"Good-night," he said in a husky tone. "I'll be so glad, my dear, so glad."
For answer she gave him a hurried smile, a glance from her bright restless eyes. Then he went heavily from the room.
At home he found Deborah sitting alone, with a pile of school papers in her lap. As he entered she slowly turned her head.
"How is Edith?" she asked him. Roger told of his visit uptown, and spoke of Edith's anxiety over getting the children up to the farm.
"I'll take them myself," said Deborah.
"But how can you get away from school?"
"Oh, I think I can manage it. We'll leave on Friday morning and I can be back by Sunday night. I'll love it," Deborah answered.
"It'll be a great relief to her," said Roger, lighting a cigar. Deborah resumed her work, and there was silence for a time.
"I let George sit up with me till an hour after his bedtime," she told her father presently. "We started talking about white rats—you see it's still white rats with George—and that started us wondering about God. George wonders if God really knows about rats. 'Has he ever stuck his face right down and had a good close look at one? Has God ever watched a rat stand up and brush his whiskers with both paws? Has he ever really laughed at rats? And that's another thing, Aunt Deborah—does God ever laugh at all? Does he know how to take a joke? If he don't, we might as well quit right now!'"
Roger laughed with relish, and his daughter smiled at him:
"Then the talk turned from rats and God to a big dam out in the Rockies. George has been reading about it, he's thinking of being an engineer. And there was so much he wanted to know that he was soon upon the verge of discovering my ignorance—when all of a sudden a dreamy look, oh, a very dreamy look, came into his eyes—and he asked me this." And over her bright expressive face came a scowl of boyish intensity: "Suppose I was an engineer—and I was working on a dam, or may be a bridge, in the Rockies. And say it was pretty far down south—say around the Grand Canyon. I should think they'd need a dam down there, or anyhow a bridge,' said George. And he eyed me in a cautious way which said as plain as the nose on your face, 'Good Lord, she's only a woman, and she won't understand.' But I showed him I was serious, and he asked me huskily, 'Suppose it was winter, Aunt Deborah, and the Giants were in Texas. Do you think I could get a few days off?' And then before he could tell me the Giants were a baseball nine, I said I was sure he could manage it. You should have seen his face light up. And he added very fervently, 'Gee, it must be wonderful to be an engineer out there!'"
Roger chuckled delightedly and Deborah went on with her work. "How good she is with young uns," he thought. "What a knack she has of drawing 'em out. What a pity she hasn't some of her own."
He slept until late the next morning, and awoke to find Deborah by his bed.
"It's another boy," she told him. Roger sat up excitedly. "Bruce has just telephoned the news. The children and I have breakfasted, and they're going out with their nurse. Suppose you and I go up and see Bruce and settle this trip to the mountains."
About an hour later, arriving at Edith's apartment, they found Bruce downstairs with Allan Baird who was just taking his departure. Bruce's dark eyes shone with relief, but his hand was hot and nervous. Allan, on the contrary, held out to Edith's father a hand as steady and relaxed as was the bantering tone of his voice.
"Bruce," he said, "has for once in his life decided to do something sensible. He's going to drop his wretched job and take a week off with his children."
"And worry every minute he's gone," Deborah retorted, "and come back and work day and night to catch up. But he isn't going to do it. I've decided to take the children myself."
"You have?" cried Bruce delightedly.
"You'll do no such thing," said Allan, indignant.
"Oh, you go to thunder," Bruce put in. "Haven't you any delicacy? Can't you see this is no business of yours?"
"It isn't, eh," Allan sternly rejoined. And of Deborah he demanded, "Didn't you say you'd go with me to 'Pinafore' this Saturday night?"
"Ah," sneered Bruce. "So that's your game. And for one little night of your pleasure you'd do me out of a week of my life!"
"Like that," said Baird, with a snap of his fingers.
"I'm going, though," said Deborah.
"Quite right, little woman," Bruce admonished her earnestly. "Don't let him rob you of your happiness."
"Come here," growled Baird to Deborah. She followed him into the living room, and Roger went upstairs with Bruce.
"If he ever hopes to marry that girl," said Bruce, with an anxious backward glance, "he's got to learn to treat her with a little consideration."
"Quit your quarreling," Roger said. "What's a week in the mountains to you? Hasn't your wife just risked her life?"
"Sure she has," said Bruce feelingly. "And I propose to stick by her, too."
"Can I see her?"
"No, you can't—another of Baird's fool notions."
"Then where's the baby?"
"Right in here."
Silently in front of the cradle Bruce and Roger stood looking down with the content which comes to men on such occasions when there is no woman by their side expecting them to say things.
"I made it a rule in my family," Roger spoke up presently, "to have my first look at each child alone."
"Same here," said Bruce. And they continued their silent communion. A few moments later, as they were leaving, Deborah came into the room and went softly to the cradle. Downstairs they found that Allan had gone, and when Deborah rejoined them she said she was going to stick to her plan. It was soon arranged that she and the youngsters should start on their journey the following day.
Back at home she threw herself into the packing and was busy till late that night. At daybreak she was up again, for they were to make an early start. Bruce came with his new automobile, the children were all bundled in, together with Deborah and their nurse, and a half hour later at the train Bruce and Roger left them—Deborah flushed and happy, surrounded by luggage, wraps, small boys, an ice box, toys and picture books. The small red hat upon her head had already been jerked in a scrimmage, far down over one of her ears.
"Don't worry about us, Bruce," she said. "We're going to have the time of our lives!" Bruce fairly beamed his gratitude.
"If she don't marry," he declared, as he watched the train move slowly out, "there'll be a great mother wasted."
CHAPTER VII
In the weeks which followed, Roger found the peace of his home so interrupted and disturbed by wedding preparations that often retreating into his den he earnestly told himself he was through, that a man with three grown daughters was a fool to show any sympathy with the utter folly of their lives. Yield an inch and they took a mile! It began one night when Deborah said,
"Now, dearie, I think you had better make up your mind to give Laura just the kind of wedding she likes."
And Roger weakly agreed to this, but as time wore on he discovered that the kind of wedding Laura liked was a thing that made his blood run cold. There seemed to be no end whatever to the young bride's blithe demands. The trousseau