Helen told her. They were in the hall now, standing by the golden-oak hat-rack at the foot of the stairs. The children watched, wide-eyed, in the parlor door.
Perplexity and disgust struggled on Mrs. Campbell's face.
"You think you're going to live in Sacramento on five dollars a week?"
"I'm going to. I got to. I'll manage somehow. I won't go home!" Helen cried, confronting Mrs. Campbell like an antagonist.
"Oh, I don't doubt you'll manage!" Mrs. Campbell said cuttingly. She went down the hall, and the slam of the dining-room door shouted that she washed her hands of the whole affair.
She came up the back stairs half an hour later. Helen was sitting on the bed, her bag packed, trying to plan what to do. She had only the five dollars. It would be two weeks before she could get more money from the office. Mrs. Campbell opened the door without knocking.
"I'm going to talk this over with you," she said, patient firmness in her tone. "Don't you realize you can't get a decent room and anything to eat for five dollars a week? Do you think it's right to expect your folks to support you, poor as they are? It isn't—"
"I don't expect them to!" Helen cried.
"As though you didn't have a good home to go back to," Mrs. Campbell conveyed subtly that a well-bred girl did not interrupt while an older woman was speaking. "Now be reasonable about this, my—"
"I won't go back," Helen said. She lifted miserable eyes to Mrs. Campbell's, and the expression she saw there reminded her of a horse with his ears laid back.