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.
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