with you," he said, "is that you've let yourself be caught by the same
disease which has its grip upon this whole infernal town. You're like
everyone else, you're tackling about forty times what you can do. You're
actually trying not only to teach but to bring 'em all up as your own,
three thousand tenement children. And this is where it gets you."

Again he halted, frowning. What next?

"Go on, dear, please," said Deborah, in demure and even tones. "This is
very interesting."

"Now then," he continued, "in this matter of your school. I wouldn't ask
you to give it up, I've already seen too much of it. But so long as you've
got it nicely started, why not give somebody else a chance? One of those
assistants of yours, for example--capable young women, both. You could
stand right behind 'em with help and advice--"

"Not yet," was Deborah's soft reply. She had turned her head on her pillow
and was looking at him affectionately. "Why not?" he demanded.

"Because it's not nicely started at all. There's nothing brilliant about
me, dear--I'm a plodder, feeling my way along. And what I have done in the
last ten years is just coming to a stage at last where I can really see a
chance to make it count for something. When I feel I've done that, say in
five years more--"

"Those five years," said her father, "may cost you a very heavy price." As
Deborah faced his troubled regard, her own grew quickly serious.

"I'd be willing to pay the price," she replied.

"But why?" he asked with impatience. "Why pay when you don't have to? Why
not by taking one year off get strength for twenty years' work later on?
You'd be a different woman!"

"Yes, I think I should be. I'd never be the same again. You don't quite
understand, you see. This work of mine with children--well, it's like
Edith's having a baby. You have to do it while you're young."

"That works both ways," her father growled.

"What do you mean?" He hesitated:

"Don't you want any children of your own?"

Again she turned her eyes toward his, then closed them and lay perfectly
still. "Now I've done it," he thought anxiously. She reached over and took
his hand.

"Let's talk of our summer's vacation," she said.

A little while later she fell asleep.

Downstairs he soon grew restless and after a time he went out for a walk.
But he felt tired and oppressed, and as he had often done of late he
entered a little "movie" nearby, where gradually the pictures, continually
flas