but her voice was distant and i saw it all so clearly from the other threshold of that other long-ago immeasurable room , a random selection of my brain : both of them seated at her desk over some arduous problem , their heads conspiratorial together and speaking some incomprehensible conspiratorial language , her short hair neat and shiny , the lamplight soft on the oval of the sweet-serious face girls had had then and have lost since , i standing in the doorway commissioned by mrs morgenstern to summon them down for dinner , hearing their exclusive gibberish .