His Family Part 23

"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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sion 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 cras.h.i.+ng 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, G.o.d 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 st.u.r.dily 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.