But later in the evening, when Allan and Deborah came in, Roger, who in the
meantime had had a good hour in Japan and was somewhat relaxed and soothed,
decided at once this was the time to tell her and have done with it. For
Deborah was flushed with triumph, the meeting had been a huge success.
Cooper Union had been packed to the walls, with an overflow meeting out on
the street; thousands of dollars had been pledged and some big politicians
had promised support; and men and women, rich and poor, had volunteered
their services. She started to tell him about it, but noticed his troubled
expression and asked him what was on his mind.
"Oh, nothing tremendous," Roger said. "I hate to be any damper to-night. I
hadn't meant to tell you to-night--but I think I will now, for you look as
though you could find a solution for anything."
"Then I must look like an idiot," his daughter said good-humoredly. "What
is it?" she demanded.
"It's about John." Her countenance changed.
"Oh. Is he worse?"
"Edith thinks he is--and she says it's not safe."
"I see--she wants him out of the house. Tell me what she said to you." As
he did so she listened intently, and turning to Allan at the end, "What do
you say to this, Allan?" she asked. "Is there any real risk to the
children?"
"A little," he responded. "As much as they take every day in the trolley
going to school."
"They never go in the trolley," Deborah answered dryly. "They always go on
the top of the 'bus." She was silent for a moment. "Well, there's no use
discussing it. If Edith feels that way, John must go. The house won't be
livable till he does."
Roger looked at her in surprise. He felt both relieved and disappointed.
"John's only one of thousands to her," he told himself aggrievedly. "He
isn't close to her, she hasn't room, she has a whole mass meeting in her
head. But I haven't, by George, I like the boy--and I'm the one who will
have to tell him to pack up and leave the house! Isn't it the very devil,
how things all come back on me?"
"Look here, father," Deborah said, "suppose you let me manage this." And
Roger's heavy visage cleared.
"You mean you'll tell him?"
"Yes," she replied, "and he'll understand it perfectly. I think he has been
expecting it. I have, for a good many weeks," she added, with some
bitterness. "And I know some people who will be glad enough to take him in.
I'll see that he's made comfortable. Only--" her face clouded.
"It has meant a lot to him, being here," her father put in gruffly.
"Oh, John's used to getting knocks in this world." Her quiet voice grew
hard and stern. "I wasn't thinking of John just now. What frightens me at
times like this is Edith," she said slowly. "No, not just
Edith--motherhood. I see it in so many mothers these days--in the women
downtown, in their fight for their children against all other children on
earth. It's the hardest thing we have to do--to try to make them see and
feel outside of their own small tenement homes--and help each other--pull
together. They can't see it's their only chance! And all because of this
mother love! It's so blind sometimes, like an animal!" She broke off, and
for a moment she seemed to be looking deep into herself. "And I suppose
we're all like that, we women are," she muttered, "when we marry and have
children. If the pinch is ever hard enough--"
"_You_ wouldn't be," said Allan. And a sudden sharp uneasiness came into
Roger's mind.
"When are you two to be married?" he asked, without stopping to think. And
at once he regretted his question. With a quick impatient look at him,
Allan bent over a book on the table.
"I don't know," Deborah answered. "Next spring, I hope." The frown was
still on her face.
"Don't make it too long," said her father brusquely. He left them and went
up to bed.
* * * * *
Deborah sat motionless. She wished Allan would go, for she guessed what was
coming and did not feel equal to it to-night. All at once she felt tired
and unnerved from her long exciting evening. If only she could let go of
herself and have a good cry. She locked her hands together and looked up at
him with impatience. He was still at the table, his back was turned.
"Don't you _know_ I love you?" she was thinking fiercely. "Can't you see
it--haven't you seen it--growing, growing--day after day? But I don't want
you here to-night! Why can't you see you must leave me alone? Now! This
minute!"
He turned and came over in front of her, and stood looking steadily down.
"I wonder," he said slowly, "how well you understand yourself."
"I think I do," she muttered. With a sudden twitching of her lip she looked
quickly up at him. "Go on, Allan--let's talk it all over now if you must!"
"Not if you feel like that," he said. At his tone of displeasure she caught
his hand.
"Yes, yes, I want to! Please!" she cried. "It's better--really! Believe me,
it is--"
He hesitated a moment, his wide generous mouth set hard, and then in a tone
as sharp as hers he demanded, "Are you sure you'll marry me next spring?
Are you sure you _hope_ you will next spring? Are you sure this sister of
yours in the house, on your nerves day and night, with this blind narrow
motherhood, this motherhood which frightens you--isn't frightening you too
much?"
"No--a little--but not too much." Her deep sweet voice was trembling.
"You're the one who frightens me. If you only knew! When you come like
this--with all you've done for me back of you--"
"Deborah! Don't be a fool!"
"Oh, I know you say you've done nothing, except what you've been glad to
do! You love me like that! But it's just that love! Giving up all your
practice little by little, and your reputation uptown--all for the sake of
me, Allan, me!"
"You're wrong," he replied. "Compared to what I'm getting, I've given up
nothing! Can't you see? You're just as narrow in your school as Edith is
right here in her home! You look upon my hospital as a mere annex to your
schools, when the truth of it is that the work down there is a chance I've
wanted all my life! Can't you understand," he cried, "that instead of your
being in debt to me it's I who am in debt to you? You're a suffragist, eh,
a feminist--whatever you want to call it! All right! So you want to be
equal with man! Then, for God's sake, why not begin? _Feel_ equal! I'm no
annex to you, nor you to me! It has happened, thank God, that our work fits
in--each with the other!"
He stopped and stared, seemed to shake himself; he walked the floor. And
when he turned back his expression had changed.
"Look here, Deborah," he asked, with an appealing humorous smile, "will you
tell me what I'm driving at?"
Deborah threw back her head and laughed, and her laughter thrilled with
relief. "How sure I feel now that I love him," she thought.
"You've proved I owe you nothing!" she cried. "And that men and women of
our kind can work on splendidly side by side, and never bother our poor
little heads about anything else--even marriage!"
"We will, though!" he retorted. The next moment she was in his arms. "Now,
Deborah, listen to reason, child. Why can't you marry me right away?"
"Because," she said, "when I marry you I'm going to have you all to
myself--for weeks and weeks as we planned before! And afterwards, with a
wonderful start--and with the war over, work less hard and the world less
dark and gloomy--we're going to find that at last we can live! But this
winter it couldn't be like that. This winter we've got to go on with our
work--and without any more silly worries or talk about whether or not we're
in love. _For we are_!" Her upturned face was close to his, and for some
moments nothing was said, "Well?" she asked. "Are you satisfied?"
"No--I want to get married. But it is now a quarter past one. And I'm your
physician. Go straight to bed."
She stopped him a minute at the front door:
"Are you sure, absolutely, you understand?"
He told her he did. But as he walked home he reflected. How tense she had
been in the way she had talked. Yes, the long strain was telling. "Why was
she so anxious to get me out of the house," he asked, "when we were alone
for the first time in days? And why, if she's really sure of her love, does
she hate the idea that she's in my debt?"
He walked faster, for the night was cold. And there was a chill, too, in
this long waiting game.
* * * * *
Roger heard Deborah come up to bed, and he wondered what they had been
talking about. Of the topic he himself had broached--each other, love and
marriage?
"Possibly--for a minute or two--but no more," he grumbled. "For don't
forget there's work to discuss, there's that mass meeting still on her
mind. And God knows a woman's mind is never any child's play. But when you
load a mass meeting on top--"
Here he yawned long and noisily. His head ached, he felt sore and
weak--"from the evening's entertainment my other daughter gave me." No, he
was through, he had had enough. They could settle things to suit
themselves. Let Edith squander her money on frills, the more expensive the
better. Let her turn poor Johnny out of the house, let her give full play
to her motherhood. And if that scared Deborah out of marrying, let her stay
single and die an old maid. He had worried enough for his family. He wanted
a little peace in his house.
Drowsily he closed his eyes, and a picture came into his mind of the city
as he had seen it only a few nights before. It had been so cool, so calm
and still. At dusk he had been in the building of the great tower on
Madison Square; and when he had finished his business there, on an impulse
he had gone up to the top, and through a wide low window had stood a few
moments looking down. A soft light snow was falling; and from high up in
the storm, through the silent whirling flakes, he had looked far down upon
lights below, in groups and clusters, dancing lines, between tall phantom
buildings, blurred and ghostly, faint, unreal. From all that bustle and
fever of life there had risen to him barely a sound. And the town had
seemed small and lonely, a little glow in the infinite dark, fulfilling its
allotted place for its moment in eternity. Suddenly from close over his
head like a brazen voice out of the sky, hard and deafening and clear, the
great bell had boomed the hour. Then again had come the silence, and the
cool, soft, whirling snow.
Like a dream it faded all away, and with a curious smile on his face
presently Roger fell asleep.