, heavily, Martie went on wiping the "company" dishes, carrying
them into the pantry shelves where they had been piled untouched for
years, and where they would stand again unused for a long, long time.
Sally was tired, and complained of a headache. Lydia was irritatingly
cheerful and philosophical. Len had disappeared, as was usual on
Saturday, and Mrs. Monroe and Mrs. Potts were talking in low tones over
the sitting-room fire. Outside, the rain fell and fell and fell.

Martie thought of Rose, laughing, pink-cheeked, discarding her neat
little raincoat with Rodney's help at four o'clock, at the Parkers'
house, and bringing her fresh laughter into their fire. She thought of
her at six--at seven--and during the silent two hours when she brooded
over her cards.

Coming out of church the next morning, Rose rejoiced over the clear
bath of sunlight that followed the rain. "Rod is going to take me
driving," she told Martie. "I like him ever so much; don't you, Martie?"

Alice Clark, coming in for a chat with Lydia late that afternoon, added
the information that when little Rose Ransome left the city at four
o'clock, Rod Parker and that fat friend of his went, too. Escorting
Rose--and he and Rose would have tea in the city before he took her to
Berkeley--Martie thought.

That was the beginning, and now scarcely a day passed without its new
sting. The girl was not conscious of any instinct for bravery; she did
not want to be brave, she wanted to draw back from the rack--to escape,
rather than to endure. A first glimpse of happiness had awakened
fineness in her nature; she had been generous, sweet, ambitious, only a
few weeks ago. She had given new thought to her appearance, had carried
her big frame more erectly. All her bigness, all her capacity for
loving and giving she would have poured at Rodney's feet; his home, his
people, his hopes, and plans--these would have been hers.

Repulsed, this gold of youth turned to brass; through long idle days
and wakeful nights Martie paid the cruel price for a few hours of
laughter and dreaming. She was not given another moment of hope.

Not that she did not meet Rodney, for in Monroe they must often meet.
And when they met he greeted her, and they laughed and chatted gaily.
But she was not Brunhilde now, and if Sally or Lydia or any one else
was with her she knew he was not sorry.

In the middle of December Rose's mother, the neat little widow who was
like an older Rose, told Sally