Free His Family by Ernest Poole Page B

grave, kind, fatherly things which he had intended to tell her.
    "I don't want to talk of the wedding, child, but of what's coming after that--between you and this man--all your life." He stopped short, with his heart in his mouth, for although he did not look at her he had a quick sensation as though he had struck her in the face.
    "Isn't this rather late to speak about that? Just now? When I'm nervous enough as it is?"
    "I know, I know." He spoke hurriedly, humbly. "I should have talked to you long ago, I should have known you better, child. I've been slack and selfish. But it's better late than never."
    "But you needn't!" the girl exclaimed. "You needn't tell me anything! I know more than you think--I know enough!" Roger looked at her, then at the wall. She went on in a voice rather breathless: "I know what I'm doing--exactly--just what I'm getting into. It's not as it was when you were young--it's different--we talk of these things. Harold and I have talked it all out." In the brief and dangerous pause which followed Roger kept looking at the wall.
    "Have you talked--about having children?"
    "Yes," came the answer sharply, and then he felt the hot clutch of her hand. "Hadn't you better go now, dad?" He hesitated.
    "No," he said. His voice was low. "Do you mean to have children, Laura?"
    "I don't know."
    "I think you do know. Do you mean to have children?" Her big black eyes, dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.
    "Well then, no, I don't!" she replied. He made a desperate effort to think what he could say to her. Good God, how he was bungling! Where were all his arguments?
    "How about your religion?" he blurted out.
    "I haven't any--which makes me do that--I've a right to be happy!"
    "You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed. In accent and in quality it was like a voice from the heart of New England where he had been born and bred. "I mean you won't be happy--not unless you have a child! It's what you need--it'll fill your life! It'll settle you--deepen you--tone you down!"
    "Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost hysterical. "I'm no Puritan--I want to live! I tell you we are different now! We're not all like Edith--and we're not like our mothers! We want to live! And we have a right to! Why don't you go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? It's my last night, my very last! I don't want to talk to you--I don't even know what I'm saying! And you come and try to frighten me!" Her voice caught and broke into sobs. "You know nothing about me! You never did! Leave me alone, can't you--leave me alone!"
    "Father?" He heard Deborah's voice, abrupt and stern, outside the door.
    "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He went in blind fashion out of the room and down to his study. He lit a cigar and smoked wretchedly there. When presently Deborah appeared he saw that her face was set and hard; but as she caught the baffled look, the angry tortured light in his eyes, her own expression softened.
    "Poor father," she said, in a pitying way. "If Edith had only let you alone."
    "I certainly didn't do much good."
    "Of course you didn't--you did harm--oh, so much more harm than you know." Into the quiet voice of his daughter crept a note of keen regret. "I wanted to make her last days in this house a time she could look back on, so that she'd want to come home for help if ever she's in trouble. She has so little--don't you see?--of what a woman needs these days. She has grown up so badly. Oh, if you'd only let her alone. It was such a bad, bad time to choose." She went to her father and kissed him. "Well, it's over now," she said, "and we'll make the best we can of it. I'll tell her you're sorry and quiet her down. And to-morrow we'll try to forget it has happened."
    * * * * *
    For Roger the morrow went by in a whirl. The wedding, a large church affair, was to take place at twelve o'clock. He arose early, put on his Prince Albert, went down and ate his breakfast alone. The waitress was flustered, the coffee was burnt. He