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.
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