r! I know, because I
studied him hard! He'd have _grown_ fighting fires, he would have _saved_
lives!"

Again she stopped, with a catch of her breath. In suspense he watched her
angry struggle to regain control of herself. She sat bolt upright, rigid;
her birthmark showed a fiery red. In a few moments he saw her relax.

"But of course," she added wearily, "it's much more complex than that. A
school is nothing nowadays--just by itself alone, I mean--it's only a part
of a city's life--which for most tenement children is either very dull and
hard, or cheap and false and overexciting. And behind all that lie the
reasons for that. And there are so many reasons." She stared straight past
her father as though at something far away. Then she seemed to recall
herself: "But I'm talking too much of my family."

Roger carefully lit a cigar:

"I don't think you are, my dear. I'd like to hear more about it." She
smiled:

"To keep my mind off Joe, you mean."

"And mine, too," he answered.

They had a long talk that evening about her hope of making her school what
Roger visaged confusedly as a kind of mammoth home, the center of a
neighborhood, of one prodigious family. At times when the clock on the
mantle struck the hour loud and clear, there would fall a sudden silence,
as both thought of what was to happen at dawn. But quickly Roger would
question again and Deborah would talk steadily on. It was after midnight
when she stopped.

"You've been good to me to-night, dearie," she said. "Let's go to bed now,
shall we?"

"Very well," he answered. He looked at his daughter anxiously. She no
longer seemed to him mature. He could feel what heavy discouragements, what
problems she was facing in the dark mysterious tenement world which she had
chosen to make her own. And compared to these she seemed a mere girl, a
child groping its way, just making a start. And so he added wistfully, "I
wish I could be of more help to you." She looked up at him for a moment.

"Do you know why you are such a help?" she said. "It's because you have
never grown old--because you've never allowed yourself to grow absolutely
certain about anything in life." A smile half sad and half perplexed came
on her father's heavy face.

"You consider that a strong point?" he asked.

"I do," she replied, "compared to being a bundle of creeds and prejudices."

"Oh, I've got prejudices enough."

"Yes," she said. "And so have I. But we're not even sure of _them_,