He put his face close to the spying window and looked out at Yetta's back. He wondered just where the pain had been and whether it still hurt.
"Poor little girl," he said.
But Yetta knew nothing of her boss's intention. She could see no outlet. The future stretched before her, so barren that it hurt to think of it. But she could not escape the thought. Was she to get fat and ugly like Mrs. Levy? Would the pain come again and would she slip down—as Mrs. Cohen prophesied—coughing herself to uselessness?
CHAPTER IV LIFE CALLS
In the months that followed Rachel's departure Yetta began to lose hope. She could see no promise of escape, and lethargic time gradually faded the colors of her dream. The flame of holy discontent which had blazed for a while in her soul threatened to go out. Sometimes she wondered what had happened to Rachel. But "Speed" eats up a person's power of wondering.
Yetta had been at the machine for a long time now. Her muscles had become hardened. She did not often suffer from weariness any more, but she had, without knowing it, commenced to go downhill. The immense reserve of vitality, which is the blessing of so many of her race, was running low. It was amazing how her strong young body had resisted the strain. But any doctor would have shaken his head over the future. After all there is a limit, beyond which the nerves and muscles of a woman cannot compete with electricity and steel.
One night, a few days after the pain had come in her back, an American woman knocked at the door of the Goldstein flat while Yetta and Rosa were eating supper.