That philosophy, that determination not to sink into paralyzed despair, often broke down when her husband was in town, but she never gave up trying to make it vital to her.
So, through month on month, she read, rocking slowly in the small, wooden rocker, or lying on the coarse-coverleted bed, while round her the hotel room was still and stale-smelling and fixed, and outside the window passed the procession of life—trucks laden with crates of garments consigned to Kansas City and Bangor and Seattle and Bemidji; taxicabs with passengers for the mammoth hotels; office-girls and policemen and salesmen and all the lusty crew that had conquered the city or were well content to be conquered by it.
CHAPTER XVII
LATE in the summer of 1912, at a time when Una did not expect the return of her husband for at least three weeks, she was in their room in the afternoon, reading “Salesmanship for Women,” and ruminatively eating lemon-drops from a small bag.
As though he were a betrayed husband dramatically surprising her, Mr. Schwirtz opened the door, dropped a large suit-case, and stood, glaring.
“Well!” he said, with no preliminary, “so here you are! For once you could—”
“Why, Ed! I didn’t expect to see you for—”
He closed the door and gesticulated. “No! Of course you didn’t. Why ain’t you out with some of your swell friends that I ain’t good enough to meet, shopping, and buying dresses, and God knows what—”
“Why, Ed!”