Yes, Laura would be a spender, a spender and a speeder too!  How much money had he, that chap?  And damn him, what had he in his past?  How Roger hated the very thought of poking into another man’s life!  Poking where nobody wanted him!  He felt desperately alone.  To-night they were dancing, he recalled, not at a party in somebody’s home, but in some flashy public place where girls of her kind and fancy women gaily mixed together!  How mixed the whole city was getting, he thought, how mad and strange, gone out of its mind, this city of his children’s lives crowding in upon him!

CHAPTER IV

He breakfasted with Deborah late on Sunday morning.  He had come down at the usual hour despite his long tramp of the previous night, for he wanted to tell her the news and talk it all out before Laura came down—­because Deborah, he hadn’t a doubt, with her woman’s curiosity had probed deep into Laura’s affairs in the many long talks they had had in her room.  He had often heard them there.  And so, as he waited and waited and still his daughter did not come, Roger grew distinctly annoyed; and when at last she did appear, his greeting was perfunctory: 

“What kept you out so late last night?”

“Oh, I was having a very good time,” said Deborah contentedly.  She poured herself some coffee.  “I’ve always wanted,” she went on, “to see Laura really puzzled—­downright flabbergasted.  And I saw her just like that last night.”

Roger looked up with a jerk of his head: 

“You and Laura—­together last night?”

“Exactly—­on the Astor Roof.”  At her father’s glare of astonishment a look of quiet relish came over her mobile features.  Her wide lips twitched a little.  “Well, why not?” she asked him.  “I’m quite a dancer down at school.  And last night with Allan Baird—­we were dining together, you know—­he proposed we go somewhere and dance.  He’s a perfectly awful dancer, and so I held out as long as I could.  But he insisted and I gave in, though I much prefer the theater.”

“Well!” breathed Roger softly.  “So you hoof it with the rest!” His expression was startled and intent.  Would he ever get to know these girls?  “Well,” he added with a sigh, “I suppose you know what you’re about.”

“Oh no, I don’t,” she answered.  “I never know what I’m about.  If you always do, you miss so much—­you get into a solemn habit of trying nothing till you’re sure.  But to return to Laura.  As we came gaily down the room we ran right into her, you see.  That’s how Allan dances.  And when we collided, I smiled at her sweetly and said, ’Why, hello, dearie—­you here too?” And Deborah sipped her coffee.  “I have never believed that the lower jaw of a well-bred girl could actually drop open.  But Laura’s did.  With a good strong light, Allan told me, he could have examined her tonsils for her.  Rather a disgusting thought.  You see until she saw me there, poor Laura had me so thoroughly placed—­my school-marm job, my tastes and habits, everything, all cut and dried.  She has never once come to my school, and in every talk we’ve ever had there has always been some perfectly good and absorbing reason why we should talk about Laura alone.”