But the way Laura used this word at times made Roger's blood run cold. She
was vivid in her approval of her sister's whole idea, as a scheme of
wholesale motherhood which would give "a perfectly glorious jolt" to the
old-fashioned home with its overworked mothers who let their children
absorb their days.
"As though having children and bringing them up," she disdainfully
declared, "were something every woman must do, whether she happens to like
it or not, at the cost of any real growth of her own!"
And smilingly she hinted at impending radical changes in the whole relation
of marriage, of which she was hearing in detail at a series of lectures to
young wives, delivered on Thursday mornings in a hotel ball-room.
What the devil was getting into the town? Roger frowned his deep dislike.
Here was Laura with her chicken's mind blithely taking her sister's
thoughts and turning them topsy-turvy, to make for herself a view of life
which fitted like a white kid glove her small and elegant "menage." And
although her father had only inklings of it all, he had quite enough to
make him irate at this uncanny interplay of influences in his family. Why
couldn't the girls leave each other alone?
* * * * *
Early in the winter, Edith, too, had entered in. It had taken Edith just
one glance into the bride's apartment to grasp Laura's whole scheme of
existence.
"Selfish, indulgent and abnormal," was the way she described it.
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