Laura and her husband had returned from abroad in October, and in a small but expensive apartment in a huge new building facing on Park Avenue they had gaily started the career of their own little family, or "ménage," as Laura called it. This word had stuck in Roger's mind, for he had a suspicion that a "ménage" was no place for babies. Grimly, when he went there first to be shown the new home by its mistress, he looked about him for a room which might be made a nursery. But no such room was in evidence. "We decided to have no guest room," he heard Laura say to Deborah. And glancing at his daughter then, sleek and smiling and demure, in her tea-gown fresh from Paris, Roger darkly told himself that a child would be an unwelcome guest. The whole place was as compact and sparkling as a jewel box. The bed chamber was luxurious, with a gorgeous bath adjoining and a dressing-room for Harold. "And look at this love of a closet!" said Laura to Deborah eagerly. "Isn't it simply enormous?" As Deborah looked, her father did, too, and his eye was met by an array of shimmering apparel which made him draw back almost with a start. They found Harold in the pantry. Their Jap, it appeared, was a marvellous cook and did the catering as well, so that Laura rarely troubled herself to order so much as a single meal. But her husband had for many years been famous for his cocktails, and although the Jap did everything else Hal had kept this in his own hands. "I thought this much of the house-keeping ought to remain in the family," he said. Roger did not like this joke. But later, when he had imbibed the delicious concoction Harold had made, and had eaten the dinner created by that Japanese artist of theirs, his irritation subsided. "They barely know we're here," he thought. "They're both in love up to their ears." Despite their genial attempts to be hospitable and friendly, time and again he saw their glances meet in an intimate gleaming manner which made him rather uncomfortable. But where was the harm, he asked himself. They were married all right, weren't they? Still somehow--somehow--no, by George, he didn't like it, he didn't approve! The whole affair was decidedly mixing. Roger went away vaguely uneasy, and he felt that Deborah was even more disturbed than himself. "Those two," she remarked to her father, "are so fearfully wrapt up in each other it makes me afraid. Oh, it's all right, I suppose, and I wouldn't for worlds try to interfere. But I can't help feeling somehow that no two people with such an abundance of youth and money and happiness have the right to be so amazingly--selfish!" "They ought to have children," Roger said. "But look at Edith," his daughter rejoined. "She hasn't a single interest that I can find outside her home. It seems to have swallowed her, body and soul." A frowning look of perplexity swept over Deborah's mobile face, and with a whimsical sigh she exclaimed, "Oh, this queer business of families!"