His Family - Ernest Poole [58]
Then he began coming to the house.
"I was right," thought Roger complacently.
He laid in a stock of fine cigars and some good port and claret, too; and on evenings when Baird came to dine, Roger by a genial glow and occasional jocular ironies would endeavor to drag the talk away from clinics, adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the new education. But no joke was so good that Deborah could not promptly match it with some amusing little thing which one of her children had said or done. For she had a mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood. It was deep, it was uncanny, this queer community motherhood.
"This poor devil," Roger thought, with a pitying glance at Baird, "might just as well be marrying a widow with three thousand brats."
But Baird did not seem in the least dismayed. On the contrary, his assurance appeared to be deepening every week, and with it Deborah's air of alarm. For his clinic, as it swiftly grew, he secured financial backing from his rich women patients uptown, many of them childless and only too ready to respond to the appeals he made to them. And one Saturday evening at the house, while dining with Roger and Deborah, he told of an offer he had had from a wealthy banker's widow to build a maternity hospital. He talked hungrily of all it could do in co-operation with the school. He said nothing of the obvious fact that it would require his whole time, but Roger thought of that at once, and by the expression on Deborah's face he saw she was thinking, too.
He felt they wanted to be alone, so presently he left them. From his study he could hear their voices growing steadily more intense. Was it all about work? He could not tell. "They've got working and living so mixed up, a man can't possibly tell 'em apart."
Then his daughter was called to the telephone, and Allan came in to bid Roger good-night. And his eyes showed an impatience he did not seem to care to hide.
"Well?" inquired Roger. "Did you get Deborah's consent?"
"To what?" asked Allan sharply.
"To your acceptance," Roger answered, "of the widow's mite." Baird grinned.
"She couldn't help herself," he said.
"But she didn't seem to like it, eh--"
"No," said Baird, "she didn't." Roger had a dark suspicion.
"By the way," he asked in a casual tone, "what's this philanthropic widow like?"
"She's sixty-nine," Baird answered.
"Oh," said Roger. He smoked for a time, and sagely added, "My daughter's a queer woman, Baird--she's modern, very modern. But she's still a woman, you understand--and so she's jealous--of her job." But A. Baird was in no joking mood.
"She's narrow," he said sternly. "That's what's the matter with Deborah. She's so centered on her job she can't see anyone else's. She thinks I'm doing all this work solely in order to help her school--when if she'd use some imagination and try to put herself in my shoes, she'd see the chance it's giving me!"
"How do you mean?" asked Roger, looking a bit bewildered.
"Why," said Baird with an impatient fling of his hand, "there are men in my line all over the country who'd leave home, wives and children for the chance I've blundered onto here! A hospital fully equipped for research, a free hand, an opportunity which comes to one man in a million! But can she see it? Not at all! It's only an annex to her school!"
"Yes," said Roger gravely, "she's in a pretty unnatural state. I think she ought to get married, Baird--" To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird replied with a rueful smile.
"You do, eh," he growled. "Then tell her to plan her wedding to come before her funeral." As he rose to go, Roger took his hand.
"I'll tell her," he said. "It's sound advice. Good-night, my boy, I wish you luck."
A few moments later he heard in the hall their brief good-nights to each other, and presently Deborah came in. She was not looking quite herself.
"Why are