"Mortgage the house again," he replied. "It hasn't been easy, for money is tight, but I think I'll be able to get enough to just about carry us through the year. At home, I mean," he added.
"And the office?"
"Shut down," he said. She turned on him fiercely.
"You won't do that!"
"What else can I do?"
"Turn all those girls away?" she cried. At her tone his look grew troubled.
"How can I help myself, Deborah? If I kept open it would cost me over five hundred a week to run. Have I five hundred dollars a week to lose?"
"But I tell you it won't last!" she cried, and again the baffled, driven expression swept over her expressive face. "Can't you see this is only a panic—and keep going somehow? Can't you see what it means to the tenements? Hundreds of thousands are out of work! They're being turned off every day, every hour—employers all over are losing their heads! And City Hall is as mad as the rest! They've decided already down there to retrench!"
He turned with a quick jerk of his head: