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

engrossed in the wider field she saw ahead, she had not a thought for anything else. But after dinner the atmosphere changed.

“To hear me talk,” she told them, “you’d think the whole world depended on me, and on my school and my ideas. Me, me, me! And it has been me all winter long! What a time I’ve given both of you!”

She grew repentant and grateful, first to her father and then to Allan, and then more and more to Allan, with her happy eyes on his. And with a keen worried look at them both, Roger rose and left the room.

Baird was leaning forward. He had both her hands in his own.

“Well?” he asked. “Will you marry me now?”

Her eyes were looking straight into his. They kept moving slightly, searching his. Her wide, sensitive lips were tightly compressed, but did not quite hide their quivering. When she spoke her voice was low and a little queer and breathless:

“Do you want any children, Allan?”

“Yes.”

“So do I. And with children, what of my work?”

“I don’t want to stop your work. If you marry me we’ll go right on. You see I know you, Deborah, I know you’ve always grown like that⁠—by risking what you’ve got today for something more tomorrow.”

“I’ve never taken a risk like this!”

“I tell you this time it’s no risk! Because you’re a grown woman⁠—formed! I’m not making a saint of you. You’re no angel down among the poor because you feel it’s your duty in life⁠—it’s your happiness, your passion! You couldn’t neglect them if you tried!”

“But the time,” she asked him quickly. “Where shall I find the time for it all?”

“A man finds time enough,” he answered, “even when he’s married.”

“But I’m not a man, I’m a woman,” she said. And in a low voice which thrilled him, “A woman who wants a child of her own!” His lean muscular right hand contracted sharply upon hers. She winced, drew back a little.

“Oh⁠—I’m sorry!” he whispered. Then he asked her again,

“Will you marry me now?” She looked suddenly up:

“Let’s wait awhile, please! It won’t be long⁠—I’m in love with you, Allan, I’m sure of that now! And I’m not drawing back, I’m not afraid! Oh, I want you to feel I’m not running away! What I want to do is to face this square! It may be silly and foolish but⁠—you see, I’m made like that. I want a little longer⁠—I want to think it out by myself.”

When Allan had gone she came in to her father. And her radiant expression made him bounce up from his chair.

“By George,” he cried, “he asked you!”

“Yes!”

“And you’ve taken him!”

“No!”

Roger gasped.

“Look here!” he demanded, angrily. “What’s the matter? Are you mad?” She threw back her head and laughed at him.

“No, I’m not⁠—I’m happy!”

“What the devil about?” he snapped.

“We’re going to wait a bit, that’s all, till we’re sure of everything!” she cried.

“Then,” said Roger disgustedly, “you’re smarter than your father is. I’m sure of nothing⁠—nothing! I have never been sure in all my days! If I’d waited, you’d never have been born!”

“Oh, dearie,” she begged him smilingly. “Please don’t be so unhappy just now⁠—”

“I’ve a right to be!” said Roger. “I see my house agog with this⁠—in a turmoil⁠—in a turmoil!”

But again he was mistaken. It was in fact astonishing how the old house quieted down. There came again one of those peaceful times, when his home to Roger’s senses seemed to settle deep, grow still, and gather itself together. Day by day he felt more sure that Deborah was succeeding in making her work fit into her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy woman’s life. And why shouldn’t they live here, Allan and she? The thought of this dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead. How smoothly things were working out. The monstrous new buildings around his house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of their prey.

On the mantle in Roger’s study, for many years a bronze figure there, “The Thinker,” huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching pose, the heavy chin on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon him. And in the years that had been so dark, it had been a figure of despair. Often he had looked up from his chair and grimly met its frowning gaze. But Roger seldom looked at it now, and even when it caught his eye it had little effect upon him. It appeared to brood less darkly. For though he did not think it out, there was this feeling in his mind:

“There is to be nothing startling in this quiet home of mine, no crashing deep calamity here.”

Only the steadily deepening love between a grown man and a woman mature, both sensible, strong people with a firm control of their destinies. He felt so sure of this affair. For now, her tension once relaxed with the success which had come to her after so many long hard years, a new Deborah was revealed, more human in her yieldings. She let Allan take her off on the wildest little sprees uptown and out into the country. To Roger she seemed younger, more warm and joyous and more free. He loved to hear her laugh these nights, to catch the glad new tones in her voice.

“There is to be no tragedy here.”

So, certain of this union and wistful for all he felt it would bring, Roger watched its swift approach. And when the news came, he was sure he’d been right. Because it came so quietly.

“It’s settled, dear, at last it’s sure. Allan and I are to be married.” She was standing by his chair. Roger reached up and took her hand:

“I’m glad. You’ll be very happy, my child.”

She bent over and kissed him, and putting his arm around her he drew her down on the side of his chair.

“Now tell me all your plans,” he said. And her answer brought him a deep peace.

“We’re going abroad for the summer⁠—and then if you’ll