“Oh, do you mind?  I’m sorry.  I won’t, after this,” she answered.  And Roger colored angrily, for the glint of amusement in Laura’s mischievous black eyes revealed quite unmistakably that she regarded both her father and his feeling for the Sabbath as very dear and quaint and old.  Old?  Of course he seemed old to her, Roger thought indignantly.  For what was Laura but a child?  Did she ever think of anything except having a good time?  Had she ever stopped to think out her own morals, let alone anyone else’s?  Was she any judge of what was old—­or of who was old?  And he determined then and there to show her he was in his prime.  Impatiently he strove to remember the names of her friends and ask her about them, to show a keen lively interest in this giddy gaddy life she led.  And when that was rather a failure he tried his daughter next on books, books of the most modern kind.  Stoutly he lied and said he was reading a certain Russian novel of which he had heard Deborah speak.  But this valiant falsehood made no impression whatever, for Laura had never heard of the book.

“I get so little time for reading,” she murmured.  And meanwhile she was thinking, “As soon as he finishes talking, poor dear, I’ll break the news.”

Then Roger had an audacious thought.  He would take her to a play, by George!  Mustering his courage he led up to it by speaking of a play Deborah had seen, a full-fledged modern drama all centered upon the right of a woman “to lead her own life.”  And as he outlined the story, he saw he had caught his daughter’s attention.  With her pretty chin resting on one hand, watching him and listening, she appeared much older, and she seemed suddenly close to him.

“How would you like to go with me and see it some evening?” he inquired.

“See what, my love?” she asked him, her thoughts plainly far away; and he looked at her in astonishment: 

“That play I’ve just been speaking of!”

“Why, daddy, I’d love to!” she exclaimed.

“When?” he asked.  And he fixed a night.  He was proud of himself.  Eagerly he began to talk of opening nights at Wallack’s.  Roger and Judith, when they were young, had been great first nighters there.  And now it was Laura who drew him out, and as he talked on she seemed to him to be smilingly trying to picture it all....  “Now I’d better tell him,” she thought.

“Do you remember Harold Sloane?” she asked a little strangely.

“No,” replied her father, a bit annoyed at the interruption.

“Why—­you’ve met him two or three times—­”

“Have I?” The queer note in her voice made him look up.  Laura had risen from her chair.