most
was the romance, the mystery, stored up in these old talismans that had
lived so many ages, travelled through so many lands, decked so many
fingers. Roger had found every one of them in the pawnshops of New York.
What new recruits to America had brought them here and pawned them? From
what old cities had they come? What passions of love and jealousy, of
hatred, faith, devotion were in this glittering array? Roger's own love
affair had been deep, but quiet and even and happy. All the wild
adventures, the might-have-beens in his sex life, were gathered in these
dusky trays with their richly colored glints of light.

Of his daughters, Laura had been the one most interested in his rings, and
so he thought of Laura now as he placed in the tray the new ring he had
bought, the one he would have liked for her. But a vague uneasiness filled
his mind, for he knew she had the same craving as he for what gleamed out
of these somber trays. The old Galician jeweler had long been quite a
friend of hers, she had often dropped in at his shop to ask him curious
questions about his women patrons. And it was just this side of him that
Roger did not care for. So many of those women were from a dubious
glittering world, and the old Galician took a weird vicarious joy in many
of the gay careers into which he sent his beloved rings, his brooches,
earrings, necklaces, his clasps and diamond garters. And Laura loved to
make him talk.... Yes, she was her father's child, a part of himself. He,
too, had had his yearnings, his burning curiosities, his youthful ventures
into the town. "You will live on in our children's lives." With her
inheritance what would she do? Would she stop halfway as he had done, or
would she throw all caution aside and let the flames within her rise?

He heard a step in the doorway, and Deborah stood there smiling.

"A new one?" she inquired. He nodded, and she bent over the tray. "Poor
father," Deborah murmured. "I saw you eyeing Laura's engagement ring at
dinner to-night. It wasn't like this one, was it?" He scowled:

"I don't like what I see ahead of her. Nor do you," he said. "Be honest."
She looked at him perplexedly.

"We can't stop it, can we? And even if we could," she said, "I'm not quite
sure I'd want to. It's her love affair, not yours or mine--grown out of a
life she made for herself--curious, eager, thrilled by it all--and in the
center of her soul the deep glad growing certainty, 'I'm going to be a
b