Her tone was lightly argumentative, but it was also stolidly merciless, and it hurled true to its mark the shaft of conviction. Out of the yesterday, Mary heard the voice of her father that was the voice of a society rigidly shaped by the conditions of its own fashioning:
"Bay 'un thirty year old an' noot another sin ag'in 'un, I would beat 'un within a bare inch o' 'er deeth, an' turn 'un oot to live the life 'un had picked fur herself!"
She understood that statement now.
"I can go to Max's," she hazarded.
"To—where?"
"To Max's father's."
"Maybe you can; but it's a long trip to Hungary."
Mary answered nothing. Rose had only confirmed what the girl had for an hour feared.
"You see how it is," pursued Rose, reading Mary's silence with a practiced mind. "Better let me take care of you."
Mary's face was hidden. Again she felt New York as a malevolent consciousness, a living prison implacably raising around her its insurmountable walls. There was, she thought, nothing left her but the diminishing hope of Max's return.