she would be home that night. At one
such time, getting no response and thinking Deborah was not there, he
opened the door part way to make sure. And he saw her at her dresser,
staring at herself in the glass, rigid as though in a trance. Later in the
dining room he heard her step upon the stairs. She came in quietly and sat
down; and as soon as dinner was over, she said her good-nights and left the
house. But when she came home at midnight, he was waiting up for her. He
had foraged in the kitchen, and on his study table he had set out some
supper. While she sat there eating, her father watched her from his chair.

"Things going badly in school?" he inquired.

"Yes," she replied. There was silence.

"What's wrong?"

"To-night we had a line of mothers reaching out into the street. They had
come for food and coal--but we had to send most of them home empty-handed.
Some of them cried--and one of them fainted. She's to have a baby soon."

"Can't you get any money uptown?" he asked.

"I have," she answered grimly. "I've been a beggar--heaven knows--on every
friend I can think of. And I've kept a press agent hard at work trying to
make the public see that Belgium is right here in New York." She stopped
and went on with her supper. "But it's a bad time for work like mine," she
continued presently. "If we're to keep it going we must above all keep it
cheap. That's the keynote these days, keep everything cheap--at any
cost--so that men can expensively kill one another." Her voice had a bitter
ring to it. "You try to talk peace and they bowl you over, with facts on
the need of preparedness--for the defence of your country. And that doesn't
appeal to me very much. I want a bigger preparedness--for the defence of
the whole world--for democracy, and human rights, no matter who the people
are! I'd like to train every child to that!"

"What do you mean?" her father asked.

"To teach him what his life can be!" she replied in a hard quivering tone.
"A fight? Oh yes! So long as he lives--and even with guns if it must be so!
But a fight for all the people on earth!--and a world so full of happy
lives that men will think hard--before ever again letting themselves be led
by the nose--into war and death--for a place in the sun!" She rose from her
chair, with a weary smile: "Here I am making a speech again. I've made so
many lately it's become a habit. I'm tired out, dad, I'm going to bed." Her
father looked at her anxiously.

"You'