"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.

"I want you to know him--very soon." There was a moment's silence. "I'm
going to marry him, dad," she said. And Roger looked at her blankly. He
felt his limbs beginning to tremble. "I've been waiting to tell you when we
were alone," she added in an awkward tone. And still staring up at her he
felt a rush of tenderness and a pang of deep remorse. Laura in love and
settled for life! And what did he know of the affair? What had he ever done
for her? Too late! He had begun too late! And this rush of emotion was so