His Family | Page 6

baby, Edith, had begun
her life....
Slowly he turned and went inside.
CHAPTER II
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 meanwhile, as she lay back with eyes closed, her mind still taut

from the evening called up no simple class-room but far different
places--a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall where she had just been
speaking, some schools which she had visited out in Indiana, a block of
tenements far downtown and the private office of the mayor. For her
school had long curious arms these days.
"Was Bruce here too this evening?" she asked her father presently.
Roger finished what he was reading, then looked over to the lounge,
which was in a shadowy corner.
"Yes, he came in late." And he went on to tell her of Bruce's
"engineering." At once she was interested. Rising on one elbow she
questioned him good-humoredly, for Deborah was fond of Bruce.
"Has he bought that automobile he wanted?"
"No," replied her father. "Edith said they couldn't afford it."
"Why not?"
"This time it's the dentist's bills. Young Betsy's teeth aren't straightened
yet--and as soon as she's been beautified they're going to put the clamps
on George."
"Poor Georgie," Deborah murmured. At the look of pain and
disapproval on her father's heavy face, she smiled quietly to herself.
George, who was Edith's oldest and the worry of her days, was Roger's
favorite grandson. "Has he been bringing home any more sick dogs?"
"No, this time it was a rat--a white one," Roger answered. A glint of
dry relish appeared in his eyes. "George brought it home the other night.
He had on a pair of ragged old pants."
"What on earth--"
"He had traded his own breeches for the rat," said Roger placidly.
"No! Oh, father! Really!" And she sank back laughing on the lounge.

"His school report," said Roger, "was quite as bad as ever."
"Of course it was," said Deborah. And she spoke so sharply that her
father glanced at her in surprise. She was up again on one elbow, and
there was an eager expression on her bright attractive face. "Do