“It has never stopped, Mrs. McKail,” she said in an equally low voice, but with the courage of utter desperation.
It took some time, apparently, for that declaration to filter through to my brain. Everything seemed suddenly out of focus; and it was hard to readjust vision to the newer order of things. But I was calmer, under the circumstances, than I expected to be.
“I’m glad I understand,” I finally admitted.
The woman at the desk seemed puzzled. Then she looked from me to her column of figures and from her column of figures to the huddled roofs and walls of the city and the greening foot-hills and the solemn white crowns of the Rockies behind them.
“Are you quite sure, Mrs. McKail, that you do understand?” she asked at last, with just a touch of challenge in the question. 352
“Isn’t it quite simple now?” I demanded.
She found the courage to face me again.
“I don’t think this sort of thing is ever simple,” she replied, with much more emotion than I had expected of her.
“But it’s at least clear how it must end,” I found the courage to point out to her.
“Is that clear to you?” demanded the woman who was stepping into my shoes. It seemed odd, at the moment, that I should feel vaguely sorry for her.