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

the frosty stars, in a city, a world, a universe that seemed filled with the zest and the vigor of life. Out of these lights a mighty tower loomed high up into the sky. And stopping on his crutches, a grim small crooked figure in all this rushing turmoil, John set his jaws, and with his shrewd and twinkling eyes fixed on the top of the tower, he said,

“I meant to tell you, Mr. Gale. You was asking me once what I wanted to be. And I want to be an architect.”

“Do, eh,” grunted Roger. He, too, looked up at that thing in the stars, and there was a tightening at his throat. “All right,” he added, presently, “why not start in and be one?”

“How?” asked John alertly.

“Well, my boy,” said Roger, “I’d hate to lose you in the office⁠—”

“Yes, sir, and I’d hate to go.” Just then the big clock in the tower began to boom the hour, and a chill struck into Roger.

“You’d have to,” he said gruffly. “You haven’t any time to lose! I mean,” he hastily added, “that for a job as big as that you’d need a lot of training. But if it’s what you want to be, go right ahead. I’ll back you. My son-in-law is a builder at present. I’ll talk to him and get his advice. We may be able to arrange to have you go right into his office, begin at the bottom and work straight up.” In silence for a moment John hobbled on by Roger’s side.

“I’d hate to leave your place,” he said.

“I know,” was Roger’s brusque reply, “and I’d hate to lose you. We’ll have to think it over.”

A few days later he talked with Bruce, who said he’d be glad to take the boy. And at dinner that night with Deborah, Roger asked abruptly,

“Why not let Johnny come here for a while and use one of our empty bedrooms?”

With a quick flush of pleased surprise, Deborah gave her father a look that embarrassed him tremendously.

“Well, why not?” he snapped at her. “Sensible, isn’t it?”

“Perfectly.”

And sensible it turned out to be. When John first heard about it, he was apparently quite overcome, and there followed a brief awkward pause while he rapidly blinked the joy from his eyes. But then he said, “Fine, thank you. That’s mighty good of you, Mr. Gale,” in as matter of fact a tone as you please. And he entered the household in much the same way, for John had a sense of the fitness of things. He had always kept himself neat and clean, but he became immaculate now. He dined with Roger the first night, but early the next morning he went down to the kitchen and breakfasted there; and from this time on, unless he were especially urged to come up to the dining room, John took all his meals downstairs. The maids were Irish⁠—so was John. They were good Catholics⁠—so was John. They loved the movies⁠—so did John. In short, it worked out wonderfully. In less than a month John had made himself an unobtrusive and natural part of the life of Roger’s sober old house. It had had to stretch just a little, no more.

XVI

But that winter there was more in the house than Deborah’s big family. Though at times Roger felt it surging in with its crude, immense vitality, there were other times when it was not so, and the lives of his other two daughters attracted his attention, for both were back again in town.

Laura and her husband had returned from abroad in October, and in a small but expensive apartment in a huge new building facing on Park Avenue they had gaily started the career of their own little family, or “ménage,” as Laura called it. This word had stuck in Roger’s mind, for he had a suspicion that a “ménage” was no place for babies. Grimly, when he went there first to be shown the new home by its mistress, he looked about him for a room which might be made a nursery. But no such room was in evidence. “We decided to have no guest room,” he heard Laura say to Deborah. And glancing at his daughter then, sleek and smiling and demure, in her tea-gown fresh from Paris, Roger darkly told himself that a child would be an unwelcome guest. The whole place was as compact and sparkling as a jewel box. The bed chamber was luxurious, with a gorgeous bath adjoining and a dressing-room for Harold.

“And look at this love of a closet!” said Laura to Deborah eagerly. “Isn’t it simply enormous?” As Deborah looked, her father did, too, and his eye was met by an array of shimmering apparel which made him draw back almost with a start.

They found Harold in the pantry. Their Jap, it appeared, was a marvellous cook and did the catering as well, so that Laura rarely troubled herself to order so much as a single meal. But her husband had for many years been famous for his cocktails, and although the Jap did everything else Hal had kept this in his own hands.

“I thought this much of the housekeeping ought to remain in the family,” he said.

Roger did not like this joke. But later, when he had imbibed the delicious concoction Harold had made, and had eaten the dinner created by that Japanese artist of theirs, his irritation subsided.

“They barely know we’re here,” he thought. “They’re both in love up to their ears.”

Despite their genial attempts to be hospitable and friendly, time and again he saw their glances meet in an intimate gleaming manner which made him rather uncomfortable. But where was the harm, he asked himself. They were married all right, weren’t they? Still somehow⁠—somehow⁠—no, by George, he didn’t like it, he didn’t approve! The whole affair was decidedly mixing. Roger went away vaguely uneasy, and he felt that Deborah was even more disturbed than himself.

“Those two,” she remarked to