still feel that body, those greedy lips and clutching hands, and out of
her disgust and rage emerged another feeling which grew like a load on
her shoulders, sagging her spirit and crushing her down.

"Joe was right. It was only my face. That beast was only
waiting! . . . I wonder if they're all like that? Probably not.
But how can I tell the sheep from the goats? I thought I could. I
thought I knew how to handle myself--I thought I knew how to get on in
this town! But I don't, it seems--I've done nothing at all! I've just
been a little fool! . . . And New York is like that!"

She glared at the city around her, at its tall, hard unfriendly walls,
the jangling trolleys down below, the trucks and drays and the crowds
rushing by her. For all their hurry, some of the men shot glances at
Ethel that made her burn. One tall thin man even stopped and turned and
she felt his look travel right down to her toes! She walked on and on
with her bare fists clenched. She had left her gloves in the office.
Go back for them? No! Nor to any office, nor any man!

"Oh, yes, I will, I'll go back to Joe--and hear him say, 'I told you
so.'"

She reached the apartment faint and sick. Joe had not come home, thank
goodness. She went to her room and to her bed, and had a good cry,
which relieved her a little. And so, after an hour or two, looking
steadily up at the ceiling, she decided that after a few days' rest she
would go to all three of those bureaus and say, "I'm in the market
still, if you please, but only for a woman boss."

But later, as she was dressing for dinner, her eye was caught by the
photograph of her sister Amy. And the face appeared to her suddenly so
strong and wise with its knowledge of life. She remembered Amy's smiles
at all new "movements" and ideas and work for women. She seemed to be
smiling now, with a good-humoured pitying air, and to be saying:

"Now will you believe me? It isn't what you say to men, it's how you
look and what you wear."

And Ethel stared at it and frowned, in a disillusioned, questioning way.

CHAPTER VII

Joe did not say, "I told you so." It was after eight that evening when
he came home from his office, and she was annoyed at the delay, for she
wanted to have her confession of failure over and done with. As she
waited restlessly, she envied him his business life. How much simpler
everything was for a man! Her nerves were on edge. Why didn't he come!
At last she heard his key in the d