"How soon do you want to get married?" he demanded harshly.

"Next month, if we can."

"Where are you going?"

"Abroad," said Sloane. Roger caught at this topic as at a straw. Soon they
were talking of the trip, and the tension slackened rapidly. He had never
been abroad himself but had always dreamed of going there. With maps and
books of travel Judith and he had planned it out. In imagination they had
lived in London and Paris, Munich and Rome, always in queer old lodgings
looking on quaint crooked streets. He had dreamed of long delicious
rambles, glimpses into queer old shops, vast, silent, dark cathedrals. For
Laura how different it would be. This boy of hers knew Europe as a group
of gorgeous new hotels.

The moment Laura joined them, her father's eye was caught and held by the
ring upon her finger. Roger knew rings, they were his hobby, and this huge
yellow solitaire in its new and brilliant setting at once awakened his
dislike. It just fitted the life they were to lead! What life? As he
listened to his daughter he kept wondering if she were so sure. Had she
felt no uneasiness? She must have, he decided, for all her gay excitement.
One Laura in that smiling face; another Laura deep inside, doubting and
uncertain, reaching for her happiness, now elated, now dismayed,
exclaiming, "Now at last I'm starting!" Oh, what an ignorant child she was.
He wanted to cry out to her, "You'll _always_ be just starting! You'll
never be sure, you'll never be happy, you'll always be just beginning to
be! And the happier you are, the more you will feel it is only a start!...
And then-"

More and more his spirit withdrew from these two heedless children. Later
on, when Deborah came, he barely noticed her meeting with Sloane. And
through dinner, while they talked of plans for the wedding, the trip
abroad, still Roger took no part at all. He felt dull and heavy. Deborah
too, he noticed, after her first efforts to be welcoming and friendly, had
gradually grown silent. He saw her watching Laura with a mingled look of
affection and of whimsical dismay. Soon after dinner she left them, and
Roger smoked with the boy for a while and learned that he was twenty-nine.
Both had grown uneasy and rather dull with each other. It was a relief when
again Laura joined them, dressed to go out. She and her lover left the
house.

Roger sat motionless for some time. His cigar grew cold unheeded. One of
the sorrows of his life had been that his only