"How about mine?" he said to himself as he started upstairs. "Never mind,
I've got to tackle it."

Laura saw what he meant to say the moment that he entered the room, and the
tightening of her features made it all the harder for Roger to think
clearly, to remember the grave, kind, fatherly things which he had intended
to tell her.

"I don't want to talk of the wedding, child, but of what's coming after
that--between you and this man--all your life." He stopped short, with his
heart in his mouth, for although he did not look at her he had a quick
sensation as though he had struck her in the face.

"Isn't this rather late to speak about that? Just now? When I'm nervous
enough as it is?"

"I know, I know." He spoke hurriedly, humbly. "I should have talked to you
long ago, I should have known you better, child. I've been slack and
selfish. But it's better late than never."

"But you needn't!" the girl exclaimed. "You needn't tell me anything! I
know more than you think--I know enough!" Roger looked at her, then at the
wall. She went on in a voice rather breathless: "I know what I'm
doing--exactly--just what I'm getting into. It's not as it was when you
were young--it's different--we talk of these things. Harold and I have
talked it all out." In the brief and dangerous pause which followed Roger
kept looking at the wall.

"Have you talked--about having children?"

"Yes," came the answer sharply, and then he felt the hot clutch of her
hand. "Hadn't you better go now, dad?" He hesitated.

"No," he said. His voice was low. "Do you mean to have children, Laura?"

"I don't know."

"I think you do know. Do you mean to have children?" Her big black eyes,
dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.

"Well then, no, I don't!" she replied. He made a desperate effort to think
what he could say to her. Good God, how he was bungling! Where were all his
arguments?

"How about your religion?" he blurted out.

"I haven't any--which makes me do that--I've a right to be happy!"

"You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed. In accent and in quality it
was like a voice from the heart of New England where he had been born and
bred. "I mean you won't be happy--not unless you have a child! It's what
you need--it'll fill your life! It'll settle you--deepen you--tone you
down!"

"Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost hysterical.
"I'm no Puritan--I want to live! I tell you we are different now! We're not
a