Roger's hearing was extremely acute. Though the room where he was sitting,
his study, was at the back of the house, he heard Deborah's key at the
street door and he heard the door softly open and close.

"Are you there, dearie?" Her voice from the hallway was low; and his
answer, "Yes, child," was in the same tone, as though she were with him in
the room. This keen sense of hearing had long been a peculiar bond between
them. To her father, Deborah's voice was the most distinctive part of her,
for often as he listened the memory came of her voice as a girl,
unpleasant, hurried and stammering. But she had overcome all that. "No
grown woman," she had declared, when she was eighteen, "has any excuse for
a voice like mine." That was eleven years ago; and the voice she had
acquired since, with its sweet magnetic quality, its clear and easy
articulation, was to him an expression of Deborah's growth. As she took off
her coat and hat in the hall she said, in the same low tone as before,

"Edith has been here, I suppose--"

"Yes--"

"I'm so sorry I missed her. I tried to get home early, but it has been a
busy night."

Her voice sounded tired, comfortably so, and she looked that way as she
came in. Though only a little taller than Edith, she was of a sturdier
build and more decided features. Her mouth was large with a humorous droop
and her face rather broad with high cheekbones. As she put her soft black
hair up over her high forehead, her father noticed her birthmark, a faint
curving line of red running up from between her eyes. Imperceptible as a
rule, it showed when she was tired. In the big school in the tenements
where she had taught for many years, she gave herself hard without stint to
her work, but she had such a good time through it all. She had a way, too,
he reflected, of always putting things in their place. As now she came in
and kissed him and sank back on his leather lounge with a tranquil breath
of relief, she seemed to be dropping school out of her life.

Roger picked up his paper and continued his reading. Presently they would
have a talk, but first he knew that she wanted to lie quite still for a
little while. Vaguely he pictured her work that night, her class-room
packed to bursting with small Jews and Italians, and Deborah at the
blackboard with a long pointer in her hand. The fact that for the last two
years she had been the principal of her school had made little impression
upon him.

And meanwhil