else's life at the
same time?' She'd say she didn't believe it was so bad as that anyway,
but that whether it was or not, she'd go straight along and live as
she's always done, and when she died, she'd be dead. Don't you know how
it's always pleased her when old people could die--'in harness,' as she
says?"

Her voice softened a little as she concluded and the tenseness of her
attitude, there at the window, relaxed. The ordeal, or the worst of it,
was over; what she had meant to say was said, and what she had meant not
to say, if hinted at once or twice, had not caught Rose's ear. She
turned for the first time to look at her. Rose was drooping forlornly
forward, one arm clasped around her knees, and she was trying to dry her
tears on the sleeve of her nightgown. The childlike pathos of the
attitude caught Portia like the surge of a wave. She crossed the room
and sat down on the edge of the bed. She'd have come still closer and
taken the girl in her arms but for the fear of starting her crying
again.

"Yes," Rose said. "That's mother. And I guess she's right about it. It
must be horrible to be half alive;--to know you're no use and never will
be. Only I don't believe it will be that way with her. I believe you
told her the truth without knowing it. It's just a feeling, but I'm sure
of it. She'll get strong and well again out there. You'll think so, too,
when you get rested up a little.--You're so frightfully tired, poor
dear. It makes me sick to think what a week you've had. And that you've
gone through it all alone;--without ever giving Rodney and me a chance
to help. I don't see why you did that, Portia."

"Oh, I saw it was my job," Portia said, in that cool dry way of hers.
"It couldn't work out any other way. It had to be done and there was no
one else to do it. So what was the use of making a fuss? It was easier,
really, without, and--I didn't want any extra difficulties."

"But all the work there must have been!" Rose protested. "Selling your
shop, and all. How did you ever manage to do it?"

"That was luck, of course," Portia admitted. "Do you know that Craig
woman? You may have met her. She's rather on the fringe of your set, I
believe. She's got a good deal of money and nothing to do, and I think
she's got a fool notion that it'll be _chic_ to go 'into trade.' She
came and offered to buy me out a month ago, and of course I wouldn't
listen. But just by luck she called me up again the very day I went to
talk