Hilda did not press Ruth for confidences, nor did Ruth bestow them. But Hilda succeeded in making Ruth feel that she was trustworthy, that she offered her friendship sincerely…. That she was an individual to depend on if need came for dependence. They talked. At first Hilda carried on a monologue. Gradually Ruth became more like her sincere, calm self, and she met Hilda's advances without reservation…. When Hilda left her at her home both girls carried away a sense of possessing something new of value.
"Don't you come back to the office to-day," Hilda told her. "I'll settle dad."
"Thank you," said Ruth. "I do need—rest. I've got to be alone to—think." That was the closest she came to opening her heart.
She did have to think, though she had thought and reasoned and suffered the torture of mental conflict through a nearly sleepless night. She had told Bonbright to come on this day for her answer…. She must have her answer ready. Also she must talk the thing over with Dulac. That would be hard—doubly hard in the situation that existed.
Last night she had not spoken of it to him; had scarcely spoken to him at all, as he had been morosely silent to her. She had been shocked, frightened by his violence, yet she knew that his violence had been honest violence, perpetrated because he believed her welfare demanded it. She did not feel toward him the aversion that the average girl might have felt for one who precipitated her into such a scene…. She was accustomed to violence and to the atmosphere of violence.
When she and Dulac arrived at the Frazer cottage, he had helped her to alight. Then he uttered a rude apology, but a sincere one—according to his lights.
"I'm sorry I had to do it with you watching," he said. Then, curtly,
"Go to bed now."
Clearly he suspected her of no wrongdoing, of no intention toward future wrongdoing. She was a VICTIM. She was a pigeon fascinated by a serpent.
Now she went to her room, and remained there until the supper hour.
When she and her mother and Dulac were seated at the table her mother began a characteristic Jeremiad. "I hope you ain't coming down with a spell of sickness. Seems like sickness in the family's about the only thing I've been spared, though other things worse has been aplenty. Here we are just in a sort of a breathing spell, and you begin to look all peeked and home from work, with maybe losing your place, for employers is hard without any consideration, and food so high and all. I wasn't born to no ease, nor any chance of looking forward like some women, though doing my duty at all times to the best of my ability. And now you on the verge of a run of the fever, with nobody can say how long in bed, and doctors and medicines and worry…."