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.
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