"An inspiration to any man," Jonathan continued.
"I have no doubt."
Jonathan smiled. "Meaning you do doubt it? But I forgot—you probably don't know. She had a disappointment, Mr. Quentin, a heavy one, and she bore it as—as you and I would have been proud to. She had a voice. And just as she was beginning to make her living out of it and getting ready for bigger things, she took diphtheria. It left her throat so weak that she had to give up singing, altogether for a while, professionally for good."
"Why, that was too bad!"
"It was very bad. But she didn't whine. Just put it behind her. Since she had to make her own living somehow, she went to a commercial school and studied bookkeeping. I was lucky enough to get her."
"She could really sing?"
"She would have gone far, very far. I had happened to hear her and I followed her progress closely enough to know. I have never been reconciled—"
Jonathan broke off sharply, staring hard at a crack in the wall. The little blue eyes were very sad. David, too, fell into a long thoughtful silence.
He broke it at last. "As you say—"
Jonathan started, as if he had forgotten David's presence.