His Family by Ernest Poole (popular ebook readers txt) 📕

and flushed, excited and gay, with stolid grooms behind them. The path in several places ran close beside the main road of the park, and with the coming of the dusk this road took on deep purple hues and glistened with reflections from countless yellow motor eyes. And from the polished limousines, sumptuous young women smiled out upon the riders.

At least so Roger saw this life. And after those bleak lonely years confronted by eternity, it was good to come here and forget, to feel himself for the moment a part of the thoughtless gaiety, the ease and luxury of the town. Here he was just on the edge of it all. Often as a couple passed he would wonder what they were doing that night. In the riding school where he kept his horse, it was a lazy pleasure to have the English “valet” there pull off his boots and breeches⁠—though if anyone had told him so, Roger would have denied it with indignation and surprise. For was he not an American?

It had been a wonderful tonic, a great idea of Laura’s, this forcing him up here to ride. In one of her affectionate moods, just after a sick spell he had been through, his gay capricious daughter had insisted that he have his horse brought down from the mountains. She had promised to ride with him herself, and she had done so⁠—for a week. Since then he had often met her here with one of her many smart young men. What a smile of greeting would flash on her face⁠—when Laura happened to notice him.

He was thinking of Laura now, and there was an anxious gleam in his eyes. For young Sloane was coming to dinner tonight. What was he going to say to the fellow? Bruce had learned that Sloane played polo, owned and drove a racing car and was well liked in his several clubs. But what about women and his past? Edith had urged her father to go through the lad’s life with a fine tooth comb, and if he should find anything there to kick up no end of a row for the honor of the family. All of which was nothing but words, reflected Roger pettishly. It all came to this, that he had a most ticklish evening ahead! On the path as a rider greeted him, his reply was a dismal frown.

Laura’s suitor arrived at six o’clock. In his study Roger heard the bell, listened a moment with beating heart, then raised himself heavily from his chair and went into the hallway.

“Ah, yes! It’s you!” he exclaimed, with a nervous cordiality. “Come in, my boy, come right in! Here, let me help you with your coat. I don’t know just where Laura is. Ahem!” He violently cleared his throat. “Suppose while we’re waiting we have a smoke.” He kept it up back into his den. There the suitor refused a cigar and carefully lit a cigarette. Roger noticed again how young the chap was, and marriage seemed so ridiculous! All this feverish trouble was for something so unreal!

“Well, sir,” the candidate blurted forth, “I guess I’d better come right to the point. Mr. Gale, I want to marry your daughter.”

“Laura?”

“Yes.” Roger cursed himself. Why had he asked, “Laura?” Of course it was Laura! Would this cub be wanting Deborah?

“Well, my boy,” he said thickly. “I⁠—I wish I knew you better.”

“So do I, sir. Suppose we begin.” The youth took a quick pull at his cigarette. He waited, stirred nervously in his seat. “You’ll have some questions to ask, I suppose⁠—”

“Yes, there are questions.” Roger had risen mechanically and was slowly walking the room. He threw out short gruff phrases. “I’m not interested in your past⁠—I don’t care about digging into a man⁠—I never have and I never will⁠—except as it might affect my daughter. That’s the main question, I suppose. Can you make her happy?”

“I think so,” said Sloane, decidedly. Roger gave him a glance of displeasure.

“That’s a large order, young man,” he rejoined.

“Then let’s take it in sections,” the youngster replied. Confound his boyish assurance! “To begin with,” he was saying, “I rather think I have money enough. We’d better go into that, hadn’t we?”

“Yes,” said Roger indifferently. “We might as well go into it.” Of course the chap had money enough. He was a money maker. You could hear it in his voice; you could see it in his jaw, in his small aggressive blonde moustache. Now he was telling briefly of his rich aunt in Bridgeport, of the generous start she had given him, his work downtown, his income.

“Twenty-two thousand this year,” he said. “We can live on that all right, I guess.”

“You won’t starve,” was the dry response. Roger walked for a moment in silence, then turned abruptly on young Sloane.

“Look here, young man, I don’t want to dig,” he continued very huskily. “But I know little or nothing of what may be behind you. I don’t care to ask you about it now⁠—unless it can make trouble.”

“It can’t make trouble.” At this answer, low but sharp, Roger wheeled and shot a glance into those clear and twinkling eyes. And his own eyes gleamed with pain. Laura had been such a little thing in the days when she had been his pet, the days when he had known her well. What could he do about it? This was only the usual thing. But he felt suddenly sick of life.

“How soon do you want to get married?” he demanded harshly.

“Next month, if we can.”

“Where are you going?”

“Abroad,” said Sloane. Roger caught at this topic as at a straw. Soon they were talking of the trip, and the tension slackened rapidly. He had never been abroad himself but had always dreamed of going there. With maps and books of travel Judith and he had planned it out. In imagination they had lived in London and Paris, Munich and Rome, always in queer old lodgings looking on quaint crooked streets. He had