"Dressmakers and hairdressers—and dinners and bridge and the whole routine of your set," said he. "It is indeed a hard life—I wonder you stand it."
"Don't be ironic!"
"I'm not ironic. I realized, long ago, that it's the hardest life in the world—and pays the least."
She flushed. "I have my charities," she reminded him. "I'm not utterly useless. And my clubs—belonging to them is a duty I owe other women. I try to fulfill it."
"But you're not happy."
"Happy! I've forgotten the meaning of the word. To tell the honest truth, Don, I've been feeling for a long while that I didn't care—how soon it ended."
"Poor little sister!"
A crashing blow upon the door startled Mrs. Breckenridge so that she cried out under her breath. Brown went to the door. A furious gust of wind hurled it wide open beneath his hand, but there was no one upon the doorstep. No one? At his feet lay a bundle, from which sounded a wailing cry. He picked it up, looked up and down a vacant street, closed the door, and came back to Sue Breckenridge by the fire.
"I wonder if they chose the bachelor's doorstep by chance or by intention," he said.