rs later was merely another triumph of the
strong over the weak.

At twenty Hannah Winter had been a rather sallow, lively, fun-loving
girl, not pretty, but animated; and forceful, even then. The Winters
were middle-class, respected, moderately well-to-do Chicago citizens--or
had been moderately well-to-do before the fire of '71. Horace Winter had
been caught in the financial funk that followed this disaster and the
Rush Street household, almost ten years later, was rather put to it to
supply the wine-coloured silk and the supplementary gowns, linens, and
bedding. In those days you married at twenty if a decent chance to marry
at twenty presented itself. And Hermie Slocum seemed a decent chance,
undoubtedly. A middle-class, respected, moderately well-to-do person
himself, Hermie, with ten thousand dollars saved at thirty-five and just
about to invest it in business in the thriving city of Indianapolis. A
solid young man, Horace Winter said. Not much given to talk. That
indicated depth and thinking. Thrifty and far-sighted, as witness the
good ten thousand in cash. Kind. Old enough, with his additional fifteen
years, to balance the lively Hannah who was considered rather flighty
and too prone to find fun in things that others considered serious. A
good thing she never quite lost that fault. Hannah resolutely and
dutifully put out of her head (or nearly) all vagrant thoughts of Clint
Darrow with the crisp black hair and the surprising blue eyes thereto,
and the hat worn rakishly a little on one side, and the slender cane and
the pointed shoes. A whipper-snapper, according to Horace Winter. Not a
solid business man like Hermie Slocum. Hannah did not look upon herself
as a human sacrifice. She was genuinely fond of Hermie. She was fond of
her father, too; the rather harassed and hen-pecked Horace Winter; and
of her mother, the voluble and quick-tongued and generous Bertha Winter,
who was so often to be seen going down the street, shawl and
bonnet-strings flying, when she should have been at home minding her
household. Much of the minding had fallen to Hannah.

And so they were married, and went to the thriving city of Indianapolis
to live, and Hannah Winter was so busy with her new household goods, and
the linens, and the wine-coloured silk and its less magnificent
satellites, that it was almost a fortnight before she realized fully
that this solid young man, Hermie Slocum, was not only solid but
immovable; not merely thri