He had
tried life without Hannah here and he did not care to try it again.
"It is already settled, father, I sent her away this morning."
"Then you get her right back!" he exclaimed. But Edith's face grew
obstinate.
"I don't care to give Deborah," she replied, "another chance to talk as she
did."
Roger looked at her gloomily. "You will, though," he was thinking. "You two
have only just begun. Let any little point arise, which a couple of men
would settle offhand, and you two will get together and go it! There'll be
no living in the house!"
With deepening displeasure he watched the struggle between them go on.
Sometimes it seemed to Roger there was not a topic he could bring up which
would not in some way bring on a clash. One night in desperation he
proposed the theatre.
"I'm afraid we can't afford it," said Edith, glancing at Deborah. And she
had the same answer, again and again, for the requests her children made,
if they involved but the smallest expense. "No, dear, I'm afraid we can't
afford that," she would say gently, with a sigh. And under this constant
pressure, these nightly little thrusts and jabs, Deborah would grow rigid
with annoyance and impatience.
"For Heaven's sake, Edith," she burst out, one night when the children had
gone to their lessons, "can you think of nothing on earth, except your own
little family?"
"Here it comes again," thought Roger, scowling into his paper.
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