His Family - Ernest Poole [60]
"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 to-day for something more to-morrow."
"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,