not visibly have
to suffer from want of highballs, cigars, and Turkish baths. From the
window of their room Una used to see him cross the street to the cafe
entrance of the huge Saffron Hotel--and once she saw him emerge from it
with a fluffy blonde. But she did not attack him. She was spellbound in
a strange apathy, as in a dream of swimming on forever in a warm and
slate-hued sea. She was confident that he would soon have another
position. He had over-ridden her own opinions about business--the
opinions of the underling who never sees the great work as a rounded
whole--till she had come to have a timorous respect for his commercial
ability.

Apparently her wifely respect was not generally shared in the paint
business. At least Mr. Schwirtz did not soon get his new position.

The manager of the hotel came to the room with his bill and pressed for
payment. And after three weeks--after a night when he had stayed out
very late and come home reeking with perfume--Mr. Schwirtz began to hang
about the room all day long and to soak himself in the luxury of
complaining despair.

Then came the black days.

There were several scenes (during which she felt like a beggar about to
be arrested) between Mr. Schwirtz and the landlord, before her husband
paid part of a bill whose size astounded her.

Mr. Schwirtz said that he was "expecting something to turn up--nothin'
he could do but wait for some telephone calls." He sat about with his
stockinged feet cocked up on the bed, reading detective stories till he
fell asleep in his chair. He drank from unlabeled pint flasks of whisky
all day. Once, when she opened a bureau drawer of his by mistake, she
saw half a dozen whisky-flasks mixed with grimy collars, and the sour
smell nauseated her. But on food--they had to economize on that! He took
her to a restaurant of fifteen-cent breakfasts and twenty-five-cent
dinners. It was the "parlor floor" of an old brownstone house--two
rooms, with eggy table-cloths, and moldings of dusty stucco.

She avoided his presence as much as possible. Mrs. Wade, the practical
dressmaker, who was her refuge among the women of the hotel, seemed to
understand what was going on, and gave Una a key to her room. Here Una
sat for hours. When she went back to their room quarrels would spring up
apropos of anything or nothing.

The fault was hers as much as his. She was no longer trying to conceal
her distaste, while he, who had a marital conscience of a sort,