she
+said, "and we'll make the best we can of it. I'll tell her you're sorry and
+quiet her down. And to-morrow we'll try to forget it has happened."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For Roger the morrow went by in a whirl. The wedding, a large church
+affair, was to take place at twelve o'clock. He arose early, put on his
+Prince Albert, went down and ate his breakfast alone. The waitress was
+flustered, the coffee was burnt. He finished and anxiously wandered about.
+The maids were bustling in and out, with Deborah giving orders pellmell.
+The caterers came trooping in. The bridesmaids were arriving and hurrying
+up to Roger's room. That place was soon a chaos of voices, giggles, peals
+of laughter. Laura's trunks were brought downstairs, and Roger tagged them
+for the ship, one for the cabin and three for the hold, and saw them into
+the wagon. Then he strode distractedly everywhere, till at last he was
+hustled by Deborah into a taxi waiting outside.
+
+"It's all going so smoothly," Deborah said, and a faint sardonic glimmer
+came into her father's hunted eyes. Deborah was funny!
+
+Soon he found himself in the church. He heard whispers, eager voices, heard
+one usher say to another, "God, what a terrible head I've got!" And Roger
+glared at him for that. Plainly these youngsters, all mere boys, had been
+up with the groom a good part of the night.... But here was Laura, pale and
+tense. She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. There was silence, then the
+organ, and now he was taking her up the aisle. Strange faces stared. His
+jaw set hard. At last they reached the altar. An usher quickly touched his
+arm and he stepped back where he belonged. He listened but understood
+nothing. Just words, words and motions.
+
+"If any man can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined
+together, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace."
+
+"No," thought Roger, "I won't speak."
+
+Just then he caught sight of Deborah's face, and at the look in her steady
+gray eyes all at once he could feel the hot tears in his own.
+
+At the wedding breakfast he was gay to a boisterous degree. He talked to
+strange women and brought them food, took punch with men he had never laid
+eyes on, went off on a feverish hunt for cigars, came back distractedly,
+joked with young girls and even started some of them dancing. The whole
+affair was over in no time. The bride and the groom came rushing
+downstairs; and as they escaped from the shower of rice, Roger ran after
+them down the steps. He gripped Sloane's hand.
+
+"Remember, boy, it's her whole life!" entreated Roger hoarsely.
+
+"Yes, sir! I'll look out! No fear!"
+
+"Good-bye, daddy!"
+
+"God bless you, dear!"
+
+They were speeding away. And with the best man, who looked weary and spent,
+Roger went slowly back up the steps. It was an effort now to talk. Thank
+Heaven these people soon were gone. Last of all went the ponderous aunt of
+the groom. How the taxi groaned as he helped her inside and started her off
+to Bridgeport. Back in his study he found his cigars and smoked one
+dismally with Bruce. Bruce was a decent sort of chap. He knew when to be
+silent.
+
+"Well," he spoke finally, rising, "I guess I'll have to get back to the
+office." He smiled a little and put his hand on Roger's weary shoulder.
+"We're glad it's over--eh?" he asked.
+
+"Bruce," said Roger heavily, "you've got a girl of your own growing up.
+Don't let her grow to feel you're old. Live on with her. She'll need you."
+His massive blunt face darkened. "The world's so damnably new," he
+muttered, "so choked up with fool ideas." Bruce still smiled
+affectionately.
+
+"Go up and see Edith," he said, "and forget 'em. She never lets one into
+the flat. She said you were to be sure to come and tell her about the
+wedding."
+
+"All right, I'll go," said Roger. He hunted about for his hat and coat.
+What a devilish mess they had made of the house. A half hour later he was
+with Edith; but there, despite his efforts to answer all her questions, he
+grew heavier and heavier, till at last he barely spoke. He sat watching
+Edith's baby.
+
+"Did you talk to Laura?" he heard her ask.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "It did no good." He knew that Edith was waiting for
+more, but he kept doggedly silent.
+
+"Well, dear," she said presently, "at least you did what you could for
+her."
+
+"I've never done what I could," he rejoined. "Not with any one of you." He
+glanced at her with a twinge of pain. "I don't know as it would have helped
+much if I had. This town is running away with itself. I want a rest now,
+Edith, I want things quiet for a while." He felt her anxious, pitying look.
+
+"Where's Deborah?" she asked him. "Gone back to school already?"
+
+"I don't know where she is," he replied. And then he rose forlornly. "I
+guess I'll be going back home," he said.
+
+On his way, as his thoughts slowly cleared, the old uneasiness rose in his
+mind. Would Deborah want to keep the house? Suppose she suggested moving to
+some titty-tatty little flat. No, he would not stand in her way. But, Lord,
+what an end to make of his life.
+
+His home was almost dark inside, but he noticed rather to his surprise that
+the rooms had already been put in order. He sank down on the living room
+sofa and lay motionless for a while. How tired he was. From time to time he
+drearily sighed. Yes, Deborah would find him old and life here dull and
+lonely. Where was she to-night, he wondered. Couldn't she quit her zoo
+school for one single afternoon? At last, when the room had grown pitch
+dark, he heard the maid lighting the gas in the hall. Roger loudly cleared
+his throat, and at the sound the startled girl ejaculated, "Oh, my Gawd!"
+
+"It's I," said Roger sternly. "Did Miss Deborah say when she'd be back?"
+
+"She didn't go out, sir. She's up in her room."
+
+Roger went up and found her there. All afternoon with both the maids she
+had been setting the house to rights, and now she ached in every limb. She
+was lying on her bed, and she looked as though she had been crying.
+
+"Where have you been?" she inquired.
+
+"At Edith's," her father answered. She reached up and took his hand, and
+held it slowly tighter.
+
+"You aren't going to find it too lonely here, with Laura gone?" she asked
+him. And the wistfulness in her deep sweet voice made something thrill in
+Roger.
+
+"Why should I?" he retorted. Deborah gave a queer little laugh.
+
+"Oh, I'm just silly, that's all," she said. "I've been having a fit of
+blues. I've been feeling so old this afternoon--a regular old woman. I
+wanted you, dearie, and I was afraid that you--" she broke off.
+
+"Look here," said Roger sharply. "Do you really want to keep this house?"
+
+"Keep this house? Why, father!"
+
+"You think you can stand it here alone, just the two of us?" he demanded.
+
+"I can," cried Deborah happily. Her father walked to the window. There as
+he looked blindly out, his eyes were assaulted by the lights of all those
+titty-tatty flats. And a look of vicious triumph appeared for a moment on
+his face.
+
+"Very well," he said quietly, turning back. "Then we're both suited." He
+went to the door. "I'll go and wash up for supper," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+It was a relief to him to find how smoothly he and Deborah dropped back
+into their old relations. It was good to get home those evenings; for in
+this new stage of its existence, with its family of two, the house appeared
+to have filled itself with a deep reposeful feeling. Laura had gone out of
+its life. He glanced into her room one night, and it looked like a guest
+room now. The sight of it brought him a pang of regret. But the big ship
+which was bearing her swiftly away to "Paris in June" seemed bearing off
+Roger's uneasiness too. He could smile at his former fears, for Laura was
+safely married and wildly in love with her husband. Time, he thought, would
+take care of the rest. Occasionally he missed her here--her voice,
+high-pitched but musical, chatting and laughing at the 'phone, her bustle
+of dressing to go out, glimpses of her extravagances, of her smart suits
+and evening gowns, of all the joyous color and dash that she had given to
+his home. But these regrets soon died away. The old house shed them easily,
+as though glad to enter this long rest.
+
+For the story of his family, from Roger's point of view at least, was a
+long uneven narrative, with prolonged periods of peace and again with
+events piling one on the other. And now there came one of those peaceful
+times, and Roger liked the quiet. The old routine was re-established--his
+dinner, his paper, his cigar and then his book for the evening, some good
+old-fashioned novel or some pleasant book of travel which he and Judith had
+read aloud when they were planning out their lives. They had meant to go
+abroad so often when the children had grown up. And he liked to read about
+it still. Life was so quiet over the sea, things were so old and mellow
+there. He resumed, too, his horseback rides, and on the way home he would
+stop in for a visit with Edith and her baby. The wee boy grew funnier every
+day, with his sudden kicks and sneezes, his waving fists and mighty yawns.
+And Roger felt drawn to his daughter here, for in these grateful seasons of
+rest that followed the birth of each of her children, Edith loved to lie
+very still and make new plans for her small brood.
+
+Only once she spoke of Laura, and then it was to suggest to him that he
+gather together all the bills his daughter had doubtless left behind.
+
+"If you don't settle them," Edith said, "they'll go to her husband. And you
+wouldn't like that, would you?"
+
+Roger said he would see to it, and one evening after dinner he started in
+on Laura's bills. It was rather an appalling time. He looked into his bank
+account and found that Laura's wedding would take about all his surplus.
+But this did not dismay him much, for money matters never did. It simply
+meant more work in the office.
+
+The next day he rose early and was in his office by nine o'clock. He had
+not been so prompt in months, and many of his employees came in late that
+morning. But nobody seemed very much perturbed, for Roger was an easy
+employer. Still, he sternly told himself, he had been letting things get
+altogether too slack. He had been neglecting his business again. The work
+had become so cut and dried, there was nothing creative left to do. It had
+not been so in years gone by. Those years had fairly bristled with ideas
+and hopes and schemes. But even those old memories were no longer here to
+hearten him. They had all been swept away when Bruce had made him move out
+of his office in a dark creaky edifice down close under Brooklyn Bridge,
+and come up to this new building, this steel-ribbed caravansary for all
+kinds of business ventures, this place of varnished woodwork, floods of
+daylight, concrete floors, this building fireproof throughout. That
+expressed it exactly, Roger thought. Nothing could take fire here, not even
+a man's imagination, even though he did not feel old. Now and then in the
+elevator, as some youngster with eager eyes pushed nervously against him,
+Roger would frown and wonder, "What are you so excited about?"
+
+But again the business was running down, and this time he must jerk it back
+before it got beyond him. He set himself doggedly to the task, calling in
+his assistants one by one, going through the work in those outer rooms,
+where at tables long rows of busy young girls, with colored pencils,
+scissors and paste, were demolishing enormous piles of newspapers and
+magazines. And vaguely, little by little, he came to a realization of how
+while he had slumbered the life of the country had swept on. For as he
+studied the lists and the letters of his patrons, Roger felt confusedly
+that a new America was here.
+
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. Business men and business firms, gigantic
+corporations, kept sending here for clippings, news of themselves or their
+rivals, keeping keen watch on each other's affairs for signs of strength or
+weakness. How savage was the fight these days. Here was news of mines and
+mills and factories all over the land, clippings sent each morning by
+special messengers downtown to reach the brokers' offices before the market
+opened. One broker wrote, "Please quote your terms for the following. From
+nine to two o'clock each day our messenger will call at your office every
+hour for clippings giving information of the companies named below."
+
+The long list appended carried Roger's fancy out all over the continent.
+And then came this injunction: "Remember that our messenger must leave your
+office every hour. In information of this kind every minute counts."
+
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. As Roger turned over his morning mail, in
+spite of himself he grew absorbed. What a change in the world of
+literature. What a host of names of scribblers, not authors but just
+writers, not only men but women too, novelists and dramatists, poets and
+muckrakers all jumbled in together, each one of them straining for a place.
+And the actors and the actresses, the musicians and the lecturers, each
+with his press agent and avid for publicity, "fame!" And here were society
+women, from New York and other cities, all eager for press notices of
+social affairs they had given or managed, charity work they had conducted,
+suffrage speeches they had made. Half the women in the land were fairly
+talking their heads off, it seemed. Some had been on his lists for years.
+They married and wanted to hear what was said in the papers about their
+weddings, they quarreled and got divorces and still sent here for
+clippings, they died and still their relatives wrote in for the funeral
+notices. And even death was commercialized. A maker of monuments wanted
+news "of all people of large means, dead or dangerously ill, in the State
+of Pennsylvania." Here were demands from charity bodies, hospitals and
+colleges, from clergymen with an anxious eye on the Monday morning papers.
+And here was an anarchist millionaire! And here was an insane asylum
+wanting to see itself in print!
+
+With a grim smile on his heavy visage, Roger stared out of his window.
+Slowly the smile faded, a wistful look came on his face.
+
+"Who'll take my business when I'm gone?"
+
+If his small son had only lived, with what new zest and vigor it might have
+been made to grow and expand. If only his son had been here by his side....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+DEBORAH needed rest, he thought, for the bright attractive face of his
+daughter was looking rather pale of late, and the birthmark on her forehead
+showed a faint thin line of red. One night at dinner, watching her, he
+wondered what was on her mind. She had come in late, and though several
+times she had made an effort to keep up the conversation, her cheeks were
+almost colorless and more than once in her deepset eyes came a flash of
+pain that startled him.
+
+"Look here. What's the matter with you?" he asked. Deborah looked up
+quickly.
+
+"I'd rather not talk about it, dad--"
+
+"Very well," he answered. And with a slight hesitation, "But I think I know
+the trouble," he said. "And perhaps some other time--when you do feel like
+talking--" He stopped, for on her wide sensitive lips he saw a twitch of
+amusement.
+
+"What do you think is the trouble?" she asked. And Roger looked at her
+squarely.
+
+"Loneliness," he answered.
+
+"Why?" she asked him.
+
+"Well, there's Edith's baby--and Laura getting married--"
+
+"I see--and so I'm lonely for a family of my own. But you're forgetting my
+school," she said.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," he retorted. "But that's not at all the same.
+Interesting work, no doubt, but--well, it isn't personal."
+
+"Oh, isn't it?" she answered, and she drew a quivering breath. Rising from
+the table she went into the living room, and there a few moments later he
+found her walking up and down. "I think I will tell you now," she said.
+"I'm afraid of being alone to-night, of keeping this matter to myself." He
+looked at her apprehensively.
+
+"Very well, my dear," he said.
+
+"This is the trouble," she began. "Down in my school we've a family of
+about three thousand children. A few I get to know so well I try to follow
+them when they leave. And one of these, an Italian boy--his name is Joe
+Bolini--was one of the best I ever had, and one of the most appealing. But
+Joe took to drinking and got in with a gang of boys who blackmailed small
+shopkeepers. He used to come to me at times in occasional moods of
+repentance. He was a splendid physical type and he'd been a leader in our
+athletics, so I took him back into the school to manage our teams in
+basket-ball. He left the gang and stopped drinking, and we had long talks
+together about his great ambition. He wanted to enter the Fire Department
+as soon as he was twenty-one. And I promised to use my influence." She
+stopped, still frowning slightly.
+
+"What happened?" Roger asked her.
+
+"His girl took up with another man, and Joe has hot Italian blood. He got
+drunk one night and--shot them both." There was another silence. "I did
+what I could," she said harshly, "but he had a bad record behind him, and
+the young assistant district attorney had his own record to think of, too.
+So Joe got a death sentence. We appealed the case but it did no good. He
+was sent up the river and is in the death house now--and he sent for me to
+come to-day. His letter hinted he was scared, he wrote that his priest was
+no good to him. So I went up this afternoon. Joe goes to the chair
+to-morrow at six."
+
+Deborah went to the sofa and sat down inertly. Roger remained motionless,
+and a dull chill crept over him.
+
+"So you see my work is personal," he heard her mutter presently. All at
+once she seemed so far away, such a stranger to him in this life of hers.
+
+"By George, it's horrible!" he said. "I'm sorry you went to see the boy!"
+
+"I'm glad," was his daughter's quick retort. "I've been getting much too
+sure of myself--of my school, I mean, and what it can do. I needed this to
+bring me back to the kind of world we live in!"
+
+"What do you mean?" he roughly asked.
+
+"I mean there are schools and prisons! And gallows and electric chairs! And
+I'm for schools! They've tried their jails and gallows for whole black
+hideous centuries! What good have they done? If they'd given Joe back to
+the school and me, I'd have had him a fireman in a year! I know, because I
+studied him hard! He'd have _grown_ fighting fires, he would have _saved_
+lives!"
+
+Again she stopped, with a catch of her breath. In suspense he watched her
+angry struggle to regain control of herself. She sat bolt upright, rigid;
+her birthmark showed a fiery red. In a few moments he saw her relax.
+
+"But of course," she added wearily, "it's much more complex than that. A
+school is nothing nowadays--just by itself alone, I mean--it's only a part
+of a city's life--which for most tenement children is either very dull and
+hard, or cheap and false and overexciting. And behind all that lie the
+reasons for that. And there are so many reasons." She stared straight past
+her father as though at something far away. Then she seemed to recall
+herself: "But I'm talking too much of my family."
+
+Roger carefully lit a cigar:
+
+"I don't think you are, my dear. I'd like to hear more about it." She
+smiled:
+
+"To keep my mind off Joe, you mean."
+
+"And mine, too," he answered.
+
+They had a long talk that evening about her hope of making her school what
+Roger visaged confusedly as a kind of mammoth home, the center of a
+neighborhood, of one prodigious family. At times when the clock on the
+mantle struck the hour loud and clear, there would fall a sudden silence,
+as both thought of what was to happen at dawn. But quickly Roger would
+question again and Deborah would talk steadily on. It was after midnight
+when she stopped.
+
+"You've been good to me to-night, dearie," she said. "Let's go to bed now,
+shall we?"
+
+"Very well," he answered. He looked at his daughter anxiously. She no
+longer seemed to him mature. He could feel what heavy discouragements, what
+problems she was facing in the dark mysterious tenement world which she had
+chosen to make her own. And compared to these she seemed a mere girl, a
+child groping its way, just making a start. And so he added wistfully, "I
+wish I could be of more help to you." She looked up at him for a moment.
+
+"Do you know why you are such a help?" she said. "It's because you have
+never grown old--because you've never allowed yourself to grow absolutely
+certain about anything in life." A smile half sad and half perplexed came
+on her father's heavy face.
+
+"You consider that a strong point?" he asked.
+
+"I do," she replied, "compared to being a bundle of creeds and prejudices."
+
+"Oh, I've got prejudices enough."
+
+"Yes," she said. "And so have I. But we're not even sure of _them_, these
+days."
+
+"The world has a habit of crowding in," her father muttered vaguely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger did not sleep that night. He could not keep his thoughts away from
+what was going to happen at dawn. Yes, the city was crowding in upon this
+quiet house of his. Dimly he could recollect, in the genial years of long
+ago, just glancing casually now and then at some small and unobtrusive
+notice in his evening paper: "Execution at Sing Sing." It had been so
+remote to him. But here it was smashing into his house, through the life
+his own daughter was leading day and night among the poor! Each time he
+thought of that lad in a cell, again a chill crept over him! But savagely
+he shook it off, and by a strong effort of his will he turned his thoughts
+to the things she had told him about her school. Yes, in her main idea she
+was right. He had no use for wild reforms, but here was something solid, a
+good education for every child. More than once, while she had talked,
+something very deep in Roger had leaped up in swift response.
+
+For Deborah, too, was a part of himself. He, too, had had his feeling for
+humanity in the large. For years he had run a boys' club at a little
+mission school in which his wife had been interested, and on Christmas Eve
+he had formed the habit of gathering up a dozen small urchins right off the
+street and taking them 'round and fitting them out with good warm winter
+clothing, after which he had gone home to help Judith trim the Christmas
+tree and fill their children's stockings. And later, when she had gone to
+bed, invariably he had taken "The Christmas Carol" from its shelf and had
+settled down with a glow of almost luxurious brotherhood. There was
+sentiment in Roger Gale, and as he read of "Tiny Tim" his deepset eyes
+would glisten with tears.
+
+And now here was Deborah fulfilling a part of him in herself. "You will
+live on in our children's lives." But this was going much too far! She was
+letting herself be swallowed up completely by this work of hers! It was all
+very well for the past ten years, but she was getting on in age! High time
+to marry and settle down!
+
+Again angrily he shook off the thought of that boy Joe alone in a cell,
+eyes fixed in animal terror upon the steel door which would open so soon.
+
+The day was slowly breaking. It was the early part of June. How fresh and
+lovely it must be up there in the big mountains with Edith's happy little
+lads. Here it was raw and garish, weird. Some sparrows began quarreling
+just outside his window. Roger rose and walked the room. Restlessly he went
+into the hall. The old house appeared so strange in this light--as though
+stripped bare--there was something gone. Softly he came to Deborah's door.
+It was open wide, for the night had been warm, and she lay awake upon her
+bed with her gaze fixed on the ceiling. She turned her head and saw him
+there. He came in and sat down by her window. For a long time neither made
+a sound. Then the great clock on the distant tower, which had been silent
+through the night, resumed its deep and measured boom. It struck six times.
+There was silence again. More and more taut grew his muscles, and suddenly
+it felt to him as though Deborah's fierce agony were pounding into his very
+soul. The slow, slow minutes throbbed away. At last he rose and left her.
+There was a cold sweat on his brow.
+
+"I'll go down and make her some coffee," he thought.
+
+Down in the kitchen it was a relief to bang about hunting for the utensils.
+On picnics up in the mountains his coffee had been famous. He made some now
+and boiled some eggs, and they breakfasted in Deborah's room. She seemed
+almost herself again. Later, while he was dressing, he saw her in the
+doorway. She was looking at her father with bright and grateful,
+affectionate eyes.
+
+"Will you come to school with me to-day? I'd like you to see it," Deborah
+said.
+
+"Very well," he answered gruffly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Out of the subway they emerged into a noisy tenement street. Roger had
+known such streets as this, but only in the night-time, as picturesque and
+adventurous ways in an underground world he had explored in search of
+strange old glittering rings. It was different now. Gone were the Rembrandt
+shadows, the leaping flare of torches, the dark surging masses of weird
+uncouth humanity. Here in garish daylight were poverty and ugliness, here
+were heaps of refuse and heavy smells and clamor. It disgusted and repelled
+him, and he was tempted to turn back. But glancing at Deborah by his side
+he thought of the night she had been through. No, he decided, he would go
+on and see what she was up to here.
+
+They turned into a narrower street between tall dirty tenements, and in a
+twinkling all was changed. For the street, as far as he could see, was gay
+with flaunting colors, torrents of bobbing hats and ribbons, frocks and
+blouses, shirts and breeches, vivid reds and yellows and blues. It was
+deafening with joyous cries, a shrill incessant chatter, chatter, piercing
+yells and shrieks of laughter. Children, swarms of children, children of
+all sizes passed him, clean and dirty, smiling, scowling, hurrying,
+running, pummeling, grabbing, whirling each other 'round and 'round--till
+the very air seemed quivering with wild spirits and new life!
+
+He heard Deborah laughing. Five hilarious small boys had hold of her hands
+and were marching in triumph waving their caps. "Heigh there--heigh there!
+Heigh--heigh--heigh!"
+
+The school was close in front of them. An enormous building of brick and
+tile wedged into a disordered mass of tenements, shops and factories, it
+had been built around a court shut out from the street by a high steel
+fence. They squeezed into the gateway, through which a shouting punching
+mob of urchins were now pushing in; and soon from a balcony above Roger
+looked down into the court, where out of a wild chaos order was appearing.
+Boys to the right and girls to the left were forming in long sinuous lines,
+and three thousand faces were turned toward the building. In front appeared
+the Stars and Stripes. Then suddenly he heard a crash from underneath the
+balcony, and looking down he saw a band made up of some thirty or forty
+boys. Their leader, a dark Italian lad, made a flourish, a pass with his
+baton, and the band broke into a blaring storm, an uproarious, booming
+march. The mob below fell into step, and line after line in single file the
+children marched into their school.
+
+"Look up! Look all around you!" He heard Deborah's eager voice in his ear.
+And as he looked up from the court below he gave a low cry of amazement. In
+hundreds of windows all around, of sweatshops, tenements, factories, on
+tier upon tier of fire escapes and even upon the roofs above, silent
+watchers had appeared. For this one moment in the day the whole congested
+neighborhood had stopped its feverish labor and become an amphitheater with
+all eyes upon the school. And the thought flashed into Roger's mind:
+"Deborah's big family!"
+
+He had a strange confusing time. In her office, in a daze, he sat and heard
+his daughter with her two assistant principals, her clerk and her
+stenographer, plunge into the routine work of the day. What kind of school
+teacher was this? She seemed more like the manager of some buzzing factory.
+Messages kept coming constantly from class-rooms, children came for
+punishment, and on each small human problem she was passing judgment
+quickly. Meanwhile a score of mothers, most of them Italians with colored
+shawls upon their heads, had straggled in and taken seats, and one by one
+they came to her desk. For these women who had been children in peasant
+huts in Italy now had children of their own in the great city of New York,
+and they found it very baffling. How to keep them in at night? How to make
+them go to the priest? How to feed and clothe them? How to live in these
+tenement homes, in this wild din and chaos? They wanted help and they
+wanted advice. Deborah spoke in Italian, but turning to her father she
+would translate from time to time.
+
+A tired scowling woman said, "My boy won't obey me. His father is dead.
+When I slap him he only jumps away. I lock him in and he steals the key, he
+keeps it in his pocket. He steals the money that I earn. He says I'm from
+the country." And a flabby anxious woman said, "My girl runs out to dance
+halls. Sometimes she comes back at two in the morning. She is fifteen and
+she ought to get married. But what can I do? A nice steady man who never
+dances comes sometimes to see her--but she makes faces and calls him a
+fatty, she dances before him and pushes him out and slams the door. What
+can I do?"
+
+"Please come and see our janitor and make him fix our kitchen sink!" an
+angry little woman cried. "When I try to wash the dishes the water spouts
+all over me!" And then a plump rosy mother said in a soft coaxing voice, "I
+have eight little children, all nice and clean. When you tell them to do
+anything they always do it quickly. They smile at you, they are like
+saints. So could the kind beautiful teacher fix it up with a newspaper to
+send them to the country--this summer when it is so hot? The newspaper
+could send a man and he could take our pictures."
+
+"Most of us girls used to be in this school," said a bright looking Jewess
+of eighteen. "And you taught us how we should live nice. But how can we
+live nice when our shop is so rotten? Our boss is trying to kiss the
+girls, he is trying to hug them on the stairs. And what he pays us is a
+joke, and we must work till nine o'clock. So will you help us, teacher, and
+give us a room for our meetings here? We want to have a union."
+
+A truant officer brought in two ragged, frightened little chaps. Found on
+the street during school hours, they had to give an account of themselves.
+Sullenly one of them gave an address far up in the Bronx, ten miles away.
+They had not been home for a week, he said. Was he lying? What was to be
+done? Somewhere in the city their homes must be discovered. And the talk of
+the truant officer made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out
+through the police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He
+thought of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy
+complexity of it all.
+
+And this was part and parcel of his daughter's daily work in school! Still
+dazed, disturbed but curious, he sat and watched and listened, while the
+bewildering demands of Deborah's big family kept crowding in upon her. He
+went to a few of the class-rooms and found that reading and writing,
+arithmetic and spelling were being taught in ways which he had never
+dreamed of. He found a kindergarten class, a carpenter shop and a printing
+shop, a sewing class and a cooking class in a large model kitchen. He
+watched the nurse in her hospital room, he went into the dental clinic
+where a squad of fifty urchins were having their teeth examined, and out
+upon a small side roof he found a score of small invalids in steamer
+chairs, all fast asleep. It was a strange astounding school! He heard
+Deborah speak of a mothers' club and a neighborhood association; and he
+learned of other ventures here, the school doctor, the nurse and the
+visitor endlessly making experiments, delving into the neighborhood for
+ways to meet its problems. And by the way Deborah talked to them he felt
+she had gone before, that years ago by day and night she had been over the
+ground alone. And she'd done all this while she lived in his house!
+
+Scattered memories out of the past, mere fragments she had told him, here
+flashed back into his mind: humorous little incidents of daily battles she
+had waged in rotten old tenement buildings with rags and filth and garbage,
+with vermin, darkness and disease. Mingled with these had been accounts of
+dances, weddings and christenings and of curious funeral rites. And
+struggling with such dim memories of Deborah in her twenties, called forth
+in his mind by the picture of the woman of thirty here, Roger grew still
+more confused. What was to be the end of it? She was still but a pioneer in
+a jungle, endlessly groping and trying new things.
+
+"How many children are there in the public schools?" he asked.
+
+"About eight hundred thousand," Deborah said.
+
+"Good Lord!" he groaned, and he felt within him a glow of indignation rise
+against these immigrant women for breeding so inconsiderately. With the mad
+city growing so fast, and the people of the tenements breeding, breeding,
+breeding, and packing the schools to bursting, what could any teacher be
+but a mere cog in a machine, ponderous, impersonal, blind, grinding out
+future New Yorkers?
+
+He reached home limp and battered from the storm of new impressions coming
+on top of his sleepless night. He had thought of a school as a simple
+place, filled with little children, mischievous at times perhaps and some
+with dirty faces, but still with minds and spirits clean, unsoiled as yet
+by contact with the grim spirit of the town. He had thought of childhood as
+something intimate and pure, inside his home, his family. Instead of that,
+in Deborah's school he had been disturbed and thrilled by the presence all
+around him of something wild, barbaric, dark, compounded of the city
+streets, of surging crowds, of rushing feet, of turmoil, filth, disease and
+death, of poverty and vice and crime. But Roger could still hear that band.
+And behind its blaring crash and din he had felt the vital throbbing of a
+tremendous joyousness, of gaiety, fresh hopes and dreams, of leaping young
+emotions like deep buried bubbling springs bursting up resistlessly to
+renew the fevered life of the town! Deborah's big family! Everybody's
+children!
+
+"You will live on in our children's lives." The vision hidden in those
+words now opened wide before his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+She told him the next morning her night school closed for the summer that
+week.
+
+"I think I should like to see it," her father said determinedly. She gave
+him an affectionate smile:
+
+"Oh, dearie. Haven't you had enough?"
+
+"I guess I can stand it if you can," was his gruff rejoinder, "though if I
+ran a school like yours I think by night I'd have schooled enough. Do most
+principals run night schools too?"
+
+"A good many of them do."
+
+"Isn't it taxing your strength?" he asked.
+
+"Don't you have to tax your strength," his daughter replied good humoredly,
+"to really accomplish anything? Don't you have to risk yourself in order to
+really live these days? Suppose you come down to-morrow night. We won't go
+to the school, for I doubt if the clubs and classes would interest you very
+much. I'll take you through the neighborhood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They went down the following evening. The night was warm and humid, and
+through the narrow tenement streets there poured a teeming mass of life.
+People by the thousands passed, bareheaded, men in shirt sleeves, their
+faces glistening with sweat. Animal odors filled the air. The torches on
+the pushcarts threw flaring lights and shadows, the peddlers shouted
+hoarsely, the tradesmen in the booths and stalls joined in with cries,
+shrill peals of mirth. The mass swept onward, talking, talking, and its
+voice was a guttural roar. Small boys and girls with piercing yells kept
+darting under elbows, old women dozed on doorsteps, babies screamed on
+every side. Mothers leaned out of windows, and by their faces you could see
+that they were screaming angrily for children to come up to bed. But you
+could not hear their cries. Here around a hurdy gurdy gravely danced some
+little girls. A tense young Jew, dark faced and thin, was shouting from a
+wagon that all men and women must be free and own the factories and mills.
+A mob of small boys, clustered 'round a "camp fire" they had made on the
+street, were leaping wildly through the flames. It was a mammoth cauldron
+here, seething, bubbling over with a million foreign lives. Deborah's big
+family.
+
+She turned into a doorway, went down a long dark passage and came into a
+court-yard enclosed by greasy tenement walls that reared to a spot of dark
+blue sky where a few quiet stars were twinkling down. With a feeling of
+repugnance Roger followed his daughter into a tall rear building and up a
+rickety flight of stairs. On the fourth landing she knocked at a door, and
+presently it was opened by a stout young Irish woman with flushed haggard
+features and disheveled hair.
+
+"Oh. Good evening, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"Good evening. Come in," was the curt reply. They entered a small stifling
+room where were a stove, two kitchen chairs and three frowzled beds in
+corners. On one of the beds lay a baby asleep, on another two small
+restless boys sat up and watched the visitors. A sick man lay upon the
+third. And a cripple boy, a boarder here, stood on his crutches watching
+them. Roger was struck at once by his face. Over the broad cheek bones the
+sallow skin was tightly drawn, but there was a determined set to the jaws
+that matched the boy's shrewd grayish eyes, and his face lit up in a
+wonderful smile.
+
+"Hello, Miss Deborah," he said. His voice had a cheery quality.
+
+"Hello, Johnny. How are you?"
+
+"Fine, thank you."
+
+"That's good. I've brought my father with me."
+
+"Howdado, sir, glad to meet you."
+
+"It's some time since you've been to see me, John," Deborah continued.
+
+"I know it is," he answered. And then with a quick jerk of his head, "He's
+been pretty bad," he said. Roger looked at the man on the bed. With his
+thin waxen features drawn, the man was gasping for each breath.
+
+"What's the matter?" Roger whispered.
+
+"Lungs," said the young woman harshly. "You needn't bother to speak so low.
+He can't hear you anyhow. He's dying. He's been dying weeks."
+
+"Why didn't you let me know of this?" Deborah asked gently.
+
+"Because I knew what you'd want to do--take him off to a hospital! And I
+ain't going to have it! I promised him he could die at home!"
+
+"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. There was a moment's silence, and the baby
+whimpered in its sleep. One child had gone to his father's bed and was
+frowning at his agony as though it were a tiresome sight.
+
+"Are any of them coughing?" Deborah inquired.
+
+"No," said the woman sharply.
+
+"Yes, they are, two of 'em," John cheerfully corrected her.
+
+"You shut up!" she said to him, and she turned back to Deborah. "It's my
+home, I guess, and my family, too. So what do you think that _you_ can do?"
+Deborah looked at her steadily.
+
+"Yes, it's your family," she agreed. "And it's none of my business, I
+know--except that John is one of my boys--and if things are to go on like
+this I can't let him board here any more. If he had let me know before I'd
+have taken him from you sooner. You'll miss the four dollars a week he
+pays."
+
+The woman swallowed fiercely. The flush on her face had deepened. She
+scowled to keep back the tears.
+
+"We can all die for all I care! I've about got to the end of my rope!"
+
+"I see you have." Deborah's voice was low. "You've made a hard plucky
+fight, Mrs. Berry. Are there any empty rooms left in this building?"
+
+"Yes, two upstairs. What do you want to know for?"
+
+"I'm going to rent them for you. I'll arrange it to-night with the janitor,
+on condition that you promise to move your children to-morrow upstairs and
+keep them there until this is over. Will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's sensible. And I'll have one of the visiting nurses here within an
+hour."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"And later on we'll have a talk."
+
+"All right--"
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"Good-night, Miss Gale, I'm much obliged.... Say, wait a minute! Will you?"
+The wife had followed them out on the landing and she was clutching
+Deborah's arm. "Why can't the nurse give him something," she whispered, "to
+put him to sleep for good and all? It ain't right to let a man suffer like
+that! I can't stand it! I'm--I'm--" she broke off with a sob. Deborah put
+one arm around her and held her steadily for a moment.
+
+"The nurse will see that he sleeps," she said. "Now, John," she added,
+presently, when the woman had gone into the room, "I want you to get your
+things together. I'll have the janitor move them upstairs. You sleep there
+to-night, and to-morrow morning come to see me at the school."
+
+"All right, Miss Deborah, much obliged. I'll be all right. Good-night,
+sir--"
+
+"Good-night, my boy," said Roger, and suddenly he cleared his throat. He
+followed his daughter down the stairs. A few minutes she talked with the
+janitor, then joined her father in the court.
+
+"I'm sorry I took you up there," she said. "I didn't know the man was
+sick."
+
+"Who are they?" he asked.
+
+"Poor people," she said. And Roger flinched.
+
+"Who is this boy?"
+
+"A neighbor of theirs. His mother, who was a widow, died about two years
+ago. He was left alone and scared to death lest he should be 'put away' in
+some big institution. He got Mrs. Berry to take him in, and to earn his
+board he began selling papers instead of coming to our school. So our
+school visitor looked him up. Since then I have been paying his board from
+a fund I have from friends uptown, and so he has finished his schooling.
+He's to graduate next week. He means to be a stenographer."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Seventeen," she replied.
+
+"How was he crippled? Born that way?"
+
+"No. When he was a baby his mother dropped him one Saturday night when she
+was drunk. He has never been able to sit down. He can lie down or he can
+stand. He's always in pain, it never stops. I learned that from the doctor
+I took him to see. But whenever you ask him how he feels you get the same
+answer always: 'Fine, thank you.' He's a fighter, is John."
+
+"He looks it. I'd like to help that boy--"
+
+"All right--you can help him," Deborah said. "You'll find him quite a
+tonic."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A tonic," she repeated. And with a sudden tightening of her wide and
+sensitive mouth, Deborah added slowly, "Because, though I've known many
+hungry boys, Johnny Geer is the hungriest of them all--hungry to get on in
+life, to grow and learn and get good things, get friends, love, happiness,
+everything!" As she spoke of this child in her family, over her strong
+quiet face there swept a fierce, intent expression which struck Roger
+rather cold. What a fight she was making, this daughter of his, against
+what overwhelming odds. But all he said to her was this:
+
+"Now let's look at something more cheerful, my dear."
+
+"Very well," she answered with a smile. "We'll go and see Isadore Freedom."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Isadore Freedom," said Deborah, "is the beginning of something tremendous.
+He came from Russian Poland--and the first American word he learned over
+there was 'freedom.' So in New York he changed his name to that--very
+solemnly, by due process of law. It cost him seven dollars. He had nine
+dollars at the time. Isadore is a flame, a kind of a torch in the
+wilderness."
+
+"How does the flame earn his living?"
+
+"At first in a sweatshop," she replied. "But he came to my school five
+nights a week, and at ten o'clock when school was out he went to a little
+basement cafe, where he sat at a corner table, drank one glass of Russian
+tea and studied till they closed at one. Then he went to his room, he told
+me, and used to read himself to sleep. He slept as a rule four hours. He
+said he felt he needed it. Now he's a librarian earning fifteen dollars a
+week, and having all the money he needs he has put the thought of it out of
+his life and is living for education--education in freedom. For Isadore has
+studied his name until he thinks he knows what it means."
+
+They found him in a small public library on an ill-smelling ghetto street.
+The place had been packed with people, but the clock had just struck ten
+and the readers were leaving reluctantly, many with books under their arms.
+At sight of Deborah and her father, Isadore leaped up from his desk and
+came quickly to meet them with outstretched hands.
+
+"Oh, this is splendid! Good evening!" he cried. Hardly more than a boy,
+perhaps twenty-one, he was short of frame but large of limb. He had wide
+stooping shoulders and reddish hollows in his dark cheeks. Yet there was a
+springiness in his step, vigor and warmth in the grip of his hand, in the
+very curl of his thick black hair, in his voice, in his enormous smile.
+
+"Come," he said to Roger, when the greetings were over. "You shall see my
+library, sir. But I want that you shall not see it alone. While you look
+you must close for me your eyes and see other libraries, many, many, all
+over the world. You must see them in big cities and in very little towns
+to-night. You must see people, millions there, hungry, hungry people. Now I
+shall show you their food and their drink." As he spoke he was leading them
+proudly around. In the stacks along the walls he pointed out fiction,
+poetry, history, books of all the sciences.
+
+"They read all, all!" cried Isadore. "Look at this Darwin on my desk. In a
+year so many have read this book it is a case for the board of health. And
+look at this shelf of economics. I place it next to astronomy. And I say to
+these people, 'Yes, read about jobs and your hours and wages. Yes, you must
+strike, you must have better lives. But you must read also about the
+stars--and about the big spaces--silent--not one single little sound for
+many, many million years. To be free you must grow as big as that--inside
+of your head, inside of your soul. It is not enough to be free of a czar, a
+kaiser or a sweatshop boss. What will you do when they are gone? My fine
+people, how will you run the world? You are deaf and blind, you must be
+free to open your own ears and eyes, to look into the books and see what is
+there--great thoughts and feelings, great ideas! And when you have seen,
+then you must think--you must think it all out every time! That is
+freedom!'" He stopped abruptly. Again on his dark features came a huge and
+winning smile, and with an apologetic shrug, "But I talk too much of my
+books," he said. "Come. Shall we go to my cafe?"
+
+On a neighboring street, a few minutes later, down a flight of steep wooden
+stairs they descended into a little cafe, shaped like a tunnel, the ceiling
+low, the bare walls soiled by rubbing elbows, dirty hands, the air blue and
+hot with smoke. Young men and girls packed in at small tables bent over
+tall glasses of Russian tea, and gesturing with their cigarettes declaimed
+and argued excitedly. Quick joyous cries of greeting met Isadore from every
+side.
+
+"You see?" he said gaily. "This is my club. Here we are like a family." He
+ordered tea of a waiter who seemed more like a bosom friend. And leaning
+eagerly forward, he began to speak in glowing terms of the men and girls
+from sweatshops who spent their nights in these feasts of the soul,
+talking, listening, grappling, "for the power to think with minds as clear
+as the sun when it rises," he ardently cried. "There is not a night in this
+city, not one, when hundreds do not talk like this until the breaking of
+the day! And then they sleep! A little joke! For at six o'clock they must
+rise to their work! And that is a force," he added, "not only for those
+people but a force for you and me. Do you see? When you feel tired, when
+all your hopes are sinking low, you think of those people and you say, 'I
+will go to their places.' And you go. You listen and you watch their faces,
+and such fire makes you burn! You go home, you are happy, you have a new
+life!
+
+"And perhaps at last you will have a religion," he continued, in fervent
+tones. "You see, with us Jews--and with Christians, too--the old religion,
+it is gone. And in its place there is nothing strong. And so the young
+people go all to pieces. They dance and they drink. If you go to those
+dance halls you say, 'They are crazy!' For dancing alone is not enough. And
+you say, 'These people must have a religion.' You ask, 'Where can I find a
+new God?' And you reply, 'There is no God.' And then you must be very sad.
+You know how it is? You feel too free. And you feel scared and lonely. You
+look up at the stars. There are millions. You are only a speck of dust--on
+one.
+
+"But then you come to my library. And you see those hungry people--more
+hungry than men have ever been. And you see those books upon the shelves.
+And you know when they come together at last, when that power to think as
+clear as the sun comes into the souls of those people so hungry, then we
+shall have a new god for the world. For there is no end to what they shall
+do," Isadore ended huskily.
+
+Roger felt a lump in his throat. He glanced into his daughter's eyes and
+saw a suspicious brightness there. Isadore looked at her happily.
+
+"You see?" he said to Roger. "When she came here to-night she was tired,
+half sick. But now she is all filled with life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, on the street outside when Isadore had left them, Deborah turned to
+her father:
+
+"Before we go home, there's one place more."
+
+And they went to a building not far away, a new structure twelve floors
+high which rose out of the neighboring tenements. It had been built, she
+told him, by a socialist daily paper. A dull night watchman half asleep
+took them in the elevator up to the top floor of the building, where in a
+bustling, clanking loft the paper was just going to press. Deborah seemed
+to know one of the foremen. He smiled and nodded and led the way through
+the noise and bustle to a large glass door at one end. This she opened and
+stepped out upon a fire escape so broad it was more like a balcony. And
+with the noise of the presses subdued, from their high perch they looked
+silently down.
+
+All around them for miles, it seemed, stretched dark uneven fields of
+roofs, with the narrow East River winding its way through the midst of them
+to the harbor below, silvery, dim and cool and serene, opening to the
+distant sea. From the bridges rearing high over the river, lights by
+thousands sparkled down. But directly below the spot where they stood was
+only a dull hazy glow, rising out of dark tenement streets where dimly they
+could just make out numberless moving shadowy forms, restless crowds too
+hot to sleep. The roofs were covered everywhere with men and women and
+children--families, families, families, all merged together in the dark.
+And from them rose into the night a ceaseless murmur of voices, laughing
+and joking, quarreling, loving and hating, demanding, complaining, and
+fighting and slaving and scheming for bread and the means of stark
+existence. But among these struggling multitudes confusedly did Roger feel
+the brighter presence here and there of more aspiring figures, small groups
+in glaring, stilling rooms down there beneath the murky dark, young people
+fiercely arguing, groping blindly for new gods. And all these voices, to
+his ears, merged into one deep thrilling hum, these lights into one
+quivering glow, that went up toward the silent stars.
+
+And there came to him a feeling which he had often had before in many
+different places--that he himself was a part of all this, the great, blind,
+wistful soul of mankind, which had been here before he was born and would
+be here when he was dead--still groping, yearning, struggling upward, on
+and on--to something distant as the sun. And still would he be a part of it
+all, through the eager lives of his children. He turned and looked at
+Deborah and caught the light that was in her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Roger awoke the next morning feeling sore and weary, and later in his
+office it was hard to keep his mind on his work. He thought of young
+Isadore Freedom. He was glad he had met that boy, and so he felt toward
+Deborah's whole terrific family. Confused and deafening as it was, there
+was something inspiring in it all. But God save him from many such
+evenings! For half his life Roger had been a collector, not only of rings
+but of people, too, of curious personalities. These human bits, these
+memories, he had picked up as he lived along and had taken them with him
+and made them his own, had trimmed and polished every one until its rough
+unpleasant edges were all nicely smoothed away and it glittered and shone
+like the gem that it was. For Roger was an idealist. And so he would have
+liked to do here. What a gem could be made of Isadore with a little careful
+polishing.
+
+But Deborah's way was different. She stayed in life, lived in it close,
+with its sharp edges bristling. In this there was something splendid, but
+there was something tragic, too. It was all very well for that young Jew to
+burn himself up with his talk about freedom, his feverish searching for new
+gods. "In five years," Roger told himself, "Mr. Isadore Freedom will either
+tone down or go stark mad."
+
+But quite probably he would tone down, for he was only a youngster, these
+were Isadore's wild oats. But this was no longer Deborah's youth, she had
+been at this job ten years. And she hadn't gone mad, she had kept herself
+sane, she had many sides her father knew. He knew her in the mountains, or
+bustling about at home getting ready for Laura's wedding, or packing
+Edith's children off for their summer up at the farm. But did that make it
+any easier? No. To let yourself go was easy, but to keep hold of yourself
+was hard. It meant wear and tear on a woman, this constant straining effort
+to keep her balance and see life whole.
+
+"Well, it will break her down, that's all, and I don't propose to allow
+it," he thought. "She's got to rest this summer and go easier next fall."
+
+But how could he accomplish it? As he thought about her school, with its
+long and generous arms reaching upon every side out into the tenements, the
+prospect was bewildering. He searched for something definite. What could he
+do to prove to his daughter his real interest in her work? Presently he
+remembered Johnny Geer, the cripple boy whom he had liked, and at once he
+began to feel himself back again upon known ground. Instead of millions
+here was one, one plucky lad who needed help. All right, by George, he
+should have it! And Roger told his daughter he would be glad to pay the
+expense of sending John away for the summer, and that in the autumn perhaps
+he would take the lad into his office.
+
+"That's good of you, dearie," Deborah said. It was her only comment, but
+from the look she gave him Roger felt he was getting on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening not long afterwards, as they sat together at dinner, she rose
+unsteadily to her feet and said in a breathless voice,
+
+"It's rather close in here, isn't it? I think I'll go outside for a while."
+Roger jumped up.
+
+"Look here, my child, you're faint!" he cried.
+
+"No, no, it's nothing! Just the heat!" She swayed and reeled, pitched
+suddenly forward. "Father! Quick!" And Roger caught her in his arms. He
+called to the maid, and with her help he carried Deborah up to her bed.
+There she shuddered violently and beads of sweat broke out on her brow.
+Her breath came hard through chattering teeth.
+
+"It's so silly!" she said fiercely.
+
+But as moments passed the chill grew worse. Her whole body seemed to be
+shaking, and as Roger was rubbing one of her arms she said something to him
+sharply, in a voice so thick he could not understand.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"I can't feel anything."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"In my arm where you're rubbing--I can't feel your hand."
+
+"You'd better have a doctor!"
+
+"Telephone Allan--Allan Baird. He knows about this," she muttered. And
+Roger ran down to the telephone. He was thoroughly frightened.
+
+"All right, Mr. Gale," came Baird's gruff bass, steady and slow, "I think I
+know what the trouble is--and I wouldn't worry if I were you. I'll be there
+in about ten minutes." And it was hardly more than that when he came into
+Deborah's room. A moment he looked down at her.
+
+"Again?" he said. She glanced up at him and nodded, and smiled quickly
+through set teeth. Baird carefully examined her and then turned to Roger:
+"Now I guess you'd better go out. You stay," he added to Sarah, the maid.
+"I may need you here awhile."
+
+About an hour later he came down to Roger's study.
+
+"She's safe enough now, I guess," he said. "I've telephoned for a nurse for
+her, and she'll have to stay in bed a few days."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Acute indigestion."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed Roger brightly, with a rush of deep relief.
+Baird gave him a dry quizzical smile.
+
+"People have died of that," he remarked, "in less than an hour. We caught
+your daughter just in time. May I stay a few moments?"
+
+"Glad to have you! Smoke a cigar!"
+
+"Thanks--I will." As Baird reached out for the proffered cigar, Roger
+suddenly noticed his hand. Long and muscular, finely shaped, it seemed to
+speak of strength and skill and an immense vitality. Baird settled himself
+in his chair. "I want to talk about her," he said. "This little attack is
+only a symptom--it comes from nerves. She's just about ready for a smash.
+She's had slighter attacks of this kind before."
+
+"I never knew it," Roger said.
+
+"No--I don't suppose you did. Your daughter has a habit of keeping things
+like this to herself. She came to me and I warned her, but she wanted to
+finish out her year. Do you know anything about her school work?"
+
+"Yes, I was with her there this week."
+
+"What did she show you?" Baird inquired. Roger tried to tell him. "No,
+that's not what I'm after," he said. "That's just one of her usual
+evenings." For a moment he smoked in silence. "I'm hunting now for
+something else, for some unusual nervous shock which she appears to me to
+have had."
+
+"She has!" And Roger told him of her visit up to Sing Sing. Baird's lean
+muscular right hand slowly tightened on his chair.
+
+"That's a tough family of hers," he remarked.
+
+"Yes," said Roger determinedly, "and she's got to give it up."
+
+"You mean she ought to. But she won't."
+
+"She's got to be made to," Roger growled. "This summer at least." Baird
+shook his head.
+
+"You forget her fresh air work," he replied. "She has three thousand
+children on her mind. The city will be like a furnace, of course, and the
+children must be sent to camps. If you don't see the necessity, go and talk
+to her, and then you will."
+
+"But you can forbid it, can't you?"
+
+"No. Can you?"
+
+"I can try," snapped Roger.
+
+"Let's try what's possible," said Baird. "Let's try to keep her in bed
+three days."
+
+"Sounds modest," Roger grunted. And a glimmer of amusement came into
+Baird's impassive eyes.
+
+"Try it," he drawled. "By to-morrow night she'll ask for her stenographer.
+She'll make you think she is out of the woods. But she won't be, please
+remember that. A few years more," he added, "and she'll have used up her
+vitality. She'll be an old woman at thirty-five."
+
+"It's got to be stopped!" cried Roger.
+
+"But how?" came the low sharp retort. "You've got to know her trouble
+first. And her trouble is deep, it's motherhood--on a scale which has never
+been tried before--for thousands of children, all of whom are living in a
+kind of hell. I know your daughter pretty well. Don't make the mistake of
+mixing her up with the old-fashioned teacher. It isn't what those children
+learn, it's how they live that interests her, and how they are all growing
+up. I say she's a mother--in spirit--but her body has never borne a child.
+And that makes it worse--because it makes her more intense. It isn't
+natural, you see."
+
+A little later he rose to go.
+
+"By the way," he said, at the door, "there's something I meant to tell her
+upstairs--about a poor devil she has on her mind. A chap named
+Berry--dying--lungs. She asked me to go and see him."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I found it was only a matter of days." The tragic pity in Baird's quiet
+voice was so deep as barely to be heard.
+
+"So I shot him full of morphine. He won't wake up. Please tell her that."
+
+Tall, ungainly, motionless, he loomed there in the doorway. With a little
+shrug and a smile he turned and went slowly out of the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Deborah's recovery was rapid and determined. The next night she was sitting
+up and making light of her illness. On the third day she dismissed her
+nurse, and when her father came home from his office he found gathered
+about her bed not only her stenographer but both her assistant principals.
+He frowned severely and went to his room, and a few minutes later he heard
+them leave. Presently she called to him, and he came to her bedside. She
+was lying back on the pillow with rather a guilty expression.
+
+"Up to your old antics, eh?" he remarked.
+
+"Exactly. It couldn't be helped, you see. It's the last week of our school
+year, and there are so many little things that have to be attended to. It's
+simply now or never."
+
+"Humph!" was Roger's comment. "It's now or never with you," he thought. He
+went down to his dinner, and when he came back he found her exhausted. In
+the dim soft light of her room her face looked flushed and feverish, and
+vaguely he felt she was in a mood where she might listen to reason. He felt
+her hot dry hand on his. Her eyes were closed, she was smiling.
+
+"Tell me the news from the mountains," she said. And he gave her the gossip
+of the farm in a letter he had had from George. It told of a picnic supper,
+the first one of the season. They had had it in the usual place, down by
+the dam on the river, "with a bonfire--a perfect peach--down by the big
+yellow rock--the one you call the Elephant." As Roger read the letter he
+could feel his daughter listening, vividly picturing to herself the great
+dark boulders by the creek, the shadowy firs, the stars above and the cool
+fresh tang of the mountain night.
+
+"After this little sickness of yours--and that harum scarum wedding," he
+said, "I feel we're both entitled to a good long rest in mountain air."
+
+"We'll have it, too," she murmured.
+
+"With Edith's little youngsters. They're all the medicine you need." He
+paused for a moment, hesitating. But it was now or never. "The only trouble
+with you," he said, "is that you've let yourself be caught by the same
+disease which has its grip upon this whole infernal town. You're like
+everyone else, you're tackling about forty times what you can do. You're
+actually trying not only to teach but to bring 'em all up as your own,
+three thousand tenement children. And this is where it gets you."
+
+Again he halted, frowning. What next?
+
+"Go on, dear, please," said Deborah, in demure and even tones. "This is
+very interesting."
+
+"Now then," he continued, "in this matter of your school. I wouldn't ask
+you to give it up, I've already seen too much of it. But so long as you've
+got it nicely started, why not give somebody else a chance? One of those
+assistants of yours, for example--capable young women, both. You could
+stand right behind 'em with help and advice--"
+
+"Not yet," was Deborah's soft reply. She had turned her head on her pillow
+and was looking at him affectionately. "Why not?" he demanded.
+
+"Because it's not nicely started at all. There's nothing brilliant about
+me, dear--I'm a plodder, feeling my way along. And what I have done in the
+last ten years is just coming to a stage at last where I can really see a
+chance to make it count for something. When I feel I've done that, say in
+five years more--"
+
+"Those five years," said her father, "may cost you a very heavy price." As
+Deborah faced his troubled regard, her own grew quickly serious.
+
+"I'd be willing to pay the price," she replied.
+
+"But why?" he asked with impatience. "Why pay when you don't have to? Why
+not by taking one year off get strength for twenty years' work later on?
+You'd be a different woman!"
+
+"Yes, I think I should be. I'd never be the same again. You don't quite
+understand, you see. This work of mine with children--well, it's like
+Edith's having a baby. You have to do it while you're young."
+
+"That works both ways," her father growled.
+
+"What do you mean?" He hesitated:
+
+"Don't you want any children of your own?"
+
+Again she turned her eyes toward his, then closed them and lay perfectly
+still. "Now I've done it," he thought anxiously. She reached over and took
+his hand.
+
+"Let's talk of our summer's vacation," she said.
+
+A little while later she fell asleep.
+
+Downstairs he soon grew restless and after a time he went out for a walk.
+But he felt tired and oppressed, and as he had often done of late he
+entered a little "movie" nearby, where gradually the pictures, continually
+flashing out of the dark, drove the worries from his mind. For a half an
+hour they held his gaze. Then he fell into a doze. He was roused by a roar
+of laughter, and straightening up in his seat with a jerk he looked angrily
+around. Something broadly comic had been flashed upon the screen; and men
+and women and children, Italians, Jews and Irish, jammed in close about
+him, a dirty and perspiring mass, had burst into a terrific guffaw. Now
+they were suddenly tense again and watching the screen in absorbed
+suspense, while the crude passions within themselves were played upon in
+the glamorous dark. And Roger scanned their faces--one moment smiling, all
+together, as though some god had pulled a string; then mawkish,
+sentimental, soft; then suddenly scowling, twitching, with long rows of
+animal eyes. But eager--eager all the time! Hungry people--yes, indeed!
+Hungry for all the good things in the town, and for as many bad things,
+too! On one who tried to feed this mob there was no end to their demands!
+What was one woman's life to them? Deborah's big family!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edith came to the house one afternoon, and she was in Deborah's room when
+her father returned from his office. Her convalescence over at last, she
+was leaving for the mountains.
+
+"Do learn your lesson, Deborah dear," she urged upon her sister. "Let Sarah
+pack your trunk at once and come up with me on Saturday night."
+
+"I can't get off for two weeks yet."
+
+"Why can't you?" Edith demanded. And when Deborah spoke of fresh air camps
+and baby farms and other work, Edith's impatience only grew. "You'll have
+to leave it to somebody else! You're simply in no condition!" she cried.
+
+"Impossible," said Deborah. Edith gave a quick sigh of exasperation.
+
+"Isn't it enough," she asked, "to have worked your nerves to a frazzle
+already? Why can't you be sensible? You've got to think of yourself a
+little!"
+
+"You'd like me to marry, wouldn't you, dear?" her sister put in wearily.
+
+"Yes, I should, while there is still time! Just now you look far from it!
+It's exactly as Allan was saying! If you keep on as you're going you'll be
+an old woman at thirty-five!"
+
+"Thank you!" said Deborah sharply. Two spots of color leaped in her checks.
+"You'd better leave me, Edith! I'll come up to the mountains as soon as I
+can! And I'll try not to look any more like a hag than I have to!
+Good-night!"
+
+Roger followed Edith out of the room.
+
+"That last shot of mine struck home," she declared to him in triumph.
+
+"I wouldn't have done it," her father said. "I gave you that remark of
+Baird's in strict confidence, Edith--"
+
+"Now father," was her good-humored retort, "suppose you leave this matter
+to me. I know just what I'm doing."
+
+"Well," he reflected uneasily, after she had left him, "here's more trouble
+in the family. If Edith isn't careful she'll make a fine mess of this whole
+affair."
+
+After dinner he went up to Deborah's room, but through the open doorway he
+caught a glimpse of his daughter which made him instinctively draw back.
+Sitting bolt upright in her bed, sternly she was eyeing herself in a small
+mirror in her hand. Her father chuckled noiselessly. A moment later, when
+he went in, the glass had disappeared from view. Soon afterwards Baird
+himself arrived, and as they heard him coming upstairs Roger saw his
+daughter frown, but she continued talking.
+
+"Hello, Allan," she said with indifference. "I'm feeling much better this
+evening."
+
+"Are you? Good," he answered, and he started to pull up an easy chair. "I
+was hoping I could stay awhile--I've been having one of those long mean
+days--"
+
+"I'd a little rather you wouldn't," Deborah put in softly. Allan turned to
+her in surprise. "I didn't sleep last night," she murmured, "and I feel so
+drowsy." There was a little silence. "And I really don't think there's any
+need of your dropping in to-morrow," she added. "I'm so much
+better--honestly."
+
+Baird looked at her a moment.
+
+"Right--O," he answered slowly. "I'll call up to-morrow night."
+
+Roger followed him downstairs.
+
+"Come into my den and smoke a cigar!" he proposed in hearty ringing tones.
+Allan thanked him and came in, but the puzzled expression was still on his
+face, and through the first moments of their talk he was very
+absent-minded. Roger's feeling of guilt increased, and he cursed himself
+for a meddlesome fool.
+
+"Look here, Baird," he blurted out, "there's something I think you ought to
+know." Allan slightly turned his head, and Roger reddened a little. "The
+worst thing about living in a house chock full of meddling women is that
+you get to be one yourself," he growled. "And the fact is--" he cleared his
+throat--"I've put my foot in it, Baird," he said. "I was fool enough the
+other day to quote you to Edith."
+
+"To what effect?"
+
+"That if Deborah keeps on like this she'll be an old woman at thirty-five."
+
+Allan sat up in his chair:
+
+"Was Edith here this afternoon?"
+
+"She was," said Roger.
+
+"Say no more."
+
+Baird had a wide, likable, generous mouth which wrinkled easily into a
+smile. He leaned back now and enjoyed himself. He puffed a little cloud of
+smoke, looked over at Roger and chuckled aloud. And Roger chuckled with
+relief. "What a decent chap he is," he thought.
+
+"I'm sorry, of course," he said to Baird. "I thought of trying to
+explain--"
+
+"Don't," said Allan. "Leave it alone. It won't do Deborah any harm--may
+even do her a little good. After all, I'm her physician--"
+
+"Are you?" Roger asked with a twinkle. "I thought upstairs you were
+dismissed."
+
+"Oh no, I'm not," was the calm reply. And the two men went on smoking.
+Roger's liking for Baird was growing fast. They had had several little
+talks during Deborah's illness, and Roger was learning more of the man.
+Raised on a big cattle ranch that his father had owned in New Mexico,
+riding broncos on the plains had given him his abounding health of body,
+nerve and spirit, his steadiness and sanity in all this feverish city life.
+
+"Are you riding these days?" he inquired.
+
+"No," said Roger, "the park is too hot--and they don't sprinkle the path as
+they should. I've had my cob sent up to the mountains. By the way," he
+added cordially, "you must come up there and ride with me."
+
+"Thanks, I'd like to," Allan said, and with a little inner smile he added
+dryly to himself, "He's getting ready to meddle again." But whatever
+amusement Baird had in this thought was concealed behind his sober gray
+eyes. Soon after that he took his leave.
+
+"Now then," Roger reflected, with a little glow of expectancy, "if Edith
+will only leave me alone, she may find I'm smarter then she thinks!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening in the following week, after Edith had left town, Roger had
+Bruce to dine at his club, a pleasant old building on Madison Square, where
+comfortably all by themselves they could discuss Baird's chances.
+
+"A. Baird and I have been chums," said Bruce, "ever since we were in
+college. Take it from me I know his brand. And he isn't the kind to be
+pushed."
+
+"Who wants to push him?" Roger demanded, with a sudden guilty twinge.
+
+"Edith does," Bruce answered. "And I tell you that won't do with A. Baird.
+He has his mind set on Deborah sure. He's been setting it harder and harder
+for months--and he knows it--and so does she. But they're both the kind of
+people who don't like interference, they've got to get to it by themselves.
+Edith must keep out of the way. She mustn't take it on herself to ask him
+up to the mountains." Roger gave a little start. "If she does, there'll be
+trouble with Deborah."
+
+Roger smoked for a moment in silence and then sagely nodded his head.
+
+"That's so," he murmured thoughtfully. "Yes, my boy, I guess you're right."
+
+Bruce lifted his mint julep:
+
+"God, but it's hot in here to-night. How about taking a spin up the river?"
+
+"Delighted," replied his father-in-law.
+
+And a half hour later in Bruce's new car, which was the pride and joy of
+his life, they were far up the river. On a long level stretch of road Bruce
+"let her out to show what she could do." And Roger with his heart in his
+mouth and his eye upon the speedometer, saw it creep to sixty-three.
+
+"Almost as good as a horse," remarked Bruce, when the car had slowed a
+little.
+
+"Almost," said Roger, "but not quite. It's--well, it's dissipation."
+
+"And a horse?"
+
+"Is life," was the grave reply. "You'll have a crash some day, my boy, if
+you go on at your present speed. It gets me worried sometimes. You see
+you're a family man."
+
+"I am and I'm glad of it. Edith and the kiddies suit me right down to the
+ground. I'm crazy about 'em--you know that. But a chap with a job like
+mine," Bruce continued pleadingly, as he drove his car rushing around a
+curve, "needs a little dissipation, too. I can't tell you what it means to
+me, when I'm kept late at the office, to have this car for the run up home.
+Lower Broadway's empty then, and I know the cops. I swing around through
+Washington Square, and the Avenue looks clear for miles, nothing but two
+long rows of lights to the big hump at Murray Hill. It's the time between
+crowds--say about ten. And I know the cops."
+
+"That's all right," said Roger. "No one was more delighted than I when you
+got this car. You deserve it. It's the _work_ that I was speaking of.
+You've got it going at such a speed--"
+
+"Only way on earth to get on--to get what I want for my family--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," muttered Roger vaguely. Bruce began talking of his work
+for the steel construction concern downtown.
+
+"Take it from me," he declared at the end, "this town has only just begun!"
+
+"Has, eh," Roger grunted. "Aren't the buildings high enough?"
+
+"My God, I wish they were twenty times higher," Bruce rejoined
+good-humoredly. "But they won't be--we've stopped going up. We've done
+pretty well in the air, and now we're going underground. And when we get
+through, this old rock of Manhattan will be such a network of tunnels
+there'll be a hole waiting at every corner to take you wherever you want to
+go. Speed? We don't even know what it means!"
+
+And again Bruce "let her out" a bit. It was _quite_ a bit. Roger grabbed
+his hat with one hand and the side of the car with the other.
+
+"They'll look back on a mile a minute," said Bruce, "as we look back on
+stage coach days! And in the rush hour there'll be a rush that'll make you
+think of pneumatic tubes! Not a sound nor a quiver--_just pure speed!_
+Shooting people home at night at a couple of hundred miles an hour! The
+city will be as big as that! And there won't be any accidents and there
+won't be any smoke. Instead of coal they'll use the sun! And, my God, man,
+the boulevards--and parks and places for the kids! The way they'll use the
+River--and the ocean and the Sound! The Catskills will be Central Park!
+Sounds funny, don't it--but it's true. I've studied it out from A to Z.
+This town is choking itself to death simply because we're so damn slow! We
+don't know how to spread ourselves! All this city needs is speed!"
+
+"Bruce," said Roger anxiously, "just go a bit easy on that gas. The fact
+is, it was a great mistake for me to eat those crabs to-night."
+
+Bruce slowed down compassionately, and soon they turned and started home.
+And as they drew near the glow of the town, other streets and boulevards
+poured more motors into the line, until at last they were rushing along
+amid a perfect bedlam made up of honks and shrieks of horns. The air grew
+hot and acrid, and looking back through the bluish haze of smoke and dust
+behind him Roger could see hundreds of huge angry motor eyes. Crowding and
+jamming closer, pell mell, at a pace which barely slackened, they sped on,
+a wild uproarious crew, and swept into the city.
+
+Roger barely slept that night. He felt the city clamoring down into his
+very soul. "Speed!" he muttered viciously. "Speed--speed! We need more
+speed!" The words beat in like a savage refrain. At last with a sigh of
+impatience he got up in his nightshirt and walked about. It was good to
+feel his way in the dark in this cool silent house which he knew so well.
+Soon his nerves felt quieter. He went back to his bed and lay there inert.
+How good it would be to get up to the farm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next Saturday evening, with Deborah, he started for the mountains. And
+Bruce came down to see them off.
+
+"Remember, son," said Roger, as the two walked on the platform. "Come up
+this year for a month, my boy. You need it." The train was about to start.
+
+"Oh, I'll be all right," was the answer. "My friend the Judge, who has hay
+fever, tells me he has found a cure."
+
+"Damn his cure! You come to us!"
+
+"Hold on a minute, live and learn. The Judge is quite excited about it.
+You drink little bugs, he says, a billion after every meal. They come in
+tall blue bottles. We're going to dine together next week and drink 'em
+till we're all lit up. Oh, we're going to have a hell of a time. _His_ wife
+left town on Tuesday."
+
+"Bruce," said Roger sternly, as the train began to move, "leave bugs alone
+and come up and breathe! And quit smoking so many cigarettes!" He stepped
+on the car.
+
+"Remember, son, a solid month!" Bruce nodded as the train moved out.
+
+"Good luck--good-bye--fine summer--my love to the wife and the kiddies--"
+and Bruce's dark, tense, smiling face was left behind. Roger went back into
+the smoker.
+
+"Now for the mountains," he thought. "Thank God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+A few hours later Roger awakened. His lower berth was still pitch dark. The
+train had stopped, and he had been roused by a voice outside his window.
+Rough and slow and nasal, the leisurely drawl of a mountaineer, it came
+like balm to Roger's ears. He raised the curtain and looked out. A train
+hand with a lantern was listening to a dairy man, a tall young giant in top
+boots. High overhead loomed a shadowy mountain and over its rim came the
+glow of the dawn. With a violent lurch the train moved on. And Roger, lying
+back on his pillow, looked up at the misty mountain sides all mottled in
+the strange blue light with patches of firs and birches and pines. In the
+narrow valley up which the train was thundering, were small herds of
+grazing cattle, a lonely farmhouse here and there. From one a light was
+twinkling. And the city with its heat and noise, its nervous throb, its
+bedlam nights, all dropped like a fever from his soul.
+
+Now, close by the railroad track, through a shallow rocky gorge a small
+river roared and foamed. Its cool breath came up to his nostrils and
+gratefully he breathed it in. For this was the Gale River, named after one
+of his forefathers, and in his mind's eye he followed the stream back up
+its course to the little station where he and Deborah were to get off.
+There the narrowing river bed turned and wound up through a cleft in the
+hills to the homestead several miles away. On the dark forest road beside
+it he pictured George, his grandson, at this moment driving down to meet
+them in a mountain wagon with one of the two hired men, a lantern swinging
+under the wheels. What an adventure for young George.
+
+Presently he heard Deborah stirring in the berth next to his own.
+
+At the station George was there, and from a thermos bottle which Edith had
+filled the night before he poured coffee piping hot, which steamed in the
+keen, frosty air.
+
+"Oh, how good!" cried Deborah. "How thoughtful of your mother, George. How
+is she, dear?"
+
+"Oh, she's all right, Aunt Deborah." His blunt freckled features flushed
+from his drive, George stood beaming on them both. He appeared, if
+anything, tougher and scrawnier than before. "Everything's all right," he
+said. "There ain't a sick animal on the whole farm."
+
+As Roger sipped his coffee he was having a look at the horses. One of them
+was William, his cob.
+
+"Do you see it?" inquired his grandson.
+
+"What?"
+
+"The boil," George answered proudly, "on William's rump. There it is--on
+the nigh side. Gee, but you ought to have seen it last week. It was a whale
+of a boil," said George, "but we poulticed him, me and Dave did--and now
+the swelling's nearly gone. You can ride him to-morrow if you like."
+
+Luxuriously Roger lit a cigar and climbed to the front seat with George. Up
+the steep and crooked road the stout horses tugged their way, and the wagon
+creaked, and the Gale River, here only a brook, came gurgling, dashing to
+meet them--down from the mountains, from the farm, from Roger's youth to
+welcome him home. And the sun was flashing through the pines. As they drew
+near the farmhouse through a grove of sugar maples, he heard shrill cries
+of, "There they come!" And he glimpsed the flying figures of George's
+brothers, Bob and Tad. George whipped up the horses, the wagon gained upon
+the boys and reached the house but a few rods behind the little runners.
+Edith was waiting by the door, fresh and smiling, blooming with health.
+How well this suited her, Roger thought. Amid a gay chorus of greetings he
+climbed down heavily out of the wagon, looked about him and drew a deep
+breath. The long lazy days on the farm had begun.
+
+From the mountain side the farm looked down on a wide sweeping valley of
+woods and fields. The old house straggled along the road, with addition
+after addition built on through generations by many men and women. Here lay
+the history, unread, of the family of Roger Gale. Inside there were steps
+up and down from one part to another, queer crooks in narrow passageways.
+The lower end was attached to the woodshed, and the woodshed to the barn.
+Above the house a pasture dotted with gray boulders extended up to a wood
+of firs, and out of this wood the small river which bore the name of the
+family came rushing down the field in a gully, went under the road, swept
+around to the right and along the edge of a birch copse just below the
+house. The little stream grew quieter there and widened into a mill pond.
+At the lower end was a broken dam and beside it a dismantled mill. Here was
+peace for Roger's soul. The next day at dawn he awakened, and through the
+window close by his bed he saw no tall confining walls; his eye was carried
+as on wings out over a billowy blanket of mist, soft and white and cool and
+still, reaching over the valley. From underneath to his sensitive ears came
+the numberless voices of the awakening sleepers there, cheeps and tremulous
+warbles from the birch copse just below, cocks crowing in the valley, and
+ducks and geese, dogs, sheep and cattle faintly heard from distant farms.
+Just so it had been when he was a boy. How unchanged and yet how new were
+these fresh hungry cries of life. From the other end of the house he heard
+Edith's tiny son lustily demanding his breakfast, as other wee boys before
+him had done for over a hundred years, as other babies still unborn would
+do in the many years to come. Soon the cry of the child was hushed. Quiet
+fell upon the house. And Roger sank again into deep happy slumber.
+
+Here was nothing new and disturbing. Edith's children? Yes, they were new,
+but they were not disturbing. Their growth each summer was a joy, a renewal
+of life in the battered old house. Here was no huge tenement family
+crowding in with dirty faces, clamorous demands for aid, but only five
+delightful youngsters, clean and fresh, of his own blood. He loved the
+small excitements, the plans and plots and discoveries, the many adventures
+that filled their days. He spent hours with their mother, listening while
+she talked of them. Edith did so love this place and she ran the house so
+beautifully. It was so cool and fragrant, so clean and so old-fashioned.
+
+Deborah, too, came under the spell. She grew as lazy as a cat and day by
+day renewed her strength from the hills and from Edith's little brood.
+Roger had feared trouble there, for he knew how Edith disapproved of her
+sister's new ideas. But although much with the children, Deborah apparently
+had no new ideas at all. She seemed to be only listening. One balmy day at
+sunset, Roger saw her lying on the grass with George sprawled by her side.
+Her head upon one arm, she appeared to be watching the cattle in the
+sloping pasture above. Slowly, as though each one of them was drawn by
+mysterious unseen chains, they were drifting down toward the barn where it
+was almost milking time. George was talking earnestly. She threw a glance
+at him from time to time, and Roger could see how intent were her eyes.
+Yes, Deborah knew how to study a boy.
+
+Only once during the summer did she talk about her work. On a walk with her
+father one day she took him into a small forlorn building, a mere cabin of
+one room. The white paint had long been worn away, the windows were all
+broken, half the old shingles had dropped from the roof and on the
+flagpole was no flag. It was the district schoolhouse where for nearly half
+his life Deborah's grandfather had taught a score of pupils. Inside were a
+blackboard, a rusty stove, a teacher's desk and a dozen forms, grown mouldy
+and worm-eaten now. A torn and faded picture of Lincoln was upon one wall,
+half hidden by a spider's web and by a few old dangling rags which once had
+been red, white and blue. Below, still clinging to the wall, was an old
+scrap of paper, on which in a large rugged hand there had been written long
+ago a speech, but it had been worn away until but three words were
+legible--"conceived and dedicated--"
+
+"Tell me about your school," she said. "All you can remember." Seated at
+her grandfather's desk she asked Roger many questions. And his
+recollections, at first dim and hazy, began to clear a little.
+
+"By George!" he exclaimed. "Here are my initials!"
+
+He stooped over one of the benches.
+
+"Oh, dearie! Where?" He pointed them out, and then while he sat on the rude
+old bench for some time more she questioned him.
+
+"But your school was not all here," she said musingly at last, "it was up
+on the farm, besides, where you learned to plough and sow and reap and take
+care of the animals in the barn, and mend things that were broken, and--oh,
+turn your hand to anything. But millions of children nowadays are growing
+up in cities, you see."
+
+Half frowning and half smiling she began to talk of her work in town. "What
+is there about her," Roger asked, "that reminds me so of my mother?" His
+mind strayed back into the past while the low quiet voice of his daughter
+went on, and a wistful expression crept over his face. What would she do
+with the family name? What life would she lead in those many years?...
+"What a mother she would make." The words rose from within him, but in a
+voice which was not his own. It was Deborah's grandmother speaking, so
+clearly and distinctly that he gave a start almost of alarm.
+
+"And if you don't believe they'll do it," Deborah was saying, "you don't
+know what's in children. Only we've got to help bring it out." What had she
+been talking about? He remembered the words "a new nation"--no more. "We've
+got to grope around in the dark and hunt for new ways and learn as we go.
+And when you've once got into the work and really felt the thrill of it
+all--well, then it seems rather foolish and small to bother about your own
+little life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger spent much of his time alone. He took long rides on William along
+crooked, hilly roads. As the afternoon drew to its end, the shadows would
+creep up the mountain sides to their summits where glowed the last rays of
+the sun, painting the slate and granite crags in lovely pink and purple
+hues. And sometimes mighty banks of clouds would rear themselves high
+overhead, gigantic mountains of the air with billowy, misty caverns, cliffs
+and jagged peaks, all shifting there before his eyes. And he would think of
+Judith his wife. And the old haunting certainty, that her soul had died
+with her body, was gone. There came to him the feeling that he and his wife
+would meet again. Why did this hope come back to him? Was it all from the
+glory of the sun? Or was it from the presence, silent and invisible, of
+those many other mortals, folk of his own flesh and blood, who at their
+deaths had gone to their graves to put on immortality? Or was this
+deepening faith in Roger simply a sign of his growing old age?
+
+He frowned at the thought and shook it off, and again stared up at the
+light on the hills. "You will live on in our children's lives." Was there
+no other immortality?
+
+He often thought of his boyhood here. On a ride one day he stopped for a
+drink at a spring in a grove of maples surrounding a desolate farmhouse not
+more than a mile away from his own. And through the trees as he turned to
+go he saw the stark figure of a woman, poorly clad and gaunt and gray. She
+stood motionless watching him with a look of sullen bitterness. She was the
+last of "the Elkinses," a mountain family run to seed. As he rode away he
+saw in the field a boy with a pitchfork in his hands, a meager ragged
+little chap. He was staring into the valley at a wriggling, blue smoke
+serpent made by the night express to New York. And something leaped in
+Roger, for he had once felt just like that! But the woman's harsh voice cut
+in on his dream, as she shouted to her son below, "Hey! Why the hell you
+standin' thar?" And the boy with a jump of alarm turned back quickly to his
+work. At home a few days later, George with a mysterious air took his
+grandfather into the barn, and after a pledge of secrecy he said in swift
+and thrilling tones, "You know young Bill Elkins? Yes, you do--the boy up
+on the Elkins place who lives alone with his mother. Well, look here!"
+George swallowed hard. "Bill has cleared out--he's run away! I was up at
+five this morning and he came hiking down the road! He had a bundle on his
+back and he told me he was off for good! And was he scared? You bet he was
+scared! And I told him so and it made him mad! 'Aw, you're scared!' I said.
+'I ain't neither!' he said. He could barely talk, but the kid had his
+nerve! 'Where you going?' I asked. 'To New York,' he said. 'Aw, what do you
+know of New York?' I said. And then, by golly, he busted right down. 'Gee!'
+he said, 'Gee! Can't you lemme alone?' And then he beat it down the road!
+You could hear the kid breathe, he was hustling so! He's way off now, he's
+caught the train! He wants to be a cabin boy on a big ocean liner!" For a
+moment there was silence. "Well?" the boy demanded, "What do you think of
+his chances?"
+
+"I don't know," said Roger huskily. He felt a tightening at his throat.
+Abruptly he turned to his grandson.
+
+"George," he asked, "what do _you_ want to be?" The boy flushed under his
+freckles.
+
+"I don't know as I know. I'm thinking," he answered very slowly.
+
+"Talk it over with your mother, son."
+
+"Yes, sir," came the prompt reply. "But he won't," reflected Roger.
+
+"Or if you ever feel you want to, have a good long talk with me."
+
+"Yes, sir," was the answer. Roger stood there waiting, then turned and
+walked slowly out of the barn. How these children grew up inside of
+themselves. Had boys always grown like that? Well, perhaps, but how strange
+it was. Always new lives, lives of their own, the old families scattering
+over the land. So the great life of the nation swept on. He kept noticing
+here deserted farms, and one afternoon in the deepening dusk he rode by a
+graveyard high up on a bare hillside. A horse and buggy were outside, and
+within he spied a lean young woman neatly dressed in a plain dark suit.
+With a lawn mower brought from home she was cutting the grass on her family
+lot. And she seemed to fit into the landscape. New England had grown very
+old.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late one night toward the end of July, there came a loud honk from down the
+hill, then another and another. And as George in his pajamas came rushing
+from his bedroom shouting radiantly, "Gee! It's dad!"--they heard the car
+thundering outside. Bruce had left New York at dawn and had made the run in
+a single day, three hundred and eleven miles. He was gray with dust all
+over and he was worn and hollow eyed, but his dark visage wore a look of
+solid satisfaction.
+
+"I needed the trip to shake me down," he pleaded, when Edith scolded him
+well for this terrific manner of starting his vacation. "I had to have it
+to cut me off from the job I left behind me. Now watch me settle down on
+this farm."
+
+But it appeared he could not settle down. For the first few days, in his
+motor, he was busy exploring the mountains. "We'll make 'em look foolish.
+Eh, son?" he said. And with George, who mutely adored him, he ran all about
+them in a day. Genially he gave everyone rides. When he'd finished with the
+family, he took Dave Royce the farmer and his wife and children, and even
+both the hired men, for Bruce was an hospitable soul. But more than anyone
+else he took George. They spent hours working on the car, and at times when
+they came into the house begreased and blackened from their work, Edith
+reproved them like bad boys--but Deborah smiled contentedly.
+
+But at the end of another week Bruce grew plainly restless, and despite his
+wife's remonstrances made ready to return to town. When she spoke of his
+hay fever he bragged to her complacently of his newly discovered cure.
+
+"Oh, bother your little blue bugs!" she cried.
+
+"The bugs aren't blue," he explained to her, in a mild and patient voice
+that drove Edith nearly wild. "They're so little they have no color at all.
+Poor friendly little devils--"
+
+"Bruce!" his wife exploded.
+
+"They've been almighty good to me. You ought to have heard my friend the
+Judge, the last night I was with him. He patted his bottle and said to me,
+'Bruce, my boy, with all these simple animals right here as our companions
+why be a damn fool and run off to the cows?' And there's a good deal in
+what he says. You ought to be mighty thankful, too, that my summer
+pleasures are so mild. If you could see what some chaps do--"
+
+And Bruce started back for the city. George rode with him the first few
+miles, then left him and came trudging home. His spirits were exceedingly
+low.
+
+As August drew toward a close, Deborah, too, showed signs of unrest. With
+ever growing frequency Roger felt her eagerness to return to her work in
+New York.
+
+"You're as bad as Bruce," he growled at her. "You don't have to be back,"
+he argued. "School doesn't begin for nearly three weeks."
+
+"There's the suffrage campaign," she answered. He gave her a look of
+exasperation.
+
+"Now what the devil has suffrage to do with your schools?" he demanded.
+
+"When the women get the vote, we'll spend more money on the children."
+
+"Suppose the money isn't there," was Roger's grim rejoinder.
+
+"Then we'll act like old-fashioned wives, I suppose," his daughter answered
+cheerfully, "and keep nagging till it is there. We'll keep up such a
+nagging," she added, in sweet even tones, "that you'll get the money by
+hook or crook, to save yourselves from going insane."
+
+After this he caught her reading in the New York papers the list of
+campaign meetings each night, meetings in hot stifling halls or out upon
+deafening corners. And as she read there came over her face a look like
+that of a man who has given up tobacco and suddenly sniffs it among his
+friends. She went down the last night of August.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger stayed on for another two weeks, on into the best time of the year.
+For now came the nights of the first snapping frosts when the dome of the
+heavens was steely blue, and clear sparkling mornings, the woods aflame
+with scarlet and gold. And across the small field below the house, at
+sunset Roger would go down to the copse of birches there and find it filled
+with glints of light that took his glance far in among the slender, creamy
+stems of the trees, all slowly swaying to and fro, the leafage rich with
+autumn hues, warm orange, yellow and pale green. Lovely and silent and
+serene. So it had been when he was a boy and so it would be when he was
+dead. Countless trees had been cut down but others had risen in their
+stead. Now and then he could hear a bird warbling.
+
+Long ago this spot had been his mother's favorite refuge from her busy day
+in the house. She had almost always come alone, but sometimes Roger
+stealing down would watch her sitting motionless and staring in among the
+trees. Years later in his reading he had come upon the phrase, "sacred
+grove," and at once he had thought of the birches. And sitting here where
+she had been, he felt again that boundless faith in life resplendent,
+conquering death, and serenely sweeping him on--into what he did not fear.
+For this had been his mother's faith. Sometimes in the deepening dusk he
+could almost see her sitting here.
+
+"This faith in you has come from me. This is my memory living on in you, my
+son, though you do not know. How many times have I held you back, how many
+times have I urged you on, roused you up or soothed you, made you hope or
+fear or dream, through memories of long ago. For you were once a part of
+me. I moulded you, my little son. And as I have been to you, so you will be
+to your children. In their lives, too, we shall be there--silent and
+invisible, the dim strong figures of the past. For this is the power of
+families, this is the mystery of birth."
+
+Suddenly he started. What was it that had thrilled him so? Only a tall dark
+fir in the birches. But looming in there like a shadowy phantom it had
+recalled a memory of a dusk far back in his boyhood, when seeing a shadow
+just like this he had thought it a ghost in very truth and had run for the
+house like a rabbit! How terribly real that fright had been! The
+recollection suddenly became so vivid in his mind, that as though a veil
+had been lifted he felt the living presence here, close by his side, of a
+small barefoot mountain lad, clothed in sober homespun gray, but filled
+with warm desires, dreams and curiosities, exploring upon every hand, now
+marching boldly forward, now stealing up so cautiously, now galloping away
+like mad! "I was once a child." To most of us these are mere words. To few
+is it ever given to attain so much as even a glimpse into the warm and
+quivering soul of that little stranger of long ago. We do not know how we
+were made.
+
+"I moulded you, my little son. And as I have been to you, so you will be to
+your children. In their lives, too, we shall be there."
+
+Darker, darker grew the copse and the chill of the night descended. But to
+Roger's eyes there was no gloom. For he had seen a vision.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+On his return to the city, Roger found that Deborah's school had apparently
+swept all other interests out of her mind. Baird hardly ever came to the
+house, and she herself was seldom there except for a hasty dinner at night.
+The house had to run itself more or less; and though Annie the cook was
+doing her best, things did not run so smoothly. Roger missed little
+comforts, attentions, and he missed Deborah most of all. When he came down
+to his breakfast she had already left the house, and often she did not
+return until long after he was in bed. She felt the difference herself, and
+though she did not put it in words her manner at times seemed to beg his
+forbearance. But there were many evenings when her father found it
+difficult to hold to the resolve he had made, to go slowly with his
+daughter until he could be more sure of his ground. She was growing so
+intense again. From the school authorities she had secured a still wider
+range and freedom for her new experiment, and she was working day and night
+to put her ideas into effect.
+
+"It's only too easy," she remarked, "to launch an idea in this town. The
+town will put it in headlines at once, and with it a picture of yourself in
+your best bib and tucker, looking as though you loved the whole world. And
+you can make a wonderful splurge, until they go on to the next new thing.
+The real trouble comes in working it out."
+
+And this she had set out to do. Many nights in the autumn Roger went down
+to the school, to try to get some clear idea of this vision of hers for
+children, which in a vague way he could feel was so much larger than his
+own, for he had seen its driving force in the grip it had upon her life. At
+first he could make nothing of it at all; everywhere chaos met his eyes.
+But he found something formless, huge, that made to him a strong appeal.
+
+The big building fairly hummed at night with numberless activities.
+Fathers, mothers and children came pouring in together and went skurrying
+off to their places. They learned to speak English, to read and write;
+grown men and women scowled and toiled over their arithmetic. They worked
+at trades in the various shops; they hammered and sawed and set up type;
+they cooked and sewed and gossiped. "The Young Galician Socialist Girls"
+debated on the question: "Resolved that woman suffrage has worked in
+Colorado." "The Caruso Pleasure Club" gave a dance to "The Garibaldi
+Whirlwinds." An orchestra rehearsed like mad. They searched their memories
+for the songs and all the folk tales they had heard in peasant huts in
+Italy, in hamlets along rocky coasts, in the dark old ghettos of crowded
+towns in Poland and in Russia. And some of these songs were sung in school,
+and some of these tales were dramatized here. Children and parents all took
+part. And speakers emerged from the neighborhood. It was at times
+appalling, the number of young Italians and Jews who had ideas to give
+forth to their friends on socialism, poverty, marriage and religion, and
+all the other questions that rose among these immigrants jammed into this
+tenement hive. But when there were too many of these self-appointed guides,
+the neighborhood shut down on them.
+
+"We don't want," declared one indignant old woman, "that every young loafer
+should shout in our face!"
+
+Roger was slowly attracted into this enormous family life, and yielding to
+an impulse he took charge of a boys' club which met on Thursday evenings
+there. He knew well this job of fathering a small jovial group of lads; he
+had done it before, many years ago, in the mission school, to please his
+wife; he felt himself back on familiar ground. And from this point of
+vantage, with something definite he could do, he watched with an interest
+more clear the school form steadily closer ties with the tenements that
+hedged it 'round, gathering its big family. And this family by slow degrees
+began to make itself a part of the daily life of Roger's house. Committees
+held their meetings here, teachers dropped in frequently, and Roger invited
+the boys in his club to come up and see him whenever they liked.
+
+His most frequent visitor was Johnny Geer, the cripple. He was working in
+Roger's office now and the two had soon become close friends. John kept
+himself so neat and clean, he displayed such a keen interest in all the
+details of office work, and he showed such a beaming appreciation of
+anything that was done for him.
+
+"That boy is getting a hold on me lately almost like a boy of my own,"
+Roger said one evening when Allan Baird was at the house. "He's the
+pluckiest young un I ever met. I've put him to work in my private office,
+where he can use the sofa to rest, and I've made him my own
+stenographer--partly because he's so quick at dictation and partly to try
+to make him slow down. He has the mind of a race horse. He runs at night to
+libraries until I should think he'd go insane. And his body can't stand it,
+he's breaking down--though whenever I ask him how he feels, he always says,
+'Fine, thank you.'" Here Roger turned to Allan. "I wish you'd take the
+boy," he said, "to the finest specialist in town, and see what can be done
+for his spine. I'll pay any price."
+
+"There won't be any price," said Allan, "but I'll see to it at once."
+
+He had John examined the same week.
+
+"Well?" asked Roger when next they met.
+
+"Well," said Baird, "it isn't good news."
+
+"You mean he's hopeless?" Allan nodded:
+
+"It's Pott's disease, and it's gone too far. John is eighteen. He may live
+to be thirty."
+
+"But I tell you, Baird, I'll do anything!"
+
+"There's almost nothing you can do. If he had been taken when he was a
+baby, he might have been cured and given a chance. But the same mother who
+dropped him then, when she was full of liquor, just went to the druggist on
+her block, and after listening to his advice she bought some patent
+medicine, a steel jacket and some crutches, and thought she'd done her
+duty."
+
+"But there must be something we can do!" retorted Roger angrily.
+
+"Yes," said Baird, "we can make him a little more comfortable. And
+meanwhile we can help Deborah here to get hold of other boys like John and
+give 'em a chance before it's too late--keep them from being crippled for
+life because their mothers were too blind and ignorant to act in time."
+Baird's voice had a ring of bitterness.
+
+"Most of 'em love their children," Roger said uneasily. Baird turned on him
+a steady look.
+
+"Love isn't enough," he retorted. "The time is coming very soon when we'll
+have the right to guard the child not only when it's a baby but even before
+it has been born."
+
+Roger drew closer to John after this. Often behind the beaming smile he
+would feel the pain and loneliness, and the angry grit which was fighting
+it down. And so he would ask John home to supper on nights when nobody else
+was there. One day late in the afternoon they were walking home together
+along the west side of Madison Square. The big open space was studded with
+lights sparkling up at the frosty stars, in a city, a world, a universe
+that seemed filled with the zest and the vigor of life. Out of these lights
+a mighty tower loomed high up into the sky. And stopping on his crutches, a
+grim small crooked figure in all this rushing turmoil, John set his jaws,
+and with his shrewd and twinkling eyes fixed on the top of the tower, he
+said,
+
+"I meant to tell you, Mr. Gale. You was asking me once what I wanted to be.
+And I want to be an architect."
+
+"Do, eh," grunted Roger. He, too, looked up at that thing in the stars, and
+there was a tightening at his throat. "All right," he added, presently,
+"why not start in and be one?"
+
+"How?" asked John alertly.
+
+"Well, my boy," said Roger, "I'd hate to lose you in the office--"
+
+"Yes, sir, and I'd hate to go." Just then the big clock in the tower began
+to boom the hour, and a chill struck into Roger.
+
+"You'd have to," he said gruffly. "You haven't any time to lose! I mean,"
+he hastily added, "that for a job as big as that you'd need a lot of
+training. But if it's what you want to be, go right ahead. I'll back you.
+My son-in-law is a builder at present. I'll talk to him and get his advice.
+We may be able to arrange to have you go right into his office, begin at
+the bottom and work straight up." In silence for a moment John hobbled on
+by Roger's side.
+
+"I'd hate to leave your place," he said.
+
+"I know," was Roger's brusque reply, "and I'd hate to lose you. We'll have
+to think it over."
+
+A few days later he talked with Bruce, who said he'd be glad to take the
+boy. And at dinner that night with Deborah, Roger asked abruptly,
+
+"Why not let Johnny come here for a while and use one of our empty
+bedrooms?"
+
+With a quick flush of pleased surprise, Deborah gave her father a look that
+embarrassed him tremendously.
+
+"Well, why not?" he snapped at her. "Sensible, isn't it?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+And sensible it turned out to be. When John first heard about it, he was
+apparently quite overcome, and there followed a brief awkward pause while
+he rapidly blinked the joy from his eyes. But then he said, "Fine, thank
+you. That's mighty good of you, Mr. Gale," in as matter of fact a tone as
+you please. And he entered the household in much the same way, for John had
+a sense of the fitness of things. He had always kept himself neat and
+clean, but he became immaculate now. He dined with Roger the first night,
+but early the next morning he went down to the kitchen and breakfasted
+there; and from this time on, unless he were especially urged to come up to
+the dining room, John took all his meals downstairs. The maids were
+Irish--so was John. They were good Catholics--so was John. They loved the
+movies--so did John. In short, it worked out wonderfully. In less than a
+month John had made himself an unobtrusive and natural part of the life of
+Roger's sober old house. It had had to stretch just a little, no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+But that winter there was more in the house than Deborah's big family.
+Though at times Roger felt it surging in with its crude, immense vitality,
+there were other times when it was not so, and the lives of his other two
+daughters attracted his attention, for both were back again in town.
+
+Laura and her husband had returned from abroad in October, and in a small
+but expensive apartment in a huge new building facing on Park Avenue they
+had gaily started the career of their own little family, or "menage," as
+Laura called it. This word had stuck in Roger's mind, for he had a
+suspicion that a "menage" was no place for babies. Grimly, when he went
+there first to be shown the new home by its mistress, he looked about him
+for a room which might be made a nursery. But no such room was in evidence.
+"We decided to have no guest room," he heard Laura say to Deborah. And
+glancing at his daughter then, sleek and smiling and demure, in her
+tea-gown fresh from Paris, Roger darkly told himself that a child would be
+an unwelcome guest. The whole place was as compact and sparkling as a jewel
+box. The bed chamber was luxurious, with a gorgeous bath adjoining and a
+dressing-room for Harold.
+
+"And look at this love of a closet!" said Laura to Deborah eagerly. "Isn't
+it simply enormous?" As Deborah looked, her father did, too, and his eye
+was met by an array of shimmering apparel which made him draw back almost
+with a start.
+
+They found Harold in the pantry. Their Jap, it appeared, was a marvellous
+cook and did the catering as well, so that Laura rarely troubled herself
+to order so much as a single meal. But her husband had for many years been
+famous for his cocktails, and although the Jap did everything else Hal had
+kept this in his own hands.
+
+"I thought this much of the house-keeping ought to remain in the family,"
+he said.
+
+Roger did not like this joke. But later, when he had imbibed the delicious
+concoction Harold had made, and had eaten the dinner created by that
+Japanese artist of theirs, his irritation subsided.
+
+"They barely know we're here," he thought. "They're both in love up to
+their ears."
+
+Despite their genial attempts to be hospitable and friendly, time and again
+he saw their glances meet in an intimate gleaming manner which made him
+rather uncomfortable. But where was the harm, he asked himself. They were
+married all right, weren't they? Still somehow--somehow--no, by George, he
+didn't like it, he didn't approve! The whole affair was decidedly mixing.
+Roger went away vaguely uneasy, and he felt that Deborah was even more
+disturbed than himself.
+
+"Those two," she remarked to her father, "are so fearfully wrapt up in each
+other it makes me afraid. Oh, it's all right, I suppose, and I wouldn't for
+worlds try to interfere. But I can't help feeling somehow that no two
+people with such an abundance of youth and money and happiness have the
+right to be so amazingly--selfish!"
+
+"They ought to have children," Roger said.
+
+"But look at Edith," his daughter rejoined. "She hasn't a single interest
+that I can find outside her home. It seems to have swallowed her, body and
+soul." A frowning look of perplexity swept over Deborah's mobile face, and
+with a whimsical sigh she exclaimed, "Oh, this queer business of families!"
+
+In December there came a little crash. Late one evening Laura came bursting
+in upon them in a perfect tantrum, every nerve in her lithe body tense,
+her full lips visibly quivering, her voice unsteady, and her big black eyes
+aflame with rage. She was jealous of her husband and "that nasty little
+cat!" Roger learned no more about it, for Deborah motioned him out of the
+room. He heard their two voices talk on and on, until Laura's slowly
+quieted down. Soon afterwards she left the house, and Deborah came in to
+him.
+
+"She's gone home, eh?" asked Roger.
+
+"Yes, she has, poor silly child--she said at first she had come here to
+stay."
+
+"By George," he said. "As bad as that?"
+
+"Of course it isn't as bad as that!" Deborah cried impatiently. "She just
+built and built on silly suspicions and let herself get all worked up! I
+don't see what they're coming to!" For a few moments nothing was said.
+"It's so unnatural!" she exclaimed. "Men and women weren't _made_ to live
+like that!" Roger scowled into his paper.
+
+"Better leave 'em alone," he admonished her. "You can't help--they're not
+your kind. Don't you mix into this affair."
+
+But Deborah did. She remembered that her sister had once shown quite a
+talent for amateur theatricals; and to give Laura something to do, Deborah
+persuaded her to take a dramatic club in her school. And Laura, rather to
+Roger's surprise, became an enthusiast down there. She worked like a slave
+at rehearsals, and upon the costumes she spent money with a lavish hand.
+Moreover, instead of being annoyed, as Edith was, at Deborah's prominence
+in the press, Laura gloried in it, as though this "radical" sister of hers
+were a distinct social asset among her giddy friends uptown. For even
+Laura's friends, her father learned with astonishment, had acquired quite
+an appetite for men and women with ideas--the more "radical," the better.
+But the way Laura used this word at times made Roger's blood run cold. She
+was vivid in her approval of her sister's whole idea, as a scheme of
+wholesale motherhood which would give "a perfectly glorious jolt" to the
+old-fashioned home with its overworked mothers who let their children
+absorb their days.
+
+"As though having children and bringing them up," she disdainfully
+declared, "were something every woman must do, whether she happens to like
+it or not, at the cost of any real growth of her own!"
+
+And smilingly she hinted at impending radical changes in the whole relation
+of marriage, of which she was hearing in detail at a series of lectures to
+young wives, delivered on Thursday mornings in a hotel ball-room.
+
+What the devil was getting into the town? Roger frowned his deep dislike.
+Here was Laura with her chicken's mind blithely taking her sister's
+thoughts and turning them topsy-turvy, to make for herself a view of life
+which fitted like a white kid glove her small and elegant "menage." And
+although her father had only inklings of it all, he had quite enough to
+make him irate at this uncanny interplay of influences in his family. Why
+couldn't the girls leave each other alone?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early in the winter, Edith, too, had entered in. It had taken Edith just
+one glance into the bride's apartment to grasp Laura's whole scheme of
+existence.
+
+"Selfish, indulgent and abnormal," was the way she described it. She and
+Bruce were dining with Roger that night. "I wash my hands of the whole
+affair," continued Edith curtly. "So long as she doesn't want my help, as
+she has plainly made me feel, I certainly shan't stand in her way."
+
+"You're absolutely right," said her father.
+
+"Stick to it," said Bruce approvingly.
+
+But Edith did not stick to it. In her case too, as the weeks wore on, those
+subtle family ties took hold and made her feel the least she could do was
+"to keep up appearances." So she and Bruce dined with the bride and groom,
+and in turn had them to dinner. And these dinners, as Bruce confided to
+Roger, were occasions no man could forget.
+
+"They come only about once a month," he said in a tone of pathos, "but it
+seems as though barely a week had gone by when Edith says to me again,
+'We're dining with Laura and Hal to-night.' Well, and we dine. Young Sloane
+is not a bad sort of a chap--works hard downtown and worships his wife. The
+way he lives--well, it isn't mine--and mine isn't his--and we both let it
+go at that. But the women can't, they haven't it in 'em. Each sits with her
+way of life in her lap. You can't see it over the tablecloth, but, my God,
+how you feel it! The worst of it is," he ended, "that after one of these
+terrible meals each woman is more set than before in her own way of living.
+Not that I don't like Edith's way," her husband added hastily.
+
+Edith also disapproved of the fast increasing publicity which Deborah was
+getting.
+
+"I may be very old-fashioned," she remarked to her father, "but I can't get
+used to this idea that a woman's place is in headlines. And I think it's
+rather hard on you--the use she's making of your house."
+
+One Friday night when she came to play chess, she found her father in the
+midst of a boisterous special meeting of his club of Italian boys. It had
+been postponed from the evening before. And though Roger, overcome with
+dismay at having forgotten Edith's night, apologized profusely, the
+time-honored weekly game took place no more from that day on.
+
+"Edith's pretty sore," said Bruce, who dropped in soon afterwards. "She
+says Deborah has made your house into an annex to her school."
+
+Roger smoked in silence. His whole family was about his ears.
+
+"My boy," he muttered earnestly, "you and I must stick together."
+
+"We sure must," agreed his son-in-law. "And what's more, if we're to keep
+the peace, we've got to try to put some punch into Deborah's so-called love
+affair. She ought to get married and settle down."
+
+"Yes," said Roger, dubiously. "Only let's keep it to ourselves."
+
+"No chance of that," was the cheerful reply. "You can't keep Edith out of
+it. It would only make trouble in _my_ family." Roger gave him a pitying
+look and said,
+
+"Then, for the Lord's sake, let her in!"
+
+So they took Edith into their councils, and she gave them an indulgent
+smile.
+
+"Suppose you leave this to me," she commanded. "Don't you think I've been
+using my eyes? There's no earthly use in stepping in now, for Deborah has
+lost her head. She sees herself a great new woman with a career. But wait
+till the present flare-up subsides, till the newspapers all drop her and
+she is thoroughly tired out. Until then, remember, we keep our hands off."
+
+"Do you think you can?" asked Roger, with a little glimmer of hope.
+
+"I?" she retorted. "Most certainly! I mean to leave her alone
+absolutely--until she comes to me herself. When she does, we'll know it's
+time to begin."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm afraid Edith is hurt about something," said Deborah to her father,
+about a month after this little talk. "She hasn't been near us for over
+three weeks."
+
+"Let her be!" said Roger, in alarm. "I mean," he hastily added, "why can't
+you let Edith come when she likes? There's nothing the matter. It's simply
+her children--they take up her time."
+
+"No," said Deborah calmly, "it's I. She as good as told me so last month.
+She thinks I've become a perfect fanatic--without a spare moment or
+thought for my family."
+
+"Oh, my family!" Roger groaned. "I tell you, Deborah, you're wrong! Edith's
+children are probably sick in bed!"
+
+"Then I'll go and see," she answered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Something has happened to Deborah," Edith informed him blithely, over the
+telephone the next night.
+
+"Has, eh," grunted Roger.
+
+"Yes, she was here to see me to-day. And something has happened--she's
+changing fast. I felt it in all kinds of ways. She was just as dear as she
+could be--and lonely, as though she were feeling her age. I really think we
+can do something now."
+
+"All right, let's do something," Roger growled.
+
+And Edith began to do something. Her hostility to her sister had completely
+disappeared. In its place was a friendly affection, an evident desire to
+please. She even drew Laura into the secret, and there was a gathering of
+the clan. There were consultations in Roger's den. "Deborah is to get
+married." The feeling of it crept through the house. Nothing was said to
+her, of course, but Deborah was made to feel that her two sisters had drawn
+close. And their influence upon her choice was more deep and subtle than
+she knew. For although Roger's family had split so wide apart, between his
+three daughters there were still mysterious bonds reaching far back into
+nursery days. And Deborah in deciding whether to marry Allan Baird was
+affected more than she was aware by the married lives of her sisters. All
+she had seen in Laura's menage, all that she had ever observed in Edith's
+growing family, kept rising from time to time in her thoughts, as she
+vaguely tried to picture herself a wife and the mother of children.
+
+So the family, with those subtle bonds from the past, began to press
+steadily closer and closer around this one unmarried daughter, and help her
+to make up her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+But she did not appear to care to be helped. Nor did Allan--he rarely came
+to the house, and he went to Edith's not at all. He was even absent from
+her Christmas tree for the children, a jolly little festivity which neither
+he nor Deborah had missed in years.
+
+"What has got into him?" Roger asked. And shortly after Christmas he called
+the fellow up on the 'phone. "Drop in for dinner to-night," he urged. And
+he added distinctly, "I'm alone."
+
+"Are you? I'll be glad to."
+
+"Thank you, Baird, I want your advice." And as he hung up the receiver he
+said, "Now then!" to himself, in a tone of firm decision. But later, as the
+day wore on, he cursed himself for what he had done. "Don't it beat the
+devil," he thought, "how I'm always putting my foot in it?" And when Baird
+came into the room that night he loomed, to Roger's anxious eye, if
+anything taller than before. But his manner was so easy, his gruff voice so
+natural, and he seemed to take this little party of two so quietly as a
+matter of course, that Roger was soon reassured, and at table he and Allan
+got on even better than before. Baird talked of his life as a student, in
+Vienna, Bonn and Edinburgh, and of his first struggles in New York. His
+talk was full of human bits, some tragic, more amusing. And Roger's liking
+for the man increased with every story told.
+
+"I asked you here," he bluntly began, when they had gone to the study to
+smoke, "to talk to you about Deborah." Baird gave him a friendly look.
+
+"All right. Let's talk about her."
+
+"It strikes me you were right last year," said Roger, speaking slowly.
+"She's already showing the strain of her work. She don't look to me as
+strong as she was."
+
+"She looks to me stronger," Allan replied. "You know, people fool doctors
+now and then--and she seems to have taken a fresh start. I feel she may go
+on for years." Roger was silent a moment, chagrined and disappointed.
+
+"Have you had a good chance to watch her?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, and I'm watching her still," said Baird. "I see her down there at the
+school. She tells me you've been there yourself."
+
+"Yes," said Roger, determinedly, "and I mean to keep on going. I'm trying
+not to lose hold of her," he added with harsh emphasis. Baird turned and
+frankly smiled at him.
+
+"Then you have probably seen," he replied, "that to keep any hold at all on
+her, you must make up your mind as I have done that, strength or no
+strength, this job of hers is going to be a life career. When a woman who
+has held a job without a break for eleven years can feel such a flame of
+enthusiasm, you can be pretty sure, I think, it is the deepest part of her.
+At least I feel that way," he said. "And I believe the only way to keep
+near her--for the present, anyhow--is to help her in her work."
+
+When Baird had gone, Roger found himself angry.
+
+"I'm not in the habit, young man," he thought, "of throwing my daughter at
+gentlemen's heads. If you feel as calm and contented as that you can go to
+the devil! Far be it from me to lift a hand! In fact, as I come to think of
+it, you would probably make her a mighty poor husband!" He worked himself
+into quite a rage. But an hour later, when he had subsided, "Hold on," he
+thought. "Am I right about this? Is the man as contented as he talks? No,
+sir, not for a minute he isn't! But what can he do? If he tried making love
+to Deborah he'd simply be killing his chances. Not the slightest doubt in
+the world. She can't think of anything but her career. Yes, sir, when all's
+said and done, to marry a modern woman is no child's play, it means thought
+and care. And A. Baird has made up his mind to it. He has made up his mind
+to marry her by playing a long waiting game. He's just slowly and quietly
+nosing his way into her school, because it's her life. And a mighty shrewd
+way of going about it. You don't need any help from me, my friend; all you
+need is to be let alone."
+
+In talks at home with Deborah, and in what he himself observed at school,
+Roger began to get inklings of "A. Baird's long waiting game." He found
+that several months before Allan had offered to start a free clinic for
+mothers and children in connection with the school, and that he alone had
+put it through, with only the most reluctant aid and gratitude from
+Deborah--as though she dreaded something. Baird took countless hours from
+his busy uptown practice; he hurt himself more than once, in fact, by
+neglecting rich patients to do this work. Where a sick or pregnant mother
+was too poor to carry out his advice, he followed her into her tenement
+home, sent one of his nurses to visit her, and even gave money when it was
+needed to ease the strain of her poverty until she should be well and
+strong. Soon scores of the mothers of Deborah's children were singing the
+praises of Doctor Baird.
+
+Then he began coming to the house.
+
+"I was right," thought Roger complacently.
+
+He laid in a stock of fine cigars and some good port and claret, too; and
+on evenings when Baird came to dine, Roger by a genial glow and occasional
+jocular ironies would endeavor to drag the talk away from clinics,
+adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the new education. But no joke
+was so good that Deborah could not promptly match it with some amusing
+little thing which one of her children had said or done. For she had a
+mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood. It was deep, it was
+uncanny, this queer community motherhood.
+
+"This poor devil," Roger thought, with a pitying glance at Baird, "might
+just as well be marrying a widow with three thousand brats."
+
+But Baird did not seem in the least dismayed. On the contrary, his
+assurance appeared to be deepening every week, and with it Deborah's air of
+alarm. For his clinic, as it swiftly grew, he secured financial backing
+from his rich women patients uptown, many of them childless and only too
+ready to respond to the appeals he made to them. And one Saturday evening
+at the house, while dining with Roger and Deborah, he told of an offer he
+had had from a wealthy banker's widow to build a maternity hospital. He
+talked hungrily of all it could do in co-operation with the school. He said
+nothing of the obvious fact that it would require his whole time, but Roger
+thought of that at once, and by the expression on Deborah's face he saw she
+was thinking, too.
+
+He felt they wanted to be alone, so presently he left them. From his study
+he could hear their voices growing steadily more intense. Was it all about
+work? He could not tell. "They've got working and living so mixed up, a man
+can't possibly tell 'em apart."
+
+Then his daughter was called to the telephone, and Allan came in to bid
+Roger good-night. And his eyes showed an impatience he did not seem to care
+to hide.
+
+"Well?" inquired Roger. "Did you get Deborah's consent?"
+
+"To what?" asked Allan sharply.
+
+"To your acceptance," Roger answered, "of the widow's mite." Baird grinned.
+
+"She couldn't help herself," he said.
+
+"But she didn't seem to like it, eh--"
+
+"No," said Baird, "she didn't." Roger had a dark suspicion.
+
+"By the way," he asked in a casual tone, "what's this philanthropic widow
+like?"
+
+"She's sixty-nine," Baird answered.
+
+"Oh," said Roger. He smoked for a time, and sagely added, "My daughter's a
+queer woman, Baird--she's modern, very modern. But she's still a woman, you
+understand--and so she's jealous--of her job." But A. Baird was in no
+joking mood.
+
+"She's narrow," he said sternly. "That's what's the matter with Deborah.
+She's so centered on her job she can't see anyone else's. She thinks I'm
+doing all this work solely in order to help her school--when if she'd use
+some imagination and try to put herself in my shoes, she'd see the chance
+it's giving _me_!"
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Roger, looking a bit bewildered.
+
+"Why," said Baird with an impatient fling of his hand, "there are men in my
+line all over the country who'd leave home, wives and children for the
+chance I've blundered onto here! A hospital fully equipped for research, a
+free hand, an opportunity which comes to one man in a million! But can she
+see it? Not at all! It's only an annex to her school!"
+
+"Yes," said Roger gravely, "she's in a pretty unnatural state. I think she
+ought to get married, Baird--" To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird
+replied with a rueful smile.
+
+"You do, eh," he growled. "Then tell her to plan her wedding to come before
+her funeral." As he rose to go, Roger took his hand.
+
+"I'll tell her," he said. "It's sound advice. Good-night, my boy, I wish
+you luck."
+
+A few moments later he heard in the hall their brief good-nights to each
+other, and presently Deborah came in. She was not looking quite herself.
+
+"Why are you eyeing me like that?" his daughter asked abruptly.
+
+"Aren't you letting him do a good deal for you?"
+
+Deborah flushed a little:
+
+"Yes, I am. I can't make him stop."
+
+Her father hesitated.
+
+"You could," he said, "if you wanted to. If you were sure," he added
+slowly, "that you didn't love him--and told him so." He felt a little
+panic, for he thought he had gone too far. But his daughter only turned
+away and restlessly moved about the room. At last she came to her father's
+chair:
+
+"Hadn't you better leave this to me?"
+
+"I had, my dear, I most certainly had. I was all wrong to mention it," he
+answered very humbly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From this night on, Baird changed his tack. Although soon busy with the
+plans for the hospital, to be built at once, he said little about it to
+Deborah. Instead, he insisted on taking her off on little evening sprees
+uptown.
+
+"Do you know what's the matter with both of us?" he said to her one
+evening. "We've been getting too durned devoted to our jobs and our ideals.
+You're becoming a regular school marm and I'm getting to be a regular slave
+to every wretched little babe who takes it into his head to be born. We
+haven't one redeeming vice."
+
+And again he took up dancing. The first effort which he made, down at
+Deborah's school one evening, was a failure quite as dismal as his attempts
+of the previous year. But he did not appear in the least discouraged. He
+came to the house one Friday night.
+
+"I knew I could learn to dance," he said, "in spite of all your taunts and
+jibes. That little fiasco last Saturday night--"
+
+"Was perfectly awful," Deborah said.
+
+"Did not discourage me in the least," he continued severely. "I decided the
+only trouble with me was that I'm tall and I've got to bend--to learn to
+bend."
+
+"Tremendously!"
+
+"So I went to a lady professor, and she saw the point at once. Since then
+I've had five lessons, and I can fox-trot in my sleep. To-morrow is
+Saturday. Where shall we go?"
+
+"To the theater."
+
+"Good. We'll start with that. But the minute the play is over we'll gallop
+off to the Plaza Grill--just as the music is in full swing--"
+
+"And we'll dance," she groaned, "for hours. And when I get home, I'll creep
+into bed so tired and sore in every limb--"
+
+"That you'll sleep late Sunday morning. And a mighty good thing for you,
+too--if you ask my advice--"
+
+"I don't ask your advice!"
+
+"You're getting it, though," he said doggedly. "If you're still to be a
+friend of mine we'll dance at the Plaza to-morrow night--and well into the
+Sabbath."
+
+"The principal of a public school--dancing on the Sabbath. Suppose one of
+my friends should see us there."
+
+"Your friends," he replied with a fine contempt, "do not dance in the Plaza
+Grill. I'm the only roisterer you know."
+
+"All right," she conceded grudgingly, "I'll roister. Come and get me. But
+I'd much prefer when the play is done to come home and have milk and
+crackers here."
+
+"Deborah," he said cheerfully, "for a radical school reformer you're the
+most conservative woman I know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+In Deborah's school, in the meantime, affairs had drawn to a climax. The
+moment had come for the city to say whether her new experiment should be
+dropped the following year or allowed to go on and develop. There came a
+day of sharp suspense when Deborah's friends and enemies on the Board of
+Education sat down to discuss and settle her fate. They were at it for
+several hours, but late in the afternoon they decided not only to let her
+go on the next year but to try her idea in four other schools and place her
+in charge with ample funds. The long strain came to an end at last in a
+triumph beyond her wildest hopes; when the news arrived she relaxed, grew
+limp, and laughed and cried a little. And her father felt her tremble as he
+held her a moment in his arms.
+
+"Now, Baird," he thought, "your chance has come. For God's sake, take it
+while it's here!"
+
+But in place of Baird that afternoon came men and women from the press, and
+friends and fellow workers. The door-bell and the telephone kept ringing
+almost incessantly. Why couldn't they leave her a moment's peace? Roger
+buried himself in his study. Later, when he was called to dinner, he found
+that Allan was there, too, but at first the conversation was all upon
+Deborah's victory. Flushed with success, for the moment engrossed in the
+wider field she saw ahead, she had not a thought for anything else. But
+after dinner the atmosphere changed.
+
+"To hear me talk," she told them, "you'd think the whole world depended on
+me, and on my school and my ideas. Me, me, me! And it has been me all
+winter long! What a time I've given both of you!"
+
+She grew repentant and grateful, first to her father and then to Allan, and
+then more and more to Allan, with her happy eyes on his. And with a keen
+worried look at them both, Roger rose and left the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Baird was leaning forward. He had both her hands in his own.
+
+"Well?" he asked. "Will you marry me now?"
+
+Her eyes were looking straight into his. They kept moving slightly,
+searching his. Her wide, sensitive lips were tightly compressed, but did
+not quite hide their quivering. When she spoke her voice was low and a
+little queer and breathless:
+
+"Do you want any children, Allan?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So do I. And with children, what of my work?"
+
+"I don't want to stop your work. If you marry me we'll go right on. You see
+I know you, Deborah, I know you've always grown like that--by risking what
+you've got to-day for something more to-morrow."
+
+"I've never taken a risk like this!"
+
+"I tell you this time it's no risk! Because you're a grown woman--formed!
+I'm not making a saint of you. You're no angel down among the poor because
+you feel it's your duty in life--it's your happiness, your passion! You
+couldn't neglect them if you tried!"
+
+"But the time," she asked him quickly. "Where shall I find the time for it
+all?"
+
+"A man finds time enough," he answered, "even when he's married."
+
+"But I'm not a man, I'm a woman," she said. And in a low voice which
+thrilled him, "A woman who wants a child of her own!" His lean muscular
+right hand contracted sharply upon hers. She winced, drew back a little.
+
+"Oh--I'm sorry!" he whispered. Then he asked her again,
+
+"Will you marry me now?" She looked suddenly up:
+
+"Let's wait awhile, please! It won't be long--I'm in love with you, Allan,
+I'm sure of that now! And I'm not drawing back, I'm not afraid! Oh, I want
+you to feel I'm not running away! What I want to do is to face this square!
+It may be silly and foolish but--you see, I'm made like that. I want a
+little longer--I want to think it out by myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Allan had gone she came in to her father. And her radiant expression
+made him bounce up from his chair.
+
+"By George," he cried, "he asked you!"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"And you've taken him!"
+
+"No!"
+
+Roger gasped.
+
+"Look here!" he demanded, angrily. "What's the matter? Are you mad?" She
+threw back her head and laughed at him.
+
+"No, I'm not--I'm happy!"
+
+"What the devil about?" he snapped.
+
+"We're going to wait a bit, that's all, till we're sure of everything!" she
+cried.
+
+"Then," said Roger disgustedly, "you're smarter than your father is. I'm
+sure of nothing--nothing! I have never been sure in all my days! If I'd
+waited, you'd never have been born!"
+
+"Oh, dearie," she begged him smilingly. "Please don't be so unhappy just
+now--"
+
+"I've a right to be!" said Roger. "I see my house agog with this--in a
+turmoil--in a turmoil!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But again he was mistaken. It was in fact astonishing how the old house
+quieted down. There came again one of those peaceful times, when his home
+to Roger's senses seemed to settle deep, grow still, and gather itself
+together. Day by day he felt more sure that Deborah was succeeding in
+making her work fit into her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy
+woman's life. And why shouldn't they live here, Allan and she? The thought
+of this dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead. How
+smoothly things were working out. The monstrous new buildings around his
+house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of their prey.
+
+On the mantle in Roger's study, for many years a bronze figure there, "The
+Thinker," huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching pose, the heavy chin
+on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon him. And in the years that had
+been so dark, it had been a figure of despair. Often he had looked up from
+his chair and grimly met its frowning gaze. But Roger seldom looked at it
+now, and even when it caught his eye it had little effect upon him. It
+appeared to brood less darkly. For though he did not think it out, there
+was this feeling in his mind:
+
+"There is to be nothing startling in this quiet home of mine, no crashing
+deep calamity here."
+
+Only the steadily deepening love between a grown man and a woman mature,
+both sensible, strong people with a firm control of their destinies. He
+felt so sure of this affair. For now, her tension once relaxed with the
+success which had come to her after so many long hard years, a new Deborah
+was revealed, more human in her yieldings. She let Allan take her off on
+the wildest little sprees uptown and out into the country. To Roger she
+seemed younger, more warm and joyous and more free. He loved to hear her
+laugh these nights, to catch the glad new tones in her voice.
+
+"There is to be no tragedy here."
+
+So, certain of this union and wistful for all he felt it would bring, Roger
+watched its swift approach. And when the news came, he was sure he'd been
+right. Because it came so quietly.
+
+"It's settled, dear, at last it's sure. Allan and I are to be married." She
+was standing by his chair. Roger reached up and took her hand:
+
+"I'm glad. You'll be very happy, my child."
+
+She bent over and kissed him, and putting his arm around her he drew her
+down on the side of his chair.
+
+"Now tell me all your plans," he said. And her answer brought him a deep
+peace.
+
+"We're going abroad for the summer--and then if you'll have us we want to
+come here." Roger abruptly shut his eyes.
+
+"By George, Deborah," he said, "you do have a way of getting right into the
+heart of things!" His arm closed about her with new strength and he felt
+all his troubles flying away.
+
+"What a time we'll have, what a rich new life." Her deep sweet voice was a
+little unsteady. "Listen, dearie, how quiet it is." And for some moments
+nothing was heard but the sober tick-tick of the clock on the mantle. "I
+wonder what we're going to hear."
+
+And they thought of new voices in the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Edith was radiant at the news.
+
+"I do hope they're not going to grudge themselves a good long wedding
+trip!" she exclaimed.
+
+"They're going abroad," said Roger.
+
+"Oh, splendid! And the wedding! Church or home?"
+
+"Home," said Roger blissfully, "and short and simple, not a frill. Just the
+family."
+
+"Oh, that's so nice," sighed Edith. "I was afraid she'd want to drag in her
+school."
+
+"School will be out by then," he said.
+
+"Well, I hope it stays out--for the remainder of her days. She can't do
+both, and she'll soon see. Wait till she has a child of her own."
+
+"Well, she wants one bad enough."
+
+"Yes, but can she?" Edith asked, with the engrossed expression which came
+on her pretty florid face whenever she neared such a topic. She spoke with
+evident awkwardness. "That's the trouble. Is it too late? Deborah's
+thirty-one, you know, and she has lived her life so hard. The sooner she
+gives up her school the better for her chances."
+
+The face of her father clouded.
+
+"Look here," he said uneasily, "I wouldn't go talking to her--quite along
+those lines, my dear."
+
+"I'm not such an idiot," she replied. "She thinks me homely enough as it
+is. And she's not altogether wrong. Bruce and I were talking it over last
+night. We want to be closer, after this, to Deborah and Allan. Bruce says
+it will do us _all_ good, and for once I think he's right. I _have_ given
+too much time to my children, and Bruce to his office--I see it now. Not
+that I regret it, but--well, we're going to blossom out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She struck the same note with Deborah. And so did Bruce.
+
+"Oh, Deborah dear," he said smiling, when he found a chance to see her
+alone, "if you knew how long I've waited for this big fine thing to happen.
+A. Baird is my best chum in the world. Don't yank him gently away from us
+now. We'll keep close--eh?--all four of us."
+
+"Very," said Deborah softly.
+
+"And you mustn't get too solemn, you know. You won't pull too much of the
+highbrow stuff."
+
+"Heaven forbid!"
+
+"That's the right idea. We'll have some fine little parties together. You
+and A. Baird will give us a hand and get us out in the evenings. We need
+it, God knows, we've been getting old." Deborah threw him a glance of
+affection.
+
+"Why, Brucie," she said, in admiring tones, "I knew you had it in you."
+
+"So has Edith," he sturdily declared. "She only needs a little shove. We'll
+show you two that we're regular fellows. Don't you be all school and we
+won't be all home. We'll jump out of our skins and be young again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In pursuance of this gay resolve, Bruce planned frequent parties to
+theaters and musical shows, and to Edith's consternation he even began to
+look about for a teacher from whom he could learn to dance. "A. Baird," he
+told her firmly, "isn't going to be the only soubrette in this family."
+
+One of the most hilarious of these small celebrations came early in June,
+when they dined all four together and went to the summer's opening of "The
+Follies of 1914." The show rather dragged a bit at first, but when Bert
+Williams took the stage Bruce's laugh became so contagious that people in
+seats on every hand turned to look at him and join in his glee. Only one
+thing happened to mar the evening's pleasure. When they came outside the
+theater Bruce found in his car something wrong with the engine. He tinkered
+but it would not go. Allan hailed a taxi.
+
+"Why not come with us?" asked Deborah.
+
+"No, thanks," said Bruce. "I've got this car to look after."
+
+"Oh, let it wait," urged Allan.
+
+"It does look a little like rain," put in Edith. Bruce glanced up at the
+cloudy sky and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Rain, piffle," he said good-humoredly. "Come on, wifey, stick by me. I
+won't be long." And he and Edith went back to his car.
+
+"What a dear he is," said Deborah. Allan put his arm around her, and they
+looked at each other and smiled. It was only nine days to the wedding.
+
+Out of the street's commotion came a sharp cry of warning. It was followed
+by a shriek and a crash. Allan looked out of the window, and then with a
+low exclamation he jumped from the taxi and slammed the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Roger had been spending a long quiet evening at home. He had asked John to
+dine with him and they had chatted for a time. Then John had started up to
+his room. And listening to the slow shuffling step of the cripple going
+upstairs, Roger had thought of the quick eager feet and the sudden scampers
+that would be heard as the silent old house renewed its life. Later he had
+gone to bed.
+
+He awakened with a start. The telephone bell was ringing.
+
+"Nice time to be calling folks out of bed," he grumbled, as he went into
+the hall. The next moment he heard Deborah's voice. It was clear and sharp
+with a note of alarm.
+
+"Father--it's I! You must come to Edith's apartment at once! Bruce is hurt
+badly! Come at once!"
+
+When Roger reached the apartment, it was Deborah who opened the door. Her
+face had changed, it was drawn and gray. She took him into the living room.
+
+"Tell me," he said harshly.
+
+"It was just outside the theater. Bruce and Edith were out in the street
+and got caught by some idiot of a chauffeur. Bruce threw Edith out of the
+way, but just as he did it he himself got struck in the back and went under
+a wheel. Allan brought him here at once, while I telephoned for a friend of
+his--a surgeon. They're with Bruce now."
+
+"Where's Edith?"
+
+"She's trying to quiet the children. They all woke up--" Deborah
+frowned--"when he was brought in," she added.
+
+"Well!" breathed Roger. "I declare!" Dazed and stunned, he sank into a
+chair. Soon the door opened and Allan came in.
+
+"He's gone," he said. And Deborah jumped. "No, no, I meant the doctor."
+
+"What does he say?"
+
+"Bruce can't live," said Allan gently. In the tense silence there came a
+chill. "And he knows it," Allan added. "He made me tell him--he said he
+must know--for business reasons. He wants to see you both at once, before
+Edith gets that child asleep."
+
+As they entered the room they saw Bruce on his bed. He was breathing
+quickly through his narrow tight-set jaws and staring up at the ceiling
+with a straining fixed intensity. As they entered he turned his head. His
+eyes met theirs and lighted up in a hard and terrible manner.
+
+"I'm not leaving them a dollar!" he cried.
+
+"We'll see to them, boy," said Roger, hoarsely, but Bruce had already
+turned to Baird.
+
+"I make you my executor, Allan--don't need it in writing--there isn't
+time." He drew a sudden quivering breath. "I have no will," he muttered on.
+"Never made one--never thought of this. Business life just
+starting--booming!--and I put in every cent!" There broke from him a low,
+bitter groan. "Made my money settling other men's muddles! Never thought of
+making this mess of my own! But even in mine--I could save something
+still--if I could be there--if I could be there--"
+
+The sweat broke out on his temples, and Deborah laid her hand on his head.
+"Sh-h-h," she breathed. He shut his eyes.
+
+"Hard to think of anything any more. I can't keep clear." He shuddered with
+pain. "Fix me for _them_," he muttered to Baird. "George and his mother.
+Fix me up--give me a couple of minutes clear. And Deborah--when you bring
+'em in--don't let 'em know. You understand? No infernal last good-byes!"
+Deborah sharply set her teeth.
+
+"No, dear, no," she whispered. She followed her father out of the room,
+leaving Allan bending over the bed with a hypodermic in his hand. And when,
+a few moments later, George came in with his mother, they found Bruce
+soothed and quieted. He even smiled as he reached up his hand.
+
+"They say I've got to sleep, old girl--just sleep and sleep--it'll do me
+good. So you mustn't stay in the room to-night. Stay with the kiddies and
+get 'em to sleep." He was still smiling up at her. "They say it'll be a
+long time, little wife--and I'm so sorry--I was to blame. If I'd done as
+you wanted and gone in their taxi. Remember? You said it might rain." He
+turned to George: "Look here, my boy, I'm counting on you. I'll be sick,
+you know--no good at all. You must stand by your mother."
+
+George gulped awkwardly:
+
+"Sure I will, dad." His father sharply pressed his hand:
+
+"That's right, old fellow, I know what you are. Now good-night, son.
+Good-night, Edith dear." He looked at her steadily just for a moment, then
+closed his eyes. "Oh, but I'm sleepy," he murmured. "Good-night."
+
+And they left him. Alone with Allan, Bruce looked up with a savage glare.
+
+"Look here!" he snarled, between his teeth. "If you think I'm going to lie
+here and die you're mistaken! I won't! I won't let go! I'll show you chaps
+you can be wrong! Been wrong before, haven't you, thousands of times! Why
+be so damnably sure about _me_?" He fell back suddenly, limp and weak. "So
+damnably sure," he panted.
+
+"We're never sure, my dear old boy," said Allan very tenderly. Again he
+was bending close over the bed. "We're not sure yet--by any means. You're
+so strong, old chap, so amazingly strong. You've given me hope--"
+
+"What are you sticking into my arm?" But Allan kept talking steadily on:
+
+"You've given me hope you'll pull through still. But not like this. You've
+got to rest. Let go, and try to go to sleep."
+
+"I'm afraid to," came the whisper. But soon, as again the drug took hold,
+he mumbled in a drowsy tone, "Afraid to go to sleep in the dark.... Say,
+Allan--get Deborah in here, will you--just for a minute. One thing more."
+
+When she came, he did not open his eyes.
+
+"That you, Deborah? Where's your hand?... Oh--there it is. Just one more
+point. You--you--" Again his mind wandered, but with an effort he brought
+it back. "You and Edith," he said in a whisper. "So--so--so different.
+Not--not like each other at all. But you'll stick together--eh?
+Always--always. Don't let go--I mean of my hand."
+
+"No, dear, no."
+
+And with her hand holding his, she sat for a long time perfectly still.
+Then the baby was heard crying, and Deborah went to the nursery.
+
+"Now, Edith, I'll see to the children," she said. "Allan says you can go to
+Bruce if you like."
+
+Edith looked up at Deborah quickly, and as quickly turned away. She went in
+to her husband. And there, hour by hour through the night, while he lay
+inert with his hand in hers, little by little she understood. But she asked
+no question of anyone.
+
+At last Bruce stirred a little and began breathing deep and fast.
+
+And so death came into the family.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Roger went through the next two days in a kind of a stupor. He remembered
+holding Edith and feeling her shudder as though from a chill. He remembered
+being stopped in the hall by George who had dressed himself with care in
+his first suit with long trousers. "I just wanted you to remember," the boy
+whispered solemnly, "that I'm nearly sixteen and I'll be here. He said to
+stand by her and I will." The rest of that ghastly time was a blank,
+punctuated by small quiet orders which Roger obeyed. Thank God, Deborah was
+there, and she was attending to everything.
+
+But when at last it was over, and Roger had spent the next day in his
+office, had found it impossible to work and so had gone home early, Deborah
+came to him in his room.
+
+"Now we must have a talk," she said. "Allan has gone through Bruce's
+affairs, and there are still debts to be settled, it seems."
+
+"How much do they come to, Deborah?"
+
+"About five thousand dollars," she said. And for a moment neither spoke. "I
+wish I could help you out," she went on, "but I have nothing saved and
+neither has Allan. We've both kept using our money downtown--except just
+enough for the trip abroad--and we'll need almost all of that to settle for
+the funeral."
+
+"I can manage," Roger said, and again there was a silence.
+
+"Edith will have to come here to live," Deborah said presently. Her
+father's heavy face grew stern.
+
+"I'd thought of that," he answered. "But it will be hard on her,
+Deborah--"
+
+"I know it will--but I don't see anything else to be done." The deep quiet
+voice of his daughter grew sweet with pity as she spoke. "At least we can
+try to make it a little easier for her. You can take her up to the
+mountains and I can close her apartment. But of course she won't agree to
+it unless she knows how matters stand." Deborah waited a little. "Don't you
+think you're the best one to tell her?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger, after a pause.
+
+"Then suppose we go to her. I'm sleeping up there for the next few nights."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They found Edith in her living room. She had sent the nurse out, put the
+children to bed, and left alone with nothing to do she had sat facing her
+first night. Her light soft hair was disheveled, her pretty features pale
+and set. But the moment Roger entered he saw that she had herself in hand.
+
+"Well, father," she said steadily. "You'd better tell me about our affairs.
+_My_ affairs," she corrected herself. When he had explained, she was silent
+a moment, and then in a voice harsh, bitter, abrupt, "That will be hard on
+the children," she said. On an impulse he started to take her hand, but she
+drew a little away from him.
+
+"The children, my dear," he said huskily, "will be taken care of always."
+
+"Yes." And again she was silent. "I've been thinking I'd like to go up to
+the mountains--right away," she continued.
+
+"Just our idea," he told her. "Deborah will arrange it at once."
+
+"That's good of Deborah," she replied. And after another pause: "But take
+her home with you--will you? I'd rather not have her here to-night."
+
+"I think she'd better stay, my dear."
+
+"All right." In a tone of weariness. "Madge Deering called me up to-night.
+She's coming in town to-morrow, and she means to stay till I go."
+
+"I'm glad," he said approvingly. Madge had been a widow for years. Living
+out in Morristown with four daughters to bring up, she had determinedly
+fought her way and had not only regained her hold but had even grown in
+strength and breadth since the death of her husband long ago. "I'm glad,"
+he said. "You and Madge--" he paused.
+
+"Yes, we'll have a good deal in common," Edith finished out his thought.
+"You look tired, dad. Hadn't you better go home now?" she suggested after a
+moment.
+
+"Yes," said Roger, rising. "Good-night, my child. Remember."
+
+In the outer hallway he found Deborah with Laura. Laura had been here
+several times. She was getting Edith's mourning.
+
+"There's a love of a hat at Thurn's," she was saying softly, "if only we
+can get her to wear it. It's just her type." And Laura drew an anxious
+breath. "Anything," she added, "to escape that hideous heavy crepe."
+
+Roger slightly raised his brows. He noticed a faint delicious perfume that
+irritated him suddenly. But glancing again at his daughter, trim, fresh and
+so immaculate, the joy of life barely concealed in her eyes, he stopped and
+talked and smiled at her, as Deborah was doing, enjoying her beauty and her
+youth, her love and all her happiness. And though they spoke of her sister,
+she knew they were thinking of herself, and that it was quite right they
+should, for it gave them a little relief from their gloom. She was honestly
+sorry for Edith, but she was sorrier still for Bruce, who she knew had
+always liked her more than he would have cared to say. She was sorrier for
+Bruce because, while Edith had lost only her husband, Bruce had lost his
+very life. And life meant so much to Laura, these days, the glowing,
+coursing, vibrant life of her warm beautiful body. She was thinking of that
+as she stood in the hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the evening, at home in his study, Roger heard a slight knock at the
+door. He looked up and saw John.
+
+"May I come in, Mr. Gale, for a minute?"
+
+"Yes, my boy." John hobbled in.
+
+"Only a minute." His voice was embarrassed. "Just two or three things I
+thought of," he said. "The first was about your son-in-law. You see, I was
+his stenographer--and while I was in his office--this morning helping
+Doctor Baird--I found a good deal I can do there still--about things no one
+remembers but me. So I'll stay there awhile, if it's all right. Only--" he
+paused--"without any pay. See what I mean?"
+
+"Yes, I see," said Roger. "And you'd better stay--in that way if you like."
+
+"Thanks," said John. "Then about his wife and family. You're to take them
+up to the mountains, I hear--and--well, before this happened you asked _me_
+up this summer. But I guess I'd better not."
+
+"I don't think you'd be in the way, my boy."
+
+"I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind. When I'm through in your
+son-in-law's office I thought I might go back to yours. I could send you
+your mail every two or three days."
+
+"I'd like that, John--it will be a great help."
+
+"All right, Mr. Gale." John stopped at the door. "And Miss Deborah," he
+ventured. "Is she to get married just the same?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I think so--later on."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+And John went out of the room.
+
+When _would_ Deborah be married? It came over Roger, when he was alone, how
+his family had shifted its center. Deborah would have come here to live,
+to love and be happy, a mother perhaps, but now she must find a home of her
+own. In her place would come Edith with her children. All would center on
+her in her grief.
+
+And for no cause! Just a trick of chance, a street accident! And Roger grew
+bitter and rebelled. Bruce was not the one of the family to die. Bruce, so
+shrewd and vigorous, so vital, the practical man of affairs. Bruce had been
+going the pace that kills--yes, Roger had often thought of it. But that had
+nothing to do with this! If Bruce had died at fifty, say, as a result of
+the life he had chosen, the fierce exhausting city which he had loved as a
+man will love drink, then at least there would have been some sense of
+fairness in it all! If the town had let him alone till his time! But to be
+knocked down by an automobile! The devilish irony of it! No
+reason--nothing! Just hideous luck!
+
+Well, life was like that. As for Edith and her children, he would be glad
+to have them here. Only, it would be different, the house would have to
+change again. He was sorry, too, for Deborah. No wedding trip as she had
+planned, no home awaiting her return.
+
+So his mind went over his family.
+
+But suddenly such thoughts fell away as trivial and of small account. For
+these people would still be alive. And Bruce was dead, and Roger was old.
+So he thought about Bruce and about himself, and all his children grew
+remote. "You will live on in our children's lives." Was there no other
+immortality? The clock ticked on the mantle and beside it "The Thinker"
+brooded down. And Roger looked up unafraid, but grim and gravely wondering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+But there was a rugged practical side to the character of Roger Gale, and
+the next morning he was ashamed of the brooding thoughts which had come in
+the night. He shook them off as morbid, and resolutely set himself to what
+lay close before him. There was work to be done on Bruce's affairs, and the
+work was a decided relief. Madge Deering, in the meantime, had offered to
+go with Edith and the children to the mountains and see them all well
+settled there. And a little talk he had with Madge relieved his mind still
+further. What a recovery _she_ had made from the tragedy of years ago. How
+alert and wide-awake she seemed. If Edith could only grow like that.
+
+Soon after their departure, one night when he was dining alone, he had a
+curious consciousness of the mingled presence of Edith and of Judith his
+wife. And this feeling grew so strong that several times he looked about in
+a startled, questioning manner. All at once his eye was caught by an old
+mahogany sideboard. It was Edith's. It had been her mother's. Edith, when
+she married, had wanted something from her old home. Well, now it was back
+in the family.
+
+The rest of Edith's furniture, he learned from Deborah that night, had been
+stored in the top of the house.
+
+"Most of it," she told him, "Edith will probably want to use in fitting up
+the children's rooms." With a twinge of foreboding, Roger felt the
+approaching change in his home.
+
+"When do you plan to be married?" he asked.
+
+"About the end of August. We couldn't very well till then, without hurting
+poor Edith a little, you see. You know how she feels about such things--"
+
+"Yes, I guess you're right," he agreed.
+
+How everything centered 'round Edith, he thought. To pay the debts which
+Bruce had left would take all Roger had on hand; and from this time on his
+expenses, with five growing children here, would be a fast increasing
+drain. He would have to be careful and husband his strength, a thing he had
+always hated to do.
+
+In the next few weeks, he worked hard in his office. He cut down his
+smoking, stayed home every evening and went to bed at ten o'clock. He tried
+to shut Deborah out of his mind. As for Laura, he barely gave her a
+thought. She dropped in one evening to bid him good-bye, for this summer
+again she was going abroad. She and her husband, she told him, were to
+motor through the Balkans and down into Italy. Her father gruffly answered
+that he hoped she would enjoy herself. It seemed infernally unfair that it
+should not be Deborah who was sailing the next morning. But when he felt
+himself growing annoyed, abruptly he put a check on himself. It was Edith
+he must think of now.
+
+But curiously it happened, in this narrowing of his attention, that while
+he shut out two of his daughters, a mere outsider edged closer in.
+
+Johnny Geer was a great help. He was back in Roger's office, and with the
+sharp wits he had gained in his eighteen years of fighting for a chance to
+stay alive, now at Roger's elbow John was watching like a hawk for all the
+little ways and means of pushing up the business. What a will the lad had
+to down bodily ills, what vim in the way he tackled each job. His shrewd
+and cheery companionship was a distraction and relief. John was so funny
+sometimes.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Gale," he said, as Roger came into the office one day.
+
+"Hello, Johnny. How are you?" Roger replied.
+
+"Fine, thank you." And John went on with his work of opening the morning's
+mail. But a few minutes later he gave a cackling little laugh.
+
+"What's so funny?" Roger asked.
+
+"Fellers," was the answer. "Fellers. Human nature. Here's a letter from
+Shifty Sam."
+
+"Who the devil is he? A friend of yours?"
+
+"No," said John, "he's a 'con man.' He works about as mean a graft as any
+you ever heard of. He reads the 'ads' in the papers--see?--of servant girls
+who're looking for work. He makes a specialty of cooks. Then he goes to
+where they live and talks of some nice family that wants a servant right
+away. He claims to be the butler, and he's dressed to look the part. 'There
+ain't a minute to lose,' he says. 'If you want a chawnce, my girl, come
+quick.' He says 'chawnce' like a butler--see? 'Pack your things,' he tells
+her, 'and come right along with me.' So she packs and hustles off with
+him--Sam carrying her suit case. He puts her on a trolley and says, 'I
+guess I'll stay on the platform. I've got a bit of a headache and the air
+will do me good.' So he stays out there with her suit case--and as soon as
+the car gets into a crowd, Sam jumps and beats it with her clothes."
+
+"I see," said Roger dryly. "But what's he writing _you_ about?"
+
+"Oh, it ain't me he's writing to--it's you," was John's serene reply. Roger
+started.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"Well," said the boy in a cautious tone, vigilantly eyeing his chief, "you
+see, a lot of these fellers like Sam have been in the papers lately.
+They're being called a crime wave."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Sam is up for trial this week--and half the Irish cooks in town are
+waiting 'round to testify. And Shifty seems to enjoy himself. His
+picture's in the papers--see? And he wants all the clippings. So he
+encloses a five dollar bill."
+
+"He does, eh--well, you write to Sam and send his money back to him!" There
+was a little silence.
+
+"But look here," said John with keen regret. "We've had quite a lot of
+these letters this week."
+
+Roger wheeled and looked at him.
+
+"John," he demanded severely, "what game have you been up to here?"
+
+"No game at all," was the prompt retort. "Just getting a little business."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, there's a club downtown," said John, "where a lot of these petty
+crooks hang out. I used to deliver papers there. And I went around one
+night this month--"
+
+"_To drum up business?_"
+
+"Yes, sir." Roger looked at him aghast.
+
+"John," he asked, in deep reproach, "do you expect this office to feed the
+vanity of thieves?"
+
+"Where's the vanity," John rejoined, "in being called a crime wave?" And
+seeing the sudden tremor of mirth which had appeared on Roger's face, "Look
+here, Mr. Gale," he went eagerly on. "When every paper in the town is
+telling these fellers where they belong--calling 'em crooks, degenerates,
+and preaching regular sermons right into their faces--why shouldn't we help
+'em to read the stuff? How do we know it won't do 'em good? It's church to
+'em, that's what it is--and business for this office. Nine of these guys
+have sent in their money just in the last week or so--"
+
+"Look out, my boy," said Roger, with slow and solemn emphasis. "If you
+aren't extremely careful you'll find yourself a millionaire."
+
+"But wait a minute, Mr. Gale--"
+
+"Not in this office," Roger said. "Send 'em back, every one of 'em!
+Understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir," was the meek reply. And with a little sigh of regret John
+turned his wits to other kinds and conditions of New Yorkers who might care
+to see themselves in print.
+
+As they worked together day by day, Roger had occasional qualms over
+leaving John here in the hot town while he himself went up to the
+mountains. He even thought of writing to Edith that he was planning to
+bring John, too. But no, she wouldn't like it. So he did something else
+instead.
+
+"John," he said, one morning, "I'm going to raise your salary to a hundred
+dollars a month." Instantly from the lad's bright eyes there shot a look of
+triumph.
+
+"Thanks, Mr. Gale," was his hearty response.
+
+"And in the meantime, Johnny, I want you to take a good solid month off."
+
+"All right, sir, thank you," John replied. "But I guess it won't be quite a
+month. I don't feel as if I needed it."
+
+The next day at the office he appeared resplendent in a brand-new suit of
+clothes, a summer homespun of light gray set off by a tie of flaming red.
+There was nothing soft about that boy. No, Johnny knew how to look out for
+himself.
+
+And Roger went up to the farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+George met him at the station, as he had done a year before. But at once
+Roger noticed a difference. In the short time since his father's death
+certain lines had come in the boy's freckled face, and they gave him a
+thoughtful, resolute look. George's voice was changing. One moment it was
+high and boyish, again a deep and manly bass. As he kept his eyes on the
+horses and talked about his mother, his grandfather from time to time threw
+curious side glances.
+
+"Oh, yes," George was saying, "mother's all right, she's doing fine. It was
+pretty bad at first, though. She wouldn't let me sit up with her any--she
+treated me like a regular kid. But any fellow with any sense could see how
+she was feeling. She'd get thinking of the accident." George stopped short
+and clamped his jaws. "You know, my dad did a wonderful thing," he
+continued presently. "Even when he was dying, and mother and I were there
+by his bed, he remembered how she'd get thinking alone--all about the
+accident. You see he knew mother pretty darned well. So he told her to
+remember that he was the one to blame for it. If it hadn't been for him, he
+said, they would have gone home in the taxi. That's a pretty good point to
+keep in her mind. Don't you think so?" he inquired. And Roger glanced
+affectionately into the anxious face by his side.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it's a mighty good point. Did you think of it?"
+
+"Yes, sir," George replied. "I've told it to her a good many times--that
+and two other points I thought of."
+
+"What are they, son?" asked Roger.
+
+"First," the boy said awkwardly, "about how good she was to him. And
+second, that she let him buy the new car before he died. He had such a lot
+of fun out of that car--"
+
+On the last words the lad's changing voice went from an impressive bass to
+a most undignified treble. He savagely scowled.
+
+"Those three points," he continued, in more careful measured tones, "were
+about all I could think of. I had to use 'em over and over--on mother when
+things got bad, I mean." A flush of embarrassment came on his face. "And
+hold her and kiss her," he muttered. Then he whipped his horses. "We've had
+some pretty bad times this month," he continued, loud and manfully. "You
+see, mother isn't so young as she was. She's well on in her thirties." A
+glimmer of amusement appeared in Roger's heavy eyes. "But she don't cry
+often any more, and with you here we'll pull her through." He shot a quick
+look at his grandfather. "Gee, but I'm glad you're here!" he said.
+
+"So am I," said Roger. And with a little pressure of his hand on George's
+shoulder, "I guess you've had about your share. Now tell me the news. How
+are things on the farm?"
+
+With a breath of evident relief, the lad launched into the animal world.
+And soon he was talking eagerly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the next few days with his daughter Roger found that George was right.
+She had been through the worst of it. But she still had her reactions, her
+spells of emptiness, bleak despair, her moods of fierce rebellion or of
+sudden self-reproach for not having given Bruce more while he lived. And in
+such hours her father tried to comfort her with poor success.
+
+"Remember, child, I'm with you, and I know how it feels," he said. "I went
+through it all myself: When your mother died--"
+
+"But mother was so much older!" He looked at his daughter compassionately.
+
+"How old are you?" he inquired.
+
+"Thirty-six."
+
+"Your mother was thirty-nine," he replied. And at that Edith turned and
+stared at him, bewildered, shocked, brought face to face with a new and
+momentous fact in her life.
+
+"Mother only my age when she died?"
+
+"Yes," said Roger gently, "only three years older." With a twinge of pain
+he noticed two quite visible streaks of gray in his daughter's soft blonde
+hair. "And she felt as you do now--as though she were just starting out.
+And I felt the same way, my dear. If I'm not mistaken, everyone does. You
+still feel young--but the new generation is already growing up--and you can
+feel yourself being pushed on. And it is hard--it is very hard." Clumsily
+he took her hand. "Don't let yourself drop out," he said. "Be as your
+mother would have been if she had been left instead of me. Go straight on
+with your children."
+
+To this note he could feel her respond. And at first, as he felt what a
+fight she was making, Roger glorified her pluck. As he watched her with her
+children at table, smiling at their talk with an evident effort to enter
+in, and again with her baby snug in her lap while she read bedtime stories
+to Bob and little Tad at her side, he kept noticing the resemblance between
+his daughter and his wife. How close were these two members of his family
+drawing together now, one of them living, the other dead.
+
+But later, as the weeks wore on, she began to plan for her children. She
+planned precisely how to fit them all into the house in town, she planned
+the hours for their meals, for their going alone or with the nurse or a
+maid to their different private schools, to music lessons, to dancing
+school and uptown to the park to play. She planned their fall clothes and
+she planned their friends. And there came to her father occasional moods of
+anxiety. He remembered Bruce's grim remarks about those "simple" schools
+and clothes, the kind that always cost the most. And he began to realize
+what Bruce's existence must have been. For scarcely ever in their talks did
+Edith speak of anything outside of her family. Night after night, with a
+tensity born of her struggle with her grief, she talked about her children.
+And Roger was in Bruce's place, he was the one she planned with. At moments
+with a vague dismay he glimpsed the life ahead in his home.
+
+George was hard at work each day down by the broken dam at the mill. He had
+an idea he could patch it up, put the old water-wheel back into place and
+make it run a dynamo, by which he could light the house and barn and run
+the machines in the dairy. In his new role as the man of his family, George
+was planning out his career. He was wrestling with a book entitled "Our New
+Mother Earth" and a journal called "The Modern Farm." And to Roger he
+confided that he meant to be a farmer. He wanted to go in the autumn to the
+State Agricultural College. But when one day, very cautiously, Roger spoke
+to Edith of this, with a hard and jealous smile which quite transformed her
+features, she said,
+
+"Oh, I know all about that, father dear. It's just a stage he's going
+through. And it's the same way with Elizabeth, too, and her crazy idea of
+becoming a doctor. She took that from Allan Baird, and George took his from
+Deborah! They'll get over it soon enough--"
+
+"They won't get over it!" Roger cried. "Their dreams are parts of something
+new! Something I'm quite vague about--but some of it has come to stay!
+You're losing all your chances--just as I did years ago! You'll never know
+your children!"
+
+But he uttered this cry to himself alone. Outwardly he only frowned. And
+Edith had gone on to say,
+
+"I do hope that Deborah won't come up this summer. She's been very good and
+kind, of course, and if she comes she'll be doing it entirely on my
+account. But I don't want her here--I want her to marry, the sooner the
+better, and come to her senses--be happy, I mean. And I wish you would tell
+her so."
+
+Within a few days after this Deborah wrote to her father that she was
+coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at first, he had
+William saddled and went for a ride to try to determine what he should do.
+But it was a ticklish business. For women were queer and touchy, and once
+more he felt the working of those uncanny family ties.
+
+"Deborah," he reflected, "is coming up here because she feels it's selfish
+of her to stay away. If she marries at once, as she told me herself, she
+thinks Edith will be hurt. Edith won't be hurt--and if Deborah comes,
+there'll be trouble every minute she stays. But can I tell her so? Not at
+all. I can't say, 'You're not wanted here.' If I do, _she'll_ be hurt. Oh
+Lord, these girls! And Deborah knows very well that if she does get married
+this month, with Laura abroad and Edith up here and only me at the wedding,
+Edith will smile to herself and say, 'Now isn't that just like Deborah?'"
+
+As Roger slowly rode along a steep and winding mountain road, gloomily he
+reflected to what petty little troubles a family of women could descend, so
+soon after death itself. And he lifted his eyes up to the hills and decided
+to leave this matter alone. If women would be women, let them settle their
+own affairs. Deborah was due to arrive on the following Friday evening. All
+right, let her come, he thought. She would soon see she was in the way, and
+then in a little affectionate talk he would suggest that she marry right
+off and have a decent honeymoon before the school year opened.
+
+So he dismissed it from his mind. And as he listened in the dusk to the
+numberless murmuring voices of living creatures large and small which rose
+out of the valley, and as from high above him the serenity of the mountains
+there towering over thousands of years stole into his spirit, Roger had a
+large quieting sense of something high and powerful looking down upon the
+earth, a sense of all humanity honeycombed with millions upon millions of
+small sorrows, absorbing joys and hopes and fears, and in spite of them all
+the Great Life sweeping on, with no Great Death to check its course, no
+immense catastrophe, all these little troubles like mere tiny specks of
+foam upon the surface of the tide.
+
+Deborah's visit, the following week, was as he had expected. Within an hour
+after her coming he could feel the tension grow. Deborah herself was tense,
+both from the work she had left in New York where she was soon to have five
+schools, and from the thought of her marriage, only a few weeks ahead. She
+said nothing about it, however, until as a sisterly duty Edith tried to
+draw her out by showing an interest in her plans. But the cloud of Bruce's
+death was there, and Deborah shunned the topic. She tried to talk of the
+children instead. But Edith at once was on the defensive, vigilant for
+trouble, and as she unfolded her winter plans she grew distinctly brief and
+curt.
+
+"If Deborah doesn't see it now, she's a fool," her father told himself.
+"I'll just wait a few days more, and then we'll have that little talk."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+It had rained so hard for the past two days that no one had gone to the
+village, which was nearly three miles from the farm. But when the storm was
+over at last, George and Elizabeth tramped down and came back at dusk with
+a bag full of mail. Their clothes were mud-bespattered and they hurried
+upstairs to change before supper, while Roger settled back in his chair and
+spread open his New York paper. It was July 30, 1914.
+
+From a habit grown out of thirty odd years of business life, Roger read his
+paper in a fashion of his own. By instinct his eye swept the page for news
+dealing with individual men, for it was upon people's names in print that
+he had made his living. And so when he looked at this strange front page it
+gave him a swift twinge of alarm. For the news was not of men but of
+nations. Austria was massing her troops along the Serbian frontier, and
+Germany, Italy, Russia, France and even England, all were in a turmoil,
+with panics in their capitals, money markets going wild.
+
+Edith came down, in her neat black dress with its narrow white collar,
+ready for supper. She glanced at her father.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Look at this." And he tossed her a paper.
+
+"Oh-h-h," she murmured softly. "Oh, how frightful that would be." And she
+read on with lips compressed. But soon there came from a room upstairs the
+sudden cry of one of her children, followed by a shrill wail of distress.
+And dropping the paper, she hurried away.
+
+Roger continued his reading.
+
+Deborah came. She saw the paper Edith had dropped, picked it up and sat
+down to read, and there were a few moments of absolute silence. Then Roger
+heard a quivering breath, and glancing up he saw Deborah's eyes, intent and
+startled, moving down the columns of print in a swift, uncomprehending way.
+
+"Pretty serious business," he growled.
+
+"It can't happen!" she exclaimed.
+
+And they resumed their reading.
+
+In the next three days, as they read the news, they felt war like a
+whirlpool sucking in all their powers to think or feel, felt their own
+small personal plans whirled about like leaves in a storm. And while their
+minds--at first dazed and stunned by the thought of such appalling armies,
+battles, death and desolation--slowly cleared and they strove to think, and
+Roger thought of business shivered to atoms in every land, and Deborah
+thought of schools by thousands all over Europe closing down, in cities and
+in villages, in valleys and on mountain sides, of homes in panic
+everywhere, of all ideals of brotherhood shaken, bending, tottering--war
+broke out in Europe.
+
+"What is this going to mean to me?"
+
+Millions of people were asking that. And so did Roger and Deborah. The same
+night they left for New York, while Edith with a sigh of relief settled
+back into her family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning at his office Roger found John waiting with misery stamped
+on his face. John had paid small heed to war. Barely stopping for sleep in
+the last two days he had gone through scores and hundreds of papers,
+angrily skipping all those names of kings and emperors and czars, and
+searching instead for American names, names of patrons--business! Gone!
+Each hour he had been opening mail and piling up letters cancelling
+contracts, ordering service discontinued.
+
+Roger sat down at his desk. As he worked and figured and dictated letters,
+glancing into the outer rooms he saw the long rows of girls at tables
+obviously trying to pretend that there was work for them to do. He felt
+them anxiously watching him--as in other offices everywhere millions of
+other employees kept furtively glancing at their chiefs.
+
+"War," he thought. "Shall I close _down?_" He shrank from what it would
+mean to those girls. "Business will pick up again soon. A few
+days--weeks--that's all I need."
+
+And he went to his bank. No credit there. He tried other sources, all he
+could think of, racking his brains as he went about town, but still he
+could not raise a loan. Finally he went to the firm which had once held a
+mortgage on his house. The chief partner had been close to Bruce, an old
+college friend. And when even this friend refused him aid, "It's a question
+of Bruce's children," Roger muttered, reddening. He felt like a beggar, but
+he was getting desperate. The younger man had looked away and was nervously
+tapping his desk with his pen.
+
+"Bad as that, eh," he answered. "Then I guess it's got to be done." He
+looked anxiously up at Roger, who just at that moment appeared very old.
+"Don't worry, Mr. Gale," he said. "Somehow or other we'll carry you
+through."
+
+"Thank you, sir." Roger rose heavily, feeling weak, and took his departure.
+"This is war," he told himself, "and I've got to look after my own."
+
+But he had a sensation almost of guilt, as upon his return to his office he
+saw those suddenly watchful faces. He walked past them and went into his
+room, and again he searched for ways and means. He tried to see his
+business as it would be that autumn, to see the city, the nation, the world
+as it would be in the months ahead. Repeatedly he fought off his fears.
+But slowly and inexorably the sense of his helplessness grew clear.
+
+"No, I must shut down," he thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On his way home that evening, in a crush at a turbulent corner he saw a big
+truck jam into a taxi, and with a throb of rebellion he thought of his
+son-in-law who was dead. Just the turn of a hair and Bruce might have lived
+and been here to look after the children! At the prospect of the crisis,
+the strain he saw before him, Roger again felt weak and old. He shook off
+his dread and strode angrily on.
+
+In his house, the rooms downstairs were still dismantled for the summer.
+There was emptiness and silence but no serenity in them now, only the quiet
+before the storm which he could feel from far and near was gathering about
+his home. He heard Deborah on the floor above, and went up and found her
+making his bed, for the chambermaid had not yet come. Her voice was a
+little unnatural.
+
+"It has been a hard day, hasn't it. I've got your bath-room ready," she
+said. "Don't you want a nice cool bath? Supper will be ready soon."
+
+When, a half hour later, somewhat refreshed, Roger came down to the table,
+he noticed it was set for two.
+
+"Isn't Allan coming?" he asked. Her mobile features tightened.
+
+"Not till later," she replied.
+
+They talked little and the meal was short. But afterwards, on the wooden
+porch, Deborah turned to her father,
+
+"Now tell me about your office," she said.
+
+"There's not enough business to pay the rent."
+
+"That won't last--"
+
+"I'm not so sure."
+
+"I am," she said determinedly. Her father slowly turned his head.
+
+"Are you, with this war?" he asked. Her eyes met his and moved away in a
+baffled, searching manner. "She has troubles of her own," he thought.
+
+"How much can we run the house on, Deborah?" he asked her. At first she did
+not answer. "What was it--about six thousand last year?"
+
+"I think so," she said restlessly. "We can cut down on that, of course--"
+
+"With Edith and the children here?"
+
+"Edith will have to manage it! There are others to be thought of!"
+
+"The children in your schools, you mean."
+
+"Yes," she answered with a frown. "It will be a bad year for the tenements.
+But please go on and tell me. What have you thought of doing?"
+
+"Mortgage the house again," he replied. "It hasn't been easy, for money is
+tight, but I think I'll be able to get enough to just about carry us
+through the year. At home, I mean," he added.
+
+"And the office?"
+
+"Shut down," he said. She turned on him fiercely.
+
+"You won't do that!"
+
+"What else can I do?"
+
+"Turn all those girls away?" she cried. At her tone his look grew troubled.
+
+"How can I help myself, Deborah? If I kept open it would cost me over five
+hundred a week to run. Have I five hundred dollars a week to lose?"
+
+"But I tell you it won't last!" she cried, and again the baffled, driven
+expression swept over her expressive face. "Can't you see this is only a
+panic--and keep going somehow? Can't you see what it means to the
+tenements? Hundreds of thousands are out of work! They're being turned off
+every day, every hour--employers all over are losing their heads! And City
+Hall is as mad as the rest! They've decided already down there to
+retrench!"
+
+He turned with a quick jerk of his head:
+
+"Are they cutting you down?" She set her teeth:
+
+"Yes, they are. But the work in my schools is going on--every bit of it
+is--for every child! I'm going to find a way," she said. And he felt a
+thrill of compassion.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear it," he muttered.
+
+"You needn't be." She paused a moment, smiled and went on in a quieter
+voice: "Don't think I'm blind--I'm sensible--I see you can't lose five
+hundred a week. But why not try what other employers, quite a few, have
+decided to do? Call your people together, explain how it is, and ask them
+to choose a committee to help you find which ones need jobs the most. Keep
+all you can--on part time, of course--but at least pay them something,
+carry them through. You'll lose money by it, I haven't a doubt. But you've
+already found you can mortgage the house, and remember besides that I shall
+be here. I'm not going to marry now"--her father looked at her
+quickly--"and of course I'll expect to do my share toward meeting the
+expenses. Moreover, I know we can cut down."
+
+"Retrench," said Roger grimly. "Turn off the servants instead of the
+clerks."
+
+"No, only one of them, Martha upstairs--and she is to be married. We'll
+keep the cook and the waitress. Edith will have to give up her nurse--and
+it will be hard on her, of course--but she'll have to realize this is war,"
+Deborah said sharply. "Besides," she urged, "it's not going to last.
+Business everywhere will pick up--in a few weeks or months at most. The war
+_can't_ go on--it's too horribly big!" She broke off and anxiously looked
+at him. Her father was still frowning.
+
+"I'm asking you to risk a good deal," she continued, her voice intense and
+low. "But somehow, dearie, I always feel that this old house of ours is
+strong. It can _stand_ a good deal. We can all of us stand so much, as soon
+as we know we have to." The lines of her wide sensitive mouth tightened
+firmly once again. "It's all so vague and uncertain, I know. But one thing
+at least is sure. This is no time for people with money--no matter how
+little--to shut themselves up in their own little houses and let the rest
+starve or beg or steal. This is the time to do our share."
+
+And she waited. But he made no reply.
+
+"Every nation at war is doing it, dad--become like one big family--with
+everyone helping, doing his share. Must a nation be at war to do that?
+Can't we be brothers without the guns? Can't you see that we're all of us
+stunned, and trying to see what war will mean to all the children in the
+world? And while we're groping, groping, can't we give each other a hand?"
+
+Still he sat motionless there in the dark. At last he stirred heavily in
+his chair.
+
+"I guess you're right," he told her. "At least I'll think it over--and try
+to work out something along the lines you spoke of."
+
+Again there was a silence. Then his daughter turned to him with a little
+deprecating smile.
+
+"You'll forgive my--preaching to you, dad?"
+
+"No preaching," he said gruffly. "Just ordinary common sense."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later Allan came in, and Roger soon left them and went to bed.
+Alone with Baird she was silent a moment.
+
+"Well? Have you thought it over?" she asked. "Wasn't I right in what I
+said?" At the anxious ring in her low clear voice, leaning over he took her
+hand; and he felt it hot and trembling as it quickly closed on his. He
+stroked it slowly, soothingly. In the semi-darkness he seemed doubly tall
+and powerful.
+
+"Yes, I'm sure you were right," he said.
+
+"Spring at the latest--I'll marry you then--"
+
+Her eyes were intently fixed on his.
+
+"Come here!" she whispered sharply, and Baird bent over and held her
+tight. "Tighter!" she whispered. "Tighter!... There!... I said, spring at
+the latest! I can't lose you, Allan--now--"
+
+She suddenly quivered as though from fatigue.
+
+"I'm going to watch you close down there," he said in a moment, huskily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Roger saw little of Deborah in the weeks that followed. She was gathering
+her forces for the long struggle she saw ahead. And his own worries filled
+his mind. On his house he succeeded in borrowing five thousand dollars at
+ten per cent, and in his office he worked out a scheme along the lines of
+Deborah's plan. At first it was only a struggle to save the remnants of
+what was left. Later the tide began to turn, new business came into the
+office again. But only a little, and then it stopped. Hard times were here
+for the winter.
+
+Soon Edith would come with the children. He wondered how sensible she would
+be. It was going to mean a daily fight to make ends meet, he told himself,
+and guiltily he decided not to let his daughter know how matters stood in
+his office. Take care of your own flesh and blood, and then be generous as
+you please--that had always been his way. And now Deborah had upset it by
+her emotional appeal. "How dramatic she is at times!" he reflected in
+annoyance. "Just lets herself out and enjoys herself!" He grew angry at her
+interference, and more than once he resolved to shut down. But back in the
+office, before those watchful faces, still again he would put it off.
+
+"Wait a little. We'll see," he thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime, in this interplay, these shifting lights and shadows which
+played upon the history of the life of Roger's home, there came to him a
+diversion from an unexpected source. Laura and Harold returned from abroad.
+Soon after landing they came to the house, and talking fast and eagerly
+they told how they had eluded the war.
+
+For them it had been a glorious game. In Venice in early August, Harold
+had seen a chance for a big stroke of business. He had a friend who lived
+in Rome, an Italian close to his government. At once they had joined
+forces, worked day and night, pulled wires, used money judiciously here and
+there, and so had secured large orders for munitions from the U.S.A. Then
+to get back to God's country! There came the hitch, they were too late.
+Naples, Genoa, and Milan, all were filled with tourist mobs. They took a
+train for Paris, and reaching the city just a week before the end of the
+German drive they found it worse than Italy. But there Hal had a special
+pull--and by the use of those wits of his, not to be downed by refusals, he
+got passage at last for Laura, himself and his new Italian partner. At
+midnight, making their way across the panic-stricken city, and at the
+station struggling through a wild and half crazed multitude of men and
+women and children, they boarded a train and went rushing westward right
+along the edge of the storm. To the north the Germans were so close that
+Laura was sure she could hear the big guns. The train kept stopping to take
+on troops. At dawn some twenty wounded men came crowding into their very
+car, bloody and dirty, pale and worn, but gaily smiling at the pain, and
+saying, "Ca n'fait rien, madame." Later Harold opened his flask for some
+splendid Breton soldier boys just going into action. And they stood up with
+flashing eyes and shouted out the Marseillaise, while Laura shivered and
+thrilled with delight.
+
+"I nearly kissed them all!" she cried.
+
+Roger greatly enjoyed the evening. He had heard so much of the horrors of
+war. Here was something different, something bright and vibrant with youth
+and adventure! Here at last was the thrill of war, the part he had always
+read about!
+
+He glanced now and then at Deborah and was annoyed by what he saw. For
+although she said nothing and forced a smile, he could easily tell by the
+set of her lips that Deborah thoroughly disapproved. All right, that was
+her way, he thought. But this was Laura's way, shedding the gloom and the
+tragic side as a duck will shed water off its back, a duck with bright new
+plumage fresh from the shops of the Rue de la Paix and taking some pleasure
+out of life! What an ardent gleaming beauty she was, he thought as he
+watched this daughter of his. And underneath his enjoyment, too, though
+Roger would not have admitted it, was a sense of relief in the news that at
+least one man in the family was growing rich instead of poor. Already Hal
+and his partner--a fascinating creature according to Laura's
+description--were fast equipping shrapnel mills. Plainly they expected a
+tremendous rush of business. And no matter how you felt about war, the word
+"profits" at least had a pleasant sound.
+
+"How has the war hit you, sir?" Harold asked his father-in-law.
+
+"Oh, so-so, I'll get on, my boy," was Roger's quiet answer. For Harold was
+not quite the kind he would ever like to ask for aid. Still, if the worst
+came to the worst, he would have someone to turn to.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long after they had left the house, he kept thinking over all they had
+said. What an amazing time they had had, the two young scalawags.
+
+Deborah was still in the room. As she sat working at her desk, her back was
+turned and she did not speak. But little by little her father's mood
+changed. Of course she was right, he admitted. For now they were gone, the
+spell they had cast was losing a part of its glamor. Yes, their talk had
+been pretty raw. Sheer unthinking selfishness, a bold rush for plunder and
+a dash to get away, trampling over people half crazed, women and children
+in panicky crowds, and leaving behind them, so to speak, Laura's joyous
+rippling laugh over their own success in the game. Yes, there was no
+denying the fact that Hal was rushing headlong into a savage dangerous
+game, a scramble and a gamble, with adventurers from all over Europe
+gathering here and making a little world of their own. He would work and
+live at a feverish pitch, and Laura would go it as hard as he. Roger
+thought he could see their winter ahead. How they would pile up money and
+spend!
+
+All at once, as though some figure silent and invisible were standing close
+beside him, from far back in his childhood a memory flashed into his mind
+of a keen and clear October night, when Roger, a little shaver of nine, had
+stood with his mother in front of the farmhouse and listened to the faint
+sharp roll of a single drum far down in the valley. And his mother's grip
+had hurt his hand, and a lump had risen in his throat--as Dan, his oldest
+brother, had marched away with his company of New Hampshire mountain boys.
+"We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." Dan had been
+killed at Shiloh.
+
+And it must be like that now in France. No, he did not like the look which
+he had seen on Laura's face as she had talked about the war and the fat
+profits to be made. Was this all we Yankees had to say to the people over
+in Europe?
+
+Frowning and glancing at Deborah's back, he saw that she was tired. It was
+nearly midnight, but still she kept working doggedly on, moving her
+shoulder muscles at times as though to shake off aches and pains, then
+bending again to her labor, her fight against such heavy odds in the winter
+just beginning for those children in the tenements. He recalled a fragment
+of the appeal she had made to him only the month before:
+
+"Can't you see that we're all of us stunned, and trying to see what war
+will mean to all the children in the world? And while we're groping,
+groping, can't we give each other a hand?"
+
+And as he looked at his daughter, she made him think of her grandmother,
+as she had so often done before. For Deborah, too, was a pioneer. She, too,
+had lived in the wilderness. Clearing roads through jungles? Yes. And
+freeing slaves of ignorance and building a nation of new men. And now she
+was doggedly fighting to save what she had builded--not from the raids of
+the Indians but from the ravages of this war which was sweeping
+civilization aside. With her school behind her, so to speak, she stood
+facing this great enemy with stern and angry, steady eyes. Her pioneer
+grandmother come to life.
+
+So, with the deep craving which was a part of his inmost self, Roger tried
+to bind together what was old and what was new. But his thoughts grew vague
+and drifting. He realized how weary he was, and said good-night and went to
+bed. There, just before he fell asleep, again he had a feeling of relief at
+the knowledge that one at least in the family was to be rich this year.
+With a guilty sensation he shook off the thought, and within a few moments
+after that his harsh regular breathing was heard in the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+It was only a few days later that Edith arrived with her children.
+
+Roger met her at the train at eight o'clock in the evening. The fast
+mountain express of the summer had been taken off some time before, so
+Edith had had to be up at dawn and to change cars several times on the
+trip. "She'll be worn out," he thought as he waited. The train was late. As
+he walked about the new station, that monstrous sparkling hive of travel
+with its huge halls and passageways, its little village of shops
+underground and its bewildering levels for trains, he remembered the
+interest Bruce had shown in watching this immense puzzle worked out, the
+day and night labor year after year without the stopping of a train, this
+mighty symbol of the times, of all the glorious power and speed in an age
+that had been as the breath to his nostrils. How Bruce had loved the city!
+As Roger paced slowly back and forth with his hands clasped behind his
+back, there came over his heavy visage a look of affection and regret which
+made even New Yorkers glance at him as they went nervously bustling by.
+From time to time he smiled to himself. "The Catskills will be Central
+Park! All this city needs is speed!"
+
+But suddenly he remembered that Bruce had always been here before to meet
+his wife and children, and that Edith on her approaching train must be
+dreading her arrival. And when at last the train rolled in, and he spied
+her shapely little head in the on-coming throng of travellers, Roger saw by
+her set steady smile and the strained expression on her face that he had
+guessed right. With a quick surge of compassion he pressed forward, kissed
+her awkwardly, squeezed her arm, then hastily greeted the children and
+hurried away to see to the trunks. That much of it was over. And to his
+relief, when they reached the house, Edith busied herself at once in
+helping the nurse put the children to bed. Later he came up and told her
+that he had had a light supper prepared.
+
+"Thank you, dear," she answered, "it was so thoughtful in you. But I'm too
+tired to eat anything." And then with a little assuring smile, "I'll be all
+right--I'm going to bed."
+
+"Good-night, child, get a fine long sleep."
+
+And Roger went down to his study, feeling they had made a good start.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What has become of Martha?" Edith asked her father at breakfast the next
+morning.
+
+"She left last month to be married," he said.
+
+"And Deborah hasn't replaced her yet?" In her voice was such a readiness
+for hostility toward her sister, that Roger shot an uneasy glance from
+under his thick grayish brows.
+
+"Has Deborah left the house?" he asked, to gain time for his answer.
+Edith's small lip slightly curled.
+
+"Oh, yes, long ago," she replied. "She had just a moment to see the
+children and then she had to be off to school--to her office, I mean. With
+so many schools on her hands these days, I don't wonder she hasn't had time
+for the servants."
+
+"No, no, you're mistaken," he said. "That isn't the trouble, it's not her
+fault. In fact it was all my idea."
+
+"_Your_ idea," she retorted, in an amused affectionate tone. And Roger
+grimly gathered himself. It would he extremely difficult breaking his
+unpleasant news.
+
+"Yes," he answered. "You see this damnable war abroad has hit me in my
+business."
+
+"Oh, father! How?" she asked him. In an instant she was all alert. "You
+don't mean seriously?" she said.
+
+"Yes, I do," he answered, and he began to tell her why. But she soon grew
+impatient. Business details meant nothing to Edith. "I see," she kept
+saying, "yes, yes, I see." She wanted him to come to the point.
+
+"So I've had to mortgage the house," he concluded. "And for very little
+money, my dear. And a good deal of that--" he cleared his throat--"had to
+go back into the business."
+
+"I see," said Edith mechanically. Her mind was already far away, roving
+over her plans for the children. For in Roger's look of suspense she
+plainly read that other plans had been made for them in her absence.
+"Deborah's in this!" flashed through her mind. "Tell me what it will mean,"
+she said.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to try to do without your nurse for a while."
+
+"Let Hannah go? Oh, father!" And Edith flushed with quick dismay. "How can
+I, dad? Five children--five! And two of them so little they can't even
+dress themselves alone! And there are all their meals--their baths--and the
+older ones going uptown to school! I can't let them go way uptown on the
+'bus or the trolley without a maid--"
+
+"But, Edith!" he interrupted, his face contracting with distress. "Don't
+you see that they can't go to school?" She turned on him. "Uptown, I mean,
+to those expensive private schools."
+
+"Father!" she demanded. "Do you mean you want my children to go to common
+public schools?" There was rage and amazement upon her pretty countenance,
+and with it an instant certainty too. Yes, this was Deborah's planning! But
+Roger thought that Edith's look was all directed at himself. And for the
+first time in his life he felt the shame and humility of the male provider
+no longer able to provide. He reddened and looked down at his plate.
+
+"You don't understand," he said. "I'm strapped, my child--I can't help
+it--I'm poor."
+
+"Oh. Oh, dad. I'm sorry." He glanced up at his daughter and saw tears
+welling in her eyes. How utterly miserable both of them were.
+
+"It's the war," he said harshly and proudly. This made a difference to his
+pride, but not to his daughter's anxiety. She was not interested in the
+war, or in any other cause of the abyss she was facing. She strove to think
+clearly what to do. But no, she must do her thinking alone. With a sudden
+quiet she rose from the table, went around to her father's chair and kissed
+him very gently.
+
+"All right, dear--I see it all now--and I promise I'll try my best," she
+said.
+
+"You're a brave little woman," he replied.
+
+But after she had gone, he reflected. Why had he called her a brave little
+woman? Why had it all been so intense, the talk upon so heroic a plane? It
+would be hard on Edith, of course; but others were doing it, weren't they?
+Think of the women in Europe these days! After all, she'd be very
+comfortable here, and perhaps by Christmas times would change.
+
+He shook off these petty troubles and went to his office for the day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As she busied herself unpacking the trunks, Edith strove to readjust her
+plans. By noon her head was throbbing, but she took little notice of that.
+She had a talk with Hannah, the devoted Irish girl who had been with her
+ever since George was born. It was difficult, it was brutal. It was almost
+as though in Edith's family there had been two mothers, and one was sending
+the other away.
+
+"There, there, poor child," Edith comforted her, "I'll find you another
+nice family soon where you can stay till I take you back. Don't you see it
+will not be for long?" And Hannah brightened a little.
+
+"But how in the wide wurrld," she asked, "will you ever do for the
+children, me gone?"
+
+"Oh, I'll manage," said Edith cheerfully. And that afternoon she began at
+once to rearrange her whole intricate schedule, with Hannah and school both
+omitted, to fit her children into the house. But instead of this, as the
+days wore on, nerve-racking days of worry and toil, sternly and quite
+unconsciously she fitted the house to her children. And nobody made her
+aware of the fact. All summer long in the mountains, everyone by tacit
+consent had made way for her, had deferred to her grief in the little
+things that make up the everyday life in a home. And to this precedent once
+established Edith now clung unawares.
+
+Her new day gave her small time to think. It began at five in the morning,
+when Roger was awakened by the gleeful cries of the two wee boys who slept
+with their mother in the next room, the room which had been Deborah's. And
+Edith was busy from that time on. First came the washing and dressing and
+breakfast, which was a merry, boisterous meal. Then the baby was taken out
+to his carriage on the porch at the back of the house. And after that, in
+her father's study from which he had fled with his morning cigar, for two
+hours Edith held school for her children, trying her best to be patient and
+clear, with text-books she had purchased from their former schools uptown.
+For two severe hours, shutting the world all out of her head, she tried to
+teach them about it. At eleven, their nerves on edge like her own, she sent
+them outdoors "to play," intrusting the small ones to Betsy and George, who
+took them to Washington Square nearby with strict injunctions to keep them
+away from all other children. No doubt there were "nice" children there,
+but she herself could not be along to distinguish the "nice" from the
+"common"--for until one o'clock she was busy at home, bathing the baby and
+making the beds, and then hurrying to the kitchen to pasteurize the baby's
+milk and keep a vigilant oversight on the cooking of the midday meal. And
+the old cook's growing resentment made it far from easy.
+
+After luncheon, thank heaven, came their naps. And all afternoon, while
+again they went out, Edith would look over their wardrobes, mend and alter
+and patch and contrive how to make last winter's clothes look new. At times
+she would drop her work in her lap and stare wretchedly before her. This
+was what she had never known; this was what made life around her grim and
+hard, relentless, frightening; this was what it was to be poor. How it
+changed the whole city of New York. Behind it, the sinister cause of it
+all, she thought confusedly now and then of the Great Death across the sea,
+of the armies, smoking battle-fields, the shrieks of the dying, the
+villages blazing, the women and children flying away. But never for more
+than a moment. The war was so remote and dim. And soon she would turn back
+again to her own beloved children, whose lives, so full of happiness, so
+rich in promise hitherto, were now so cramped and thwarted. Each day was
+harder than the last. It was becoming unbearable!
+
+No, they must go back to school. But how to manage it? How? How? It would
+cost eight hundred dollars, and this would take nearly all the money she
+would be able to secure by the sale of her few possessions. And then what?
+What of sickness, and the other contingencies which still lay ahead of her?
+How old her father seemed, these days! In his heavy shock of hair the
+flecks of white had doubled in size, were merging one into the other, and
+his tall, stooping, massive frame had lost its look of ruggedness. Suppose,
+suppose.... Her breath came fast. Was his life insured, she wondered.
+
+On such afternoons, in the upstairs room as the dusk crept in and
+deepened, she would bend close to her sewing--planning, planning, planning.
+At last she would hear the children trooping merrily into the house. And
+making a very real effort, which at times was in truth heroic, to smile,
+she would rise and light the gas, would welcome them gaily and join in
+their chatter and bustle about on the countless tasks of washing them,
+getting their suppers, undressing the small ones and hearing their prayers.
+With smiling good-night kisses she would tuck her two babies into their
+cribs. Afterward, just for a moment or two, she would linger under the gas
+jet, her face still smiling, for a last look. A last good-night. Then
+darkness.
+
+Darkness settling over her spirit, together with loneliness and fatigue.
+She would go into Betsy's room and throw herself dressed on her daughter's
+bed, and a dull complete indifference to everything under the moon and the
+stars would creep from her body up into her mind. At times she would try to
+fight it off. To-night at dinner she must not be what she knew she had been
+the night before, a wet blanket upon all the talk. But if they only knew
+how hard it was--what a perfect--hell it was! Her breath coming faster, she
+would dig her nails into the palms of her hands. One night she noticed and
+looked at her hand, and saw the skin was actually cut and a little blood
+was appearing. She had read of women doing this, but she had never done it
+before--not even when her babies were born. She had gripped Bruce's hand
+instead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+Roger found her like that one evening. He heard what he thought was a sob
+from the room, for she had forgotten to close the door. He came into the
+doorway but drew back, and closed the door with barely a sound. Frowning
+and irresolute, he stood for a moment in the hall, then turned and went
+into his room. Soon he heard Deborah enter the house and come slowly up the
+stairs. She too had had a hard day, he recalled, a day all filled with
+turbulence, with problems and with vexing toil, in her enormous family. And
+he felt he could not blame her for not being of more help at home. Still,
+he had been disappointed of late in her manner toward her sister. He had
+hoped she would draw closer to Edith, now that again they were living
+together in their old home where they had been born. But no, it had worked
+just the opposite way. They were getting upon each other's nerves. Why
+couldn't she make overtures, small kindly proffers of help and advice and
+sympathy, the womanly things?
+
+From his room he heard her knock softly at the same door he had closed. And
+he heard her low clear voice:
+
+"Are you there, Edith dear?" He listened a moment intently, but he could
+not hear the reply. Then Deborah said, "Oh, you poor thing. I'm awfully
+sorry. Edith--don't bother to come downstairs--let me bring you up your
+supper." A pause. "I wish you would. I'd love to."
+
+He heard Deborah come by his door and go up the second flight of stairs to
+the room she had taken on the third floor.
+
+"I was wrong," he reflected, "she has been trying--but it doesn't do any
+good. Women simply haven't it in 'em to see each other's point of view.
+Deborah doesn't admire Edith--she can't, she only pities her and puts her
+down as out of date. And Edith feels that, and it gets her riled, and she
+sets herself like an angry old hen against all Deborah's new ideas. Why the
+devil can't they live and let live?"
+
+And he hesitated savagely between a pearl gray _and_ a black cravat. Then
+he heard another step on the stairs. It was much slower than Deborah's, and
+cautious and dogged, one foot lifted carefully after the other. It was
+John, who had finished his kitchen supper and was silently making his way
+up through the house to his room at the top, there to keep out of sight for
+the evening. And it came into Roger's mind that John had been acting in
+just this fashion ever since Edith had been in the house.
+
+"We'll have trouble there, too!" he told himself, as he jerked the black
+satin cravat into place, a tie he thoroughly disliked. Yes, black, by
+George, he felt like it to-night! These women! These evenings! This worry!
+This war! This world gone raving, driveling mad!
+
+And frowning with annoyance, Roger went down to his dinner.
+
+As he waited he grew impatient. He had eaten no lunch, he was hungry; and
+he was very tired, too, for he had had his own hard day. Pshaw! He got up
+angrily. _Somebody_ must be genial here. He went into the dining room and
+poured himself a good stiff drink. Roger had never been much of a drinker.
+Ever since his marriage, cigars had been his only vice. But of late he had
+been having curious little sinking spells. They worried him, and he told
+himself he could not afford to get either too tired or too faint.
+
+Nevertheless, he reflected, it was setting a bad example for George. But
+glancing into his study he saw that the lad was completely absorbed. With
+knees drawn up, his long lank form all hunched and huddled on the lounge,
+hair rumpled, George was reading a book which had a cover of tough gray
+cloth. At the sight of it his grandfather smiled, for he had seen it once
+before. Where George had obtained it, the Lord only knew. Its title was
+"Bulls and Breeding." A thoroughly practical little book, but nothing for
+George's mother to see. As his grandfather entered behind him, the boy
+looked up with a guilty start, and resumed with a short breath of relief.
+
+Young Elizabeth, too, had a furtive air, for instead of preparing her
+history lesson she was deep in the evening paper reading about the war
+abroad. Stout and florid, rather plain, but with a frank, attractive face
+and honest, clear, appealing eyes, this curious creature of thirteen was
+sitting firmly in her chair with her feet planted wide apart, eagerly
+scanning an account of the work of American surgeons in France. And again
+Roger smiled to himself. (He was feeling so much better now.) So Betsy was
+still thinking of becoming a surgeon. He wondered what she would take up
+next. In the past two years in swift succession she had made up her mind to
+be a novelist, an actress and a women's college president. And Roger liked
+this tremendously.
+
+He loved to watch these two in the house. Here again his family was
+widening out before him, with new figures arising to draw his attention
+this way and that. But these were bright distractions. He took a deep,
+amused delight in watching these two youngsters caught between two fires,
+on the one side their mother and upon the other their aunt; both obviously
+drawn toward Deborah, a figure who stood in their regard for all that
+thrilling outside world, that heaving sparkling ocean on which they too
+would soon embark; both sternly repressing their eagerness as an insult to
+their mother, whom they loved and pitied so, regarding her as a brave and
+dear but rapidly ageing creature "well on in her thirties," whom they must
+cherish and preserve. They both had such solemn thoughts as they looked at
+Edith in her chair. But as Roger watched them, with their love and their
+solemnity, their guilt and their perplexity, with quiet enjoyment he would
+wait to see the change he knew would come. And it always did. The sudden
+picking up of a book, the vanishing of an anxious frown, and in an instant
+their young minds had turned happily back into themselves, into their own
+engrossing lives, their plans, their intimate dreams and ambitions, all so
+curiously bound up with memories of small happenings which had struck them
+as funny that day and at which they would suddenly chuckle aloud.
+
+And this was only one stage in their growth. What would be the next, he
+asked, and all the others after that? What kind of world would they live
+in? Please heaven, there would be no wars. Many old things, no doubt, would
+be changed, by the work of Deborah and her kind--but not too many, Roger
+hoped. And these young people, meanwhile, would be bringing up children in
+their turn. So the family would go on, and multiply and scatter wide, never
+to unite again. And he thought he could catch glimpses, very small and far
+away but bright as patches of sunlight upon distant mountain tops, into the
+widening vista of those many lives ahead. A wistful look crept over his
+face.
+
+"In their lives too we shall be there, the dim strong figures of the past."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Deborah came into the room, and at once the whole atmosphere changed. Her
+niece sprang up delightedly.
+
+"Why, Auntie, how lovely you look!" she exclaimed. And Roger eyed Deborah
+in surprise. Though she did not believe in mourning, she had been wearing
+dark gowns of late to avoid hurting Edith's feelings. But to-night she had
+donned bright colors instead; her dress was as near decollete as anything
+that Deborah wore, and there was a band of dull blue velvet bound about
+her hair.
+
+"Thanks, dearie," she said, smiling. "Shall we go in to dinner now?" she
+added to her father. "Edith said not to wait for her--and I'll have to be
+off rather early this evening."
+
+"What is it to-night?" he inquired.
+
+"A big meeting at Cooper Union."
+
+And at dinner she went on to say that in her five schools the neighborhood
+clubs had combined to hold this meeting, and she herself was to preside. At
+once her young niece was all animation.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could go and hear you!" she sighed.
+
+"Afraid you can't, Betsy," her aunt replied. And at this, with an
+instinctive glance toward the door where her mother would soon come in to
+stop by her mere presence all such conversation, Elizabeth eagerly threw
+out one inquiry after the other, pell mell.
+
+"How on earth do you do it?" she wanted to know. "How do you get a speech
+ready, Aunt Deborah--how much of it do you write out ahead? Aren't you just
+the least bit nervous--now, I mean--this minute? And how will you feel on
+the platform? _What on earth do you do with your feet?_"
+
+As the girl bent forward there with her gaze fixed ardently on her aunt,
+her grandfather thought in half comic dismay, "Lord, now she'll want to be
+a great speaker--like her aunt. And she will tell her mother so!"
+
+"What's the meeting all about?" he inquired. And Deborah began to explain.
+
+In her five schools the poverty was rapidly becoming worse. Each week more
+children stayed away or came to school ragged and unkempt, some without any
+overcoats, small pitiful mites wearing shoes so old as barely to stick on
+their feet. And when the teachers and visitors followed these children into
+their homes they found bare, dirty, chilly rooms where the little folk
+shivered and wailed for food and the mothers looked distracted, gaunt and
+sullen and half crazed. Over three hundred thousand workers were idle in
+the city. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, half the money from uptown
+which had gone in former years into work for the tenements was going over
+to Belgium instead. And the same relentless drain of war was felt by the
+tenement people themselves; for all of them were foreigners, and from their
+relatives abroad, in those wide zones of Europe already blackened and laid
+waste, in endless torrents through the mails came wild appeals for money.
+
+In such homes her children lived. And Deborah had set her mind on vigorous
+measures of relief. Landlords must be made to wait and the city be
+persuaded to give work to the most needy, food and fuel must be secured. As
+she spoke of the task before her, with a flush of animation upon her bright
+expressive face at the thought that in less than an hour she would be
+facing thousands of people, the gloom of the picture she painted was
+dispelled in the spirit she showed.
+
+"These things always work out," she declared, with an impatient shrug of
+her shoulders. And watching her admiringly, young Betsy thought, "How
+strong she is! What a wonderful grown-up woman!" And Roger watching
+thought, "How young."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What things?" It was Edith's voice at the door, and among those at the
+table there was a little stir of alarm. She had entered unnoticed and now
+took her seat. She was looking pale and tired. "What things work out so
+finely?" she asked, and with a glance at Deborah's gown,
+
+"Where are you going?" she added.
+
+"To a meeting," Deborah answered.
+
+"Oh." And Edith began her soup. In the awkward pause that followed, twice
+Deborah started to speak to her sister, but checked herself, for at other
+dinners just like this she had made such dismal failures.
+
+"By the way, Edith," she said, at last, "I've been thinking of all that
+furniture of yours which is lying in storage." Her sister looked up at her,
+startled.
+
+"What about it?" she asked.
+
+"There's so much of it you don't care for," Deborah answered quietly. "Why
+don't you let a part of it go? I mean the few pieces you've always
+disliked."
+
+"For what purpose?"
+
+"Why, it seems such a pity not to have Hannah back in the house. She would
+make things so much easier." Roger felt a glow of relief.
+
+"A capital plan!" he declared at once.
+
+"It would be," Edith corrected him, "if I hadn't already made _other_
+plans." And then in a brisk, breathless tone, "You see I've made up my
+mind," she said, "to sell not only part but _all_ my furniture--very
+soon--and a few other belongings as well--and use the money to put George
+and Elizabeth and little Bob back in the schools where they belong."
+
+"Mother!" gasped Elizabeth, and with a prolonged "Oh-h" of delight she ran
+around to her mother's chair.
+
+"But look here," George blurted worriedly, "I don't like it, mother, darned
+if I do! You're selling everything--just for school!"
+
+"School is rather important, George," was Edith's tart rejoinder. "If you
+don't think so, ask your aunt." "What do you think of it, Auntie?" he
+asked. The cloud which had come on Deborah's face was lifted in an instant.
+
+"I think, George," she answered gently, "that you'd better let your mother
+do what she thinks best for you. It _will_ make things easier here in the
+house," she added, to her sister, "but I wish you could have Hannah, too."
+
+"Oh, I'll manage nicely now," said Edith. And with a slight smile of
+triumph she resumed her dinner.
+
+"The war won't last forever," muttered Roger uneasily. And to himself: "But
+suppose it _should_ last--a year or more." He did not approve of Edith's
+scheme. "It's burning her bridges all at once, for something that isn't
+essential," he thought. But he would not tell her so.
+
+Meanwhile Deborah glanced at the clock.
+
+"Oh! It's nearly eight o'clock! I must hurry or I'll be late," she said.
+"Good-night, all--"
+
+And she left them.
+
+Roger followed her into the hall.
+
+"What do you think of this?" he demanded. Her reply was a tolerant shrug.
+
+"It's her own money, father--"
+
+"All her money!" he rejoined. "Every dollar she has in the world!"
+
+"But I don't just see how it can be helped."
+
+"Can't you talk to her, show her what folly it is?"
+
+"Hardly," said Deborah, smiling. Already she had on her coat and hat and
+was turning to go. And her father scowled with annoyance. She was always
+going, he told himself, leaving him to handle her sister alone. He would
+like to go out himself in the evenings--yes, by George, this very night--it
+would act like a tonic on his mind. Just for a moment, standing there, he
+saw Cooper Union packed to the doors, he heard the ringing speeches, the
+cheers. But no, it was not to be thought of. With this silent war going on
+in his house he knew he must stay neutral. Watchful waiting was his course.
+If he went out with Deborah, Edith would be distinctly hurt, and sitting
+all evening here alone she would draw still deeper into herself. And so it
+would be night after night, as it had been for many weeks. He would be
+cooped up at home while Deborah did the running about.... In half the time
+it takes to tell it, Roger had worked himself into a state where he felt
+like a mighty badly used man.
+
+"I wish you _would_ speak to her," he said. "I wish you could manage to
+find time to be here more in the evenings. Edith worries so much and she's
+trying so hard. A little sympathy now and then--"
+
+"But she doesn't seem to want any from me," said his daughter, a bit
+impatiently. "I know it's hard--of course it is. But what can I do? She
+won't let me help. And besides--there are other families, you
+know--thousands--really suffering--for the lack of all that we have here."
+She smiled and kissed him quickly. "Good-night, dad dear, I've got to run."
+
+And the door closed behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+After dinner that night, in the living room the two older children studied
+their lessons and Edith sat mending a pair of rompers for little Tad.
+Presently Roger came out from his den with the evening paper in his hand
+and sat down close beside her. He did this conscientiously almost every
+evening. With a sigh he opened his paper to read, again there was silence
+in the room, and in this silence Roger's mind roamed far away across the
+sea.
+
+For the front page of his paper was filled with the usual headlines,
+tidings which a year before would have made a man's heart jump into his
+throat, but which were getting commonplace now. Dead and wounded by the
+thousands, famine, bombs and shrapnel, hideous atrocities, submarines and
+floating mines, words once remote but now familiar, always there on the
+front page and penetrating into his soul, becoming a part of Roger Gale, so
+that never again when the war was done would he be the same man he was
+before. For he had forever lost his faith in the sanity and steadiness of
+the great mind of humanity. Roger had thought of mankind as mature, but
+there had come to him of late the same feeling he had had before in the
+bosom of his family. Mankind had suddenly unmasked and shown itself for
+what it was--still only a precocious child, with a terrible precocity. For
+its growth had been one sided. Its strength was growing at a speed
+breathless and astounding. But its vision and its poise, its sense of human
+justice, of kindliness and tolerance and of generous brotherly love, these
+had been neglected and were being left behind. Vaguely he thought of its
+ships of steel, its railroads and its flaming mills, its miracles, its
+prodigies. And the picture rose in his mind of a child, standing there of
+giant's size with dangerous playthings in its hands, and boastfully
+declaring,
+
+"I can thunder over the earth, dive in the ocean, soar on the clouds! I can
+shiver to atoms a mountain, I can drench whole lands with blood! I can look
+up and laugh at God!"
+
+And Roger frowned as he read the news. What strange new century lay ahead?
+What convulsing throes of change? What was in store for his children?
+Tighter set his heavy jaw.
+
+"It shall be good," he told himself with a grim determination. "For them
+there shall be better things. Something great and splendid shall come out
+of it at last. They will look back upon this time as I look on the French
+Revolution."
+
+He tried to peer into that world ahead, dazzling, distant as the sun. But
+then with a sigh he returned to the news, and little by little his mind
+again was gripped and held by the most compelling of all appeals so far
+revealed in humanity's growth, the appeal of war to the mind of a man. He
+frowned as he read, but he read on. Why didn't England send over more men?
+
+The clock struck nine.
+
+"Now, George. Now, Elizabeth," Edith said. With the usual delay and
+reluctance the children brought their work to an end, kissed their mother
+and went up to bed. And Edith continued sewing. Presently she smiled to
+herself. Little Tad had been so droll that day.
+
+On the third page of his paper, Roger's glance was arrested by a full
+column story concerning Deborah's meeting that night. And as in a long
+interview he read here in the public print the same things she had told him
+at supper, he felt a little glow of pride. Yes, this daughter of his was a
+wonderful woman, living a big useful life, taking a leading part in work
+which would certainly brighten the lives of millions of children still
+unborn. Again he felt the tonic of it. Here was a glimmer of hope in the
+world, here was an antidote to war. He finished the column and glanced up.
+
+Edith was still sewing. He thought of her plan to sell all she possessed in
+order to put her children back in their expensive schools uptown.
+
+"Why can't she save her money?" he thought. "God knows there's little
+enough of it left. But I can't tell her that. If I do she'll sell
+everything, hand me the cash and tell me she's sorry to be such a burden.
+She'll sit like a thundercloud in my house."
+
+No, he could say nothing to stop her. And over the top of his paper her
+father shot a look at her of keen exasperation. Why risk everything she had
+to get these needless frills and fads? Why must she cram her life so full
+of petty plans and worries and titty-tatty little jobs? For the Lord's
+sake, leave their clothes alone! And why these careful little rules for
+every minute of their day, for their washing, their dressing, their eating,
+their napping, their play and the very air they breathed! He crumpled his
+paper impatiently. She was always talking of being old-fashioned. Well
+then, why not be that way? Let her live as her grandmother had, up there in
+the mountain farmhouse. _She_ had not been so particular. With one hired
+girl she had thought herself lucky. And not only had she cooked and sewed,
+but she had spun and woven too, had churned and made cheese and pickles and
+jam and quilts and even mattresses. Once in two months she had cut Roger's
+hair, and the rest of the time she had let him alone, except for something
+really worth while--a broken arm, for example, or church. She had stuck to
+the essentials!... But Edith was not old-fashioned, nor was she alive to
+this modern age. In short, she was neither here nor there!
+
+Then from the nursery above, her smallest boy was heard to cry. With a
+little sigh of weariness, quickly she rose and went upstairs, and a few
+moments later to Roger's ears came a low, sweet, soothing lullaby. Years
+ago Edith had asked him to teach her some of his mother's cradle songs. And
+the one which she was singing to-night was a song he had heard when he was
+small, when the mountain storms had shrieked and beat upon the rattling old
+house and he had been frightened and had cried out and his mother had come
+to his bed in the dark. He felt as though she were near him now. And as he
+listened to the song, from the deep well of sentiment which was a part of
+Roger Gale rose memories that changed his mood, and with it his sense of
+proportions.
+
+Here was motherhood of the genuine kind, not orating in Cooper Union in the
+name of every child in New York, but crooning low and tenderly, soothing
+one little child to sleep, one of the five she herself had borne, in agony,
+without complaint. How Edith had slaved and sacrificed, how bravely she had
+rallied after the death of her husband. He remembered her a few hours ago
+on the bed upstairs, spent and in anguish, sobbing, alone. And remorse came
+over him. Deborah's talk at dinner had twisted his thinking, he told
+himself. Well, that was Deborah's way of life. She had her enormous family
+and Edith had her small one, and in this hell of misery which war was
+spreading over the earth each mother was up in arms for her brood. And, by
+George, of the two he didn't know but that he preferred his own flesh and
+blood. All very noble, Miss Deborah, and very dramatic, to open your arms
+to all the children under the moon and get your name in the papers. But
+there was something pretty fine in just sitting at home and singing to one.
+
+"All right, little mother, you go straight ahead. This is war and panic and
+hard times. You're perfectly right to look after your own."
+
+He would show Edith he did not begrudge her this use of her small
+property. And more than that, he would do what he could to take her out of
+her loneliness. How about reading aloud to her? He had been a capital
+reader, during Judith's lifetime, for he had always enjoyed it so. Roger
+rose and went to his shelves and began to look over the volumes there.
+Perhaps a book of travel.... Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."
+
+Meanwhile Edith came into the room, sat down and took up her sewing. As she
+did so he turned and glanced at her, and she smiled brightly back at him.
+Yes, he thought with a genial glow, from this night on he would do his
+part. He came back to his chair with a book in his hand, prepared to start
+on his new course.
+
+"Father," she said quietly. Her eyes were on the work in her lap.
+
+"Yes, my child, what is it?"
+
+"It's about John," she answered. And with a movement of alarm he looked at
+his daughter intently.
+
+"What's the matter with John?" he inquired.
+
+"He has tuberculosis," she said.
+
+"He has no such thing!" her father retorted. "John has Pott's Disease of
+the spine!"
+
+"Yes, I know he has," she replied. "And I'm sorry for him, poor lad. But in
+the last year," she added, "certain complications have come. And now he's
+tubercular as well."
+
+"How do you know? He doesn't cough--his lungs are sound as yours or mine!"
+
+"No, it's--" Edith pursed her lips. "It's different," she said softly.
+
+"Who told you?" he demanded.
+
+"Not Deborah," was the quick response. "She knew it, I'm certain, for I
+find that she's been having Mrs. Neale, the woman who comes in to wash, do
+John's things in a separate tub. I found her doing it yesterday, and she
+told me what Deborah had said."
+
+"It's the first I'd heard of it," Roger put in.
+
+"I know it is," she answered. "For if you'd heard of it before, I don't
+believe you'd have been as ready as Deborah was, apparently, to risk
+infecting the children here." Edith's voice was gentle, slow and
+relentless. There was still a reflection in her eyes of the tenderness
+which had been there as she had soothed her child to sleep. "As time goes
+on, John is bound to get worse. The risk will be greater every week."
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" cried her father. "No such thing! You're just scaring yourself
+over nothing at all!"
+
+"Doctor Lake didn't think I was." Lake was the big child specialist in
+whose care Edith's children had been for years. "I talked to him to-day on
+the telephone, and he said we should get John out of the house."
+
+Roger heartily damned Doctor Lake!
+
+"It's easy to find a good home for the boy," Edith went on quietly, "close
+by, if you like--in some respectable family that will be only too thankful
+to take in a boarder."
+
+"How about the danger to that family's children?" Roger asked malignantly.
+
+"Very well, father, do as you please. Take any risk you want to."
+
+"I'm taking no risk," he retorted. "If there were any risk they would have
+told me--Allan and Deborah would, I mean."
+
+"They wouldn't!" burst from Edith with a vehemence which startled him.
+"They'd take the same risk for my children they would for any street urchin
+in town! All children are the same in their eyes--and if you feel as they
+do--"
+
+"I don't feel as they do!"
+
+"Don't you? Then I'm telling you that Doctor Lake said there was very
+serious risk--every day this boy remains in the house!" Roger rose angrily
+from his chair:
+
+"So you want me to turn him out! To-night!"
+
+"No, I want you to wait a few days--until we can find him a decent home."
+
+"All right, I won't do it!"
+
+"Very well, father--it's your house, not mine."
+
+For a few moments longer she sat at her sewing, while her father walked the
+floor. Then abruptly she rose, her eyes brimming with tears, and left the
+room. And he heard a sob as she went upstairs.
+
+"Now she'll shut herself up with her children," he reflected savagely, "and
+hold the fort till I come to terms!" Rather than risk a hair on their
+heads, Edith would turn the whole world out of doors! He thought of Deborah
+and he groaned. She would have to be told of this; and when she was, what a
+row there would be! For Johnny was one of _her_ family. He glanced at the
+clock. She'd be coming home soon. Should he tell her? Not to-night! Just
+for one evening he'd had enough!
+
+He picked up the book he had meant to read--Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."
+And Roger snorted wrathfully. By George, how _he'd_ like to go to Japan--or
+to darkest Africa! Anywhere!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+But later in the evening, when Allan and Deborah came in, Roger, who in the
+meantime had had a good hour in Japan and was somewhat relaxed and soothed,
+decided at once this was the time to tell her and have done with it. For
+Deborah was flushed with triumph, the meeting had been a huge success.
+Cooper Union had been packed to the walls, with an overflow meeting out on
+the street; thousands of dollars had been pledged and some big politicians
+had promised support; and men and women, rich and poor, had volunteered
+their services. She started to tell him about it, but noticed his troubled
+expression and asked him what was on his mind.
+
+"Oh, nothing tremendous," Roger said. "I hate to be any damper to-night. I
+hadn't meant to tell you to-night--but I think I will now, for you look as
+though you could find a solution for anything."
+
+"Then I must look like an idiot," his daughter said good-humoredly. "What
+is it?" she demanded.
+
+"It's about John." Her countenance changed.
+
+"Oh. Is he worse?"
+
+"Edith thinks he is--and she says it's not safe."
+
+"I see--she wants him out of the house. Tell me what she said to you." As
+he did so she listened intently, and turning to Allan at the end, "What do
+you say to this, Allan?" she asked. "Is there any real risk to the
+children?"
+
+"A little," he responded. "As much as they take every day in the trolley
+going to school."
+
+"They never go in the trolley," Deborah answered dryly. "They always go on
+the top of the 'bus." She was silent for a moment. "Well, there's no use
+discussing it. If Edith feels that way, John must go. The house won't be
+livable till he does."
+
+Roger looked at her in surprise. He felt both relieved and disappointed.
+"John's only one of thousands to her," he told himself aggrievedly. "He
+isn't close to her, she hasn't room, she has a whole mass meeting in her
+head. But I haven't, by George, I like the boy--and I'm the one who will
+have to tell him to pack up and leave the house! Isn't it the very devil,
+how things all come back on me?"
+
+"Look here, father," Deborah said, "suppose you let me manage this." And
+Roger's heavy visage cleared.
+
+"You mean you'll tell him?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, "and he'll understand it perfectly. I think he has been
+expecting it. I have, for a good many weeks," she added, with some
+bitterness. "And I know some people who will be glad enough to take him in.
+I'll see that he's made comfortable. Only--" her face clouded.
+
+"It has meant a lot to him, being here," her father put in gruffly.
+
+"Oh, John's used to getting knocks in this world." Her quiet voice grew
+hard and stern. "I wasn't thinking of John just now. What frightens me at
+times like this is Edith," she said slowly. "No, not just
+Edith--motherhood. I see it in so many mothers these days--in the women
+downtown, in their fight for their children against all other children on
+earth. It's the hardest thing we have to do--to try to make them see and
+feel outside of their own small tenement homes--and help each other--pull
+together. They can't see it's their only chance! And all because of this
+mother love! It's so blind sometimes, like an animal!" She broke off, and
+for a moment she seemed to be looking deep into herself. "And I suppose
+we're all like that, we women are," she muttered, "when we marry and have
+children. If the pinch is ever hard enough--"
+
+"_You_ wouldn't be," said Allan. And a sudden sharp uneasiness came into
+Roger's mind.
+
+"When are you two to be married?" he asked, without stopping to think. And
+at once he regretted his question. With a quick impatient look at him,
+Allan bent over a book on the table.
+
+"I don't know," Deborah answered. "Next spring, I hope." The frown was
+still on her face.
+
+"Don't make it too long," said her father brusquely. He left them and went
+up to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Deborah sat motionless. She wished Allan would go, for she guessed what was
+coming and did not feel equal to it to-night. All at once she felt tired
+and unnerved from her long exciting evening. If only she could let go of
+herself and have a good cry. She locked her hands together and looked up at
+him with impatience. He was still at the table, his back was turned.
+
+"Don't you _know_ I love you?" she was thinking fiercely. "Can't you see
+it--haven't you seen it--growing, growing--day after day? But I don't want
+you here to-night! Why can't you see you must leave me alone? Now! This
+minute!"
+
+He turned and came over in front of her, and stood looking steadily down.
+
+"I wonder," he said slowly, "how well you understand yourself."
+
+"I think I do," she muttered. With a sudden twitching of her lip she looked
+quickly up at him. "Go on, Allan--let's talk it all over now if you must!"
+
+"Not if you feel like that," he said. At his tone of displeasure she caught
+his hand.
+
+"Yes, yes, I want to! Please!" she cried. "It's better--really! Believe me,
+it is--"
+
+He hesitated a moment, his wide generous mouth set hard, and then in a tone
+as sharp as hers he demanded, "Are you sure you'll marry me next spring?
+Are you sure you _hope_ you will next spring? Are you sure this sister of
+yours in the house, on your nerves day and night, with this blind narrow
+motherhood, this motherhood which frightens you--isn't frightening you too
+much?"
+
+"No--a little--but not too much." Her deep sweet voice was trembling.
+"You're the one who frightens me. If you only knew! When you come like
+this--with all you've done for me back of you--"
+
+"Deborah! Don't be a fool!"
+
+"Oh, I know you say you've done nothing, except what you've been glad to
+do! You love me like that! But it's just that love! Giving up all your
+practice little by little, and your reputation uptown--all for the sake of
+me, Allan, me!"
+
+"You're wrong," he replied. "Compared to what I'm getting, I've given up
+nothing! Can't you see? You're just as narrow in your school as Edith is
+right here in her home! You look upon my hospital as a mere annex to your
+schools, when the truth of it is that the work down there is a chance I've
+wanted all my life! Can't you understand," he cried, "that instead of your
+being in debt to me it's I who am in debt to you? You're a suffragist, eh,
+a feminist--whatever you want to call it! All right! So you want to be
+equal with man! Then, for God's sake, why not begin? _Feel_ equal! I'm no
+annex to you, nor you to me! It has happened, thank God, that our work fits
+in--each with the other!"
+
+He stopped and stared, seemed to shake himself; he walked the floor. And
+when he turned back his expression had changed.
+
+"Look here, Deborah," he asked, with an appealing humorous smile, "will you
+tell me what I'm driving at?"
+
+Deborah threw back her head and laughed, and her laughter thrilled with
+relief. "How sure I feel now that I love him," she thought.
+
+"You've proved I owe you nothing!" she cried. "And that men and women of
+our kind can work on splendidly side by side, and never bother our poor
+little heads about anything else--even marriage!"
+
+"We will, though!" he retorted. The next moment she was in his arms. "Now,
+Deborah, listen to reason, child. Why can't you marry me right away?"
+
+"Because," she said, "when I marry you I'm going to have you all to
+myself--for weeks and weeks as we planned before! And afterwards, with a
+wonderful start--and with the war over, work less hard and the world less
+dark and gloomy--we're going to find that at last we can live! But this
+winter it couldn't be like that. This winter we've got to go on with our
+work--and without any more silly worries or talk about whether or not we're
+in love. _For we are_!" Her upturned face was close to his, and for some
+moments nothing was said, "Well?" she asked. "Are you satisfied?"
+
+"No--I want to get married. But it is now a quarter past one. And I'm your
+physician. Go straight to bed."
+
+She stopped him a minute at the front door:
+
+"Are you sure, absolutely, you understand?"
+
+He told her he did. But as he walked home he reflected. How tense she had
+been in the way she had talked. Yes, the long strain was telling. "Why was
+she so anxious to get me out of the house," he asked, "when we were alone
+for the first time in days? And why, if she's really sure of her love, does
+she hate the idea that she's in my debt?"
+
+He walked faster, for the night was cold. And there was a chill, too, in
+this long waiting game.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger heard Deborah come up to bed, and he wondered what they had been
+talking about. Of the topic he himself had broached--each other, love and
+marriage?
+
+"Possibly--for a minute or two--but no more," he grumbled. "For don't
+forget there's work to discuss, there's that mass meeting still on her
+mind. And God knows a woman's mind is never any child's play. But when you
+load a mass meeting on top--"
+
+Here he yawned long and noisily. His head ached, he felt sore and
+weak--"from the evening's entertainment my other daughter gave me." No, he
+was through, he had had enough. They could settle things to suit
+themselves. Let Edith squander her money on frills, the more expensive the
+better. Let her turn poor Johnny out of the house, let her give full play
+to her motherhood. And if that scared Deborah out of marrying, let her stay
+single and die an old maid. He had worried enough for his family. He wanted
+a little peace in his house.
+
+Drowsily he closed his eyes, and a picture came into his mind of the city
+as he had seen it only a few nights before. It had been so cool, so calm
+and still. At dusk he had been in the building of the great tower on
+Madison Square; and when he had finished his business there, on an impulse
+he had gone up to the top, and through a wide low window had stood a few
+moments looking down. A soft light snow was falling; and from high up in
+the storm, through the silent whirling flakes, he had looked far down upon
+lights below, in groups and clusters, dancing lines, between tall phantom
+buildings, blurred and ghostly, faint, unreal. From all that bustle and
+fever of life there had risen to him barely a sound. And the town had
+seemed small and lonely, a little glow in the infinite dark, fulfilling its
+allotted place for its moment in eternity. Suddenly from close over his
+head like a brazen voice out of the sky, hard and deafening and clear, the
+great bell had boomed the hour. Then again had come the silence, and the
+cool, soft, whirling snow.
+
+Like a dream it faded all away, and with a curious smile on his face
+presently Roger fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+And now he felt the approach at last of another season of quiet, one of
+those uneventful times which come in family histories. As he washed and
+dressed for dinner, one night a little later, he thought with satisfaction,
+"How nicely things are smoothing out." His dressing for dinner, as a rule,
+consisted in changing his low wing collar and his large round detachable
+cuffs; but to-night he changed his cravat as well, from a black to a pearl
+gray one. He hoped the whole winter would be pearl gray.
+
+The little storm which Edith had raised over John's presence in the house
+had been allayed. Deborah had talked to John, and had moved him with his
+belongings to a comfortable sunny room in the small but neat apartment of a
+Scotch family nearby. And John had been so sensible. "Oh, I'm fine, thank
+you," he had answered simply, when in the office Roger had asked him about
+his new home. So that incident was closed. Already Edith was disinfecting
+John's old room to her heart's content, for George was to occupy it now.
+She was having the woodwork repainted and a new paper put on the walls. She
+had already purchased a small new rug, and a bed and a bureau and one easy
+chair, and was making a pair of fresh pretty curtains. All right, let her
+do it--if only there could be peace in the house.
+
+With his cravat adjusted and his thick-curling silver hair trim from having
+just been cut by "Louis" over at the Brevoort, Roger went comfortably down
+to his dinner. Edith greeted him with a smile.
+
+"Deborah's dining out," she said.
+
+"Very well," he replied, "so much the better. We'll go right in--I'm
+hungry. And we'll have the evening to ourselves. No big ideas nor problems.
+Eh, daughter?" He slipped his hand in hers, and she gave it a little
+affectionate squeeze. With John safely out of the way, and not only the
+health of her children but their proper schooling assured, Edith was
+herself again, placid, sweet and kindly. And dinner that night was a
+cheerful meal. Later, in the living room, as Roger contentedly lit his
+cigar, Edith gave an appreciative sniff.
+
+"You do smoke such good cigars, father," she said, smiling over her needle.
+And glancing up at her daughter, "Betsy, dear," she added, "go and get your
+grandfather's evening paper."
+
+In quiet perusal of the news he spent the first part of his evening. The
+war did not bother him to-night, for there had come a lull in the fighting,
+as though even war could know its place. And times were better over here.
+As, skipping all news from abroad his eye roved over the pages for what his
+business depended upon, Roger began to find it now. The old familiar
+headliness were reappearing side by side--high finance exposures, graft,
+the antics and didos cut up by the sons and daughters of big millionaires;
+and after them in cheery succession the Yale-Harvard game, a new man for
+the Giants, a new college building for Cornell, a new city plan for
+Seattle, a woman senator in Arizona and in Chicago a "sporting mayor." In
+brief, all over the U.S.A., men and women old and new had risen up, to
+power, fame, notoriety, whatever you chose to call it. Men and women?
+Hardly. "Children" was the better word. But the thought did not trouble
+Roger to-night. He had instead a heartening sense of the youth, the wild
+exuberance, the boundless vigor in his native land. He could feel it rising
+once again. Life was soon to go on as before; people were growing hungry to
+see the names of their countrymen back in the headlines where they
+belonged. And Roger's business was picking up. He was not sure of the
+figure of his deficit last week--he had always been vague on the
+book-keeping side--but he knew it was down considerably.
+
+When Betsy and George had gone to bed, Roger put down his paper.
+
+"Look here, Edith," he proposed, "how'd you like me to read aloud while you
+sew?" She looked up with a smile of pleased surprise.
+
+"Why, father dear, I'd love it." At once, she bent over her needle again,
+so that if there were any awkwardness attending this small change in their
+lives it did not reveal itself in her pretty countenance. "What shall we
+read?" she affably asked.
+
+"I've got a capital book," he replied. "It's about travel in Japan."
+
+"I'd like nothing better," Edith replied. And with a slight glow of pride
+in himself Roger took his book in hand. The experiment was a decided
+success. He read again the next night and the next, while Edith sat at her
+sewing. And so this hour's companionship, from nine to ten in the evening,
+became a regular custom--just one hour and no more, which Roger spent with
+his daughter, intimately and pleasantly. Yes, life was certainly smoothing
+out.
+
+Edith's three older children had been reinstated in school. And although at
+first, when deprived of their aid, she had found it nearly impossible to
+keep her two small boys amused and give them besides the four hours a day
+of fresh air they required, she had soon met this trouble by the same
+simple process as before. Of her few possessions still unsold, she had
+disposed of nearly all, and with a small fund thus secured she had sent for
+Hannah to return. The house was running beautifully.
+
+Christmas, too, was drawing near. And though Roger knew that in Edith's
+heart was a cold dread of this season, she bravely kept it to herself; and
+she set about so determinedly to make a merry holiday, that her father
+admiring her pluck drew closer still to his daughter. He entered into her
+Christmas plans and into all the conspiracies which were whispered about
+the house. Great secrets, anxious consultations, found in him a ready
+listener.
+
+So passed three blessed quiet weeks, and he had high hopes for the winter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+If there were any cloud upon his horizon, it was the thought of Laura. She
+had barely been to the house since Edith had come back to town; and at
+times, especially in the days when things had looked dark for Roger, he had
+caught himself reproaching this giddy-gaddy youngest child, so engrossed in
+her small "menage" that apparently she could not spare a thought for her
+widowed sister. Laura on her return from abroad had brought as a gift for
+Edith a mourning gown from Paris, a most alluring creation--so much so, in
+fact, that Edith had felt it simply indecent, insulting, and had returned
+it to her sister with a stilted note of thanks. But Roger did not know of
+this. There were so many ways, he thought, in which Laura might have been
+nice to Edith. She had a gorgeous limousine in which she might so easily
+have come and taken her sister off on little trips uptown. But no, she kept
+her car to herself. And from her small apartment, where a maid whom she had
+brought from Rome dressed her several times each day, that limousine rushed
+her noiselessly forth, gay and wild as ever, immaculate and elegant,
+radiant and very rich. To what places did she go? What new friends was she
+making? What was Laura up to?
+
+He did not like her manner, one evening when she came to the house. As he
+helped her off with her cloak, a sleek supple leopard skin which fitted her
+figure like a glove, he asked,
+
+"Where's Hal this evening?" And she answered lightly,
+
+"Oh, don't ask _me_ what he does with himself."
+
+"You mean, I suppose," said Edith, with quiet disapproval, "that he is
+rushed to death this year with all this business from the war."
+
+"Yes, it's business," Laura replied, as she deftly smoothed and patted her
+soft, abundant, reddish hair. "And it's war, too," she added.
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked. He knew what she meant, war with her
+husband. But before Laura could answer him, Edith cut in hastily, for two
+of her children were present. At dinner she turned the talk to the war. But
+even on this topic, Laura's remarks were disturbing. She did not consider
+the war wholly bad--by no means, it had many good points. It was clearing
+away a lot of old rubbish, customs, superstitions and institutions out of
+date. "Musty old relics," she called them. She spoke as though repeating
+what someone else had told her. Laura with her chicken's mind could never
+have thought it all out by herself. When asked what she meant, she was
+smilingly vague, with a glance at Edith's youngsters. But she threw out
+hints about the church and even Christianity, as though it were falling to
+pieces. She spoke of a second Renaissance, "a glorious pagan era" coming.
+And then she exploded a little bomb by inquiring of Edith.
+
+"What do you think the girls over there are going to do for husbands, with
+half the marriageable men either killed or hopelessly damaged? They're not
+going to be nuns all their lives!"
+
+Again her sister cut her off, and the rest of the brief evening was
+decidedly awkward. Yes, she was changing, growing fast. And Roger did not
+like it. Here she was spending money like water, absorbed in her pleasures,
+having no baby, apparently at loose ends with her husband, and through it
+all so cocksure of herself and her outrageous views about war, and smiling
+about them with such an air, and in her whole manner, such a tone of amused
+superiority. She talked about a world for the strong, bits of gabble from
+Nietzsche and that sort of rot; she spoke blithely of a Rome reborn, the
+"Wings of the Eagles" heard again. This part of it she had taken, no doubt,
+from her new Italian friend, her husband's shrapnel partner.
+
+Pshaw! What was Laura up to?
+
+But that was only one evening. It was not repeated, another month went
+quickly by, and Roger had soon shaken it from him, for he had troubles
+enough at home. One daughter at a time, he had thought. And as the dark
+clouds close above him had cleared, the other cloud too had drifted away,
+until it was small, just on the horizon, far away from Roger's house. What
+was Laura up to? He barely ever thought of that now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But one night when he came home, Edith, who sat in the living room reading
+aloud to her smaller boys, gave him a significant look which warned him
+something had happened. And turning to take off his overcoat, in the hall
+he almost stumbled upon a pile of hand luggage, two smart patent leather
+bags, a hat trunk and a sable cloak.
+
+"Hello," he exclaimed. "What's this? Who's here?"
+
+"Laura," Edith answered. "She's up in Deborah's room, I think--they've been
+up there for over an hour." Roger looked indignantly in at his daughter.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Edith replied. "They didn't seem to need me.
+They made it rather plain, in fact. Another quarrel, I presume. She came
+into the house like a whirlwind, asked at once for Deborah and flew up to
+Deborah's room."
+
+"Pshaw!" Roger heavily mounted the stairs. He at least did not feel like
+flying. A whirlwind, eh--a nice evening ahead!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, in her room upstairs Deborah sat motionless, sternly holding her
+feelings down, while in a tone now kindly but more often full of a sharp
+dismay, she threw out question after question to Laura who was walking the
+floor in a quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her
+voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.
+
+"No, this time it's divorce!" she declared, at the end of her first
+outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband's double life.
+"I've stood it long enough! I'm through!"
+
+"You mean you don't care for him," Deborah said. She was fighting for time
+to think it out. "You want a divorce. Very well, Laura dear--but how do you
+think you are going to get it? The laws are rather strict in this state.
+They allow but one cause. Have you any proofs?"
+
+"No, I haven't--but I don't need any proofs! He wants it as badly as I do!
+Wait--I'll give you his very words!" Laura's face grew white with fury.
+"'It's entirely up to you, Sweetie'--the beast!--'You can have any kind of
+divorce you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to
+fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the
+reporters and tell them all about yourself!'"
+
+"_Your husband is to bring suit against you_?" Deborah's voice was loud and
+harsh. "For God's sake, Laura, what do you mean?"
+
+"Mean? I mean that _he has proofs_! He has used a detective, the mean
+little cur, and he's treating me like the dirt under his feet! Just as
+though it were one thing for a man, and another--quite--for a woman! He
+even had the nerve to be mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn
+me!--turn me out on the street!" Deborah winced as though from a blow. "Oh,
+it was funny, funny!" Laura was almost sobbing now.
+
+"Stop, this minute!" Deborah said. "You say that you've been doing--what he
+has?" she demanded.
+
+"Why shouldn't I? What do you know about it? Are you going to turn against
+me, too?"
+
+"I am--pretty nearly--"
+
+"Oh, good God!" Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her walking.
+
+"Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain."
+
+"Explain--to you? How can I? _You_ don't understand--you know nothing about
+it--all you know about is schools! You're simply a nun when it comes to
+this. I see it now--I didn't before--I thought you a modern woman--with
+your mind open to new ideas. But it isn't, it seems, when it comes to a
+pinch--it's shut as tight as Edith's is--"
+
+"Yes, tight!"
+
+"Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you kindly leave me
+alone! I'll have a talk with father!"
+
+"You will _not_ have a talk with father--"
+
+"I most certainly will--and he'll understand! He's a man, at least--and he
+led a man's life before he was married!"
+
+"Laura!"
+
+"_You_ can't see it in him--_but I can_!"
+
+"You'll say not a word to him, not one word! He has had enough this year as
+it is!"
+
+"Has he? Then I'm sorry! If _you_ were any help to me--instead of acting
+like a nun--"
+
+"Will you please stop talking like a fool?"
+
+"I'm not! I'm speaking the truth and you know it! You know no more about
+love like mine than a nun of the middle ages! You needn't tell me about
+Allan Baird. You think you're in love with him, don't you? Well then, I'll
+tell you that you're not--your love is the kind that can wait for
+years--because it's cold, it's cold, it's cold--it's all in your mind and
+your reason! And so I say you're no help to me now! Here--look at yourself
+in the glass over there! You're just plain angry--frightened!"
+
+"Yes--I am--I'm frightened." While she strove to think clearly, to form
+some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly on:
+
+"I know you are! And you can't be fair! You're like nearly all American
+women--married or single, young or old--you're all of you scared to death
+about sex--just as your Puritan mothers were! And you leave it alone--you
+keep it down--you never give it a chance--you're afraid! But I'm not
+afraid--and I'm living my life! And let me tell you I'm not alone! There
+are hundreds and thousands doing the same--right here in New York City
+to-night! It's been so abroad for years and years--in Rome and Berlin, in
+Paris and London--and now, thank God, it has come over here! If our
+husbands can do it, why can't we? And we are--we're starting--it's come
+with the war! You think war is hell and nothing else, don't you--but you're
+wrong! It's not only killing men--it's killing a lot of hypocrisies
+too--it's giving a jolt to marriage! You'll see what the women will do soon
+enough--when there aren't enough men any longer--"
+
+"Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you've done,"
+Deborah interrupted. A simple course of action had just flashed into her
+mind.
+
+"All right, I will. I'm not ashamed. I've given you this 'tirade' to show
+you exactly how I feel--that it's not any question of sin or guilt or any
+musty old rubbish like that! I know I'm right! I know just what I'm doing!"
+
+"Who's the man? That Italian?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Right here in New York."
+
+"Does he mean to stand by you?"
+
+"Of course he does."
+
+"Will he marry you, Laura?"
+
+"Yes, he will--the minute I'm free from my beast of a husband!"
+
+"And your husband will keep his suit quiet, you said, if you agree not to
+fight him."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Deborah rose abruptly.
+
+"Then will you stay right here to-night, and leave this matter to me?" she
+asked.
+
+"What do _you_ mean to do?"
+
+"See your husband."
+
+"What for? When?"
+
+"To-night, if I can. I want to be sure."
+
+Laura looked for the moment nonplussed.
+
+"And what of my wishes?" she inquired.
+
+"_Your_ wishes," said Deborah steadily. "You want a divorce, don't you--so
+do I. And you want it quiet--and so do I. I want it so hard that I want to
+make sure." Deborah's tone was kinder now, and she came over close to her
+sister. "Look here, Laura, if I've been hard, forgive me--please--and let
+me help. I'm not so narrow as you think. I've been through a good deal of
+this before--downtown, I mean, with girls in my school. They come to me, we
+have long talks. Maybe I _am_ a nun--as you say--but I'm one with a
+confessional. Not for sins," she added, as Laura looked up angrily. "Sins
+don't interest me very much. But troubles do. And heaven knows that
+marriage is one," she said with a curious bitterness. "And when it has
+failed and there's no love left--as in your case--I'm for divorce. Only--"
+her wide sensitive lips quivered just a little, "I'm sorry it had to come
+like this. But I love you, dear, and I want to help, I want to see you
+safely through. And while I'm doing it, if we can, I want to keep dad out
+of it--at least until it's settled." She paused a moment. "So if you agree,
+I'll go to your husband. I want to be sure, absolutely, just what we can
+count on. And until I come back, stay here in my room. You don't want to
+talk to father and Edith--"
+
+"Most certainly not!" Laura muttered.
+
+"Good. Then stay here until I return. I'll send you up some supper."
+
+"I don't want any, thank you."
+
+Laura went and threw herself on the bed, while her sister finished
+dressing.
+
+"It's decent of you, Deborah." Her voice was muffled and relaxed. "I wasn't
+fair," she added. "I'm sorry for some of the things I said."
+
+"About me and marriage?" Deborah looked at herself in the glass in a
+peculiar searching way. A slight spasm crossed her features. "I'm not sure
+but that you were right. At times I feel far from certain," she said. Laura
+lifted her head from the pillow, watched her sister a moment, dropped back.
+
+"Don't let this affect _you_, Deborah."
+
+"Oh, don't worry, dearie." And Deborah moved toward the door. "My affair is
+just mine, you see, and this won't make any difference."
+
+But in her heart she knew it would. What an utter loathing she had to-night
+for all that people meant by sex! Suddenly she was quivering, her limbs and
+her whole body hot.
+
+"You say I'm cold," she was thinking. "Cold toward Allan, calm and cool,
+nothing but mind and reason! You say it means little to me, all that! But
+if I had had trouble with Allan, would I have come running home to talk?
+Wouldn't I have hugged it tight? And isn't that love? What do _you_ know of
+me and the life I've led? Do you know how it feels to want to work, to be
+something yourself, without any man? And can't _that_ be a passion? Have
+you had to live with Edith here and see what motherhood can be, what it can
+do to a woman? And now you come with _another_ side, just as narrow as
+hers, devouring everything else in sight! And because I'm a little afraid
+of that, for myself and all I want to do, you say I don't know what love
+is! But I do! And my love's worth more than yours! It's deeper, richer, it
+will last!... Then why do I loathe it _all_ to-night?... But I don't, I
+only loathe _your_ side!... But yours is the very heart of it!... All
+right, then what am I going to do?"
+
+She was going slowly down the stairs. She stopped for a moment, frowning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+On the floor below she met her father, who was coming out of his room. He
+looked at her keenly:
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Laura's here," she answered. "Trouble again with her husband. Better leave
+her alone for the present--she's going to stay in my room for a while."
+
+"Very well," her father grunted, and they went down to dinner. There
+Deborah was silent, and Edith did most of the talking. Edith, quite aware
+of the fact that Laura and all Laura's ways were in disgrace for the
+moment, and that she and her ways with her children shone by the
+comparison, was bright and sweet and tactful. Roger glanced at her more
+than once, with approval and with gratitude for the effort she was making
+to smooth over the situation. Deborah rose before they had finished.
+
+"Where are you off to?" Roger asked.
+
+"Oh, there's something I have to attend to--"
+
+"School again this evening, dear?" inquired Edith cheerfully, but her
+sister was already out of the room. She looked at her father with quiet
+concern. "I'm sorry she has to be out to-night--to-night of all nights,"
+she murmured.
+
+"Humph!" ejaculated her father. This _eternal_ school business of Deborah's
+was beginning to get on his nerves. Yes, just a little on his nerves! Why
+couldn't she give up one evening, just one, and get Laura out of this snarl
+she was in? He heard her at the telephone, and presently she came back to
+them.
+
+"Oh, Edith," she said casually, "don't send any supper up to Laura. She
+says she doesn't want any to-night. And ask Hannah to put a cot in my room.
+Will you?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I'll attend to it."
+
+"Thanks." And again she left them. In silence, when the front door closed,
+Edith looked at her father. This must be rather serious, Roger thought
+excitedly. So Laura was to stay all night, while Deborah gallivanted off to
+those infernal schools of hers! He had little joy in his paper that night.
+The news of the world had such a trick of suddenly receding a million miles
+away from a man the minute he was in trouble. And Roger was in trouble.
+With each slow tick of the clock in the hall he grew more certain and more
+disturbed. An hour passed. The clock struck nine. With a snort he tossed
+his paper aside.
+
+"Well, Edith," he said glumly, "how about some chess this evening?" In
+answer she gave him a quick smile of understanding and sympathy.
+
+"All right, father dear." And she fetched the board. But they had played
+only a short time when Deborah's latchkey was heard in the door. Roger gave
+an angry hitch to his chair. Soon she appeared in the doorway.
+
+"May I talk to you, father?" she asked.
+
+"I suppose so." Roger scowled.
+
+"You'll excuse us, Edith?" she added.
+
+"Oh, assuredly, dear." And Edith rose, looking very much hurt. "Of course,
+if I'm not needed--"
+
+At this her father scowled again. Why couldn't Deborah show her sister a
+little consideration?
+
+"What is it?" he demanded.
+
+"Suppose we go into the study," she said.
+
+He followed her there and shut the door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well?" he asked, from his big leather chair. Deborah had remained
+standing.
+
+"I've got some bad news," she began.
+
+"What is it?" he snapped. "School burnt down?" Savagely he bit off a
+cigar.
+
+"I've just had a talk with Harold," she told him. He shot a glance of
+surprise and dismay.
+
+"Have, eh--what's it all about?"
+
+"It's about a divorce," she answered.
+
+The lighted match dropped from Roger's hand. He snatched it up before it
+was out and lit his cigar, and puffing smoke in a vigilant way again he
+eyed his daughter.
+
+"I've done what I could," she said painfully, "but they seem to have made
+up their minds."
+
+"Then they'll unmake 'em," he replied, and he leaned forward heavily.
+"They'll unmake 'em," he repeated, in a thick unnatural tone. "I'm not
+a'goin' to hear to it!" In a curious manner his voice had changed. It
+sounded like that of a man in the mountains, where he had been born and
+raised. This thought flashed into Deborah's mind and her wide resolute
+mouth set hard. It would be very difficult.
+
+"I'm afraid this won't do, father dear. Whether you give your consent or
+not--"
+
+"Wun't, wun't it! You wait and see if it wun't!" Deborah came close to him.
+
+"Suppose you wait till you understand," she admonished sternly.
+
+"All right, I'm waiting," he replied. She felt herself trembling deep
+inside. She did not want him to understand, any more than she must to
+induce him to keep out of this affair.
+
+"To begin with," she said steadily, "you will soon see yourself, I think,
+that they fairly loathe the sight of each other--that there is no real
+marriage left."
+
+"That's fiddlesticks!" snapped Roger. "Just modern talk and new
+ideas--ideas you're to blame for! Yes, you are--you put 'em in her
+head--you and your gabble about woman's rights!" He was angry now. He was
+glad he was angry. He'd just begun!
+
+"If you want me to leave her alone," his daughter cut in sharply, "just say
+so! I'll leave it all to you!" And she saw him flinch a little. "What would
+be _your_ idea?" she asked.
+
+"My idea? She's to go straight home and make up with him!"
+
+She hesitated. Then she said:
+
+"Suppose there's another woman."
+
+"Then he's a beast," growled Roger.
+
+"And yet you want her to live with him?"
+
+He scowled, he felt baffled, his mind in a whirl. And a wave of
+exasperation suddenly swept over him.
+
+"Well, why shouldn't she?" he cried. "Other wives have done it--millions!
+Made a devilish good success of it, too--made new men of their husbands!
+Let her show him she's ready to forgive! That's only Christian, ain't it?
+Hard? Of course it's hard on her! But can you tell me one hard thing she
+has ever had to do in her life? Hasn't it been pleasure, pleasure from the
+word go? Can't she stand something hard? Don't we all of us have to? I
+do--God knows--with all of you!" And he puffed his cigar in a fury. His
+daughter smiled. She saw her chance.
+
+"Father," she said, in a low clear voice, "You've had so _many_ troubles.
+Why not leave this one to me? You can't help--no matter how hard you
+try--you'll only make it worse and worse. And you've been through so much
+this year--you've earned the right to be quiet. And that's what _they_
+want, both of them--they both want it quiet, without any scandal." Her
+father glared, for he knew about scandal, he handled it in his office each
+day. "Let me manage this--please," she said. And her offer tempted him. He
+struggled for a moment.
+
+"No, I won't!" he burst out in reply. "I want quiet right enough, but not
+at the price of her peace with her God!" This sounded foolish, he felt
+that it did, and he flushed and grew the angrier. "No, I won't," he said
+stubbornly. "She'll go back to him if I take her myself. And what's more,"
+he added, rising, "she's to go straight back to-night!"
+
+"She is not going back to-night, my dear." And Deborah caught her father's
+arm. "Sit down, please--"
+
+"I've heard enough!"
+
+"I'm afraid you haven't," she replied.
+
+"Very well." His smile was caustic. "Give me some more of it," he said.
+
+"Her husband won't have her," said Deborah bluntly. "He told me so
+himself--to-night."
+
+"Did, eh--then _I'll_ talk to him!"
+
+"He thinks," she went on in a desperate tone, "that Laura has been
+leading--'her own little life'--as he put it to me."
+
+"_Eh_?"
+
+"He is bringing suit himself."
+
+"_Oh! He is_!" cried Roger hoarsely. "Then I _will_ talk to this young
+man!" But she put out a restraining hand:
+
+"Father! Don't try to fight this suit!"
+
+"You watch me!" he snarled. Tears showed in her eyes:
+
+"Think! Oh, please! Think what you're doing! Have you ever seen a
+divorce-court--here, in New York? Do you know what it's like? What it _can_
+be like?"
+
+"Yes," Roger panted. He did know, and the picture came vividly into his
+mind--a mass of eager devouring eyes fixed on a girl in a witness chair.
+"To-morrow I see a lawyer!" he said.
+
+"No--you won't do that, my dear," Deborah told him sadly. "Laura's husband
+has got proofs."
+
+Her father looked up slowly and glared into his daughter's face.
+
+"I've seen them myself," she added. "And Laura has admitted it, too."
+
+Still for a moment he stared at her. Then slowly he settled back in his
+chair, his eyes dropped in their sockets, and very carefully, with a hand
+which was trembling visibly, he lifted his cigar to his lips. It had gone
+nearly out, but he drew on it hard until it began to glow again.
+
+"Well," he asked simply, "what shall we do?"
+
+Sharply Deborah turned away. To be quiet, to be matter of fact, to act as
+though nothing had happened at all--she knew this was what he wanted now,
+what he was silently begging her to be for his sake, for the family's sake.
+For he had been raised in New England. And so, when she turned back to him,
+her voice was flat and commonplace.
+
+"Keep her here," she said. "Let him do what he likes. There'll be nothing
+noisy, he promised me that. But keep her here till it's over."
+
+Roger smoked for a moment, and said,
+
+"There's Edith and her children."
+
+"The children needn't know anything--and Edith only part of it."
+
+"The less, the better," he grunted.
+
+"Of course." She looked at him anxiously. This tractable mood of his might
+not last. "Why not go up and see her now--and get it all over--so you can
+sleep."
+
+Over Roger's set heavy visage flitted a smile of grim relish at that.
+Sleep! Deborah was funny. Resolutely he rose from his chair.
+
+"You'll be careful, of course," she admonished him, and he nodded in reply.
+At the door he turned back:
+
+"Where's the other chap?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered. "Surely you don't want to see _him_--." Her
+father snorted his contempt:
+
+"See him? No. Nor she neither. _She's_ not to see him. Understand?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell her that to-night."
+
+"Look here." Roger eyed his daughter a moment.
+
+"You've done well. I've no complaint. But don't try to manage everything."
+
+He went out and slowly climbed the stairs. Outside the bedroom door he
+paused. When had he stood like this before? In a moment he remembered. One
+evening some two years ago, the night before Laura's wedding, when they had
+had that other talk. And so it had come to this, had it. Well, there was no
+use making a scene. Again, with a sigh of weariness, Laura's father knocked
+at her door.
+
+"Come in, Deborah," she said.
+
+"It isn't Deborah, it's I." There was a little silence.
+
+"Very well, father, come in, please." Her voice sounded tired and lifeless.
+He opened the door and found the room dark. "I'm over on the bed," she
+said. "I've had a headache this evening."
+
+He came over to the bedside and he could just see her there, a long shadow
+upon the white. She had not taken off her clothes. He stood a moment
+helplessly.
+
+"Please don't _you_ talk to me!" His daughter fiercely whispered. "I can't
+stand any more to-night!"
+
+"I won't," he answered. "It's too late." Again there was a pause.
+
+"What time is it?" she asked him. But he did not answer.
+
+"Well, Laura," he said presently, "your sister has told me everything. She
+has seen your husband--it's all arranged--and you're to stay here till it's
+over ... You want to stay here, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then it's settled," he went on. "There's only one thing--the other man. I
+don't know who he is and I don't want to know. And I don't want you to know
+him again. You're not to see him. Understand?" For a moment Laura was
+silent.
+
+"I'm going to marry him, father," she said. And standing in the darkened
+room Roger stiffened sharply.
+
+"Well," he answered, after a pause, "that's your affair. You're no longer a
+child. I wish you were," he added.
+
+Suddenly in the darkness Laura's hand came out clutching for his. But he
+had already turned to the door.
+
+"Good-night," he said, and left her.
+
+In the hallway below he met Deborah, and to her questioning look he
+replied, "All right, I guess. Now I'm going to bed." He went into his room
+and closed the door.
+
+As soon as Roger was alone, he knew this was the hardest part--to be here
+by himself in this intimate room, with this worn blue rug, these pictures
+and this old mahogany bed. For he had promised Judith his wife to keep
+close to the children. What would she think of him if she knew?
+
+Judith had been a broad-minded woman, sensible, big-hearted. But she never
+would have stood for this. Once, he recollected, she had helped a girl
+friend to divorce her husband, a drunkard who ran after chorus girls. But
+that had been quite different. There the wife had been innocent and had
+done it for her children. Laura was guilty, she hadn't a child, she was
+already planning to marry again. And then what, he asked himself. "From bad
+to worse, very likely. A woman can't stop when she's started downhill." His
+eye was caught by the picture directly before him on the wall--the one his
+wife had given him--two herdsmen with their cattle high up on a shoulder of
+a sweeping mountain side, tiny blue figures against the dawn. It had been
+like a symbol of their lives, always beginning clean glorious days. What
+was Laura beginning?
+
+"Well," he demanded angrily, as he began to jerk off his clothes, "what can
+I do about it? Try to keep her from re-marrying, eh? And suppose I
+succeeded, how long would it last? She wouldn't stay here and I couldn't
+keep her. She'll be independent now--her looks will be her bank account.
+There'd be some other chap in no time, and he might not even marry her!" He
+tugged ferociously at his boots. "No, let well enough alone!"
+
+He finished undressing, opened the window, turned out the gas and got into
+bed. Wearily he closed his eyes. But after a time he opened them and stared
+long through the window up at the beetling cliff of a building close by,
+with its tier upon tier of lighted apartments, a huge garish hive of homes.
+Yes, the town was crowding down on him to-night, on his house and on his
+family. He realized it had never stopped, and that his three grown
+children, each one of them a part of himself, had been struggling with it
+all the time. Laura--wasn't she part of himself? Hadn't he, too, had his
+little fling, back in his early twenties? "You will live on in our
+children's lives." She was a part of him gone wild. She gave it free rein,
+took chances. God, what a chance she had taken this time! The picture of
+that court he had seen, with the girl in the witness chair and those many
+rows of eyes avidly fixed upon her, came back to his mind so vividly they
+seemed for a moment right here in the room, these eyes of the town boring
+into his house. Angrily he shut out the scene. And alone in the darkness,
+Roger said to his daughter all the ugly furious things he had not said to
+her upstairs--until at last he was weary of it.
+
+"Why am I working myself all up? I've got to take this. It's my medicine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+But as he watched Laura in the house, Roger's first emotions were
+complicated more and more by a feeling of bewilderment. At dinner the next
+evening he noticed with astonishment that she appeared like her natural
+self. "She's acting," he decided. But this explanation he soon dismissed.
+No, it was something deeper. She was actually unashamed, unafraid. That
+first display of feelings, the night of her arrival, had been only the
+scare of an hour. Within a few days she was back on her feet; and her cure
+for her trouble, if trouble she felt, was not less but more pleasure, as
+always. She went out nearly every evening now; and when she had spent what
+money she had, she sold a part of her jewelry to the little old Galician
+Jew in the shop around the corner. Yes, she was her natural self. And she
+was as before to her father. Her attitude said plainly,
+
+"It isn't fair to you, poor dear, to expect you to fully understand how
+right I am in this affair. And considering your point of view, you're
+acting very nicely."
+
+Often as she talked to him a note of good-humored forgiveness crept into
+his daughter's voice. And looking at her grimly out of the corner of his
+eye, he saw that she looked down on him, far, far down from heights above.
+
+"Yes," he thought, "this is modern." Then he grew angry all at once. "No,"
+he added, "this is wrong! You can't fool me, young woman, you know it as
+well as I do myself! You're not going to carry this off with an air--not
+with your father! No, by George!"
+
+And he would grow abrupt and stern. But days would pass and in spite of
+himself into their talks would creep a natural friendly tone. Again he
+found himself friends with her--friends as though nothing whatever had
+happened! Could it be that a woman who had so sinned could go right on?
+Here was Laura, serenely unconscious of guilt, and smiling into her future,
+dreaming still of happiness, quite plainly sure of it, in fact! With a
+curious dismayed relief Roger would scowl at this daughter of his--a
+radiant enigma in his quiet sober house.
+
+But Edith was not at all perplexed. When she learned from Deborah that
+there was soon to be a divorce, she came at once to her father. Her face
+was like a thundercloud.
+
+"A nice example for my children!" she indignantly exclaimed.
+
+"I'm sorry, my dear. But what can I do?"
+
+"You can make her go back to her husband, can't you?"
+
+"No, I can't," he flatly replied.
+
+"Then I'd better try it myself!"
+
+"You'll do no such thing!" he retorted. "I've gone clear to the bottom of
+this--and I say you're to leave her alone!"
+
+"Very well," she answered. And she did leave her sister alone, so severely
+that Laura soon avoided being home for lunch or dinner. She had taken the
+room which George had occupied ever since John had been turned out, and
+there she breakfasted late in bed, until Edith put a stop to it. They
+barely spoke to each other now. Laura still smiled defiance.
+
+Days passed. Christmas came at last, and despite Edith's glum resolution to
+make it a happy time for the children, the happiness soon petered out.
+After the tree in the morning, the day hung heavy on the house. Roger
+buried himself in his study. Laura had motored off into the country with a
+gay party of her friends. Or was this just a ruse, he wondered, and was
+she spending the day with her lover? Well, what if she was? Could he lock
+her in?
+
+About twilight he thought he heard her return, and later from his bedroom
+he heard her voice and Edith's. Both voices sounded angry, but he would not
+interfere.
+
+At the Christmas dinner that evening Laura did not put in an appearance,
+but Edith sat stiff and silent there; and despite the obvious efforts which
+Deborah and Allan made to be genial with the children, the very air in the
+room was charged with the feeling of trouble close ahead. Again Roger
+retreated into his den, and presently Laura came to him.
+
+"Good-night--I'm going out," she said, and she pressed her cheek lightly to
+his own. "What a dear you've been to me, dad," she murmured. And then she
+was gone.
+
+A few minutes later Edith came in. She held a small note in her hand, which
+Roger saw was addressed to himself.
+
+"Well, father, I learned this afternoon what you've been keeping from me,"
+she said. Roger gave her a steady look.
+
+"You did, eh--Laura told you?"
+
+"Yes, she did!" his daughter exclaimed. "And I can't help wondering,
+father--"
+
+"Why did she tell you? Have you been at her again to-day?"
+
+"Again? Not at all," she answered. "I've done as you asked me to, let her
+alone. But to-day--mother's day--I got thinking of _her_."
+
+"Leave your mother out of it, please. What did you say to Laura?"
+
+"I tried to make her go back, of course--"
+
+"And she told you--"
+
+"He wouldn't have her! And then in a perfect tantrum she went on to tell me
+why!" Edith's eyes were cold with disgust. "And I'm wondering why you let
+her stay here--in the same house with my children!"
+
+Roger reached out his hand.
+
+"Give me that note," he commanded. He read it quickly and handed it back.
+The note was from Laura, a hasty good-bye.
+
+"Edith will explain," she wrote, "and you will see I cannot stay any
+longer. It is simply too impossible. I am going to the man I love--and in a
+few days we shall sail for Naples. I know you will not interfere. It will
+make the divorce even simpler and everything easier all round. Please don't
+worry about me. We shall soon be married over there. You have been so dear
+and sensible and I do so love you for it." Then came her name scrawled
+hastily. And at the bottom of the page: "I have paid every bill I can think
+of."
+
+Edith read it in silence, her color slowly mounting.
+
+"All right," said her father, "your children are safe." She gave him a
+quick angry look, burst into tears and ran out of the room.
+
+Roger sat without moving, his heavy face impassive. And so he remained for
+a long time. Well, _Laura_ was gone--no mistake about that--and this time
+she was gone for good. She was going to live in Rome. Try to stop her? No.
+What good would it do? Wings of the Eagles, Rome reborn. That was it, she
+had hit it, struck the keynote of this new age. Rome reborn, all clean,
+old-fashioned Christian living swept away by millions of men at each
+others' throats like so many wolves. And at last quite openly to himself
+Roger admitted that he felt old. Old and beaten, out of date. Moments
+passed, and hours--he took little note of time. Nor did he see on the
+mantle the dark visage of "The Thinker" there, resting on the huge clinched
+fist and brooding down upon him. Lower, imperceptibly, he sank into his
+leather chair.
+
+Quiet had returned to his house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+But the quiet was dark to Roger now. Each night he spent in his study
+alone, for instinctively he felt the need of being by himself for a while,
+of keeping away from his children--out of whose lives he divined that other
+events would soon come forth to use up the last of the strength that was in
+him.
+
+And Roger grew angry with the world. Why couldn't it let a man alone, an
+old man in a silent house alive for him with memories? Repeatedly in such
+hours his mind would go groping backward into the years behind him. What a
+long and winding road, half buried in the jungle, dim, almost impenetrable,
+made up of millions of small events, small worries, plans and dazzling
+dreams, with which his days had all been filled. But the more he recalled
+the more certain he grew that he was right. Life had never been like this:
+the world had never come smashing into his house, his very family, with its
+dirty teeming tenements, its schools, its prisons, electric chairs, its
+feverish rush for money, its luxuries, its scandals. These things had
+existed in the world, but remote and never real, mere things which he had
+read about. War? Did he not remember wars that had come and gone in Europe?
+But they hadn't come into his home like this, first making him poor when he
+needed money for Edith and her children, then plunging Deborah into a
+struggle which might very probably ruin her life, and now taking Laura and
+filling her mind with thoughts of pagan living. Why was every man, woman
+and child, these days, bound up in the whole life of the world? What would
+come of it all? A new day out of this deafening night? Maybe so. But for
+him it would come too late.
+
+"What have I left to live for?"
+
+One night with a sigh he went to his desk, lit a cigar and laid his hand
+upon a pile of letters which had been mounting steadily. It was made up of
+Laura's bills, the ones she had not remembered. Send them after her to Rome
+for that Italian fellow to pay? No, it could not be thought of. Roger
+turned to his dwindling bank account. He was not yet making money, he was
+still losing a little each week. But he would not cut expenses. To the few
+who were left in his employ, to be turned away would mean dire need. And
+angrily he determined that they should not starve to pay Laura's bills.
+"The world for the strong, eh? Not in my office!" In Rome or Berlin or
+Vienna, all right! But not over here!
+
+Grimly, when he had made out the checks, Roger eyed his balance. By spring
+he would be penniless. And he had no one to turn to now, no rich young
+son-in-law who could aid.
+
+He set himself doggedly to the task of forcing up his business, and
+meanwhile in the evenings he tried with Edith to get back upon their former
+footing. To do this was not easy at first, for his bitterness still rankled
+deep: "When you were in trouble I took you in, but when she was in trouble
+you turned her out, as you turned out John before her." In the room again
+vacated, young George had been reinstalled. One night Edith found her
+father there looking in through the open doorway, and the look on his
+massive face was hard.
+
+"Better have the room disinfected again," he muttered when he saw her. He
+turned and went slowly down the stairs. And she was late for dinner that
+night.
+
+But Edith had her children. And as he watched her night by night hearing
+their lessons patiently, reading them fairy stories and holding them
+smilingly in her arms, the old appeal of her motherhood regained its hold
+upon him. One evening when the clock struck nine, putting down his paper he
+suggested gruffly,
+
+"Well, daughter, how about some chess?"
+
+Edith flushed a little:
+
+"Why, yes, dear, I'd be glad to."
+
+She rose and went to get the board. So the games were resumed, and part at
+least of their old affection came to life. But only a part. It could never
+be quite the same again.
+
+And though he saw little of Deborah, slowly, almost unawares to them both,
+she assumed the old place she had had in his home--as the one who had been
+right here in the house through all the years since her mother had died,
+the one who had helped and never asked help, keeping her own troubles to
+herself. He fell back into his habit of going before dinner to his
+daughter's bedroom door to ask whether she would be home that night. At one
+such time, getting no response and thinking Deborah was not there, he
+opened the door part way to make sure. And he saw her at her dresser,
+staring at herself in the glass, rigid as though in a trance. Later in the
+dining room he heard her step upon the stairs. She came in quietly and sat
+down; and as soon as dinner was over, she said her good-nights and left the
+house. But when she came home at midnight, he was waiting up for her. He
+had foraged in the kitchen, and on his study table he had set out some
+supper. While she sat there eating, her father watched her from his chair.
+
+"Things going badly in school?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes," she replied. There was silence.
+
+"What's wrong?"
+
+"To-night we had a line of mothers reaching out into the street. They had
+come for food and coal--but we had to send most of them home empty-handed.
+Some of them cried--and one of them fainted. She's to have a baby soon."
+
+"Can't you get any money uptown?" he asked.
+
+"I have," she answered grimly. "I've been a beggar--heaven knows--on every
+friend I can think of. And I've kept a press agent hard at work trying to
+make the public see that Belgium is right here in New York." She stopped
+and went on with her supper. "But it's a bad time for work like mine," she
+continued presently. "If we're to keep it going we must above all keep it
+cheap. That's the keynote these days, keep everything cheap--at any
+cost--so that men can expensively kill one another." Her voice had a bitter
+ring to it. "You try to talk peace and they bowl you over, with facts on
+the need of preparedness--for the defence of your country. And that doesn't
+appeal to me very much. I want a bigger preparedness--for the defence of
+the whole world--for democracy, and human rights, no matter who the people
+are! I'd like to train every child to that!"
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked.
+
+"To teach him what his life can be!" she replied in a hard quivering tone.
+"A fight? Oh yes! So long as he lives--and even with guns if it must be so!
+But a fight for all the people on earth!--and a world so full of happy
+lives that men will think hard--before ever again letting themselves be led
+by the nose--into war and death--for a place in the sun!" She rose from her
+chair, with a weary smile: "Here I am making a speech again. I've made so
+many lately it's become a habit. I'm tired out, dad, I'm going to bed." Her
+father looked at her anxiously.
+
+"You're seeing things out of proportion," he said. "You've worked so hard
+you're getting stale. You ought to get out of it for a while."
+
+"I can't!" she answered sharply. "You don't know--you don't even guess--how
+it takes every hour--all the demands!"
+
+"Where's Allan these days?"
+
+"Working," was her harsh reply. "Trying to keep his hospital going with
+half its staff. The woman who was backing him is giving her money to
+Belgium instead."
+
+"Do you see much of him?"
+
+"Every day. Let's drop it. Shall we?"
+
+"All right, my dear--"
+
+And they said good-night ...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime, in the house, Edith had tried to scrimp and save, but it
+was very difficult. Her children had so many needs, they were all growing
+up so fast. Each month brought fresh demands on her purse, and the fund
+from the sale of her belongings had been used up long ago. Her sole
+resource was the modest allowance her father gave her for running the
+house, and she had not asked him for more. She had put off trouble from
+month to month. But one evening early in March, when he gave her the
+regular monthly check, she said hesitatingly:
+
+"I'm very sorry, father dear, but I'm afraid we'll need more money this
+month." He glanced up from his paper:
+
+"What's the matter?" She gave him a forced little smile, and her father
+noticed the gray in her hair.
+
+"Oh, nothing in particular. Goodness knows I've tried to keep down
+expenses, but--well, we're a pretty large household, you know--"
+
+"Yes," said Roger kindly, "I know. Are the month's bills in?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Let me see them." She brought him the bills and he looked relieved. "Not
+so many," he ventured.
+
+"No, but they're large."
+
+"Why, look here, Edith," he said abruptly, "these are bills for two
+months--some for three, even four!"
+
+"I know--that's just the trouble. I couldn't meet them at the time."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Laura was here--and I didn't want to bother you--you had enough on your
+mind as it was. I've done the best I could, father dear--I've sold
+everything, you know--but I've about come to the end of my rope." And her
+manner said clearly, "I've done my part. I'm only a woman. I'll have to
+leave the rest to you."
+
+"I see--I see." And Roger knitted his heavy brows. "I presume I can get it
+somehow." This would play the very devil with things!
+
+"Father." Edith's voice was low. "Why don't you let Deborah help you? She
+does very little, it seems to me--compared to the size of her salary."
+
+"She can't do any more than she's doing now," was his decisive answer.
+Edith looked at him, her color high. She hesitated, then burst out:
+
+"I saw her check book the other day, she had left it on the table! She's
+spending thousands--every month!"
+
+"That's not her own money," Roger said.
+
+"No--it's money she gets for her fads--her work for those tenement
+children! She can get money enough for _them!_" He flung out his hand:
+
+"Leave her out of this, please!"
+
+"Very well, father, just as you say." And she sat there hurt and silent
+while again he looked slowly through the bills. He jotted down figures and
+added them up. They came to a bit over nine hundred dollars. Soon Deborah's
+key was heard in the door, and Roger scowled the deeper. She came into the
+room, but he did not look up. He heard her voice:
+
+"What's the matter, Edith?"
+
+"Bills for the house."
+
+"Oh." And Deborah came to her father. "May I see what's the trouble, dear?"
+
+"I'd rather you wouldn't. It's nothing," he growled. He wanted her to keep
+out of this.
+
+"Why shouldn't she see?" Edith tartly inquired. "Deborah is living
+here--and before I came she ran the house. In her place I should certainly
+want to know."
+
+Deborah was already glancing rapidly over the bills.
+
+"Why, Edith," she exclaimed, "most of these bills go back for months. Why
+didn't you pay them when they were due?"
+
+"Simply because I hadn't the money!"
+
+"You've had the regular monthly amount."
+
+"That didn't last long--"
+
+"Why didn't you tell us?"
+
+"Laura was here."
+
+Deborah gave a shrug of impatience, and Roger saw how tired she was, her
+nerves on edge from her long day.
+
+"Never mind about it now," he put in.
+
+"What a pity," Deborah muttered. "If we had been told, we could have cut
+down."
+
+"I don't agree with you!" Edith rejoined. "I have already done that myself!
+I've done nothing else!"
+
+"Have the servants been paid?" her sister asked.
+
+"No, they haven't-"
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"Three months!"
+
+Roger got up and walked the room. Deborah tried to speak quietly:
+
+"I can't quite see where the money has gone."
+
+"Can't you? Then look at my check book." And Edith produced it with a
+glare. Her sister turned over a few of the stubs.
+
+"What's this item?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here. A hundred and twenty-two dollars."
+
+"The dentist," Edith answered. "Not extravagant, is it--for five children?"
+
+"I see," said Deborah. "And this?"
+
+"Bedding," was Edith's sharp response. "A mattress and more blankets. I
+found there weren't half enough in the house."
+
+"You burned John's, didn't you?"
+
+"Naturally!"
+
+All at once both grew ashamed.
+
+"Let's be sensible," Deborah said. "We must do something, Edith--and we
+can't till we're certain where we stand."
+
+"Very well--"
+
+They went on more calmly and took up the items one by one. Deborah finished
+and was silent.
+
+"Well, father, what's to be done?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know," he answered shortly.
+
+"Somehow or other," Deborah said, "we've got to cut our expenses down."
+
+"I'm afraid that's impossible," Edith rejoined. "I've already cut as much
+as I can."
+
+"So did I, in my school," said her sister. "And when I thought I had
+reached the end, I called in an expert. And he showed me ways of saving I
+had never dreamed of."
+
+"What kind of expert would you advise here?" Edith's small lip curled in
+scorn.
+
+"Domestic science, naturally--I have a woman who does nothing else. She
+shows women in their homes just how to make money count the most."
+
+"What women? And what homes? Tenements?"
+
+"Yes. She's one of my teachers."
+
+"Thank you!" said Edith indignantly. "But I don't care to have my children
+brought down to tenement standards!"
+
+"I didn't mean to _have_ them! But I know she could show you a great many
+things you can buy for less!"
+
+"I'm afraid I shouldn't agree with her!"
+
+"Why not, Edith?"
+
+"Because she knows only tenement children--nothing of children bred like
+mine!"
+
+Deborah drew a quick short breath, her brows drew tight and she looked
+away. She bit her lip, controlled herself:
+
+"Very well, I'll try again. This house is plenty large enough so that by a
+little crowding we could make room for somebody else. And I know a teacher
+in one of my schools who'd be only too glad--"
+
+"Take a boarder, you mean?"
+
+"Yes, I do! We've got to do something!"
+
+"No!"
+
+Deborah threw up her hands:
+
+"All right, Edith, I'm through," she said. "Now what do you propose?"
+
+"I can try to do without Hannah again--"
+
+"That will be hard--on all of us. But I guess you'll have to."
+
+"So it seems."
+
+"But unfortunately that won't he enough."
+
+Edith's face grew tenser:
+
+"I'm afraid it will have to be--just now--I've had about all I can stand
+for one night!"
+
+"I'm sorry," Deborah answered. For a moment they confronted each other. And
+Edith's look said to Deborah plainly, "You're spending thousands,
+thousands, on those tenement children! You can get money enough for them,
+but you won't raise a hand to help with mine!" And as plainly Deborah
+answered, "My children are starving, shivering, freezing! What do yours
+know about being poor?" Two mothers, each with a family, and each one
+baffled, brought to bay. There was something so insatiable in each angry
+mother's eyes.
+
+"I think you'd better leave this to me," said Roger very huskily. And both
+his daughters turned with a start, as though in their bitter absorption
+they had forgotten his presence there. Both flushed, and now the glances of
+all three in that room avoided each other. For they felt how sordid it had
+been. Deborah turned to her sister.
+
+"I'm sorry, Edith," she said again, and this time there were tears in her
+eyes.
+
+"So am I," said Edith unsteadily, and in a moment she left the room.
+Deborah stood watching her father.
+
+"I'm ashamed of myself," she said. "Well? Shall we talk it over?"
+
+"No," he replied. "I can manage it somehow, Deborah, and I prefer that you
+leave it to me."
+
+Roger went into his study and sank grimly into his chair. Yes, it had been
+pretty bad; it had been ugly, ominous. He took paper and pencil and set to
+work. How he had come to hate this job of wrestling with figures. Of the
+five thousand dollars borrowed in August he had barely a thousand left. The
+first semi-annual interest was due next week and must be paid. The balance
+would carry them through March and on well into April. By that time he
+hoped to be making money, for business was better every week. But what of
+this nine hundred dollars in debts? Half at least must be paid at once.
+Lower and lower he sank in his chair. But a few moments later, his blunt
+heavy visage cleared, and with a little sigh of relief he put away his
+papers, turned out the lights and went upstairs. The dark house felt
+friendly and comforting now.
+
+In his room he opened the safe in the corner where his collection of
+curious rings had lain unnoticed for many months. He drew out a tray, sat
+down by the light and began to look them over. At first only small
+inanimate objects, gradually as from tray after tray they glittered duskily
+up at him, they began to yield their riches as they had so often done
+before. Spanish, French, Italian, Bohemian, Hungarian, Russian and Arabian,
+rings small and rings enormous, religious rings and magic rings, poison
+rings, some black with age for all his careful polishing--again they
+stole deep into Roger's imagination with suggestions of the many hands that
+had worn them through the centuries, of women kneeling in old churches,
+couples in dark crooked streets, adventures, love, hate, jealousy. Youth
+and fire, dreams and passion....
+
+At last he remembered why he was here. He thought of possible purchasers.
+He knew so many dealers, but he knew, too, that the war had played the
+devil with them as with everyone else. Still, he thought of several who
+would find it hard to resist the temptation. He would see them to-morrow,
+one by one, and get them bidding, haggling. Roger frowned disgustedly.
+
+No help for it, though, and it was a relief. It would bring a truce in his
+house for a time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the truce was brief.
+
+On the afternoon when he sold his collection Roger came home all out of
+sorts. He had been forced to haggle long; it had been a mean inglorious
+day; one of the brightest paths in his life had ended in a pigstie. But at
+least he had bought some peace in his home! Women, women, women! He shut
+the front door with a slam and went up to his room for a little rest, a
+little of what he had paid for! On the stairs he passed young Betsy, and he
+startled the girl by the sudden glare of reproach he bestowed upon her.
+Savagely he told himself he was no "feminist" that night!
+
+The brief talk he had with Edith was far from reassuring. With no Deborah
+there to wound her pride, Edith quickly showed herself friendly to her
+father; but when he advised her to keep her nurse, she at once refused to
+consider it.
+
+"I want you to," he persisted, with an anxious note in his voice. He had
+tried life without Hannah here and he did not care to try it again.
+
+"It is already settled, father, I sent her away this morning."
+
+"Then you get her right back!" he exclaimed. But Edith's face grew
+obstinate.
+
+"I don't care to give Deborah," she replied, "another chance to talk as she
+did."
+
+Roger looked at her gloomily. "You will, though," he was thinking. "You two
+have only just begun. Let any little point arise, which a couple of men
+would settle offhand, and you two will get together and go it! There'll be
+no living in the house!"
+
+With deepening displeasure he watched the struggle between them go on.
+Sometimes it seemed to Roger there was not a topic he could bring up which
+would not in some way bring on a clash. One night in desperation he
+proposed the theatre.
+
+"I'm afraid we can't afford it," said Edith, glancing at Deborah. And she
+had the same answer, again and again, for the requests her children made,
+if they involved but the smallest expense. "No, dear, I'm afraid we can't
+afford that," she would say gently, with a sigh. And under this constant
+pressure, these nightly little thrusts and jabs, Deborah would grow rigid
+with annoyance and impatience.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Edith," she burst out, one night when the children had
+gone to their lessons, "can you think of nothing on earth, except your own
+little family?"
+
+"Here it comes again," thought Roger, scowling into his paper. He heard
+Edith's curt reply:
+
+"No, I can't, not nowadays. Nobody _else_ seems to think of them."
+
+"You mean that I don't!"
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"Yes! I'm thinking of George! Do you want him killed in the trenches--in a
+war with Germany or Japan?"
+
+"Are you utterly mad?" demanded Edith.
+
+"No, I'm awake--my eyes are open! But yours are shut so tight, my dear, you
+can't see what has happened! You know this war has made us poor and your
+own life harder, but that's all. The big thing it has done you know nothing
+about!"
+
+"Suppose you teach me," Edith said, with a prim provoking little smile.
+Deborah turned on her angrily:
+
+"It has shown that all such mothers as you are out of date and have got to
+change! That we're bound together--all over the world--whether we like it
+or whether we don't! And that if we want to keep out of war, we've got to
+do it by coming right out of our own little homes--_and thinking, Edith,
+thinking!_"
+
+"Votes for women," Edith said. Deborah looked at her, rose with a shrug.
+
+"All right, Edith, I give up."
+
+"Thank you. I'm not worth it. You'd better go back to your office now and
+go on with your work of saving the world. And use every hour of your time
+and every dollar you possess. I'll stay here and look after my children."
+
+Deborah had gone into the hall. Roger, buried deep in his paper, heard the
+heavy street door close. He looked up with a feverish sigh--and saw at the
+open door of his study George and Betsy standing, curious, solemn and wide
+eyed. How long had they been listening?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+There came a season of sleet and rain when the smaller children were shut
+indoors and it was hard to keep them amused. They did not look well, and
+Edith was worried. She had always dreaded the spring, and to carry her
+family safely through she had taken them, in former years, to Atlantic City
+for two weeks. That of course was impossible now. Trouble was bound to
+come, she thought. And it was not long in coming. Bobby, who was ten years
+old and went to school with his brother George, caught a wretched cold one
+day. Edith popped him into bed, but despite her many precautions he gave
+his cold to Bruce and Tad.
+
+"Suppose I ask Allan Baird to come," Deborah suggested. "He's wonderful
+with children, you know."
+
+Edith curtly accepted his services. She felt he had been sent for to
+prevent her getting Doctor Lake. But she said nothing. She would wait.
+Through long hard days and longer nights she slaved upstairs. All Deborah's
+proffers of aid she declined. She kept Elizabeth home from school to help
+her with the many meals, the medicines and the endless task of keeping her
+lively patients in bed. She herself played with them by the hour, while the
+ache in her head was a torment. At night she was up at the slightest sound.
+Heavy circles came under her eyes. Within a few days her baby, Bruce, had
+developed pneumonia.
+
+That evening after dinner, while Deborah was sitting with Roger in the
+living room, she heard her sister coming downstairs. She listened acutely,
+and glancing around she saw that Roger was listening, too. Edith passed the
+doorway and went on down the hall, where they heard her voice at the
+telephone. She came back and looked in at the door.
+
+"I've called Doctor Lake," she said. "I've just taken Bruce's temperature.
+It's a hundred and five and two fifths." Deborah glanced up with a start.
+
+"Oh, Edith!" she said softly. Her sister turned and looked at her.
+
+"I ought to have had him before," she said. "When he comes, please bring
+him right up to the room." And she hurried upstairs.
+
+"Pshaw!" breathed Roger anxiously. He had seen Bruce an hour ago; and the
+sight of the tiny boy, so exhausted and so still, had given him a sudden
+scare. Could it be that _this_ would happen? Roger rose and walked the
+floor. Edith was right, he told himself, they should have had Lake long
+before. And they would have, by George, if it had not been for Deborah's
+interference! He glanced at her indignantly. Bringing in Baird to save
+money, eh? Well, it was just about time they stopped saving money on their
+own flesh and blood! What had Bruce to do with tenement babies? But he had
+had tenement treatment, just that! Deborah had had her way at last with
+Edith's children, and one of them might have to pay with its life! Again
+Roger glared at his silent daughter. And now, even in his excited state, he
+noticed how still and rigid she was, how unnatural the look she bent on the
+book held tightly in her hands.
+
+Still Deborah said nothing. She could feel her father's anger. Both he and
+Edith held her to blame. She felt herself in a position where she could not
+move a hand. She was stunned, and could not think clearly. A vivid picture
+was in her mind, vivid as a burning flame which left everything else in
+darkness. It was of Bruce, one adorable baby, fighting for breath. "What
+would I do if he were mine?"
+
+When the doctor arrived she took him upstairs and then came down to her
+father.
+
+"Well?" he demanded.
+
+"I don't know. We'll have to wait." And they both sat silent. At last they
+heard a door open and close, and presently steps coming down the stairs.
+Roger went out into the hall:
+
+"Come right in here, doctor, won't you? I want to hear about this myself."
+
+"Very well, sir." And Lake entered the room, with Edith close behind him.
+He took no notice of anyone else. "Write this down," he said to her. "And
+give it to the nurse when she comes." A heavy man of middle age, with
+curious dark impassive eyes that at times showed an ironic light, Lake was
+a despot in a world of mothers to whom his word was law. He was busy
+to-night, with no time to waste, and his low harsh voice now rattled out
+orders which Edith wrote down in feverish haste--an hourly schedule, night
+and day. He named a long list of things needed at once. "Night nurse will
+be here in an hour," he ended. "Day nurse, to-morrow, eight a.m. Get sleep
+yourself and plenty of it. As it is you're not fit to take care of a cat."
+Abruptly he turned and left the room. Edith followed. The street door
+closed, and in a moment after that his motor was off with a muffled roar.
+Edith came back, picked up her directions and turned to her sister:
+
+"Will you go up and sit with Bruce? I'll telephone the druggist," she said.
+
+Deborah went to the sick room. Bruce's small face, peaked and gray in the
+soft dim light, turned as she entered and came to the bed.
+
+"Well, dear?" she whispered. The small boy's eyes, large and heavy with
+fever, looked straight into hers.
+
+"Sick," said the baby hoarsely. The next instant he tossed up his hands and
+went through a spasm, trying to breathe. It passed, he relaxed a little,
+and again stared solemnly at his aunt. "Sick," he repeated. "Wery sick."
+
+Deborah sat silent. The child had another fight for his breath; and this
+time as he did so, Deborah's body contracted, too. A few moments later
+Edith came in. Deborah returned downstairs, and for over an hour she sat by
+herself. Roger was in his study, Betsy and George had gone to bed. The
+night nurse arrived and was taken upstairs. Still Deborah's mind felt numb
+and cold. Instinctively again and again it kept groping toward one point:
+"If I had a baby as sick as that, what would I do? What would I do?"
+
+When the doorbell rang again, she frowned, rose quickly and went to the
+door. It was Allan.
+
+"Allan--come in here, will you?" she said, and he followed her into the
+living room.
+
+"What is it?" he inquired.
+
+"Bruce is worse."
+
+"Oh--I'm sorry. Why didn't Edith let me know?"
+
+"She had Lake to-night," said Deborah. He knitted his brows in annoyance,
+then smiled.
+
+"Well, I don't mind that," he replied. "I'm rather glad. She'll feel easier
+now. What did he tell her?"
+
+"He seemed to consider it serious--by the number of things he ordered."
+
+"Two nurses, of course--"
+
+"Yes, day and night." Deborah was silent a moment.
+
+"I may be wrong," she continued, "but I still feel sure the child will
+live. But I know it means a long hard fight. The expense of it all will be
+heavy."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Whatever it is, I'll meet it," she said. "Father can't, he has reached the
+end. But even if he could help still, it wouldn't make much difference in
+what I've been deciding. Because when I was with Bruce to-night, I saw as
+clear as I see you now that if I had a child like that--as sick as
+that--I'd sacrifice anything--everything--schools, tenement children,
+thousands! I'd use the money which should have been theirs, and the time
+and the attention! I'd shut them all out, they could starve if they liked!
+I'd be like Edith--exactly! I'd center on this one child of mine!"
+
+Deborah turned her eyes to his, stern and gleaming with her pain. And she
+continued sharply:
+
+"But I don't mean to shut those children out! And so it's clear as day to
+me that I can't ever marry you! That baby to-night was the finishing
+stroke!"
+
+She made a quick restless movement. Baird leaned slowly forward. Her hands
+in her lap were clenched together. He took them both and held them hard.
+
+"No, this isn't clear," he said. "I can feel it in your hands. This is
+nerves. This is the child upstairs. This is Edith in the house. This is
+school, the end of the long winter's strain."
+
+"No, it's what I've decided!"
+
+"But this is the wrong decision," Allan answered steadily.
+
+"It's made!"
+
+"Not yet, it isn't, not to-night. We won't talk of it now, you're in no
+condition." Deborah's wide sensitive lips began to quiver suddenly:
+
+"We _will_ talk of it now, or never at all! I want it settled--done with!
+I've had enough--it's killing me!"
+
+"No," was Allan's firm reply, "in a few days things will change. Edith's
+child will be out of danger, your other troubles will clear away!"
+
+"But what of next winter, and the next? What of Edith's children? Can't you
+see what a load they are on my father? Can't you see he's ageing fast?"
+
+"Suppose he dies," Baird answered. "It will leave them on your hands.
+You'll have _these_ children, won't you, whether you marry or whether you
+don't! And so will I! I'm their guardian!"
+
+"That won't be the same," she cried, "as having children of our own--"
+
+"Look into my eyes."
+
+"I'm looking--" Her own eyes were bright with tears.
+
+"Why are you always so afraid of becoming a mother?" Allan asked. In his
+gruff low voice was a fierce appeal. "It's this obsession in your mind that
+you'll be a mother like Edith. And that's absurd! You never will! You say
+you're afraid of not keeping school the first thing in your life! But you
+always do and you always will! You're putting it ahead of me now!"
+
+"Yes, I can put it ahead of _you_! But I couldn't put it ahead of _my
+child_!" He winced at this and she noticed it. "Because you are strong, and
+the child would be weak! The child would be like Bruce to-night!"
+
+"Are you sure if you marry you must have a child?"
+
+"Yes," she answered huskily, "if I married you I'd want a child. And that
+want in me would grow and grow until it made both of us wretched. I'm that
+kind of a woman. That's why my work has succeeded so far--because I've a
+passion for children! They're not my work, they're my very life!" She bowed
+her head, her mouth set hard. "But so are you," she whispered. "And since
+this is settled, Allan, what do you think? Shall we try to go on--working
+together side by side--seeing each other every day as we have been doing
+all these months? Rather hard on both of us, don't you think? I do, I feel
+that way," she said. Again her features quivered. "The kind of feeling I
+have--for you--would make that rather--difficult!"
+
+His grip tightened on her hands.
+
+"I won't give you up," he said. "Later you will change your mind."
+
+He left the room and went out of the house. Deborah sat rigid. She
+trembled and the tears came. She brushed them angrily away. Struggling to
+control herself, presently she grew quieter. Frowning, with her clear gray
+eyes intently staring before her, she did not see her father come into the
+doorway. He stopped with a jerk at sight of her face.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked. She started.
+
+"Nothing's the matter! How is Bruce?"
+
+"I don't know. Who went out a few minutes ago?"
+
+"Allan Baird," she answered.
+
+"Oh. You explained to him, of course, about Lake--"
+
+"Yes, he understands," she said. "He won't come here after this--"
+
+Roger looked at her sharply, wondering just what she meant. He hesitated.
+No, he would wait.
+
+"Good-night," he said, and went upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+On the morrow Bruce did not grow better. If anything, the child grew worse.
+But by the next morning the crisis had passed. In the house the tension
+relaxed, and Roger suddenly felt so weak that he went to see his own
+physician. They had a long and serious talk. Later he went to his office,
+but he gave little heed to his work. Sitting there at his desk, he stared
+through the window far out over the city. A plan was forming in his mind.
+
+At home that night, at dinner, he kept watching Deborah, who looked tired
+and pale and rather relaxed. And as soon as she was out of the house he
+telephoned Allan to come at once.
+
+"It's something which can't wait," he urged.
+
+"Very well, I'll come right up."
+
+When Baird arrived a little later, Roger opened the door himself, and they
+went back into his study.
+
+"Sit down," he said. "Smoke, Allan?"
+
+"No, thanks." Baird looked doubly tall and lean, his face had a gaunt
+appearance; and as he sat down, his lithe supple right hand slowly closed
+on the arm of his chair.
+
+"Now then," began Roger, "there are two things we want to get clear on. The
+first is about yourself and Deborah. There has been trouble, hasn't there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She has made up her mind not to marry you."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I guessed as much." And Roger paused. "Do you mind my asking questions?
+
+"No--"
+
+"Are you still in love with her, Allan?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"And she with you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Then it's the same old trouble."
+
+"Yes." And he told a part of what she had said. As he talked in clear,
+terse, even tones, Baird's steady eyes had a tortured light, the look of a
+man who has almost reached the end of his endurance. Roger smoked in
+silence.
+
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Wait," said Allan, "a few days more. Then try again. If I fail I'm
+through." Roger shot a quick look at him.
+
+"I don't think you'll fail, my boy--and what's more I think I can help you.
+This is a large house, Allan--there's more in it than you know. My second
+point concerns myself. I'm going to die within a year."
+
+As Baird turned on him suddenly, Roger grimly smiled and said, "We won't go
+into the details, but I've been examined lately and I have quite positive
+knowledge of what I've suspected for some time. So far, I have told no one
+but you. And I'm telling you only because of the bearing it has on
+Deborah." Roger leaned forward heavily. "She's the one of my daughters who
+means the most, now that I'm so near the end. When I die next year that may
+be all--I may simply end--a blank, a grave--I am not sure. But I've made up
+my mind above everything else to see Deborah happy before I go. And I mean
+to do it by setting her free--so free I think it will frighten her."
+
+Roger went on to explain his plan, and they talked together for some time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another week had soon gone by. Bruce still recovered rapidly, and the other
+sick children were up and about. Deborah, in the meantime, had barely been
+in the house at all. But late on Saturday evening Roger found her in her
+room. She was working. He came behind her.
+
+"What is it, dad?"
+
+"Busy, eh?" He hesitated, and laid his hand on her shoulder with a little
+affectionate pressure. "You've kept so busy lately," he said, "I haven't
+had time to see anything of you. How's your work going?"
+
+"Much better, thanks--now that the winter is over."
+
+He questioned her about her schools. And then after a brief pause,
+
+"Well, daughter," he said, "it has been a great fight, and I'm proud of you
+for it. And if I've got anything to say--" his hand was still on her
+shoulder, and he felt her tighten suddenly--"it isn't by way of
+criticism--please be sure of that ahead. In this damnable war my faith in
+men has been badly shaken up. Humanity seems to me still a child--a child
+who needs to go to school. God knows we need men and women like you--and
+I'm proud of all you've accomplished, I'd be the last man to hold you back.
+I only want to help you go on--by seeing to it that you are free--from
+anything which can hinder you." He stopped again for a moment.
+
+"To begin with," he said, "I understand you're not going to marry Allan
+Baird." She stirred slightly:
+
+"Did he tell you so?"
+
+"Yes--I asked him," Roger replied. "I had Allan here a few nights ago, and
+he told me you had decided to give up your happiness for the sake of all
+those children in that big family of yours. You felt you must keep yourself
+free for them. Very well, if that is your decision I propose to clear the
+way." She looked intently up at his face. "You're not free now," he
+continued. "We have Edith and her children here. And I'm growing old--that
+has got to be thought of--I don't want to leave them on your hands. So as
+soon as the baby is well enough, I'm going to move them up to the
+mountains--not only for the summer--they are to stay the whole year
+'round. From this time on they're to make it their home."
+
+"Father! But they can't do that! Think of the winters!" Deborah cried.
+
+"It's already settled," he answered. "I've talked to Edith and she has
+agreed. She has always loved the farm, and it will be good for her
+children. In the meantime I've been talking to George. 'George,' I told
+him, 'I'm going to talk to you, man to man, about a man's job I want you to
+tackle.'"
+
+"The farm? But, dearie! He's only a boy!"
+
+"He's nearly seventeen," said Roger, "and a young moose for his age. And
+old Dave Royce will still be there. It's the work George has been dreaming
+about ever since he was a child. You should have seen how he was thrilled
+by the scheme. I told him we'd spend the summer together up there laying
+all our plans, investing our money carefully to make every dollar count."
+
+"What money?" Deborah sharply asked. But her father was talking steadily
+on:
+
+"We already have a fine lot of cattle. We'll add to it and enlarge the barn
+and put in some new equipment. In short, we'll put it in fine shape, make
+it a first class dairy farm. 'And then, George,' I said to him, 'I'm going
+to turn it over to you. I shall give the farm to your mother, and the rest
+of the money I have I mean to invest in her name down here, so that she'll
+have a small income until you can make your dairy pay.'"
+
+"What money are you speaking of?" Deborah's voice was thick and hard, her
+sensitive lips were parted and she was breathing quickly.
+
+"I've sold the house," he told her. Convulsively she gripped his arms:
+
+"Then tell me where _you_ mean to live!"
+
+"I'm not going to live--I'm going to die--very soon--I have definite
+knowledge."
+
+Without speaking Deborah rose; her face went white. Her father kept tight
+hold of her hands, and he felt them trembling, growing cold.
+
+"You're soon to be free of everyone," he continued painfully. "I know this
+is hurting you, but I see so plain, so plain, my child, just what it is
+I've got to do. I'm trying to clear the way for you to make a simple
+definite choice--a choice which is going to settle your life one way or the
+other. I want to make sure you see what you're doing. Because you mean so
+much to me. We're flesh and blood--eh, my daughter?--and in this family of
+ours we've been the closest ones of all!" She seemed to sway a little.
+
+"_You're not going to die_!" she whispered.
+
+"So it hurts you to lose me," he replied. "It will be hard to be so free.
+Would you rather not have had me at all? I've been quite a load on your
+back, you know. A fearful job you had of it, dragging me up when I was
+down. And since then Edith and Bruce and the rest, what burdens they have
+been at times. What sharp worries, heavy sorrows, days and nights you and I
+have gone through, when we should have been quietly resting--free--to keep
+up our strength for our next day's work. Suppose you had missed them, lived
+alone, would you have worked better? You don't know. But you will know
+soon, you're to give it a trial. For I've cleared the way--so that if you
+throw over Baird to be free you shall get the freedom you feel you need!"
+
+"Father! Please! Is this fair? Is this kind?" She asked in a harsh
+frightened tone. Her eyes were wet with angry tears.
+
+"This isn't a time to be kind, my dear." His voice was quivering like her
+own. "I'm bungling it--I'm bungling it--but you must let me stumble along
+and try to show you what I mean. You will have your work, your crowded
+schools, to which you'll be able to give your life. But I look ahead, I
+who know you--and I don't see you happy, I don't even see you whole. For
+you there will be no family. None of the intimate sorrows and joys that
+have been in this house will come to you. I look back and I see them
+all--for a man who has come so near the end gets a larger vision." He shut
+his eyes, his jaw set tight. "I look into my family back and back, and I
+see how it has been made of many generations. Certain figures stand out in
+my mind--they cover over a hundred years. And I see how much they've meant
+to me. I see that I've been one of them--a link in a long chain of
+lives--all inter-bound and reaching on. In my life they have all been
+here--as I shall be in lives to come.
+
+"And this is what I want for you." He held her close a moment. The tears
+were rolling down her cheeks. "Until now you have been one of us, too. You
+have never once been free. You have been the one in this house to step in
+and take hold and try to decide what's best to be done. I'm not putting you
+up on a pedestal, I don't say you've made no mistakes--but I say you're the
+kind of a woman who craves what's in a family. You're the one of my
+daughters who has loved this house the most!"
+
+"Yes," she said, "I've loved this house--"
+
+"But now for you all this will stop--quite suddenly," he told her. "This
+house of ours will soon be sold. And within a few months I shall be dead,
+and your family will have dropped out of your life."
+
+"Stop! Can't you? Stop! It's brutal! It isn't true about you!" she cried.
+"I won't believe it!" Her voice broke.
+
+"Go and see my physician," he said.
+
+"How long have you known it? Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Because we had troubles enough as it was, other things to think of. But
+there's only one thing now, this freedom you are facing."
+
+"Please! Please!" she cried imploringly. "I don't want to talk of myself
+but of you! This physician--"
+
+"No," he answered with stern pain, "you'll have to hear me out, my child.
+We're talking of you--of you alone when I am gone. How will it be? Are you
+quite sure? You will have your work, that vision of yours, and I know how
+close it has been to you, vivid and warm, almost like a friend. But so was
+my business once like that, when I was as young as you. And the business
+grew and it got cold--impersonal, a mere machine. Thank God I had a family.
+Isn't your work growing too? Are you sure it won't become a machine? And
+won't you lose touch with the children then, unless you have a child of
+your own? Friends won't be enough, you'll find, they're not bound up into
+yourself. The world may reach a stage at last where we shall live on in the
+lives of all--we may all be one big family. But that time is still far
+off--we hold to our own flesh and blood. And so I'm sure it will be with
+you. You see you have been young, my dear, and your spirit has been fresh
+and new. But how are you going to keep it so, without the ties you've
+always had?" He felt the violent clutch of her hand.
+
+"_You won't die_!" she whispered. But he went on relentlessly:
+
+"And what will you do without Allan Baird? For you see you have not even
+worked alone. You have had this man who has loved you there. I've seen how
+much he has helped you--how you have grown and he has grown since you two
+got together. And if you throw him over now, it seems to me you are not
+only losing what has done the most for your work, but you're running away
+from life as well. You've never won by doing that, you've always won by
+meeting life, never evading it, taking it all, living it full, taking
+chances! If you marry Baird, I see you both go on together in your work,
+while in your home you struggle through the troubles, tangles, joys and
+griefs which most of us mortals know so well! I see you in a world of
+children, but with children, too, of your own--to keep your spirit always
+young! Living on in your children's lives!"
+
+Roger stopped abruptly. He groped for something more to say.
+
+"On the one side, all that," he muttered, "and on the other, a lonely life
+which will soon grow old."
+
+There fell a dangerous silence. And sharply without warning, the influence,
+deep and invisible, of many generations of stolid folk in New England made
+itself felt in each of them. Father and daughter grew awkward, both. The
+talk had been too emotional. Each made, as by an instinct, a quick strong
+effort at self-control, and felt about for some way to get back upon their
+old easy footing. Roger turned to his daughter. Her head was still bent,
+her hands clasped tight, but she was frowning down at them now, although
+her face was still wet with tears. She drew a deep unsteady breath.
+
+"Well, Deborah," he said simply, "here I've gone stumbling on like a fool.
+I don't know what I've said or how you have listened."
+
+"I've listened," she said thickly.
+
+"I have tried," he went on in a steadier tone, "to give you some feeling of
+what is ahead--and to speak for your mother as well as myself. And more
+than that--much more than that--for the world has changed since she was
+here. God knows I've tried to be modern." A humorous glint came into his
+eyes, "Downright modern," he declared. "Have I asked you to give up your
+career? Not at all, I've asked you to marry Baird, and go right on with him
+in your work. And if you can't marry Allan Baird, after what he has done
+for you, how in God's name can you modern women ever marry anyone? Now what
+do you say? Will you marry him? Don't laugh at me! I'm serious! Talk!"
+
+But Deborah was laughing--although her father felt her hands still cold
+and trembling in his. Her gray eyes, bright and luminous, were shining up
+into his own.
+
+"What a time you've been having, haven't you, dear!" his daughter cried
+unsteadily. "Fairly lying awake at night and racking your brains for
+everything modern I've ever said--to turn it and twist it and use it
+against me!"
+
+"Well?" he demanded. "How does it twist?"
+
+"It twists hard, thank you," she declared. "You've turned and twisted me
+about till I barely see how I can live at all!"
+
+"You can, though! Marry Allan Baird!"
+
+"I'll think it over--later on."
+
+"What is there left to think about? Can you point to one hole in all I've
+said?"
+
+"Yes, a good many--and one right off."
+
+"Out with it!"
+
+"You're not dying," Deborah told him calmly, "I feel quite certain you'll
+live for years."
+
+"Oh, you do, eh--then see my physician!"
+
+"I will, I'll see him to-morrow. How long did you give yourself? Just a few
+months?"
+
+"No, he said it might be more," admitted Roger grudgingly. "If I had no
+worries to wear me out--"
+
+"Me, you mean."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Well, you've worried quite enough. You're going to leave it to me to
+decide."
+
+"Very well," he agreed. He looked at her. "You have listened--hard?" he
+gruffly asked.
+
+"Yes, dear." Her hands slowly tightened on his. "But don't speak of this
+again. You're to leave it to me. You promise?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And Roger left her.
+
+He went to bed but he could not sleep. With a sudden sag in his spirits he
+felt what a bungler he had been. He was not used to these solemn talks, he
+told himself irately. What a fool to try it! And how had Deborah taken it
+all? He did not mind her laughter, nor that lighter tone of hers. It was
+only her way of ending the talk, an easy way out for both of them. But what
+had she thought underneath? Had his points gone home? He tried to remember
+them. Pshaw! He had been too excited, and he could recall scarcely
+anything. He had not meant to speak of Baird--he had meant to leave him
+out! Yes, how he must have bungled it! Doubtless she was smiling still.
+Even the news about himself she had not taken seriously.
+
+But as he thought about that news, Roger's mood completely changed. The
+talk of the evening grew remote, his family no longer real, mere little
+figures, shadowy, receding swiftly far away.... Much quieter now, he lay a
+long time listening to the life of the house, the occasional sounds from
+the various rooms. From the nursery adjoining came little Bruce's piping
+laugh, and Roger could hear the nurse moving about. Afterwards for a long
+time he could hear only creaks and breathings. Never had the old house
+seemed so like a living creature. For nearly forty years it had held all
+that he had loved and known, all he had been sure of. Outside of it was the
+strange, the new, the uncertain, the vast unknown, stretching away to
+infinity....
+
+Again he heard Bruce's gay little laugh. What did it remind him of? He
+puzzled. Then he had it. Edith had been a baby here. Her cradle had been in
+this very room, close by the bed. And how she had laughed! What gurgles and
+ripples of bursting glee! The first child in his family....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+On the next day, which was Sunday, Deborah made an appointment with her
+father's physician, and had a long talk with him at his house. Upon her
+return she went to her room and stayed there until evening, but when she
+came down to supper her manner was as usual. At the table she joined in the
+talk of Edith and the children, already deep in their preparations for the
+move up to the farm. George could hardly wait to start. That life would be
+a change indeed in Edith's plans for her family, and as they talked about
+it now the tension of hostility which had so long existed between the two
+sisters passed away. Each knew the clash had come to an end, that they
+would live together no more; and as though in remorse they drew close,
+Deborah with her suggestions, Edith in her friendly way of taking and
+discussing each one. Then Deborah went again to her room. Her room was just
+over Roger's, and waking several times in the night he heard his daughter
+walking the floor.
+
+The next day she was up early and off to her school before he came down. It
+was a fine spring morning, Roger had had a good night's sleep, and as he
+walked to his office he was buoyed up by a feeling both of hope for his
+daughter and of solid satisfaction in himself as he remembered all that he
+had said to her. Curiously enough he could recall every word of it now.
+Every point which he had made rose up before him vividly. How clear he had
+been, how simple and true, and yet with what a tremendous effect he had
+piled the points one on the other. "By George," he thought with a little
+glow, "for a fellow who's never been in a pulpit I put up a devilish strong
+appeal." And he added sagely, "Let it work on the girl, give it a chance.
+She'll come out of this all right. This idea some fellows have, that every
+woman is born a fool, isn't fair, it isn't true. Just let a line of
+argument be presented to her strong and clear--straight from the
+shoulder--by some man--"
+
+And again with a tingle of pleasure his mind recurred to his sermon. His
+pleasures had been few of late, so he dwelt on this little glow of pride
+and made the most of it while it was here.
+
+At the office, as he entered his room, he stopped with a slight shock of
+surprise. John, standing on his crutches in front of a large table, had
+been going through the morning's mail, sorting out the routine letters
+Roger did not need to see. To-day he had just finished and was staring at
+the window. The light fell full on his sallow face and showed an amazing
+happiness. At Roger's step he started.
+
+"Well, Johnny, how goes it this morning?"
+
+"Fine, thank you," was the prompt reply. And John hobbled briskly over to
+his typewriter in the corner. Roger sat down at his desk. As he did so he
+glanced again at the cripple and felt a little pang of regret. "What will
+become of him," he asked, "when I close out my business?" He still thought
+of him as a mere boy, for looking at the small crooked form it was
+difficult to remember that John was twenty years of age. The lad had worked
+like a Trojan of late. Even Roger, engrossed as he had been in family
+anxieties, had noticed it in the last few weeks. He would have to make some
+provision for John. Deborah would see to it.... Roger went slowly through
+his mail. One letter was from the real estate firm through whom he was to
+sell the house. The deal had not been closed as yet, there were certain
+points still to be settled. So Roger called John to his desk and dictated a
+reply. When he finished there was a brief pause.
+
+"That's all," said Roger gruffly.
+
+"So you're sellin' the house," John ventured.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The lad limped back to his corner and went to work at his machine. But
+presently he came over again and stood waiting awkwardly.
+
+"What is it, Johnny?" Roger inquired, without looking up.
+
+"Say, Mr. Gale," the boy began, in a carefully casual tone, "would you mind
+talking business a minute or two?"
+
+"No. Fire ahead."
+
+"Well, sir, you've had your own troubles lately, you haven't had much time
+for things here. The last time you went over the books was nearly a couple
+of weeks ago."
+
+John paused and his look was portentous.
+
+"Well," asked Roger, "what about it? Business been picking up any since
+then?"
+
+"Yes, sir!" was the answer. "We didn't lose a cent last week! We made
+money! Fifteen dollars!"
+
+"Good Lord, Johnny, we're getting rich."
+
+"But that's nothing," John continued. "The fact of the matter is, Mr. Gale,
+I have been working lately on a new line I thought of. And now it's got
+agoing so fast it's getting clean away from me!" Again he stopped, and
+swallowed hard.
+
+"Out with it, then," said Roger.
+
+"I got it from the war," said John. "The papers are still half full of war
+news, and that's what's keeping our business down--because we ain't
+adopting ourselves to the new war conditions. So I figured it like this.
+Say there are a million people over here in America who've got either
+friends or relations in the armies over there. Say that all of 'em want to
+get news--not just this stuff about battles, but real live news of what's
+happened to Bill. Has Bill still got his legs and arms? Can he hold down a
+job when he gets home? News which counts for something! See? A big new
+market! Business for us! So I tried to see what I could do!" John
+excitedly shifted his crutches. Roger was watching intently.
+
+"Go on, Johnny."
+
+"Sure, I'll go on! One night I went to a library where they have English
+papers. I went over their files for about a month. I took one Canadian
+regiment--see?--and traced it through, and I got quite a story. Then I used
+some of the money I've saved and bought a whole bunch of papers. I piled
+'em up in the room where I sleep and went through 'em nights. I hired two
+kids to help me. Well, Mr. Gale, the thing worked fine! In less than a week
+I had any amount of little bunches of clippings. See how I mean? Each bunch
+was the story of one regiment for a month. So I knew we could deliver the
+goods!
+
+"Well, this was about ten days ago. And then I went after the market. I
+went to a man I met last year in an advertising office, and for fifty
+dollars we put an 'ad' in the Sunday Times. After that there was nothing to
+do but wait. The next day--nothing doing! I was here at seven-thirty and I
+went through every mail. Not a single answer to my 'ad'--and I thought I
+was busted! But Tuesday morning there were three, with five dollar checks
+inside of 'em! In the afternoon there were two more and the next day
+eleven! By the end of last week we'd had forty-six! Friday I put in another
+'ad' and there've been over seventy more since then! That makes a hundred
+and twenty in all--six hundred dollars! And I'm swamped! I ain't done
+nothing yet--I've just kept 'em all for you to see!"
+
+He went quickly to the table, gathered a pile of letters there and brought
+them over to Roger's desk. Roger glanced over a few of them, dazed. He
+looked around into John's shrewd face, where mingled devotion and triumph
+and business zeal were shining.
+
+"Johnny," he said huskily, "you've adopted my business and no mistake."
+John swallowed again and scowled with joy.
+
+"Let's figure it out!" he proposed.
+
+"We will!"
+
+They were at it all day, laying their plans, "adopting" the work of the
+office to the new conditions. They found they would need a larger force,
+including a French and a German translator. They placed other "ads" in the
+papers. They forgot to have lunch and worked steadily on, till the outer
+rooms were empty and still. At last they were through. Roger wearily put on
+his cuffs, and went and got his coat and hat.
+
+"Say, Mr. Gale," John asked him, "how about this letter--the one you
+dictated this morning to that firm about your house?" Roger turned and
+looked at him.
+
+"Throw it into the basket," he said. "We'll write 'em another to-morrow and
+tell 'em we have changed our minds." He paused for just a moment, and then
+he added brusquely, "If this goes through as I hope it will, I guess you'd
+better come into the firm."
+
+And he left the room abruptly. Behind him there was not a sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home in his study, that evening, he made some more calculations. In a
+few weeks he would have money enough to start Edith and her family in their
+new life on the farm. For the present at least, the house was safe.
+
+"Why, father." Edith came into the room. "I didn't know you had come home.
+What kept you so long at the office?"
+
+"Oh, business, my dear--"
+
+"Have you had any supper?"
+
+"No, and I'd like some," he replied.
+
+"I'll see to it myself," she said. Edith was good at this sort of thing,
+and the supper she brought was delicious. He ate it with keen relish. Then
+he went back to his study and picked up a book, an old favorite. He
+started to read, but presently dozed. The book dropped from his hands and
+he fell asleep.
+
+He awakened with a start, and saw Deborah looking down at him. For a moment
+he stared up, as he came to his senses, and in his daughter's clear gray
+eyes he thought he saw a happiness which set his heart to beating fast.
+
+"Well?" he questioned huskily.
+
+"We're to be married right away."
+
+He stared a moment longer; "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad, my dear. I was afraid
+you--" he stopped short. Deborah bent close to him, and he felt her squeeze
+his arm:
+
+"I've been over and over all you said," she told him, in a low sweet voice.
+"I had a good many ups and downs. But I'm all through now--I'm sure you
+were right." And she pressed her cheek to his. "Oh, dad, dad--it's such a
+relief! And I'm so happy!... Thank you, dear."
+
+"Where is Allan?" he asked presently.
+
+"I'll get him," she said. She left the room, and in a moment Allan's tall
+ungainly form appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Well, Allan, my boy," Roger cried.
+
+"Oh, Roger Gale," said Allan softly. He was wringing Roger's hand.
+
+"So she decided to risk you, eh," Roger said unsteadily. "Well, Baird, you
+look like a devilish risk for a woman like her--who has the whole world on
+her back as it is--"
+
+"I know--I know--and how rash she has been! Only two years and her mind was
+made up!"
+
+"But that's like her--that's our Deborah--always acting like a flash--"
+
+"Stop acting like children!" Deborah cried. "And be sensible and listen to
+me! We're to be married to-morrow morning--"
+
+"Why to-morrow?" Roger asked.
+
+"Because," she said decidedly, "there has been enough fuss over this
+affair. So we'll just be married and have it done. And when Edith and the
+children go up next week to the mountains, we want to move right into this
+house."
+
+"This house?" exclaimed her father.
+
+"I know--it's sold," she answered. "But we're going to get a lease. We'll
+see the new owner and talk him around."
+
+"Then you'll have to talk _your father_ around--"
+
+"_You_ around?" And Deborah stared. "You mean to say you're not going to
+sell?"
+
+"I do," said Roger blithely. He told them the story of John's new scheme.
+"And if things turn out in the office as I hope they will," he ended,
+"we'll clear the mortgage on the house and then make it your wedding
+gift--from the new firm to the new family."
+
+Deborah choked a little:
+
+"Allan! What do you think of us now?"
+
+"I think," he answered, in a drawl, "that we'd better try to persuade the
+new firm to live with the new family."
+
+"We will, and the sooner the better!" she said.
+
+"I'm going up to the mountains," said Roger.
+
+"Yes, but you're coming back in the fall, and when you do you're coming
+here! And you're going to live here years and years!"
+
+"You're forgetting my doctor."
+
+"Not at all. I had a long talk with him Sunday and I know just what I'm
+saying."
+
+"You don't look it, my dear," said Roger, "but of course you may be right.
+If you take the proper care of me here--and John keeps booming things for
+the firm--"
+
+"And George makes a huge success of the farm," Deborah added quickly.
+
+"And Deborah of teaching the world--"
+
+"Oh, Allan, hush up!"
+
+"Look here," he said. "You go upstairs and tell Edith all this. Your father
+and I want to be alone."
+
+And when the two men were left alone, they smoked and said nothing. They
+smiled at each other.
+
+"It's hard to decide," grunted Roger at last. "Which did it--my wonderful
+sermon or your own long waiting game? I'm inclined to think it was the
+game. For any other man but you--with all you've done, without any
+talk--no, sir, there wouldn't have been a chance. For she's modern, Baird,
+she's modern. And I'm going to live just as long as I can. I want to see
+what happens here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next night in his study, how quiet it was. Edith was busy packing
+upstairs, Deborah and Allan were gone. Thoughts drifted slowly across his
+mind. Well, she was married, the last of his daughters, the one whom he
+cared most for, the one who had taken the heaviest risks. And this was the
+greatest risk of all. For although she had put it happily out of her
+thoughts for the moment, Roger knew the old troublesome question was still
+there in Deborah's mind. The tenement children or her own, the big family
+or the small? He felt there would still be struggles ahead. And with a kind
+of a wistfulness he tried to see into the future here.
+
+He gave a sudden start in his chair.
+
+"By George!" he thought. "They forgot the ring!" Scowling, he tried to
+remember. Yes, in the brief simple service that day, in which so much had
+been omitted--music, flowers, wedding gown--even the ring had been left
+out. Why? Not from any principle, he knew that they were not such fools.
+No, they had simply forgotten it, in the haste of getting married at once.
+Well, by thunder, for a girl whose father had been a collector of rings for
+the best part of his natural life, it was pretty shabby to say the least!
+Then he recollected that he, too, had forgotten it. And this quieted him
+immediately.
+
+"I'll get one, though," he promised himself. "And no plain wedding ring
+either. I'll make A. Baird attend to that. No, I'll get her a ring worth
+while."
+
+He sank deep in his chair and took peace to his soul by thinking of the
+ring he would choose. And this carried his thoughts back over the years.
+For there had been so many rings....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+It was a clear beautiful afternoon toward the end of May. And as the train
+puffing up the grade wound along the Connecticut River, Roger sat looking
+out of the window. The orchards were pink and white on the hills. Slowly
+the day wore away. The river narrowed, the hills reared high, and in the
+sloping meadows gray ribs and shoulders of granite appeared. The air had a
+tang of the mountains. Everywhere were signs of spring, of new vigor and
+fresh life. But the voices at each station sounded drowsier than at the
+last, the eyes appeared more stolid, and to Roger it felt like a journey
+far back into old ways of living, old beliefs and old ideals. He had always
+had this feeling, and always he had relished it, this dive into his
+boyhood. But it was different to-day, for this was more than a journey, it
+was a migration, too. Close about him in the car were Edith and her
+children, bound for a new home up there in the very heart and stronghold of
+all old things in America.
+
+Old things dear to Edith's heart. As she sat by the window staring out, he
+watched her shapely little head; he noted the hardening lines on her
+forehead and the gray which had come in her hair. It had been no easy move
+for her, this, she'd shown pluck to take it so quietly. He saw her smile a
+little, then frown and go on with her thinking. What was she thinking
+about, he wondered--all she had left behind in New York, or the rest of her
+life which lay ahead? She had always longed for things simple and old.
+Well, she would have them now with a vengeance, summer and winter, the year
+'round, in the battered frame house on the mountain side, the birthplace of
+her family. A recollection came to him of a summer's dusk two years ago
+and a woman with a lawn mower cutting the grass on the family graves. Would
+Edith ever be like that, a mere custodian of the past? If she did, he
+thought, she would be false to the very traditions she tried to preserve.
+For her forefathers had never been mere guardians of things gone by. Always
+they had been pioneers. That house had not been old to them, but a
+thrilling new adventure. Their old homes they had left behind, far down in
+the valleys to the east. And even those valley homes had been new to the
+rugged men come over the sea. Would Edith ever understand? Would she see
+that for herself the new must emerge from her children, from the ideas,
+desires and plans already teeming in their minds? Would she show keen
+interest, sympathy? Would she be able to keep her hold?
+
+In the seat behind her mother, Betsy was sitting with Bruce in her lap,
+looking over a picture book. Quietly Roger watched the girl.
+
+"What are you going to be?" he asked. "A woman's college president, a
+surgeon or a senator? And what will your mother think of you then?"
+
+They changed cars, and on a train made up of antiquated coaches they wound
+through a side valley, down which rushing and tumbling came the river that
+bore Roger's name. He went into the smoking car, and presently George
+joined him there. George did not yet smoke, (with his elders), but he had
+bought a package of gum and he was chewing absorbedly. Plainly the lad was
+excited over the great existence which he saw opening close ahead. Roger
+glanced at the boy's broad shoulders, noticed the eager lines of his jaw,
+looked down at his enormous hands, unformed as yet, ungainly; but in them
+was a hungriness that caused a glow in Roger's breast. One more of the
+family starting out.
+
+"It's all going to depend on you," Roger gravely counseled. "Your whole
+life will depend on the start you make. Either you're going to settle down,
+like so many of your neighbors up there, or you're going to hustle, plan
+out your day, keep on with your studies and go to college--the State
+Agricultural College, I mean. In short, keep up to date, my boy, and become
+in time a big figure in farming."
+
+"I'm going to do it," George replied. His grandfather glanced again at his
+face, so scowling, so determined. And a gleam of compassion and yearning
+came for a moment in Roger's eyes. His heavy hand lay on George's knee.
+
+"That's right, son," he grunted. "Make the family proud of you. I'll do all
+I can to help you start. My business is picking up, thank God, and I'll be
+able to back you now. I'll stay up here a good part of the summer. We've
+both of us got a lot to learn--and not only from books--we want to remember
+we've plenty to learn from the neighbors, too. Take old Dave Royce, for
+instance, who when all is said and done has worked our farm for twenty odd
+years and never once run me into debt."
+
+"But, Gee!" demurred George. "He's so 'way out of date!"
+
+"I know he is, son, but we've got to go slow." And Roger's look passed
+furtively along the faces in the car. "We don't want to forget," he warned,
+"that this is still New England. Every new idea we have we want to go easy
+with, snake it in."
+
+"I've got an awful lot of 'em," the boy muttered hungrily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the farm, the next morning at daybreak, Roger was awakened by the sound
+of George's voice. It was just beneath his window:
+
+"But cattle are only part of it, Dave," the boy declared, in earnest tones,
+"just part of what we can have up here. Think what we've got--over three
+hundred acres! And we want to make every acre count! We want to get in a
+whole lot more of hogs--Belted Hampshires, if we can afford 'em--and a
+couple of hundred hens. White Leghorns ought to fill the bill. Of course
+that's just a starter. I've got a scheme for some incubators--electric--run
+by the dynamo which we'll put in down by the dam. And we can do wonders
+with bees, too, Dave--I've got a book on 'em I'd like you to read. And
+besides, there's big money in squab these days. Rich women in New York
+hotels eat thousands of 'em every night. And ducks, of course, and turkeys.
+I'd like a white gobbler right at the start, if we knew where we could get
+one cheap." The voice broke off and there was a pause. "We can do an awful
+lot with this place."
+
+Then Dave's deep drawl:
+
+"That's so, George--yes, I guess that's so. Only we don't want to fool
+ourselves. That ain't Noah's Ark over thar--it's a barn. And just for a
+starter, if I was you--" Here Dave deliberated. "Of course it's none of my
+business," he said, "it's for you and your grandfather to decide--and I
+don't propose to interfere in what ain't any of my affair--"
+
+"Yes, yes, Dave, sure! That's all right! But go on! _What_, just for a
+starter?"
+
+"Cows," came the tranquil answer. "I've been hunting around since you wrut
+me last month. And I know of three good milkers--"
+
+"Three? Why, Dave, I wrote we want thirty or forty!"
+
+"Yes--you wrut," Dave answered. "But I've druv all around these parts--and
+there ain't but three that I can find. And I ain't so sure of that third
+one. She looks like she might--" George cut in.
+
+"But you only had a buggy, Dave! Gee! I'm going to have a Ford!"
+
+"That so, George?"
+
+"You bet it's so! And we'll go on a cow hunt all over the State!"
+
+"Well--I dunno but what you're right," Dave responded cautiously. "You
+might get more cows if you had a Ford--an' got so you could run it. Yes, I
+guess it's a pretty good scheme. I believe in being conservative,
+George--but I dunno now but what a Ford--"
+
+Their voices passed from under the window, and Roger relaxed and smiled to
+himself. It was a good beginning, he thought.
+
+They bought a Ford soon afterwards and in the next few weeks of June they
+searched the farms for miles around, slowly adding to their herd. To
+Roger's surprise he found many signs of a new life stirring there--the
+farmers buying "autos" and improved machinery, thinking of new processes;
+and down in the lower valleys they found several big stock farms which were
+decidedly modern affairs. At one such place, the man in charge took a fancy
+to George and asked him to drop over often.
+
+"You bet I'll drop over often!" George replied, as he climbed excitedly
+into his Ford. "I want to see more of those milking machines! We're going
+to have 'em some day ourselves! A dynamo too!"
+
+And at home, down by the ruined mill he again set about rebuilding the dam.
+
+Roger felt himself growing stronger. His sleeps were sound, and his
+appetite had come back to a surprising degree. The mountain air had got
+into his blood and George's warm vigor into his soul. One afternoon,
+watching the herd come home, some thirty huge animals swinging along with a
+slow heavy power in their limbs, he breathed the strong sweet scent of them
+on the mountain breeze. George came running by them and stopped a moment by
+Roger's side, watching closely and eagerly every animal as it passed. And
+Roger glanced at George's face. The herd passed on and George followed
+behind, his collie dog leaping and barking beside him. And Roger looked up
+at a billowy cloud resting on a mountain top and wondered whether after all
+that New York doctor had been right.
+
+He followed the herd into the barn. In two long rows, the great heads of
+the cattle turned hungrily, lowing and sniffing deep, breathing harshly,
+stamping, as the fodder cart came down the lines. What a splendidly
+wholesome work for a lad, growing up with his roots in the soil, in these
+massive simple forces of life. What of Edith's other children? Would they
+be willing to stay here long? Each morning Roger breakfasted with Bruce the
+baby by his side. "What a thing for you, little lad," he thought, "if you
+could live here all your days. But will you? Will you want to stay? Won't
+you, too, get the fever, as I did, for the city?" In the joyous, shining,
+mysterious eyes of the baby he found no reply. He had many long talks with
+Betsy, who was eager to go away to school, and with Bob and little Tad who
+were going to school in the village that fall. And the feeling came to
+Roger that surely he would see these lives, at least for many years ahead.
+They were so familiar and so real, so fresh and filled with hopes and
+dreams. And he felt himself so a part of them all.
+
+But one morning, climbing the steep upper field to a spring George wanted
+to show him, Roger suddenly swayed, turned faint. He caught hold of a
+boulder on the wall and held himself rigid, breathing hard. It passed, and
+he looked at his grandson. But George had noticed nothing. The boy had
+turned and his brown eyes were fixed on a fallow field below. Wistfully
+Roger watched his face. They both stood motionless for a long time.
+
+As the summer drew slowly to a close, Roger spent many quiet hours alone by
+the copse of birches, where the glory of autumn was already stealing in and
+out among the tall slender stems of the trees. And he thought of the silent
+winter there, and of the spring which would come again, and the long
+fragrant summer. And he watched the glow on the mountains above and the
+rolling splendors of the clouds. At dusk he heard the voices of animals,
+birds and insects, murmuring up from all the broad valley, then gradually
+sinking to deep repose, many never to wake again. And the span of his life,
+from the boyhood which he could recall so vividly here among these
+children, seemed brief to him as a summer's day, only a part of a mighty
+whole made up of the innumerable lives, the many generations, of his
+family, his own flesh and blood, come out of a past he could never know,
+and going on without him now, branching, dividing, widening out to what his
+eyes would never see.
+
+Vaguely he pictured them groping their way, just as he himself had done. It
+seemed to Roger that all his days he had been only entering life, as some
+rich bewildering thicket like this copse of birches here, never getting
+very deep, never seeing very clearly, never understanding all. And so it
+had been with his children, and so it was with these children of Edith's,
+and so it would be with those many others--always groping, blundering,
+starting--children, only children all. And yet what lives they were to
+lead, what joys and revelations and disasters would be theirs, in the
+strange remote world they would live in--"my flesh and blood that I never
+shall know."
+
+But the stars were quiet and serene. The meadows and the forests on the
+broad sweep of the mountain side took on still brighter, warmer hues. And
+there was no gloom in these long good-byes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a frosty night in September, he left the farm to go to the city. From
+his seat in the small automobile Roger looked back at the pleasant old
+house with its brightly lighted windows, and then he turned to George by
+his side:
+
+"We're in good shape for the winter, son."
+
+But George did not get his full meaning.
+
+At the little station, there were no other passengers. They walked the
+platform for some time. Then the train with a scream came around the curve.
+A quick grip on George's hand, and Roger climbed into the car. Inside, a
+moment later, he looked out through the window. By a trainman with a
+lantern, George stood watching, smiling up, and he waved his hand as the
+train pulled out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+The next morning on his arrival in town, Roger went to his office. He had
+little cause for uneasiness there, for twice in the summer he had come down
+to keep an eye on the business, while John had taken brief vacations at a
+seaside place nearby. The boy had no color now in his cheeks; as always,
+they were a sallow gray with the skin drawn tight over high cheek bones;
+his vigor was all in his eyes. But here was a new John, nevertheless, a
+successful man of affairs. He had on a spruce new suit of brown, no cheap
+ready-made affair but one carefully fitted to conceal and soften his
+deformity. He was wearing a bright blue tie and a cornflower in his
+buttonhole, and his sandy hair was sleekly brushed. He showed Roger into
+his private room, a small place he had partitioned off, where over his desk
+was a motto in gold: "This is no place for your troubles or mine."
+
+"Lord, but you've got yourself fixed up fine in here," said Roger. John
+smiled broadly. "And you're looking like a new man, Johnny."
+
+"I had a great time at the seashore. Learned to sail a boat alone. What do
+you think of this chair of mine?" And John complacently displayed the
+ingenious contrivance in front of his desk, somewhat like a bicycle seat.
+It was made of steel and leather pads.
+
+"Wonderful," said Roger. "Where'd you ever pick it up?"
+
+"I had it made," was the grave reply. "When a fellow has got up in life
+enough to have a stenographer, it's high time he was sitting down."
+
+"Let's see you do it." John sat down. "Now how is business?" Roger asked.
+
+"Great. Since the little slump we had in August it has taken a new
+start--and not only war business, at that--the old people are sending in
+orders again. I tell you what it is, Mr. Gale, this country is right on the
+edge of a boom!"
+
+And the junior member of the firm tilted triumphantly back in his chair.
+
+With the solid comfort which comes to a man when he returns to find his
+affairs all going well, Roger worked on until five o'clock, and then he
+started for his home.
+
+Deborah had not yet come in, and a deep silence reigned in the house. He
+looked through the rooms downstairs, and with content he noticed how little
+had been altered. His beloved study had not been touched. On the third
+floor, in the large back room, he found John comfortably installed. There
+were gay prints upon the walls, fresh curtains at the windows, a mandolin
+lying on a chair. And Roger, glancing down at the keen glad face of his
+partner, told himself that the doctor who had said this lad would die was a
+fool.
+
+"These doctors fool themselves often," he thought.
+
+Deborah and Allan had the front room on the floor below. Roger went in, and
+for a moment he stood looking about him. How restful and how radiant was
+this large old-fashioned chamber, so softly lighted, waiting. Through a
+passageway lined with cupboards he went into his room at the back. Deborah
+had repapered it, but with a pattern so similar that Roger did not notice
+the change. He only felt a vague freshness here, as though even this old
+chamber, too, were making a new start in life. And he felt as though he
+were to live here for years. Slowly he unpacked his trunk and took a bath
+and dressed at his leisure. Then he heard Deborah's voice at the door.
+
+"Come in, come in!" he answered.
+
+"Why, father! Dearie!" Deborah cried "Oh, how well you're looking, dad!"
+And she kissed him happily. "Oh, but I'm glad to have you back--"
+
+"That's good," he said, and he squeezed her hand "Here, come to the light,
+let me look at you." He saw her cheeks a little flushed, the gladness in
+her steady eyes. "Happy? Everything just right?" His daughter nodded,
+smiling, and he gave a whimsical frown. "No ups and down at all? That's
+bad."
+
+"Oh, yes, plenty--but all so small."
+
+"Good fellow to live with."
+
+"Very."
+
+"And your work?
+
+"It's going splendidly. I'll tell you about it this evening, after you give
+me the news from the farm."
+
+They chatted on for a short while, but he saw she was barely listening.
+
+"Can't you guess what it means," she asked him softly, "to a woman of my
+age--after she has been so afraid she was too old, that she'd married too
+late--to know at last--to be sure at last--that she's to have a baby, dad?"
+He drew back a little, and a lump rose in his throat.
+
+"By George!" he huskily exclaimed. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" And he held her
+close in his arms for some time, till both of them grew sensible.
+
+Soon after she had gone to her room, he heard Allan coming upstairs. He
+heard her low sweet cry of welcome, a silence, then their voices. He heard
+them laughing together and later Deborah humming a song. And still thinking
+of what she had told him, he felt himself so close to it all. And again the
+feeling came to him that surely he would live here for years.
+
+Allan came in and they had a talk.
+
+"Deborah says she has told you the news."
+
+"Yes. Everything's all right, I suppose--her condition, I mean," said
+Roger.
+
+"Couldn't be better."
+
+"Just as I thought."
+
+"Those six weeks we had up in Maine--"
+
+"Yes, you both show it. Working hard?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"And Deborah?" Roger asked.
+
+"You'll have to help me hold her in."
+
+They talked a few moments longer and went down to the living room. John was
+there with Deborah. All four went in to dinner. And through the
+conversation, from time to time Roger noticed the looks that went back and
+forth between husband and wife; and again he caught Deborah smiling as
+though oblivious of them all. After dinner she went with him into his den.
+
+"Well! Do you like the house?" she inquired.
+
+"Better than ever," he replied.
+
+"I wonder if you'll mind it. There'll be people coming to dinner, you
+know--"
+
+"That won't bother me any," he said.
+
+"And committee meetings now and then. But you're safe in here, it's a good
+thick door."
+
+"Let 'em talk," he retorted, "as hard as they please. You're married
+now--they can't scare me a bit. Only at ten o'clock, by George, you've got
+to knock off and go to bed."
+
+"Oh, I'll take care of myself," she said.
+
+"If you don't, Allan will. We've had a talk."
+
+"Scheming already."
+
+"Yes. When will it be?"
+
+"In April, I think."
+
+"You'll quit work in your schools?"
+
+"A month before."
+
+"And in the meantime, not too hard."
+
+"No, and not too easy. I'm so sure now that I can do both." And Deborah
+kissed him gently. "I'm so happy, dearie--and oh, so very glad you're
+here!"
+
+There followed for Roger, after that, many quiet evenings at home,
+untroubled days in his office. Seldom did he notice the progress of his
+ailment. His attention was upon his house, as this woman who mothered
+thousands of children worked on for her great family, putting all in order,
+making ready for the crisis ahead when she would become the mother of one.
+
+Now even more than ever before, her work came crowding into his home. The
+house was old, but the house was new. For from schools and libraries, cafes
+and tenements and streets, the mighty formless hunger which had once so
+thrilled her father poured into the house itself and soon became a part of
+it. He felt the presence of the school. He heard the daily gossip of that
+bewildering system of which his daughter was a part: a world in itself,
+with its politics, its many jarring factions, its jealousies, dissensions,
+its varied personalities, ambitions and conspiracies; but in spite of these
+confusions its more progressive elements downing all distrusts and fears
+and drawing steadily closer to life, fearlessly rousing everywhere the
+hunger in people to live and learn and to take from this amazing world all
+the riches that it holds: the school with its great challenge steadily
+increasing its demands in the name of its children, demands which went deep
+down into conditions in the tenements and ramified through politics to the
+City Hall, to Albany, and even away to Washington--while day by day and
+week by week, from cities, towns and villages came the vast prophetic story
+of the free public schools of the land.
+
+And meanwhile, in the tenements, still groping and testing, feeling her
+way, keeping close watch on her great brood, their wakening desires, their
+widening curiosities, Deborah was bringing them, children, mothers and
+fathers too, together through the one big hope of brighter and more ample
+lives for everybody's children. Step by step this hope was spread out into
+the surrounding swamps and jungles of blind driven lives, to find
+surprising treasures there deep buried under dirt and din, locked in the
+common heart of mankind--old songs and fables, hopes and dreams and visions
+of immortal light, handed down from father to son, nurtured, guarded,
+breathed upon and clothed anew by countless generations, innumerable
+millions of simple men and women blindly struggling toward the sun. Over
+the door of one of the schools, were these words carved in the stone:
+
+"Humanity is still a child. Our parents are all people who have lived upon
+the earth--our children, all who are to come. And the dawn at last is
+breaking. The great day has just begun."
+
+This spirit of triumphal life poured deep into Roger's house. It was as
+though his daughter, in these last months which she had left for undivided
+service, were strengthening her faith in it all and pledging her
+devotion--as communing with herself she felt the crisis drawing near.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+There came an interruption. One night when Deborah was out and Roger sat in
+his study alone, the maid came in highly flustered and said,
+
+"Mr. Gale! It's Miss Laura to see you!"
+
+He turned with a startled jerk of his head and his face slowly reddened.
+But when he saw the maid's eager expression and saw that she was expecting
+a scene, with a frown of displeasure he rose from his chair.
+
+"Very well," he said, and he went to his daughter. He found her in the
+living room. No repentant Magdalene, but quite unabashed and at her ease,
+she came to her father quickly.
+
+"Oh, dad, I'm so glad to see you, dear!" And she gave him a swift impetuous
+kiss, her rich lips for an instant pressing warmly to his cheek.
+
+"Laura!" he said thickly. "Come into my study, will you? I'm alone this
+evening."
+
+"I'm so glad you are!" she replied. She followed him in and he closed the
+door. He glanced at her confusedly. In her warmth, her elegance, an
+indefinable change in the tone and accent of her high magnetic voice, and
+in her ardent smiling eyes, she seemed to him more the foreigner now. And
+Roger's thoughts were in a whirl. What had happened? Had she married again?
+
+"Is Edith here still?" she was asking.
+
+"No, she's up in the mountains. She's living there," he answered.
+
+"Edith? In the mountains?" demanded Laura, in surprise. And she asked
+innumerable questions. He replied to each one of them carefully, slowly,
+meanwhile getting control of himself.
+
+"And Deborah married--married at last! How has it worked? Is she happy,
+dad?"
+
+"Very," he said.
+
+"And is she still keeping up her schools?"
+
+"Yes, for the present. She'll have to stop soon." Laura leaned forward,
+curious:
+
+"Tell me, dad--a baby?"
+
+"Yes." She stared a moment.
+
+"Deborah!" she softly exclaimed; and in a moment, "I wonder."
+
+"What do you mean?" her father asked, but Laura evaded his question. She
+plied him with her inquiries for a few minutes longer, then turned to him
+with a challenging smile:
+
+"Well, father, don't you think you had better ask me now about myself?" He
+looked away a moment, but turned resolutely back:
+
+"I suppose so. When did you land?"
+
+"This morning, dear, from Italy--with my husband," she replied. And Roger
+started slightly. "I want you to meet him soon," she said.
+
+"Very well," he answered. At his disturbed, almost guilty expression Laura
+laughed a little and rose and came over and hugged him tight.
+
+"Oh, but, father dearest--it's working out so splendidly! I want you to
+know him and see for yourself! We've come to live in New York for a
+while--he has more to do here about war supplies."
+
+"More shrapnel, eh, machine guns. More wholesale death," her father
+growled. But Laura smiled good-naturedly.
+
+"Yes, love, from America. Aren't you all ashamed of yourselves--scrambling
+so, to get rich quick--out of this war you disapprove of."
+
+"_You_ look a bit rich," her father retorted.
+
+"Rather--for the moment," was her cheerful answer.
+
+"And you still like living in Italy?"
+
+"Tremendously! Rome is wonderful now!"
+
+"Reborn, eh. Wings of the Eagles."
+
+"Yes, and we're doing rather well."
+
+"I haven't noticed it," Roger said. "Why don't you send a few of your
+troops to help those plucky Frenchmen?"
+
+"Because," she replied, "we have a feeling that this is a war where we had
+much better help ourselves."
+
+"High ideals," he snorted.
+
+"Rome reborn," she remarked, unabashed. And her father scowled at her
+whimsically.
+
+"You're a heathen. I give you up," he declared. Laura had risen, smiling.
+
+"Oh, no, don't give me up," she said. "For you see," she added softly, "I'm
+a heathen with a great deal of love in her heart for thee, my dearest dad.
+May I bring him down, my husband?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I'll telephone to Deborah to-morrow and arrange it."
+
+When she had gone he returned to his chair and sat for a long time in a
+daze. He was still disturbed and bewildered. What a daughter of his! And
+what did it mean? Could she really go on being happy like this? Sinning?
+Yes, she was sinning! Laura had broken her marriage vows, she had "run off
+with another fellah." Those were the plain ugly facts. And now, divorced
+and re-married, she was careering gayly on! And her views of the war were
+plain heathenish! And yet there was something about her--yes, he thought,
+he loved her still! What for? For being so happy! And yet she was wrong to
+be happy, all wrong! His thoughts went 'round in circles.
+
+And his confusion and dismay grew even deeper the next night when Laura
+brought her new husband to dine. For in place of the dark polished
+scoundrel whom Roger had expected, here was a spruce and affable youth with
+thick light hair and ruddy cheeks, a brisk pleasant manner of talking and a
+decidedly forcible way of putting the case of his country at war. They kept
+the conversation to that. For despite Deborah's friendly air, she showed
+plainly that she wanted to keep the talk impersonal. And Laura, rather
+amused at this, replied by treating Deborah and Allan and her father, too,
+with a bantering forbearance for their old-fashioned, narrow views and
+Deborah's religion of brotherhood, democracy. All that to Laura was passe.
+
+From time to time Roger glanced at her face, into her clear and luminous
+eyes so warm with the joy of living with this new man, her second. How his
+family had split apart. He wrote Edith the news of her sister, and he
+received but a brief reply. Nor did Deborah speak of it often. She seemed
+to want to forget Laura's life as the crisis in her own drew near.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+Deborah had not yet stopped work. Again and again she put it off. For in
+her busy office so many demands both old and new kept pressing in upon her,
+such unexpected questions and vexing little problems kept cropping up as
+Deborah tried to arrange her work for the colleague who was to take her
+place in the spring, that day after day she lingered there--until one
+afternoon in March her husband went to her office, gave her an hour to
+finish up, and then brought her home with him. She had a fit of the blues
+that night. Allan was called out on a case, and a little while later Roger
+found his daughter alone in the living room, a book unopened in her lap,
+her gray eyes glistening with tears. She smiled when she caught sight of
+him.
+
+"It's so silly!" she muttered unsteadily. "Just my condition, I suppose. I
+feel as though I had done with school for the remainder of my days!...
+Better leave me now, dearie," she added. "I'm not very proud of myself
+to-night--but I'll be all right in the morning."
+
+The next day she was herself again, and went quietly on with her
+preparations for the coming of her child. But still the ceaseless interests
+of those hordes of other children followed her into the house. Not only her
+successor but principals and teachers came for counsel or assistance. And
+later, when reluctantly she refused to see such visitors, still the
+telephone kept ringing and letters poured in by every mail. For in her
+larger family there were weddings, births and deaths, and the endless
+savage struggle for life; and there were many climaxes of dreams and
+aspirations, of loves and bitter jealousies. And out of all this straining
+and this fever of humanity, came messages to Deborah: last appeals for aid
+and advice, and gifts for the child who was to be born; tiny garments
+quaintly made by women and girls from Italy, from Russia and from Poland;
+baby blankets, wraps and toys and curious charms and amulets. There were so
+many of these gifts.
+
+"There's enough for forty babies," Deborah told her father. "What on earth
+am I to do, to avoid hurting anyone's feelings? And isn't it rather awful,
+the way these inequalities will crop up in spite of you? I know of eight
+tenement babies born down there in this one week. How much fuss and
+feathers is made over them, and their coming into the world, poor mites?"
+Roger smiled at his daughter.
+
+"You remind me of Jekyll and Hyde," he said.
+
+"Father! What a horrible thought! What have Jekyll and Hyde to do with me?"
+
+"Nothing, my dear," he answered. "Only it's queer and a little uncanny,
+something I've never seen before, this double mother life of yours."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was only a few days later when coming home one evening he found that
+Deborah's doctor had put her to bed and installed a nurse. There followed a
+week of keen suspense when Roger stayed home from the office. She liked to
+have him with her, and sitting at her bedside he saw how changed his
+daughter was, how far in these few hours she had drawn into herself. He had
+suspected for some time that all was not well with Deborah, and Allan
+confirmed his suspicions. There was to be grave danger both for the mother
+and the child. It would come out all right, of course, he strove to
+reassure himself. Nothing else could happen now, with her life so
+splendidly settled at last. That Fate could be so pitiless--no, it was
+unthinkable!
+
+"This is what comes of your modern woman!" Roger exclaimed to Allan one
+night. "This is the price she's paying for those nerve-racking years of
+work!"
+
+The crisis came toward the end of the week. And while for one entire night
+and through the day that followed and far into the next night the doctors
+and nurses fought for life in the room upstairs, Roger waited, left to
+himself, sitting in his study or restlessly moving through the house. And
+still that thought was with him--the price! It was kept in his mind by the
+anxious demands which her big family made for news. The telephone kept
+ringing. Women in motors from uptown and humbler visitors young and old
+kept coming to make inquiries. More gifts were brought and flowers. And
+Roger saw these people, and as he answered their questions he fairly
+scowled in their faces--unconsciously, for his mind was not clear.
+Reporters came. Barely an hour passed without bringing a man or a woman
+from some one of the papers. He gave them only brief replies. Why couldn't
+they leave his house alone? He saw her name in headlines: "Deborah Gale at
+Point of Death." And he turned angrily away. Vividly, on the second night,
+there came to him a picture of Deborah's birth so long ago in this same
+house. How safe it had been, how different, how secluded and shut in. No
+world had clamored _then_ for news. And so vivid did this picture grow,
+that when at last there came to his ears the shrill clear cry of a new
+life, it was some time before he could be sure whether this were not still
+his dream of that other night so long ago.
+
+But now a nurse had led him upstairs, and he stood by a cradle looking down
+at a small wrinkled face almost wholly concealed by a soft woolly blanket.
+And presently Allan behind him said,
+
+"It's a boy, and he's to be named after you." Roger looked up.
+
+"How's the mother?" he asked.
+
+"Almost out of danger," was the reply. Then Roger glanced at Allan's face
+and saw how drawn and gray it was. He drew a long breath and turned back to
+the child. Allan had gone and so had the nurse, and he was alone by the
+cradle. Relief and peace and happiness stole into his spirit. He felt the
+deep remoteness of this strange new little creature from all the clamoring
+world without--which he himself was soon to leave. The thought grew
+clearer, clearer, as with a curious steady smile Roger stood there looking
+down.
+
+"Well, little brother, you're here, thank God. And nobody knows how close
+we'll be--for a little while," he thought. "For we're almost out of the
+world, you and I."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Days passed, Deborah's strength increased, and soon they let Roger come
+into the room. She, too, was remote from the world for a time. That great
+family outside was anxious no longer, it left her alone. But soon it would
+demand her. Never again, he told himself, would she be so close, so
+intimate, as here in her bed with this child of hers to whom she had given
+her father's name. "These hours are my real good-byes."
+
+Two long quiet weeks of this happiness, and then in a twinkling it was
+gone. The child fell sick, within a few hours its small existence hung by a
+thread--and to Roger's startled eyes a new Deborah was revealed! Tense and
+silent on her bed, her sensitive lips compressed with pain, her birthmark
+showing a jagged line of fiery red upon her brow as her ears kept straining
+to catch every sound from the nursery adjoining, through hours of stern
+anguish she became the kind of mother that she had once so
+dreaded--shutting out everything else in the world: people, schools, all
+other children, rich or poor, well, sick or dying! Here was the crisis of
+Deborah's life!
+
+One night as she lay listening, with her hand gripping Roger's tight,
+frowning abruptly she said to him, in a harsh, unnatural voice:
+
+"They don't care any longer, none of them care! _I'm_ safe and they've
+stopped worrying, for they know they'll soon have me back at work! The
+work," she added fiercely, "that made my body what it is, not fit to bear a
+baby!" She threw a quick and tortured look toward the door of the other
+room. "My work for those others, all those years, will be to blame if this
+one dies! And if it doesn't live I'm through! I won't go on! I couldn't!
+I'd be too bitter after this--toward all of them--_those children_!"
+
+These last two words were whispers so bitter they made Roger cold.
+
+"But this child is going to live," he responded hoarsely. Its mother stared
+up with a quivering frown. The next moment her limbs contracted as from an
+electric shock. There had come a faint wail from the other room.
+
+And this went on for three days and nights. Again Roger lived as in a
+dream. He saw haggard faces from time to time of doctors, nurses, servants.
+He saw Allan now and then, his tall ungainly figure stooped, his features
+gaunt, his strong wide jaw set like a vise, but his eyes kind and steady
+still, his low voice reassuring. And Roger noticed John at times hobbling
+quickly down a hall and stopping on his crutches before a closed door,
+listening. Then these figures would recede, and it was as though he were
+alone in the dark.
+
+At last the nightmare ended. One afternoon as he sat in his study, Allan
+came in slowly and dropped exhausted into a chair. He turned to Roger with
+a smile.
+
+"Safe now, I think," he said quietly.
+
+Roger went to Deborah and found her asleep, her face at peace. He went to
+his room and fell himself into a long dreamless slumber.
+
+In the days which followed, again he sat at her bedside and together they
+watched the child in her arms. So feeble still the small creature appeared
+that they both spoke in whispers. But as little by little its strength
+returned, Deborah too became herself. And though still jealously watchful
+of its every movement, she had time for other thinking. She had talks with
+her husband, not only about their baby but about his work and hers. Slowly
+her old interest in all they had had in common returned, and to the
+messages from outside she gave again a kindlier ear.
+
+"Allan tells me," she said one day, when she was alone with her father,
+"that I can have no more children. And I'm glad of that. But at least I
+have one," she added, "and he has already made me feel like a different
+woman than before. I feel sometimes as though I'd come a million miles
+along in life. And yet again it feels so close, all that I left back there
+in school. Because I'm so much closer now--to every mother and every child.
+At last I'm one of the family."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+Of that greater family, one member had been in the house all through the
+month which had just gone by. But he had been so quiet, so carefully
+unobtrusive, that he had been scarcely noticed. Very early each morning,
+day after day, John had gone outside for his breakfast and thence to the
+office where he himself had handled the business as well as he could, only
+coming to Roger at night now and then with some matter he could not settle
+alone, but always stoutly declaring that he needed no other assistance.
+
+"Don't come, Mr. Gale," he had urged. "You look worn out. You'll be sick
+yourself if you ain't careful. And anyhow, if you hang around you'll be
+here whenever she wants you."
+
+Early in Deborah's illness, John had offered to give up his room for the
+use of one of the nurses.
+
+"That's mighty thoughtful of you, Johnny," Allan had responded. "But we've
+got plenty of room as it is. Just you stick around. We want you here."
+
+"All right, Doc. If there's any little thing, you know--answering the
+'phone at night or anything else that I can do--"
+
+"Thank you, so; I'll let you know. But in the meantime go to bed."
+
+From that day on, John had taken not only his breakfast but his supper,
+too, outside, and no one had noticed his absence. Coming in late, he had
+hobbled silently up to his room, stopping to listen at Deborah's door. He
+had kept so completely out of the way, it was not till the baby was three
+weeks old, and past its second crisis, that Deborah thought to ask for
+John. When he came to her bed, she smiled up at him with the baby in her
+arms.
+
+"I thought we'd see him together," she said. John stood on his crutches
+staring down. And as Deborah watched him, all at once her look grew intent.
+"Johnny," she said softly, "go over there, will you, and turn up the light,
+so we can see him better."
+
+And when this was done, though she still talked smilingly of the child,
+again and again she glanced up at John's face, at the strange self-absorbed
+expression, stern and sad and wistful, there. When he had gone the tears
+came in her eyes. And Deborah sent for her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day, at the office, John came into Roger's room. Roger had been at
+work several days and they had already cleared up their affairs.
+
+"Here's something," said John gruffly, "that I wish you'd put away
+somewhere."
+
+And he handed to his partner a small blue leather album, filled with the
+newspaper clippings dealing with Deborah's illness. On the front page was
+one with her picture and a long record of her service to the children of
+New York.
+
+"She wouldn't want to see it now," John continued awkwardly. "But I thought
+maybe later on the boy would like to have it. What do you think?" he
+inquired. Roger gave him a kindly glance.
+
+"I think he will. It's a fine thing to keep." And he handed it back. "But I
+guess you'd better put it away, and give it to her later yourself."
+
+John shifted his weight on his crutches, so quickly that Roger looked up in
+alarm:
+
+"Look here! You're not well!" He saw now that the face of the cripple was
+white and the sweat was glistening on his brow. John gave a harsh little
+nervous laugh.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing much, partner," he replied. "That's another thing I
+wanted to tell you. I've had some queer pains lately--new ones!" He caught
+his breath.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, you young fool?"
+
+"You had your own troubles, didn't you?" John spoke with difficulty. "But
+I'll be all right, I guess! All I need is a few days off!"
+
+Roger had pressed a button, and his stenographer came in.
+
+"Call a taxi," he said sharply. "And, John, you go right over there and lie
+down. I'm going to take you home at once!"
+
+"I've got a better scheme," said John, setting his determined jaws. The
+sweat was pouring down his cheeks. "It may be a week--but there's just a
+chance it--may be a little worse than that! So I've got a room in a
+hospital! See? Be better all round!" He swayed forward.
+
+"Johnny!" Roger caught him just in time, and the boy lay senseless in his
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home, a few hours later, Allan came with another physician down from
+John's small bedroom. He saw his colleague to the door and then came in to
+Roger.
+
+"I'm afraid Johnny has come to the end."
+
+For a moment Roger stared at him.
+
+"Has, eh," he answered huskily. "You're absolutely sure he has? There's
+nothing--nothing on earth we can do?"
+
+"Nothing more than we're doing now."
+
+"He has fooled you fellows before, you know--"
+
+"Not this time."
+
+"How long will it be?"
+
+"Days or hours--I don't know."
+
+"He mustn't suffer!"
+
+"I'll see to that." Roger rose and walked the floor.
+
+"It was the last month did it, of course--"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"I blame myself for that."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Allan gently. "You've done a good deal for Johnny Geer."
+
+"He has done a good deal for this family! Can Deborah see him?"
+
+"I wish she could."
+
+"Better stretch a point for her, hadn't you? She's been a kind of a mother
+to John."
+
+"I know. But she can't leave her bed."
+
+"Then you won't tell her?"
+
+"I think she knows. She talked to me about him last night."
+
+"That's it, a mother!" Roger cried. "She was watching! We were blind!" He
+came back to his chair and dropped into it.
+
+"Does John know this himself?" he asked.
+
+"He suspects it, I think," said Allan.
+
+"Then go and tell him, will you, that he's going to get well. And after
+you've done it I'll see him myself. I've got something in mind I want to
+think out."
+
+After Allan had left the room, Roger sat thinking about John. He thought of
+John's birth and his drunken mother, the accident and his struggle for
+life, through babyhood and childhood, through ignorance and filth and pain,
+through din and clamor and hunger, fear; of the long fierce fight which
+John had made not to be "put away" in some big institution, of his battle
+to keep up his head, to be somebody, make a career for himself. He thought
+of John's becoming one of Deborah's big family, only one of thousands, but
+it seemed now to Roger that John had stood out from them all, as the figure
+best embodying that great fierce hunger for a full life, and as the link
+connecting, the one who slowly year by year had emerged from her greater
+family and come into her small one. And last of all he thought of John as
+his own companion, his only one, in the immense adventure on which he was
+so soon to embark.
+
+A few moments later he stood by John's bed.
+
+"Pretty hard, Johnny?" he gently asked.
+
+"Oh, not so bad as it might be, I guess--"
+
+"You'll soon feel better, they tell me, boy." John shut his eyes.
+
+"Yes," he muttered.
+
+"Can you stand my talking, just a minute?"
+
+"Sure I can," John whispered. "I'm not suffering any now. He's given me
+something to put me to sleep. What is it you want to talk about? Business?"
+
+"Not exactly, partner. It's about the family. You've got so you're almost
+one of us. I guess you know us pretty well."
+
+"I guess I do. It's meant a lot to me, Mr. Gale--"
+
+"But I'll tell you what you don't know, John," Roger went on slowly. "I had
+a son in the family once, and he died when he was three months old. That
+was a long time ago--and I never had another, you see--to take his
+place--till you came along." There fell a breathless silence. "And I've
+been thinking lately," Roger added steadily. "I haven't long to live, you
+know. And I've been wondering whether--you'd like to come into the
+family--take my name. Do you understand?"
+
+John said nothing. His eyes were still closed. But presently, groping over
+the bed, he found Roger's hand and clutched it tight. After this, from time
+to time his throat contracted sharply. Tears welled from under his eyelids.
+Then gradually, as the merciful drug which Allan had given did its work,
+his clutch relaxed and he began breathing deep and hard. But still for some
+time longer Roger sat quietly by his side.
+
+The next night he was there again. Death had come to the huddled form on
+the bed, but there had been no relaxing. With the head thrown rigidly far
+back and all the features tense and hard, it was a fighting figure still,
+a figure of stern protest against the world's injustice. But Roger was not
+thinking of this, but of the discovery he had made, that in their talk of
+the night before John had understood him--completely. For upon a piece of
+paper which Allan had given the lad that day, these words had been
+painfully inscribed:
+
+"This is my last will and testament. I am in my right mind--I know what I
+am doing--though nobody else does--nobody is here. To my partner Roger Gale
+I leave my share in our business. And to my teacher Deborah Baird I leave
+my crutches for her school."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+After John had gone away the house was very quiet. Only from the room
+upstairs there could be heard occasionally the faint clear cry of Deborah's
+child. And once again to Roger came a season of repose. He was far from
+unhappy. His disease, although progressing fast, gave him barely any pain;
+it rather made its presence felt by the manner in which it affected his
+mind. His inner life grew uneven. At times his thoughts were as in a fog,
+again they were amazingly clear and vistas opened far ahead. He could not
+control his thinking.
+
+This bothered him at the office, in the work he still had to do. For some
+months he had been considering an offer from one of his rivals, a modern
+concern which wished to buy out his business together with that of three
+other firms and consolidate them all into one corporation. And Roger was
+selling, and it was hard; for the whole idea of bargaining was more
+distasteful than ever now. He had to keep reminding himself of Edith and
+her children.
+
+At last it was over, his books were closed, and there was nothing left to
+be done. Nor did he care to linger. These rooms had meant but little to
+him; they had been but a place of transition from the old office far
+downtown, so full of memories of his youth, to the big corporation looming
+ahead, the huge impersonal clipping mill into which his business was to
+merge. And it came to his mind that New York was like that--no settled calm
+abiding place cherishing its memories, but only a town of transition, a
+great turbulent city of change, restlessly shaking off its past, tearing
+down and building anew, building higher, higher, higher, rearing to the
+very stars, and shouting, "Can you see me now?" What was the goal of this
+mad career? What dazzling city would be here? For a time he stared out of
+his window as into a promised land. Slowly at last he rose from his desk.
+Clippings, clippings, clippings. He looked at those long rows of girls
+gleaning in items large and small the public reputations of all kinds of
+men and women, new kinds in a new nation seething with activities, sweeping
+on like some wide river swollen at flood season to a new America, a world
+which Roger would not know. And yet it would be his world still, for in it
+he would play a part.
+
+"In their lives, too, we shall be there--the dim strong figures of the
+past."
+
+From his desk he gathered a few belongings. Then he looked into John's
+small room, with the big gold motto over the desk: "This is no place for
+your troubles or mine." On the desk lay that small album, John's parting
+gift to Deborah's boy. Roger picked it up and walked out of the office. He
+had never liked good-byes.
+
+In the elevator he noticed that his shoes needed shining, and when he
+reached the street below he stopped at the stand on the corner. The stocky
+Greek with bushy black hair, who had run the stand for many years, gave him
+a cheery greeting; for Roger had stopped there frequently--not that he
+cared about his shoes, but he had always liked to watch the crowds of
+people passing.
+
+"No hurry, boss?"
+
+"None," said Roger.
+
+"Then I give a fine shine! Polish, too?"
+
+"Yes, polish, too." And Roger settled back to watch.
+
+"And put in new shoe strings," he added, with a whimsical smile.
+
+Men and women, girls and boys by thousands passed him, pushing, hurrying,
+shuffling by. Girls tittering and nudging and darting quick side glances.
+Bobbing heads and figures, vigorous steps and dancing eyes. Life bubbling
+over everywhere, in laughter, in sharp angry tones, in glad expectant
+chatter. Deborah's big family. Across the street was a movie between two
+lurid posters, and there was a dance hall overhead. The windows were all
+open, and faintly above the roar of the street he could hear the piano,
+drum, fiddle and horn. The thoroughfare each moment grew more tumultuous to
+his ears, with trolley cars and taxis, motor busses, trucks and drays. A
+small red motor dashed uptown with piles of evening papers; a great black
+motor hearse rushed by. In a taxi which had stopped in a jam, a man was
+kissing a girl in his arms, and both of them were laughing. The smart
+little toque of blue satin she wore was crushed to one side. How red were
+her lips as she threw back her head....
+
+"Silk or cotton, boss? Which you like?" Roger glanced at the shoe strings
+and pondered.
+
+"Silk," he grunted in reply. Idly for a moment he watched this busy little
+man. From whence had he come in far away Greece? What existence had he
+here, and what kind of life would he still have through those many years to
+come? A feeling half of sadness crept into Roger's heavy eyes as he looked
+at the man, at his smiling face and then at other faces in the multitudes
+sweeping past. The moment he tried to single them out, how doubly chaotic
+it became. What an ocean of warm desires, passions, vivid hopes and
+worries. Vaguely he could feel them pass. Often in the midst of his life,
+his active and self-centered life, Roger had looked at these crowds on the
+street and had thought these faces commonplace. But now at the end it was
+not so.
+
+A woman with a baby carriage stopped directly in front of him and stood
+there anxiously watching for a chance to cross the street. And Roger
+thought of Deborah. Heavily he climbed down from his seat, paid the man and
+bade him good-night, and went home to see Deborah's baby.
+
+For a long time he sat by the cradle. Presently Deborah joined him, and
+soon they were laughing heartily at the astonishing jerks and kicks and
+grimaces of the tiny boy. He was having his bath and he hated it. But safe
+at last on his mother's lap, wrapped to his ears in a big soft towel, he
+grew very gay and contented and looked waggishly about.
+
+There followed long lazy days of spring, as April drifted into May. Early
+in the morning Roger could hear through his window the cries of the vendors
+of flowers and fruits. And he listened drowsily. He rose late and spent
+most of the day in the house; but occasionally he went out for a stroll.
+And one balmy evening when groups of youths came trooping by, singing in
+close harmony, Roger called a taxi and went far down through the tenement
+streets to a favorite haunt of his, a little Syrian pawnshop, where after
+long delving he purchased a ring to put in the new collection that he had
+been making lately. He had nearly a dozen now.
+
+Days passed. The house was still so quiet, Deborah was still upstairs. At
+last, one night upon leaving his study, he stopped uncertainly in the hall.
+He took more time than was his wont in closing up the house for the night,
+in trying all the windows, in turning out the various lights. Room after
+room he left in the dark. Then he went slowly up the stairs, his hand
+gratefully feeling those guiding points grown so familiar to his touch
+through many thousand evenings. His hand lingered on the banister and he
+stopped again to listen there.
+
+He did not come downstairs again.
+
+He was able to sleep but little at night. Turning restlessly on his bed, he
+would glance out of the window up at the beetling wall close by, tier on
+tier of apartments from which faint voices dropped out of the dark.
+Gradually as the night wore on, these voices would all die away into long
+mysterious silences--for to him at least such silences had grown to be
+very mysterious. Alone in the hours that followed, even these modern
+neighbors and this strange new eager town pressing down upon his house
+seemed no longer strange to him nor so appallingly immense, seemed even
+familiar and small to him, as the eyes of his mind looked out ahead.
+
+From his bed he could see on the opposite wall the picture Judith had given
+him, always so fresh and cool and dim with its deep restful tones of blue,
+of the herdsmen and the cattle on the dark mountain rim at dawn. And
+vaguely he wondered whether it was because he saw more clearly, or whether
+his mind in this curious haze could no longer see so well, that as he
+looked before him he felt no fear nor any more uncertainty. All his doubts
+had lifted, he was so sure of Judith now. As though she were coming to meet
+him, her image grew more vivid, with memories emerging out of all the years
+gone by. What memories, what vivid scenes! What intimate conversations they
+had, her voice so natural, close in his ear, as together they planned for
+their children.... Wistfully he would search the years for what he should
+soon tell his wife--until the drowsiness returned, and then again came
+visions.
+
+But by day it was not so, for the life of the house would rouse him and at
+intervals hold his attention.
+
+One evening a slight rustle, a faint fragrance in the room, made Roger
+suddenly open his eyes. And he saw Laura by his bed, her slender figure
+clad in blue silk, something white at her full bosom. He noticed her
+shapely shoulders, her glossy hair and moist red lips. She was smiling down
+at him.
+
+"See what I've brought you, dear," she said. And she turned to a chair
+where, one on the other, tray after tray, was piled his whole collection of
+rings. At sight of them his eyes grew fixed; he could feel his pulse beat
+faster.
+
+"How did you ever find them?" he asked his daughter huskily.
+
+"Oh, I had a long hunt all by myself. But I found them at last and I've
+brought them home. Shall we look them over a little while?"
+
+"Yes," he said. She turned up the light, and came and sat down at the
+bedside with a tray of rings in her lap. One by one she held them up to his
+gaze, still smiling and talking softly on in that rich melodious voice of
+hers, of which he heard but snatches. How good it felt to be so gay. No
+solemn thoughts nor questionings, just these dusky glittering beauties
+here, deep soft gleams of color, each with its suggestion of memories for
+Roger, a procession of adventures reaching back into his life. He smiled
+and lay in silence watching, until at last she bent over him, kissed him
+softly, breathed a good-night and went out of the room. Roger followed her
+with his glance. He knew he would never see her again. How graceful of her
+to go like that.
+
+He lay there thinking about her. In her large blue limousine he saw his gay
+young daughter speeding up the Avenue, the purple gleaming pavement
+reflecting studded lines of lights. And he thought he could see her smiling
+still. He recalled scattered fragments of her life--the first luxurious
+little menage, and the second. How many more would there be? She was only
+in her twenties still. Uneasily he tried to see into the years ahead for
+her, and he thought he saw a lonely old age, childless, loveless, cynical,
+hard. But this fear soon fell from his mind. No, whatever happened, she
+would do it gracefully, an artist always, to the end. He sighed and gave up
+the effort. For he could not think of Laura as old, nor could he think of
+her any more as being a part of his family.
+
+Edith came to him several times, and there was something in her face which
+gave him sharp forebodings. Making a great effort he tried to talk to her
+clearly.
+
+"It's hard to keep up with your children," he said. "It means keeping up
+with everything new. And you stay in your rut and then it's too late.
+Before you know it you are old."
+
+But his words subsided in mutterings, and Roger wearily closed his eyes.
+For a glance up into Edith's face had shown him only pity there and no heed
+to his warning. He saw that she looked upon him as old and still upon
+herself as young, though he noticed the threads of gray in her hair....
+Then he realized she had gone and that his chamber had grown dark. He must
+have been dreaming. Of what, he asked. He tried to remember. And suddenly
+out of the darkness, so harsh and clear it startled him, a picture rose in
+Roger's mind of a stark lonely figure, a woman in a graveyard cutting the
+grass on family graves. Where had he seen it? He could not recall. What had
+it to do with Edith? Was she not living in New York?... What had so
+startled him just now? Some thought, some vivid picture, some nightmare he
+could not recall.
+
+His last talks were with Deborah. All through those days and the long
+nights, too, he kept fancying she was in the room, and it brought deep balm
+to his restless soul. He asked her to tell him about the schools, and
+Deborah talked to him quietly. She was going back to her work in the fall.
+She felt very humble about it--she told him she felt older now and she saw
+that her work was barely begun. But she was even happier than before. Her
+hand lay in his, and it tightened there. He opened his eyes and looked up
+into hers.
+
+"All so strange," he muttered, "life." There was a sharp contracting of her
+wide and sensitive mouth.
+
+"Yes, dear, strange!" she whispered.
+
+"But I'm so glad you're going on." He frowned as he tried to be simple and
+clear, and make her feel he understood what she had set herself to do. "All
+people," he said slowly, "never counted so much as now. And never so
+hungry--all--as now--for all of life--like children--children who should go
+to school. Your work will grow--I can see ahead. Never a time when every
+man and woman and child could grow so much--and hand it on--and hand it
+on--as you will do to your small son."
+
+He felt her hand on his forehead, and for some moments nothing was said.
+Vaguely in glimpses Roger saw his small grandson growing up; and he
+pictured other children here, not her own but of her greater family, as the
+two merged into one. He felt that she would not grow old. Children, lives
+of children; work, dreams and aspirations. How bright it seemed as he
+stared ahead. Then he heard the cry of her baby.
+
+"Shall I nurse him here?" he heard her ask. He pressed her hand in answer.
+And when again he opened his eyes she was by his side with the child at her
+breast. Its large round eyes, so pure and clear, gazed into his own for a
+long, long time.
+
+"Now he's so sleepy," she whispered. "Would you like him beside you a
+moment?"
+
+"Please."
+
+He felt the faint scent of the tiny boy, and still those eyes looked into
+his. He forgot his daughter standing there; and as he watched, a sweet
+fresh sense of the mystery of this life so new stole deep into his spirit.
+All at once the baby fell asleep.
+
+"Good-night, little brother," he whispered. "God grant the world be very
+kind." He could feel the mother lift it up, and he heard the door close
+softly.
+
+Smiling he, too, fell asleep. And after that there were only dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+And his dreams were of children. Their faces passed before him. Now they
+were young again in the house. They were eating their suppers, three small
+girls, chattering like magpies. From her end of the table their mother
+smiled quietly across at him. "Come children," she was saying, "that will
+do for a little while." But Roger said, "Oh, let them talk."... Then he saw
+new-comers. Bruce came in with Edith, and George and young Elizabeth, and
+Allan came with Deborah who had a baby in her arms, and Laura stood beside
+them. Here were his three daughters, grown, but still in some uncanny way
+they looked to him like children still; and behind them he detected figures
+long forgotten, of boys and girls whom he had known far back in his own
+childhood. John, too, had come into the house. Strangely now the walls were
+gone, had lifted, and a clamorous throng, laughing, shouting, pummeling,
+hedged him in on every hand--Deborah's big family!
+
+Soon the uproar wearied him, and Roger tried to shut them out, to bring
+back again the walls to his house. And sometimes he succeeded, and he was
+left for a while in peace with Judith and his three small girls. But
+despite his efforts to keep them there, new faces kept intruding. Swiftly
+his small family grew, split into other families, and these were merged
+with other figures pressing in from every side. Again he felt the presence
+of countless families all around, dividing, reuniting, with ceaseless
+changes and fresh life--a never ending multitude. Here they were singing
+and dancing, and Laura gaily waved to him. At another place were only men,
+and they were struggling savagely to clutch things from each other's
+hands. A sea of scowling visages, angry shouts, fists clinched in air. And
+he thought he saw Bruce for an instant. Behind them lay wide valleys
+obscured by heavy clouds of smoke, and he could hear the roar of guns. But
+they vanished suddenly, and he saw women mourning now, and Edith with her
+children turned to him her anxious eyes. He tried to reach and help her,
+but already she had gone. And behind her came huge bending forms, men
+heaving at great burdens, jaws set in scowls of fierce revolt. And John was
+there on his crutches, and near him was a figure bound into a chair of
+steel, with terror in the straining limbs, while in desperation Deborah
+tried to wrench him free. Abruptly Roger turned away.
+
+And in a twinkling all was gone, the tumult and the clamor, and he was in a
+silent place high up on a mountain side. It was dusk. A herd of cattle
+passed, and George came close behind them. And around him Roger saw,
+emerging from the semi-dark, faces turning like his own to the summits of
+the mountains and the billowy splendors there. It grew so dark he could see
+no more. There fell a deep silence, not a sound but the occasional chirp of
+a bird or the faint whirr of an insect. Even the glow on the peaks was
+gone. Darkness, only darkness.
+
+"Surely this is death," he thought. After that he was alone. And presently
+from far away he heard the booming of a bell, deep and slow, sepulchral, as
+it measured off his life. Another silence followed, and this time it was
+more profound; and with a breathless awe he knew that all the people who
+had ever lived on earth were before him in the void to which he himself was
+drifting: people of all nations, of countless generations reaching back and
+back and back to the beginnings of mankind: the mightiest family of all,
+that had stumbled up through the ages, had slaved and starved and dreamed
+and died, had blindly hated, blindly killed, had raised up gods and idols
+and yearned for everlasting life, had laughed and played and danced along,
+had loved and mated, given birth, had endlessly renewed itself and handed
+on its heritage, had striven hungrily to learn, had groped its way in
+darkness, and after all its struggles had come now barely to the dawn. And
+then a voice within him cried,
+
+"What is humanity but a child? In the name of the dead I salute the
+unborn!"
+
+Slowly a glow appeared in his dream, and once again the scene had changed.
+The light was coming from long rows of houses rising tall and steep out of
+a teeming city street. And from these lighted houses children now came
+pouring forth. They filled the street from wall to wall with a torrent of
+warm vivid hues, they joined in mad tempestuous games, they shouted and
+they danced with glee, they whirled each other 'round and 'round. The very
+air seemed quivering. Then was heard the crash of a band, and he saw them
+marching into school. In and in and in they pressed, till the school seemed
+fairly bursting. Out they came by another way, and went off marching down
+the street with the big flag waving at their head. He followed and saw the
+street divide into narrower streets and bye-ways, into roads and country
+lanes. And all were filled with children. In endless multitudes they
+came--marching, marching, spreading, spreading, like wide bobbing fields of
+flowers rolling out across the land, toward a great round flashing sun
+above a distant rim of hills.
+
+The sun rose strangely dazzling. It filled the heavens with blinding light.
+He felt himself drawn up and up--while from somewhere far behind he heard
+the cry of Deborah's child. A clear sweet thrill of happiness came. And
+after that--we do not know.
+
+For he had left his family.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Family, by Ernest Poole
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS FAMILY ***
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