His Family | Page 2

she looked upon him as too heavy with his age to have noticed
her small lapses.
He was grimly amused at her attitude, for he did not feel old at all.
With that whimsical hint of a smile which had grown to be a part of
him, he tried various moves on the board to see how far he could go
without interrupting her reveries. He checkmated her, re-lit his cigar
and waited until she should notice it. And when she did not notice,
gravely he moved back his queen and let the game continue. How many
hundreds of games, he thought, Edith must have played with him in the
long years when his spirit was dead, for her now to take such chances.
Nearly every Friday evening for nearly sixteen years.
Before that, Judith his wife had been here. It was then that the city had
been young, for to Roger it had always seemed as though he were just
beginning life. Into its joys and sorrows too he had groped his way as
most of us do, and had never penetrated deep. But he had meant to,
later on. When in his busy city days distractions had arisen, always he
had promised himself that sooner or later he would return to this
interest or passion, for the world still lay before him with its enthralling
interests, its beauties and its pleasures, its tasks and all its puzzles,
intricate and baffling, all some day to be explored.
This deep zest in Roger Gale had been bred in his boyhood on a farm
up in the New Hampshire mountains. There his family had lived for
many generations. And from the old house, the huge shadowy barn and

the crude little sawmill down the road; from animals, grown people and
still more from other boys, from the meadows and the mountain above
with its cliffs and caves and forests of pine, young Roger had
discovered, even in those early years, that life was fresh, abundant, new,
with countless glad beginnings.
At seventeen he had come to New York. There had followed hard
struggles in lean years, but his rugged health had buoyed him up. And
there had been genial friendships and dreams and explorations, a search
for romance, the strange glory of love, a few furtive ventures that left
him dismayed. But though love had seemed sordid at such times it had
brought him crude exultations. And if his existence had grown more
obscure, it had been somber only in patches, the main picture dazzling
still. And still he had been just making starts.
He had ventured into the business world, clerking now at this, now at
that, and always looking about him for some big opportunity. It had
come and he had seized it, despite the warnings of his friends. What a
wild adventure it had been a bureau of news clippings, a business new
and unheard of but he had been sure that here was growth, he had
worked at it day and night, and the business widening fast had revealed
long ramifications which went winding and stretching away into every
phase of American life. And this life was like a forest, boundless and
impenetrable, up-springing, intertwining. How much could he ever
know of it all?
Then had come his marriage. Judith's family had lived long in New
York, but some had died and others had scattered until only she was
left. This house had been hers, but she had been poor, so she had leased
it to some friends. It was through them he had met her here, and within
a few weeks he had fallen in love. He had felt profound disgust for the
few wild oats he had sown, and in his swift reaction he had
overworshipped the girl, her beauty and her purity, until in a delicate
way of her own she had hinted that he was going too far, that she, too,
was human and a passionate lover of living, in spite of her low quiet
voice and her demure and sober eyes.
And what beginnings for Roger now, what a piling up of intimate joys,

surprises, shocks of happiness. There had come disappointments, too,
sudden severe little checks from his wife which had brought him
occasional questionings. This love had not been quite all he had
dreamed, this woman not so ardent. He had glimpsed couples here and
there that set him to imagining more consuming passions. Here again
he had not explored very deep. But he had dismissed regrets like these
with only a slight reluctance. For if they had settled down a bit with the
coming of their children, their love had grown rich in sympathies and
silent understandings, in humorous enjoyment of their funny little
daughters' chattering like magpies in the genial