Already the opposite house line had
been broken near the center by a high apartment building, and another still
higher rose like a cliff just back of the house in which Roger lived. Still
others, and many factory lofts, reared shadowy bulks on every hand. From
the top of one an enormous sign, a corset pictured forth in lights, flashed
out at regular intervals; and from farther off, high up in the misty haze
of the night, could be seen the gleaming pinnacle where hour by hour that
great bell slowly boomed the time away. Yes, here the old was passing.
Already the tiny parklet was like the dark bottom of a pit, with the hard
sparkling modern town towering on every side, slowly pressing, pressing in
and glaring down with yellow eyes.
But Roger noticed none of these things. He watched the old woman on the
bench and groped for the memory she had stirred. Ah, now at last he had it.
An April night long, long ago, when he had sat where she was now, while
here in the house his wife's first 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.
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