She and
Bruce were dining with Roger that night. "I wash my hands of the whole
affair," continued Edith curtly. "So long as she doesn't want my help, as
she has plainly made me feel, I certainly shan't stand in her way."
"You're absolutely right," said her father.
"Stick to it," said Bruce approvingly.
But Edith did not stick to it. In her case too, as the weeks wore on, those
subtle family ties took hold and made her feel the least she could do was
"to keep up appearances." So she and Bruce dined with the bride and groom,
and in turn had them to dinner. And these dinners, as Bruce confided to
Roger, were occasions no man could forget.
"They come only about once a month," he said in a tone of pathos, "but it
seems as though barely a week had gone by when Edith says to me again,
'We're dining with Laura and Hal to-night.' Well, and we dine. Young Sloane
is not a bad sort of a chap--works hard downtown and worships his wife. The
way he lives--well, it isn't mine--and mine isn't his--and we both let it
go at that. But the women can't, they haven't it in 'em. Each sits with her
way of life in her lap. You can't see it over the tablecloth, but, my God,
how you feel it! The worst of it is," he ended, "that after one of these
terrible meals each woman is more set than before in her own way of living.
Not that I don't like Edith's way," her husband added hastily.
Edith also disapproved of the fast increasing publicity which Deborah was
getting.
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