Jean took the note from the boy and laid it unopened on the desk. Twice she picked it up and put it down again uncut. It was a scorching morning but her hands were cold and although all the windows were open, she felt that the room was airless. She crossed to the window and leaned out a little way. Below, the city, like the sea beating against a cliff, washed the base of the building, where, in a high, safe niche, she stood alone with the note from Jerome Stuart. In a moment she would open it and make a decision, although she knew that when she did open, the decision would have been already made.
Jean went back to the desk and opened the envelope. She read the half sheet and tore it slowly into bits. Her body scorched, but her fingers were icy to her own touch.
Jerome Stuart had run away. There was no love in his desire. He did not want to want her. She had disturbed his peace against his will and he had gone as he might have gone to escape the contagion of an illness. And last night she had sat for hours on the roof, almost afraid to think, because of the small, eager fear that had come upon her!
When Minnie came for the morning's dictation, Jean felt that she had been sitting at her desk for weeks. Only years of habit made it possible to pick up the day's routine, but early in the afternoon, Jean left the office and went home.
The sun beat fiercely upon the asphalted gravel. Jersey was hidden under its pall of smoke. Nearer at hand, huge chimneys belched their blackness into the quivering heat. The day was still roaring at its task.
Jean went into the little living-room and lowered the blinds to a kindly softness. Then, as in the old days, before a problem, she began to walk up and down.
But the day roared to its completion, the huge chimneys ceased to send forth their black columns, the lowering sun thinned the black pall to gold-shot gray, and still Jean walked up and down.
The thing that Philip Fletcher had found, "the call of a woman to a man," Jerome Stuart had felt. That quiet man who understood so many things. He understood himself and he had gone away.
And she had not wanted him to go. She had no passion for Jerome Stuart. His nearness left her cold. She did not long to help him as she had longed to help Franklin. But she had not wanted him to go.