e drifted back to the morning
paper, wherein lay the interest of the hour. And nothing else
interested her or the world.

Martha announced lunch. Max accompanied her on her retreat to the
kitchen. Palla loitered, not hungry, nervous and unquiet under the
increasing need of occupation for that hot heart of hers.

After a while she went out to the dining room, ate enough, endured
Martha to the verge, and retreated to await the evening paper.

Her attorney, Mr. Tiddley, came at three. They discussed quit-claims,
mortgages, deeds, surveys, and reported encroachments incident to the
decay of ancient landmarks. And the conversation maddened her.

At four she put on a smart mourning hat and her black furs, and walked
down to see the bank president, Mr. Pawling. The subject of their
conversation was investments; and it bored her. At five she returned
to the house to receive a certain Mr. Skidder--known in her childhood
as Blinky Skidder, in frank recognition of an ocular peculiarity--a
dingy but jaunty young man with a sheep's nose, a shrewd upper lip,
and snapping red-brown eyes, who came breezily in and said: "Hello,
Palla! How's the girl?" And took off his faded mackinaw uninvited.

Mr. Skidder's business had once been the exploitation of farmers and
acreage; his specialty the persuasion of Slovak emigrants into the
acquisition of doubtful land. But since the war, emigrants were few;
and, as honest men must live, Mr. Skidder had branched out into
improved real estate and city lots. But the pickings, even here, were
scanty, and loans hard to obtain.

"I've changed my mind," said Palla. "I'm not going to sell this house,
Blinky."

"Well, for heaven's sake--ain't you going to New York?" he insisted,
taken aback.

"Yes, I am. But I've decided to keep my house."

"That," said Mr. Skidder, snapping his eyes, "is silly sentiment, not
business. But please yourself Palla. I ain't saying a word. I ain't
trying to tell you I can get a lot more for you than your house is
worth--what with values falling and houses empty and the mills letting
men go because there ain't going to be any more war orders!--but
please yourself, Palla. I ain't saying a word to urge you."

"You've said several," she remarked, smilingly. "But I think I'll keep
the house for the present, and I'm sorry that I wasted your time."

"Please yourself, Palla," he repeated. "I guess you can afford to from
all I hear. I guess you can do as you've a mind to, no