Part 34 (2/2)

”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 a.s.sured, 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 j.a.pan.”

”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 companions.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.sed three blessed quiet weeks, and he had high hopes for the winter.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

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, superst.i.tions and inst.i.tutions 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.

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