“You will live on in our children’s lives.”

He glanced around at Deborah.  Was she so certain, so serene?  “What do I know of her?” he asked.  “Little or nothing,” he sadly replied.  And he tried to piece together from things she had told him her life as it had passed him by.  Had there been no questionings, no sharp disillusionments?  There must have been.  He recalled irritabilities, small acts and exclamations of impatience, boredom, “blues.”  And as he watched her he grew sure that his daughter’s existence had been like his own.  Despite its different setting, its other aims and visions, it had been a mere beginning, a feeling for a foothold, a search for light and happiness.  And Deborah seemed to him still a child.  “How far will you go?” he wondered.

Although he was still watching her even after the music had ceased, she did not notice him for a time.  Then she turned to him slowly with a smile.

“Well?  What did you see?” she asked.

“I wasn’t looking,” he replied.

“Why, dearie,” she retorted.  “Where’s that imagination of yours?”

“It was with you,” he answered.  “Tell me what you were thinking.”

And still under the spell of the music, Deborah said to her father,

“I was thinking of hungry people—­millions of them, now, this minute—­not only here but in so many places—­concerts, movies, libraries.  Hungry, oh, for everything—­life, its beauty, all it means.  And I was thinking this is youth—­no matter how old they happen to be—­and that to feed it we have schools.  I was thinking how little we’ve done as yet, and of all that we’re so sure to do in the many, many years ahead.  Do you see what I mean?” she squeezed his hand.

“Welcome back to school,” she said, “back into the hungry army of youth!...  Sh-h-h!”

Again the music had begun.  And sitting by her side he wondered whether it was because she knew that Laura’s affair had made him feel old that Deborah had brought him here.

* * * * *

They went to Edith’s for supper.

The Cunninghams’ apartment was on the west side, well uptown.  It was not the neighborhood which Edith would have chosen, for nearly all the nice people she knew lived east of the park.  But rents were somewhat lower here and there was at least an abundance of fresh air for her family.  Edith had found that her days were full of these perplexing decisions.  It was all very simple to resolve that her children be old-fashioned, normal, wholesome, nice.  But then she looked into the city—­into schools and kindergartens, clothes and friends and children’s parties, books and plays.  And through them all to her dismay she felt conflicting currents, clashes between old and new.  She felt New York.  And anxiously she asked herself, “What is old-fashioned?  What is normal?  What is wholesome?  What is nice?” Cautiously she made her way, testing