Here indeed was a jolt for Roger Gale, a pretty shabby trick of fate.  This was not what he had planned, this was a little way life had of jabbing a man with surprises.  For months he had been slowly and comfortably feeling his way into the lives of his children, patiently, conscientiously.  But now without a word of warning in popped this young whipper-snapper, turning the whole house upside down!  Another young person to be known, another life to be dug into, and with pick and shovel too!  The job was far from pleasant.  Would Deborah help him?  Not at all.  She believed in letting people alone—­a devilish easy philosophy!  Still, he wanted to tell her at once, if only to stir her up a bit.  He did not propose to bear this alone!  But Deborah was out to-night.  Why must she always be out, he asked, in that infernal zoo school?  But no, it was not school to-night.  She was dining out in some cafe with a tall lank doctor friend of hers.  Probably she was to marry him!

“I’ll have that news for breakfast!” Roger smote his paper savagely.  Why couldn’t Laura have waited a little?  Restlessly he walked the room.  Then he went into the hall, took his hat and a heavy stick which he used for his night rambles, and walked off through the neighborhood.  It was the first Saturday evening of Spring, and on those quiet downtown streets he met couples strolling by.  A tall thin lad and a buxom girl went into a cheap apartment building laughing gaily to themselves, and Roger thought of Laura.  A group of young Italians passed, humming “Trovatore,” and it put him in mind of the time when he had ushered at the opera.  Would Laura’s young man be willing to usher?  More like him to tango down the aisle!

He reached Washington Square feeling tired but even more restless than before.  He climbed to the top of a motor ’bus, and on the lurching ride uptown he darkly reflected that times had changed.  He thought of the Avenue he had known, with its long lines of hansom cabs, its dashing broughams and coupes with jingling harness, livened footmen, everything sprucely up-to-date.  How the horses had added to the town.  But they were gone, and in their place were these great cats, these purring motors, sliding softly by the ’bus.  Roger had swift glimpses down into lighted limousines.  In one a big rich looking chap with a beard had a dressy young woman in his arms.  Lord, how he was hugging her!  Laura would have a motor like that, kisses like that, a life like that!  She was the kind to go it hard!  Ahead as far as he could see was a dark rolling torrent of cars, lights gleaming by the thousand.  A hubbub of gay voices, cries and little shrieks of laughter mingled with the blare of horns.  He looked at huge shop windows softly lighted with displays of bedrooms richly furnished, of gorgeous women’s apparel, silks and lacy filmy stuffs.  And to Roger, in his mood of anxious premonition, these bedroom scenes said plainly,

“O come, all ye faithful wives!  Come let us adore him, and deck ourselves to please his eye, to catch his eye, to hold his eye!  For marriage is a game these days!”