The little storm which Edith had raised over John’s presence in the house had been allayed.  Deborah had talked to John, and had moved him with his belongings to a comfortable sunny room in the small but neat apartment of a Scotch family nearby.  And John had been so sensible.  “Oh, I’m fine, thank you,” he had answered simply, when in the office Roger had asked him about his new home.  So that incident was closed.  Already Edith was disinfecting John’s old room to her heart’s content, for George was to occupy it now.  She was having the woodwork repainted and a new paper put on the walls.  She had already purchased a small new rug, and a bed and a bureau and one easy chair, and was making a pair of fresh pretty curtains.  All right, let her do it—­if only there could be peace in the house.

With his cravat adjusted and his thick-curling silver hair trim from having just been cut by “Louis” over at the Brevoort, Roger went comfortably down to his dinner.  Edith greeted him with a smile.

“Deborah’s dining out,” she said.

“Very well,” he replied, “so much the better.  We’ll go right in—­I’m hungry.  And we’ll have the evening to ourselves.  No big ideas nor problems.  Eh, daughter?” He slipped his hand in hers, and she gave it a little affectionate squeeze.  With John safely out of the way, and not only the health of her children but their proper schooling assured, Edith was herself again, placid, sweet and kindly.  And dinner that night was a cheerful meal.  Later, in the living room, as Roger contentedly lit his cigar, Edith gave an appreciative sniff.

“You do smoke such good cigars, father,” she said, smiling over her needle.  And glancing up at her daughter, “Betsy, dear,” she added, “go and get your grandfather’s evening paper.”

In quiet perusal of the news he spent the first part of his evening.  The war did not bother him to-night, for there had come a lull in the fighting, as though even war could know its place.  And times were better over here.  As, skipping all news from abroad his eye roved over the pages for what his business depended upon, Roger began to find it now.  The old familiar headliness were reappearing side by side—­high finance exposures, graft, the antics and didos cut up by the sons and daughters of big millionaires; and after them in cheery succession the Yale-Harvard game, a new man for the Giants, a new college building for Cornell, a new city plan for Seattle, a woman senator in Arizona and in Chicago a “sporting mayor.”  In brief, all over the U.S.A., men and women old and new had risen up, to power, fame, notoriety, whatever you chose to call it.  Men and women?  Hardly.  “Children” was the better word.  But the thought did not trouble Roger to-night.  He had instead a heartening sense of the youth, the wild exuberance, the boundless vigor in his native land.  He could feel it rising once again.  Life was soon to go on as before; people were growing hungry to see the names of their countrymen back in the headlines where they belonged.  And Roger’s business was picking up.  He was not sure of the figure of his deficit last week—­he had always been vague on the book-keeping side—­but he knew it was down considerably.