She had been promoted to a position as expert lace buyer, which permitted larger liberty. From choice she had taken no vacation during the summer. Now her vacation, which she requested for December, lasted ten days; and at the end of it her last penny had been spent, but in a manner so wonderful, so strange, that no maid ever dreamed such things might be.
"Christmas Eve she knelt, crying, before the pedestal."
And on the last evening of it, which was Christmas Eve, she knelt, crying, before two pedestals from which rose her body and soul as white as death.
An hour later the snowy twins stood in his empty studio, swathed in their corpse-white winding-sheets—unstained cerements, sealing beneath their folds her dead pride, dead hope—all that was delicate and intimate and subtle and sweet—slain and in cerements, for his sake.
And now she must go before he returned. Her small trunk was ready; her small account settled. With strangely weak and unsteady hands she stood before the glass knotting her veil.
Since that night together last summer she had not spoken to him, merely returning his low greeting in the corridor with a silent little inclination of her head. But, although she had had no speech with him, she had learned that he was teaching at the League now, and she knew his hours and his movements well enough to time her own by them.
He was not due for another hour; she looked out into the snowy darkness, drawing on her gloves and buttoning the scant fur collar close about her throat.