From the door in the hallway Ethel came back in a sort of a daze—­till her eye lit on the blue china clock on the mantel.

“Seventeen minutes!” she exclaimed.  And then after one quick look around, she flung herself on the sofa in tears.  “I bored her!  How I bored her!  How stupid I was, and comic—­a child!  And then solemn—­too solemn—­all music and art—­and education and—­how in the world do I know what I said?  Or care!  I hate the woman!  I hate them all!  Seventeen minutes!  Isn’t that just like New York?”

But from this little storm she soon emerged.  Grimly sitting up on the sofa, she reached out a hand icy cold, took the tea-pot and poured out a cup.  It was strong now, thank Heaven!  And frowning gravely into space, Ethel sat and drank her tea.

CHAPTER XXIV

“Now the one thing,” she told herself, “is to keep your nerve and be sensible.  For this may decide your whole life, you know. . .  All right, what next?  What’s to be done?

“I hate Sally Crothers,” she began, “but I may go to see her, nevertheless.  She asked me to.  Didn’t mean it, of course, she was plainly bored!  No, I won’t do it!  I loathe the woman! . . .  All right, my dear, but who else can you go to?  Mrs. Grewe?  She’s doubtless at home—­but there may be that detestable hat, tall, rich and shiny, in her hall.  It looked as though it owned her soul!  No, thanks—­not yet—­not for me! . . .  Though she told me you soon get used to it. . . .

“Well, how about going back to Ohio, to the little history prof, and hating all men—­one and all!  That sounds exceedingly tempting! . . .  I won’t do it, though—­because if I do, it means I’m beaten here—­and I’d lose Susette and the baby!—. . .  Quiet, now. . . .  And then there’s Dwight.  He will probably call up soon and ask how Sally and I got on.  I could go to him this very night!  How perfectly disgusting!  And yet it’s just what Joe deserves!  What right had he to believe that of me? . . .  Now please keep cool.  If I go to Dwight I become exactly like Mrs. Grewe—­and I’d have to give up the children.

“No, it’s back to Joe on my knees, to beg him to let me stay right here.  And I’ll succeed—­I know I will!  But won’t I be under Fanny’s thumb?  And won’t I take back Amy’s friends?  Like a good repentant scared little girl!  And eat their rich meals and chatter as they do, and dance and grow old—­and push Joe on to make more money—­more and more—­so that I can get fat and soft—­like the rest of these cats!”

Again her face was quivering.  But with an effort controlling herself, she went into the nursery.  And on the floor with her wee son, slowly rolling a big red ball back and forth to each other, soon again she had grown quiet, almost like her natural self.  She took supper alone, and then read a novel, page after page, without comprehending.  An hour later she went to bed, and there lay listening to the town—­to its numberless voices, distinct and confused, from windows close by and from the street, and from other streets by hundreds and from a million other homes, and from the two rivers and the sea—­voices blurred and fused in one.  And its tone, to Ethel’s ears, was one of utter indifference—­good-humoured enough but rather bored with “young things” weeping on its breast.