On the afternoon of the long rainy Saturday that was to have been filled with a picnic, Rose telephoned.  She just wanted to see how every one was—­and say what a lovely time she’d had!  Ida Parker had just telephoned, and Rose was going up there at about four o’clock to stay for dinner, just informally, of course.  She would go back to Berkeley to-morrow night, but she hoped to see the girls in the meantime.

Silently, 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 that Rose was not going back to college after Christmas.  Quietly, without comment, Sally told this to Martie when they were going to bed that night.