"But it's going to be a regular blizzard. Look! It's getting thicker every minute."
Jean turned up her fur collar. "I don't mind. Maybe it's the last blizzard we'll have. I always wallow in the last blizzard. It's a kind of rite."
"Well, then, if I can't stop you...."
They were standing so close that Jean could feel his warm breath on her face. Muffled figures, bent against the driving snow, pushed by them and disappeared into the black hole of the Subway entrance. Automobiles shot noiselessly through the whirling whiteness. The world itself had changed.
"To-morrow then about four?"
"No, I can't to-morrow. I've got a meeting. Friday."
"All right." Gregory held out his hand, but Jean raised her muff to keep off the driving flakes and only smiled across it.
She went back to the office. They had all gone. There was a note tacked to the lid of her desk and Jean read it. She tore it up and threw it into the waste-basket but some of the pieces fell upon the rug and she bent to pick them up carefully. She opened a window, and covered one of the typewriters that had been left uncovered. Then she telephoned to Martha that she would not be home to dinner. Martha urged her not to work too late and Jean hung up the receiver.
Now she was alone, utterly alone, with the thoughts she had beaten back.
Gregory was going away. He was going out of her life for months at a time. Three short weeks and it would be as it had been before his coming—empty, work-filled days. Jean bowed her head on the desk.