of the room. Roger followed her
with his glance. He knew he would never see her again. How graceful of her
to go like that.

He lay there thinking about her. In her large blue limousine he saw his gay
young daughter speeding up the Avenue, the purple gleaming pavement
reflecting studded lines of lights. And he thought he could see her smiling
still. He recalled scattered fragments of her life--the first luxurious
little menage, and the second. How many more would there be? She was only
in her twenties still. Uneasily he tried to see into the years ahead for
her, and he thought he saw a lonely old age, childless, loveless, cynical,
hard. But this fear soon fell from his mind. No, whatever happened, she
would do it gracefully, an artist always, to the end. He sighed and gave up
the effort. For he could not think of Laura as old, nor could he think of
her any more as being a part of his family.

Edith came to him several times, and there was something in her face which
gave him sharp forebodings. Making a great effort he tried to talk to her
clearly.

"It's hard to keep up with your children," he said. "It means keeping up
with everything new. And you stay in your rut and then it's too late.
Before you know it you are old."

But his words subsided in mutterings, and Roger wearily closed his eyes.
For a glance up into Edith's face had shown him only pity there and no heed
to his warning. He saw that she looked upon him as old and still upon
herself as young, though he noticed the threads of gray in her hair....
Then he realized she had gone and that his chamber had grown dark. He must
have been dreaming. Of what, he asked. He tried to remember. And suddenly
out of the darkness, so harsh and clear it startled him, a picture rose in
Roger's mind of a stark lonely figure, a woman in a graveyard cutting the
grass on family graves. Where had he seen it? He could not recall. What had
it to do with Edith? Was she not living in New York?... What had so
startled him just now? Some thought, some vivid picture, some nightmare he
could not recall.

His last talks were with Deborah. All through those days and the long
nights, too, he kept fancying she was in the room, and it brought deep balm
to his restless soul. He asked her to tell him about the schools, and
Deborah talked to him quietly. She was going back to her work in the fall.
She felt very humble about it--she told him she felt older now and she saw
that her work was barel