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 tonight⁠—tonight 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 tonight. 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 tonight!”

“She is not going back tonight, 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—tonight.”

“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. “Tomorrow 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 tonight.”

“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 tonight!”

“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, bighearted. 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 remarrying, 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 tonight, 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.”