he thing wasn't to be for a week. It was for the
rest of their lives. She'd never be able to feel that, in the bottom of
his heart, he wasn't ashamed of her, as his world would say he ought to
be. What satisfying guarantee could he ever give her that he wasn't
ashamed? She couldn't think of any.

Oh, it was all hopeless! It didn't matter what you did. You didn't do
things, anyway. They got done for you--and to you, by a blind force that
masqueraded as your own will. The things she and Rodney had been saying
to each other hadn't been the things they'd wanted to say. They'd been
things wrung out between the rollers of a situation they hadn't produced
and couldn't control.

What were they, the pair of them, but chips floating down the current;
thrown together by one casual eddy, and parted by another! Half an hour
ago, longing for each other unspeakably, they had been within hand's
reach. Now, thanks to a few meaningless words, arguments, ideas--what
was the good of ideas and words? Why couldn't they be like
animals?--they were parted and she was clutching as a sole tangible
memento of him, a rolled-up newspaper that she loved because she'd seen
his strong lean hands gripping it.

She unrolled it and pressed it against her face, then laid it on her
knee and smoothed out its rumpled folds and stroked it.

When Dolly came in a half-hour later, or so, to put on her other suit
preparatory to the matinee, Rose opened up the paper and pretended to
read. She was glad of the protection of it. As she felt just now, she
didn't think she could stand Dolly's chatter without the intervention of
some excuse for monosyllabic replies. She didn't notice that Dolly
wasn't chattering. Mechanically she read the head-lines: _Mortimore
Banks Crash_! She knew who Mortimore was. Once a powerful boss, now a
discredited politician. He'd owned a whole string of banks, it
appeared--along with the hitherto unheard of Milligan--whose solvency
seemed to have evaporated along with the decay of his prestige.

She read without interest, but just because it was printed in
black-faced type, a list of the banks in Chicago that the examiner had
closed. But presently she turned back with a look a little more
thoughtful, and read it again. The names of banks were so absurdly alike
one never could tell. Presently she went over to her suit-case, rummaged
in it, and produced a little bank-book. Then she dropped the book and
the newspaper together into her bag