s, was one of utter
indifference--good-humoured enough but rather bored with "young things"
weeping on its breast.

"Be Mrs. Grewe, if you like," it said, "or Sally Crothers or Fanny
Carr. Or go back home to your history prof. Each one of these things
has been done before by so many thousands just like you. Nobody cares.
You have no neighbours. Do exactly as you like."

"Thank you very much," she said. "I choose to be Sally Crothers first.
And if that fails--well, between Fanny Carr and Mrs. Grewe there isn't
much choice. Do you think so?"

"Oh, no," said the city. And it yawned. But Ethel lay there thinking.

"Excuse me," she spoke presently. "Sorry to annoy you again--but is
there any God about?"

"None," came the sleepy answer. "Do as you like, I tell you."

She opened her eyes and sat up in bed.

"Now I've been getting morbid again! For goodness' sake let's try to be
healthy and clear about this!"

And she tried to be. But for some time she made little headway. It was
easy to grimly shut her teeth and resolve, "I've got to do this by
myself, talk to Joe and simply make him believe me!" But as soon as she
came to the details of what she should say to her husband, his face as
she had seen it last--worn and nervous, overwrought--kept rising up
before her. Could she convince him! "It's my last chance!" If only she
knew how to go about it! She wanted to be heroic and face this crisis
all alone--but she had been alone so much. Tonight it seemed to Ethel
as though she had struggled alone for years. Was it all worth while,
she asked herself. She could feel her courage ooze again. Her thinking
grew vague and uneven. . . . And more and more the picture rose of
the woman friend she had counted on having--Sally Crothers, who was so
clever, an older woman who knew New York, knew what to do in such
tangles as this, knew Joe, had known him back in that past which Ethel
was trying to raise again. And it was exasperating! "If I could only
get at her!" she thought.

Carefully, almost word by word, she went over in her mind her talk with
Mrs. Crothers that day, in order to find out her mistakes.

"Do you know what I think?" she said at the end. "I think in the first
part you did pretty well. You made breaks and were clumsy, and she was
amused--but she rather liked you, nevertheless. At least you were a
novelty. But then you went and spoiled it all by making solemn fool
remarks about the world in general. And thereupon Sall