"Ah, yes! It's you!" he exclaimed, with a nervous cordiality. "Come in, my boy, come right in! Here, let me help you with your coat. I don't know just where Laura is. Ahem!" He violently cleared his throat. "Suppose while we're waiting we have a smoke." He kept it up back into his den. There the suitor refused a cigar and carefully lit a cigarette. Roger noticed again how young the chap was, and marriage seemed so ridiculous! All this feverish trouble was for something so unreal!
"Well, sir," the candidate blurted forth, "I guess I'd better come right to the point. Mr. Gale, I want to marry your daughter."
"Laura?"
"Yes." Roger cursed himself. Why had he asked, "Laura?" Of course it was Laura! Would this cub be wanting Deborah?
"Well, my boy," he said thickly. "I—I wish I knew you better."
"So do I, sir. Suppose we begin." The youth took a quick pull at his cigarette. He waited, stirred nervously in his seat. "You'll have some questions to ask, I suppose—"
"Yes, there are questions." Roger had risen mechanically and was slowly walking the room. He threw out short gruff phrases. "I'm not interested in your past—I don't care about digging into a man—I never have and I never will—except as it might affect my daughter. That's the main question, I suppose. Can you make her happy?"
"I think so," said Sloane, decidedly. Roger gave him a glance of displeasure.
"That's a large order, young man," he rejoined.
"Then let's take it in sections," the youngster replied. Confound his boyish assurance! "To begin with," he was saying, "I rather think I have money enough. We'd better go into that, hadn't we?"