It's her love affair, not yours or mine--grown out of a
life she made for herself--curious, eager, thrilled by it all--and in the
center of her soul the deep glad growing certainty, 'I'm going to be a
beautiful woman--I myself, I, Laura Gale!' Oh, you don't know--nor do I.
And so she felt her way along--eagerly, hungrily, making mistakes--and you
and I left her to do it alone. I'm afraid we both rather neglected her,
dad," Deborah ended sadly. "And all we can do now, I think, is to give her
the kind of wedding she wants."
Roger started to speak but hesitated.
"What is it?" she inquired.
"Queer," he answered gruffly, "how a man can neglect his children--as I
have done, as I do still--when the one thing he wants most in life is to
see each one of 'em happy."
CHAPTER VI
Roger soon grew accustomed to seeing young Sloane about the house. They
could talk together more easily, and he began to call him Harold. Harold
asked him with Laura to lunch at the Ritz to meet the aunt from Bridgeport,
a lady excessively stout and profound. But that ended the formalities. It
had all been so much easier than Roger had expected. So, in its calm sober
fashion, the old house took into its life this new member, these new plans,
and the old seemed stronger for the new--for Laura and Edith and Deborah
drew together closer than they had been in many years. But only because
they felt themselves on the eve of a still deeper and more lasting
separation, as the family of Roger Gale divided and went different ways.
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