“A man finds time enough,” he answered, “even when he’s married.”

“But I’m not a man, I’m a woman,” she said.  And in a low voice which thrilled him, “A woman who wants a child of her own!” His lean muscular right hand contracted sharply upon hers.  She winced, drew back a little.

“Oh—­I’m sorry!” he whispered.  Then he asked her again,

“Will you marry me now?” She looked suddenly up: 

“Let’s wait awhile, please!  It won’t be long—­I’m in love with you, Allan, I’m sure of that now!  And I’m not drawing back, I’m not afraid!  Oh, I want you to feel I’m not running away!  What I want to do is to face this square!  It may be silly and foolish but—­you see, I’m made like that.  I want a little longer—­I want to think it out by myself.”

* * * * *

When Allan had gone she came in to her father.  And her radiant expression made him bounce up from his chair.

“By George,” he cried, “he asked you!”

“Yes!”

“And you’ve taken him!”

“No!”

Roger gasped.

“Look here!” he demanded, angrily.  “What’s the matter?  Are you mad?” She threw back her head and laughed at him.

“No, I’m not—­I’m happy!”

“What the devil about?” he snapped.

“We’re going to wait a bit, that’s all, till we’re sure of everything!” she cried.

“Then,” said Roger disgustedly, “you’re smarter than your father is.  I’m sure of nothing—­nothing!  I have never been sure in all my days!  If I’d waited, you’d never have been born!”

“Oh, dearie,” she begged him smilingly.  “Please don’t be so unhappy just now—­”

“I’ve a right to be!” said Roger.  “I see my house agog with this—­in a turmoil—­in a turmoil!”

* * * * *

But again he was mistaken.  It was in fact astonishing how the old house quieted down.  There came again one of those peaceful times, when his home to Roger’s senses seemed to settle deep, grow still, and gather itself together.  Day by day he felt more sure that Deborah was succeeding in making her work fit into her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy woman’s life.  And why shouldn’t they live here, Allan and she?  The thought of this dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead.  How smoothly things were working out.  The monstrous new buildings around his house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of their prey.

On the mantle in Roger’s study, for many years a bronze figure there, “The Thinker,” huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching pose, the heavy chin on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon him.  And in the years that had been so dark, it had been a figure of despair.  Often he had looked up from his chair and grimly met its frowning gaze.  But Roger seldom looked at it now, and even when it caught his eye it had little effect upon him.  It appeared to brood less darkly.  For though he did not think it out, there was this feeling in his mind: