listened to
the advances of young Breen the gardener, or of Matt's colleague in the
grocery-store. But she had never presented such possibilities for her
own consideration. She was like an ant, that sees but one object to the
errand on which it has set out, disdaining diversion.

And if it had all summed itself up into what looked like a hard,
unlovely avariciousness, it was because poor Rosie had nothing to tell
her the values and co-relations of the different ingredients in life.
For the element that suffuses good-fortune and ill-fortune alike with
corrective significance she had imbibed from her mother one kind of
scorn, and from her father another. She knew no more of it than did Thor
Masterman. Like him, she could only work for a material blessing with
material hands, though without his advantages for molding things to his
will. He had his advantages through money. Since all things material are
measured by that, by that Rosie measured them. The matter and the
measure were all she knew. They meant safety for herself and for her
parents, and protection for Matt when he came out of jail. How could she
do other than spend her heart upon them? What choice had she when the
alternative lay between Claude and love on the one side and on the other
Thor, with his hands full of daily bread for them all? With Claude and
his love there went nothing besides, while with Thor and his daily bread
there would be peace and security for life. She asked it of herself; she
asked it, in imagination, of him. What else could she do but sell
herself when the price on her poor little body had been set so high?

She had spent two burning, rebellious days. All the while she was
cooking meals, or setting tables, or washing dishes, or making beds, or
selling flowers, or pruning, or watering, or addressing envelopes for
the monthly bills, her soul had been raging against the unjust code by
which she would have to be judged. Thor would judge her; Claude would
judge her, if he knew; any one who knew would judge her, and women most
fiercely of all. But what did they know about it? What did they know of
twenty-odd years of going around in a cage? What did they know of the
terror of seeing the cage itself demolished, and being without a
protection? Did they suppose she wouldn't suffer in giving up her love?
Of course she would suffer! The very extremity of her suffering would
prove the extremity of her need. Passionately Rosie defended herself
agains