"What a queer time for hating a person. But I hate you—oh, I hate you!" She went to the window and frowned at the street and slowly again got control of herself. "What's wrong with me? Why am I so dull I ought to be doing something. But what?" Again came the voice from the telephone, and again she clenched her hands. "How did you make Amy take you for a friend? Oh, what difference does it make?"
But it did make a difference. The presence of Fanny got on her nerves; and when a little later two of the dinner guests arrived, to exclaim and pity and offer their help, she faced them and thought:
"You're all alike! You're all just hard and over-dressed! You're cheap! Oh, please—please go away!"
The two visitors seemed glad enough to find she did not want them here, that she was not going to cling to them and make this abyss she was facing a region they must face by her side. In their eyes again she caught the look she had seen on the face of the doctor. "After all, this is not my affair."
The two women left her. Fanny, too, soon went out on an errand. And no other woman came to her that day. How different from the Ohio town. Only once a girl came from the dressmaker's.
But just after Fanny had gone out, Joe's partner came into the living-room. In the last few hours several times she had heard his voice as he talked with Joe. Deep, heavy and gruff, it had yet revealed a tenderness that had given to Ethel a sudden thrill—which she had forgotten the next moment, for her thoughts kept spinning so. But now as he looked down at her she saw in his gaunt lean face a reflection of that tenderness; and there was a pity in his voice which set her lip to quivering.
"The sooner we have this over," he said, "the better it will be for
Joe."
"Yes."
"Tomorrow!"
"Yes."