His Family Part 35

And then she exploded a little bomb by inquiring of Edith.

"What do you think the girls over there are going to do for husbands, with half the marriageable men either killed or hopelessly damaged? They're not going to be nuns all their lives!"

Again her sister cut her off, and the rest of the brief evening was decidedly awkward. Yes, she was changing, growing fast. And Roger did not like it. Here she was spending money like water, absorbed in her pleasures, having no baby, apparently at loose ends with her husband, and through it all so c.o.c.ksure of herself and her outrageous views about war, and smiling about them with such an air, and in her whole manner, such a tone of amused superiority. She talked about a world for the strong, bits of gabble from Nietzsche and that sort of rot; she spoke blithely of a Rome reborn, the "Wings of the Eagles" heard again. This part of it she had taken, no doubt, from her new Italian friend, her husband's shrapnel partner.

Pshaw! What was Laura up to?

But that was only one evening. It was not repeated, another month went quickly by, and Roger had soon shaken it from him, for he had troubles enough at home. One daughter at a time, he had thought. And as the dark clouds close above him had cleared, the other cloud too had drifted away, until it was small, just on the horizon, far away from Roger's house. What was Laura up to? He barely ever thought of that now.

But one night when he came home, Edith, who sat in the living room reading aloud to her smaller boys, gave him a significant look which warned him something had happened. And turning to take off his overcoat, in the hall he almost stumbled upon a pile of hand luggage, two smart patent leather bags, a hat trunk and a sable cloak.

"h.e.l.lo," he exclaimed. "What's this? Who's here?"

"Laura," Edith answered. "She's up in Deborah's room, I think--they've been up there for over an hour." Roger looked indignantly in at his daughter.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Edith replied. "They didn't seem to need me.

They made it rather plain, in fact. Another quarrel, I presume. She came into the house like a whirlwind, asked at once for Deborah and flew up to Deborah's room."

"Pshaw!" Roger heavily mounted the stairs. He at least did not feel like flying. A whirlwind, eh--a nice evening ahead!

Meanwhile, in her room upstairs Deborah sat motionless, sternly holding her feelings down, while in a tone now kindly but more often full of a sharp dismay, she threw out question after question to Laura who was walking the floor in a quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.

"No, this time it's divorce!" she declared, at the end of her first outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband's double life.

"I've stood it long enough! I'm through!"

"You mean you don't care for him," Deborah said. She was fighting for time to think it out. "You want a divorce. Very well, Laura dear--but how do you think you are going to get it? The laws are rather strict in this state.

They allow but one cause. Have you any proofs?"

"No, I haven't--but I don't need any proofs! He wants it as badly as I do!

Wait--I'll give you his very words!" Laura's face grew white with fury.

"'It's entirely up to you, Sweetie'--the beast!--'You can have any kind of divorce you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the reporters and tell them all about yourself!'"

"_Your husband is to bring suit against you_?" Deborah's voice was loud and harsh. "For G.o.d's sake, Laura, what do you mean?"

"Mean? I mean that _he has proofs_! He has used a detective, the mean little cur, and he's treating me like the dirt under his feet! Just as though it were one thing for a man, and another--quite--for a woman! He even had the nerve to be mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn me!--turn me out on the street!" Deborah winced as though from a blow. "Oh, it was funny, funny!" Laura was almost sobbing now.

"Stop, this minute!" Deborah said. "You say that you've been doing--what he has?" she demanded.

"Why shouldn't I? What do you know about it? Are you going to turn against me, too?"

"I am--pretty nearly--"

"Oh, good G.o.d!" Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her walking.

"Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain."

"Explain--to you? How can I? _You_ don't understand--you know nothing about it--all you know about is schools! You're simply a nun when it comes to this. I see it now--I didn't before--I thought you a modern woman--with your mind open to new ideas. But it isn't, it seems, when it comes to a pinch--it's shut as tight as Edith's is--"

"Yes, tight!"

"Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you kindly leave me alone! I'll have a talk with father!"

"You will _not_ have a talk with father--"

"I most certainly will--and he'll understand! He's a man, at least--and he led a man's life before he was married!"

"Laura!"

"_You_ can't see it in him--_but I can_!"

"You'll say not a word to him, not one word! He has had enough this year as it is!"

"Has he? Then I'm sorry! If _you_ were any help to me--instead of acting like a nun--"

"Will you please stop talking like a fool?"

"I'm not! I'm speaking the truth and you know it! You know no more about love like mine than a nun of the middle ages! You needn't tell me about Allan Baird. You think you're in love with him, don't you? Well then, I'll tell you that you're not--your love is the kind that can wait for years--because it's cold, it's cold, it's cold--it's all in your mind and your reason! And so I say you're no help to me now! Here--look at yourself in the gla.s.s over there! You're just plain angry--frightened!"

"Yes--I am--I'm frightened." While she strove to think clearly, to form some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly on:

"I know you are! And you can't be fair! You're like nearly all American women--married or single, young or old--you're all of you scared to death about s.e.x--just as your Puritan mothers were! And you leave it alone--you keep it down--you never give it a chance--you're afraid! But I'm not afraid--and I'm living my life! And let me tell you I'm not alone! There are hundreds and thousands doing the same--right here in New York City to-night! It's been so abroad for years and years--in Rome and Berlin, in Paris and London--and now, thank G.o.d, it has come over here! If our husbands can do it, why can't we? And we are--we're starting--it's come with the war! You think war is h.e.l.l and nothing else, don't you--but you're wrong! It's not only killing men--it's killing a lot of hypocrisies too--it's giving a jolt to marriage! You'll see what the women will do soon enough--when there aren't enough men any longer--"

"Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you've done,"

Deborah interrupted. A simple course of action had just flashed into her mind.

"All right, I will. I'm not ashamed. I've given you this 'tirade' to show you exactly how I feel--that it's not any question of sin or guilt or any musty old rubbish like that! I know I'm right! I know just what I'm doing!"

"Who's the man? That Italian?"

"Yes."

"Where is he?"

"Right here in New York."

"Does he mean to stand by you?"

"Of course he does."

"Will he marry you, Laura?"

"Yes, he will--the minute I'm free from my beast of a husband!"