His Family - Ernest Poole [94]
"Father! Don't try to fight this suit!"
"You watch me!" he snarled. Tears showed in her eyes:
"Think! Oh, please! Think what you're doing! Have you ever seen a divorce-court--here, in New York? Do you know what it's like? What it can be like?"
"Yes," Roger panted. He did know, and the picture came vividly into his mind--a mass of eager devouring eyes fixed on a girl in a witness chair. "To-morrow I see a lawyer!" he said.
"No--you won't do that, my dear," Deborah told him sadly. "Laura's husband has got proofs."
Her father looked up slowly and glared into his daughter's face.
"I've seen them myself," she added. "And Laura has admitted it, too."
Still for a moment he stared at her. Then slowly he settled back in his chair, his eyes dropped in their sockets, and very carefully, with a hand which was trembling visibly, he lifted his cigar to his lips. It had gone nearly out, but he drew on it hard until it began to glow again.
"Well," he asked simply, "what shall we do?"
Sharply Deborah turned away. To be quiet, to be matter of fact, to act as though nothing had happened at all--she knew this was what he wanted now, what he was silently begging her to be for his sake, for the family's sake. For he had been raised in New England. And so, when she turned back to him, her voice was flat and commonplace.
"Keep her here," she said. "Let him do what he likes. There'll be nothing noisy, he promised me that. But keep her here till it's over."
Roger smoked for a moment, and said,
"There's Edith and her children."
"The children needn't know anything--and Edith only part of it."
"The less, the better," he grunted.
"Of course." She looked at him anxiously. This tractable mood of his might not last. "Why not go up and see her now--and get it all over--so you can sleep."
Over Roger's set heavy visage flitted a smile of grim relish at that. Sleep! Deborah was funny. Resolutely he rose from his chair.
"You'll be careful, of course," she admonished him, and he nodded in reply. At the door he turned back:
"Where's the other chap?"
"I don't know," she answered. "Surely you don't want to see _him_--." Her father snorted his contempt:
"See him? No. Nor she neither. _She's_ not to see him. Understand?"
"I wouldn't tell her that to-night."
"Look here." Roger eyed his daughter a moment.
"You've done well. I've no complaint. But don't try to manage everything."
He went out and slowly climbed the stairs. Outside the bedroom door he paused. When had he stood like this before? In a moment he remembered. One evening some two years ago, the night before Laura's wedding, when they had had that other talk. And so it had come to this, had it. Well, there was no use making a scene. Again, with a sigh of weariness, Laura's father knocked at her door.
"Come in, Deborah," she said.
"It isn't Deborah, it's I." There was a little silence.
"Very well, father, come in, please." Her voice sounded tired and lifeless. He opened the door and found the room dark. "I'm over on the bed," she said. "I've had a headache this evening."
He came over to the bedside and he could just see her there, a long shadow upon the white. She had not taken off her clothes. He stood a moment helplessly.
"Please don't you talk to me!" His daughter fiercely whispered. "I can't stand any more to-night!"
"I won't," he answered. "It's too late." Again there was a pause.
"What time is it?" she asked him. But he did not answer.
"Well, Laura," he said presently, "your sister has told me everything. She has seen your husband--it's all arranged--and you're to stay here till it's over ... You want to stay here, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then it's settled," he went on. "There's only one thing--the other man. I don't know who he is and I don't want to know. And I don't want you to know him again. You're not to see him. Understand?" For a moment Laura was silent.
"I'm going to marry him, father," she said. And standing in the darkened room Roger stiffened sharply.
"Well," he answered, after a pause, "that's your affair.